Welcome to our Watchmen episode guide: where we run you through the most pressing questions and confusions for each week's episode of HBO's daring remix of the Watchmen graphic novel.
The series has finally ended after episode 9, which acts as a sequel to the 1980s Watchmen comics, and so far the Watchmen TV series has certainly been an experience – blending old and new, political and fantastical, with dazzling results.
Episode 9: See How They Fly has now aired, seeing the Watchmen TV series finally end, managing to tie up all the disparate story threads, and may even give a hint as to how a second season could go. Will there be a Watchmen season 2? That's more of a question.
If you watched the final episode of Watchmen, you finally got to see how everything ended, and how all the seemingly unrelated story threads all came together. And of course, there were a few twists thrown in there for good measure.
- How to watch Watchmen online: streaming the new HBO show
All of the pieces were essentially in place already for the finale, though there were a couple of twists that we didn't really see coming. Every single one of the characters had their own little part to play, and it ended in a way we couldn't have predicted.
Because so much happened during the Watchmen finale, we gathered up some of the most pressing questions folks may have had from every episode of the season and did our best to answer them.
For a refresher on the original comics we recommend checking out this Watchmen beginner’s guide – but otherwise our in-depth Watchmen episode guide below has all the information you need for the first eight episodes of the HBO show.
And yes, there are spoilers. Did you really have to ask?
Watchmen episode 9: what went down this week?
Who is Trieu's father?
Last week we discovered that Trieu's daughter Bian wasn't actually her daughter at all – but rather her mother, cloned. This week had another bombshell regarding her parentage, as we discovered that the original Bian impregnated herself using Adrian Veidt's, uh, seed.
The show then fast forwards to 2008, 11 years before the show starts to show Trieu traveling to Antarctica to confront Veidt, ultimately revealing her plan to destroy Dr. Manhattan. She asks for some money from Veidt to get the project off the ground, as he is essentially Trieu's father, but he not only doesn't give her the $42 billion she asks for, but also says he would never call her 'Daughter'.
How does Veidt escape?
Now that we know that Veidt is on Europa, we were definitely wondering how he would manage to escape. Last week's post-credit scene (the only post-credit scene in the entire series, by the way), showed Adrian Veidt tunneling his way out of his cell. However it seems like his plan, using dead bodies as a signal to Trieu paid off, as a spaceship arrives just outside the manor.
Veidt hears (and probably feels) the spaceship land, then gets right in that little makeshift tunnel of his for an escape. He does get confronted by the warden, but Veidt murders him and makes his way off of the moon regardless.
Why did Trieu even bring Veidt back?
Earlier in the episode, Adrian Veidt wasn't exactly the most respectful person in the world, basically telling Trieu to go to hell when she asked him for help. However she did rescue him from space prison, where we totally would have left him to rot: why did she do it? Well, after he lands in Tulsa and finds out that Trieu cloned her own mother, Trieu tells him that she wanted him to witness that she could make anything from nothing. She also tells him to change out of his ridiculous super hero costume into something more "age appropriate," which was a highlight of the exchange.
What happened to Dr. Manhattan?
At the end of episode 8, Dr. Manhattan tragically gets hit by a teleportation ray, sending him right to Cyclops' big cage. And, essentially that's where he ends up. Senator Keene then goes on a tedious speech about how he's going to be the new Dr. Manhattan, yada yada yada. However, when he goes to flip the switch, the entire setup is teleported right to Trieu, who takes over and gives her own tedious speech.
Thankfully, Senator Keene is transformed into a pile of goo because he didn't know how radiation works, followed by Trieu evaporating all of the white nationalists in Cyclops.
Are the plans foiled?
Kind of. Because the goo from Senator Reeves seeps into Dr. Manhattan's cage, he's able to touch it and teleport Veidt, Looking Glass and Agent Blake to Ozymandias' Antarctica-based-lab. From there, Adrian Veidt is able to rain baby squids on the town, but harder this time, destroying Trieu's Millennium Clock and killing her in the process.
But, does Dr. Manhattan die?
Yes. 😭😭😭😭
How does it all end?
After the Millennium Clock falls and kills Trieu, there's still a ton of homicidal baby squids falling from the sky. Angela manages to escape the rooftop, hidden under a briefcase and gets into the old movie theater. The old movie theater where Will is waiting.
Angela is thoroughly distraught after seeing her husband zapped into oblivion. Will then says, seemingly insensitively "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs." and that "you'll understand when the time is right." Angela doesn't understand right then, of course – who would?
Later, however, she makes it back to her house and finds the eggs she slammed on the ground at the end of Episode 8. After cleaning up the mess, she recalls what Will said to her, and looks in the egg carton to find one unbroken egg. Angela remembers her first encounter with Dr. Manhattan, where he says he could theoretically pass his powers down through "organic material." Thinking that's exactly what he did there, she takes that one leftover egg and walks out to the pool, where she cracks it open, sucks out the egg and then takes a step onto the water. Then, credits. We don't know if she can walk on water.
Will there be a second season?
For all intents and purposes, this season of Watchmen tells a complete story. We don't really think there's much of a need for a second season, but that doesn't mean there's no possibility.
The way the show ended, with us not knowing whether or not Angela Abar absorbed Dr. Manhattan's powers, does give the show an opportunity to grow into other stories in the future. We'll just have to wait and see.
Watchmen episode 8: what went down?
How does Dr Manhattan meet Angela?
In the aptly-titled episode – A God Walks Into Abar – we see the blue man himself approach Angela Abar in a Vietnam bar, where she drinks alone to the memory of her perished parents. While he says who he is from the off, we see some mild flirting (magic tricks! Her favorite song!) before Angela is actually convinced of his identity.
We learn that Cal was a dead stranger whose body Dr Manhattan recreated to navigate the human world more easily, so that they could spend a happy ten years together before inevitable 'tragedy'.
Why does he need Adrian Veidt’s help?
Why does the most powerful being in the world need anyone’s help? As capable as Dr Manhattan is, Adrian Veidt is still smarter. We see the two former enemies assist each other, with Adrian helping to wipe Dr Manhattan’s memory so he can live as a human with Angela, and Dr Manhattan transporting Adrian to the "paradise" he’s created on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
What’s up with this past, present, future stuff?
Because of Dr Manhattan’s atomic abilities, he perceives his own timeline in one simultaneity, rather than through consecutive events. That means he experiences the past, present, and future all at the same time.
While there’s some mischievous time-warping plotting around this – such as how a message sent to William Reeves in the past about Judd’s murder could cause the event to occur – it also lays the groundwork for a truly touching love story, with Dr Manhattan / Cal revealing that Angela’s determination to save him in their final moments together was why he fell in love with her at all.
Tachyons?
Tachyons are Dr Manhattan’s Kryptonite, being particles that block his abilities and perception of the time – and are what Adrian Veidt attempted to destroy him with back in the Watchmen comics.
The Seventh Cavalry used a Tachyon Cannon to teleport Dr Manhattan elsewhere – presumably the ‘cage’ seen in the previous episode – and we can expect something of a reunion there between the superman and his former flame, FBI Agent Laurie Blake.
Why can’t Dr Manhattan stop this?
Considering the ease with which Dr Manhattan killed the Seventh Cavalry members, why couldn’t he destroy the cannon, or otherwise escape? We’re hoping there’s an explanation to come – rather than just a convenient plot hole.
What’s that post-credit scene?
This was also the first episode with a post-credit scene, so make sure you watch it! We see Veidt being publicly shamed by his servants, pelted with tomatoes, and locked in a jail cell with nothing more than a book for company.
It seems someone’s out to help him, though, with a horseshoe (which reached him after being slipped into a cake) that Veidt starts attempting to dig a tunnel with. When he escapes the cell, though, there’s still a matter of how he gets back to Earth...
Watchmen episode 7: An Almost Religious Awe
What’s going down in Vietnam?
We see a flashback of Angela’s childhood, at the moment her parents are killed by a protester throwing himself with a sack of explosives into a US military jeep. In this universe, Vietnam became the 51st US state, due to Dr Manhattan’s intervention winning the Vietnam war, and while there are puppet shows celebrating (or at least mythologizing) the blue superhero’s arrival, it’s clear that there’s plenty of anti-American sentiment bubbling beneath the surface.
Angela is put in an orphanage for the time being, while her grandmother seemingly has a heart attack just before carting her off to the US.
What is Seventh Cavalry planning?
FBI agent Laurie Blake finds that – surprise surprise – Judd Crawford’s wife is also part of the Seventh Cavalry, which is simply the Cyclops organization by another name.
The real surprise is that Senator Joe Keene isn’t just looking for political power, but also to capture Dr Manhattan and steal his powers: "It is extremely difficult to be a white man in America right now. So I’m thinking I might try being a blue one."
There’s mention of a "cage" where Laurie is captured, which will presumably be used to house Dr Manhattan before transferring his abilities to Keene.
What is the Millenium Clock?
The mystery of the Millenium Clock persists. Lady Trieu makes it clear she has a plan to “save humanity”, but not quite how she and William Reeves (Hooded Justice) will do it. Given the comics’ connection between clocks and Dr Manhattan – a watchmaker’s son – it will no doubt play a bit part, but whether that’s something to do with time travel, or possibly mass mind control to brainwash the world out of white supremacy, is yet to be determined.
Lady Trieu’s daughter is.... her mother?
Yup. While we speculated previously that Lady Trieu’s young ward Bian was a clone of her, it turns out she’s actually a clone of Trieu’s mother who has her past memories implanted into her at night – hence the dreams we keep hearing about.
What is that elephant doing?
Angela tries to find her grandfather in Lady Trieu’s facility, but finds that her yellow memory tube is rigged up to an elephant. Your guess is as good as ours.
Adrian Veidt is on trial?
After quite clearly attempting to escape from the pocket dimension out in space, and repeatedly murdering his servant clones, the Games Warden has put Veidt on trial for his crimes. The guilty verdict seems unanimous, Veidt seems unrepentant, and we don’t know yet what the punishment will be.
It seems likely he’ll make it to Earth eventually (why spend so much screen time on this character otherwise?) and we haven’t ruled out Veidt having crash-landed into the farmland bought by Lady Trieu... somehow.
Wade is alive?
We gave a big sigh of relief when shown Wade’s underground bunker: while the close of Episode 5 gave the impression he was murdered by Seventh Cavalry agents, it looks like he killed them all and escaped.
Dr Manhattan walks among us?
The massive twist in Episode 7 involves the true identity of Dr Manhattan, who has been secretly walking the Earth in human form – as Angela’s doting husband Cal.
While this explains his absence from the pocket dimension he created and left Adrian Veidt in, it doesn’t explain why he chose to become Cal. How did they meet? Why did Dr Manhattan wipe his own memory? And why Tulsa of all places? This plot point was dropped a bit suddenly, but it certainly seems set to shake things up in the following two episodes.
Watchmen Episode 6: This Exceptional Being
What are the nostalgia pills doing?
Episode 6: This Exceptional Being spends most of its runtime in flashbacks, with Angela reliving the memories of her grandfather through the bottle of nostalgia pills she swallowed in the last episode. We find out that these pills are manufactured for dementia patients, or just those wanting to “live in the past”, and harvest people’s memories for a digestible format.
So far, so sci-fi – and it’s suitable that tech trillionaire Lady Trieu turns out to own the company who manufacture these pills, given her unspecified relationship to Angela’s grandfather.
Who’s Hooded Justice?
The big reveal of the episode comes in Angela’s pill-induced history lesson, when she find out her grandfather was the original masked vigilante, Hooded Justice – who, in Damon Lindelof’s revised history, is a black police officer spurred by his experiences of racial injustice (and narrow survival of a lynching attempt) to become a crimefighter.
It’s worth noting that the comic book character's identity isn't revealed in the comics, though elements of his costume – the noose, for one, and vaguely KKK silhouette of the hood – lend credence to this interpretation, even if the purposefully terrible show-within-a-show American Hero Story casts a white actor in the role. (It's possibly more likely that the comics' creators intended these costume clues to be symbols of white supremacy, but you can read an in-depth dissection of Watchmen's handling of the character in this piece at Polygon.)
Who is Captain Metropolis?
The leader of vigilante group The Minutemen, and Hooded Justice’s lover – yes, even in the comics.
What is Cyclops?
As if there weren’t enough shadowy figures and enterprises already, we find out about an organization called the “Cyclops” that seems entwined with the Ku Klux Klan, with white police officers using symbols of a single eye on their forehead to communicate with each other – and who has been using mind control technology to cause riots among black citizens in movie theaters.
Is there a link between Cyclops and Adrian Veidt’s one-eyed squid alien? We’ll find out either way in the coming episodes.
Wait, mind control?
Yes – and it looks like William Reeves (Hooded Justice) has used the crystal technology he came across to make a portable flashlight that has the same effect on people.
It’s this factor that makes his connection to Lady Trieu so intriguing, given her construction of a giant clock tower in Tulsa with an unspecified purpose: to brainwash the planet, or even send a light signal to reach Dr Manhattan in space? At this point everything’s on the table.
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Watchmen episode 5: Little Fear of Lightning
So, a squid happened?
The climax of the Watchmen comics comes as a giant, one-eyed squid materializes in New York City, emitting a psychic blast that kills half the city’s population. Young Wade is apparently present during the event, which has left New York desperately in need of a PR rebrand even 30 years later.
The treatment of the event – called “11/2” – in a post-9/11 America is fascinating, especially as the squid’s arrival is revealed to be an elaborate hoax set up by Adrian Veidt, in order to halt global military tensions with a common and terrifying enemy.
Who is Cynthia Tilllman?
Cynthia Tillman appears to be Wade’s ex-partner of seven years, and works in bio-engineering at a facility for cloning pets – likely with a link to the last episode’s Lady Trieu figure – and an unceremonious incinerator for clones that don’t fit the bill.
There are clones now?
Yes. The cloned pets and lab-made baby point to the technological advances of the modern Watchmen world, and suggest there may be characters – such as Lady Trieu’s daughter – who have been cloned from other figures in the story.
What’s the support group about?
Episode 5 really delved into Wade – or Looking Glass – and his personal life. It seems his traumatic experience in the Hall of Mirrors 30 years ago still haunts him, making a lot more sense of the reflective surface of his mask – made of a material designed to keep out psychic blasts, effectively functioning as a ‘tin foil hat’.
He now runs a support group for “extra-dimensional anxiety” caused by the squid’s appearance, and he certainly isn’t the only one haunted by the “inexplicable” event.
There are teleportation portals?
Things get even more sci-fi with the revelation that the white supremacist group the Seventh Cavalry are messing around with some high-tech teleportation devices. Right now they’re playing with basketballs, but the endgame is only going to be bigger – possibly looking to recreate the giant squid appearance, or possibly recover Adrian Veidt somehow from his imprisonment on a faraway moon.
Wait, a moon?
Something seemed up with Adrian Veidt’s countryside surroundings, and we see the genius catapult himself out of the apparent bubble dimension onto the surface of the moon, where he arranges the discarded bodies of his servants into the words: SAVE ME. The influence of Dr Manhattan is all but confirmed, but talk of a god that has abandoned its creations, and a warden figure designed to keep Adrian Veidt from escaping.
A satellite does seem to spot Veidt, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Lady Trieu was the first to know about his presence there.
What happens to the pills?
Wade ends up betraying Angela’s confidence, using the bugged cactus on his desk. She swallows the whole bottle of pills, rather than give up the evidence, and we expect there’ll be quite big consequences for that act in the coming episodes.
What happens to Wade?
Disillusioned, complicit in the Seventh Cavalry’s operations, and reeling from a massive revelation, Wade is not in a good way – and the final shot of Cavalry member approaching his front door doesn’t make us think his survival is likely. We hope it's not the last we see of Tim Blake Nelson's character, even if flashbacks are all we can get after his probable demise.
Watchmen episode 4: If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own
Who is Lady Trieu?
Episode four, ‘If you don’t like my story, write your own’ introduces a new and enigmatic character, Lady Trieu (played by Hong Chau). Unlike some other mysterious figures in the show, Lady Trieu gets some explanation right off the bat, as a trillionaire behind a large clock tower construction project in Tulsa, with a background in pharmaceuticals and bio-engineering – meaning she’s able to offer the childless Clarks (Tulsa egg farmers) a baby made of their genetic material, in exchange for the rights to their plot of land. Things just got a lot more sci-fi.
We’re told outright, though, that “What I’m building down the road is a lot more than a big clock”, while it becomes clear Trieu wants the land for whatever crashed into it...
Ok, but what crashed into the ground?
We don’t know more on this at the moment, though the ‘invasions’ of squid rain suggest there may be something interdimensional going on. The couple’s last name – Clark – also seems to hint at the classic DC hero Superman / Clark Kent, whose origin is usually cited as a crash through the Earth’s atmosphere into American farmland. Did a baby Superman, or something linked to Dr Manhattan possibly hit the ground?
What’s Wade doing in an underground bunker?
Tim Blake Nelson’s Looking Glass character just got a whole lot more interesting. He seems to be living in an underground bunker or bomb shelter, with a red room where he treats photographs of the squids dropping into Oklahoma. In a world where squids fall from the sky, though, some paranoia seems justified – and a bunker may prove useful if the comics fears of nuclear annihilation come to bear again.
Who is silver lube guy, seriously
More new characters, but no explanation. Regina King’s Sister Knight spots a curious vigilante in silver latex sprinting away from her; when she gives chase, the figure sprays itself with oil and slides into a sewer. No, we have no idea what that’s about either.
Who is William, and how does he know Lady Trieu?
We know William is Angela’s biological grandfather, but his connection to Lady Trieu –who seems to have been behind the UFO abducting him in episode two – is an odd one. They’re plotting something, though, and William seems to have left the pills with Angela for a purpose. Given they’re for his memories, we may see Angela start taking them herself,
Adrian Veidt: lake foetuses and catapults
A weird episode gets even weirder with Adrian Veidt harvesting foetuses from a lake, growing them in some kind of age-accelerating microwave (into his servants) and then catapulting them through the sky until they… disappear?
The servant clones are somewhat explained, then – though we’re left with more questions than answers. It seems like Veidt is stuck in some form of bubble universe, where the laws of nature don’t quite match our own, and Dr Manhattan’s involvement seems a sure bet at this point. Why the catapult, though? It could just be to gauge the boundaries of the world he’s in, or the ultimate means of escape for himself, once he’s tested it on some willing subjects.
Dreaming of Vietnam?
Lady Trieu’s daughter apparently has dreams of soldiers burning down villages, and walking barefoot for miles. We imagine the dream harks back to the war in Vietnam, and Lady Trieu’s origins or connection to it, though whether this was some kind of genetic memory – we know Lady Trieu is in the business of baby-creation, her daughter being a clone of her seems highly likely – or prophecy is yet to be seen.
One of the best exchanges in the show so far comes when Angela and the trillionaire are covertly speaking in their native Vietnamese, and we expect there may be some shared history we have yet to unpack.
Watchmen episode 3: She Was Killed by Space Junk
What’s the hold up?
Episode three opens in a bank, being seemingly held up by criminals – though it turns out to be an FBI sting to draw in an illegally-operating masked vigilante. Despite police wearing masks, members of the public still don’t get the same rights to conceal themselves for their personal brand of justice.
Who is Laurie Blake?
Laurie Blake is the FBI agent leading the bank operation, and who’s flown in to Tulsa, Oklahoma to lead the Seventh Cavalry investigation after the death of the police chief. She’s also the second Silk Spectre in the Watchmen comics, having inherited the mantle after her mother – and the daughter of The Comedian, who’s killed in the opening pages of the comics.
Her name may seem like a small issue, but going by her father’s name – given he attempted to sexually assault her mother – is a surprisingly public acknowledgement of her heritage, even if she now works to imprison vigilantes rather than being one.
What went down at the funeral?
The funeral scene in episode three is a clear nod to The Comedian’s funeral in the comics, though not quite as sombre or lacking in action. This time, a Seventh Cavalry member interrupts the service and takes Senator Keene hostage, and ends up exploding in the dug grave underneath Judd Crawford’s coffin. While noone else was hurt, the event seems somewhat staged, and if anything makes Keene seem more suspect than before.
Why is Adrian Veidt making a suit?
Adrian Veidt was, as ever, hard at work. This time, instead of putting his servants in a stage drama of Dr Manhattan’s life, he seems to be stitching and crafting a suit – not unlike a metal diver’s suit – though Mr Philips again doesn’t survive the experience, being found frozen to death inside it.
The encounters with the gamekeeper suggest Veidt is being kept prisoner in this location, and the frozen servant makes us think there’s some kind of natural obstacle to him leaving. We know things aren’t quite as they seem in Veidt’s world, with tomato trees and multiple clones wandering around the place, and aren’t ruling out the miniature ‘paradise’ being a pocket dimension out in space somewhere under the dominion of Dr Manhattan (which would explain the need for oxygen in the diving suit).
What are those phone booths?
Since Dr Manhattan’s departure to Mars back in the 80s, it seems a whole industry has sprung up around the quasi-deity, with blue phone booths giving punters a chance to send messages to the surface of the red planet. We very much assume it wasn’t a Dr Manhattan-approved venture, and it’s likely Laurie is using it as a way to connect, however vicariously, with her past lover.
That sex toy
Yes, it seems that Dr Manhattan merchandise has extended far – with what looks like a blue, metallic sex toy brought by Laurie Blake to her hotel room, acting as a supplement / reminder of the relationship she once had with the atomic superhero.
Did a car fall from the sky?
Mirroring the end of episode two, when William was abducted in Angela’s car by a UFO, the same car drops down in front of Laurie Blake, largely smashed, at the end of episode three – with William no longer in it.
We still don’t know where the car’s been, but the way the falling object matches Laurie’s story of the little girl throwing a brick (in the Dr Manhattan phone both) is the kind of dramatic irony torn straight from the comics.
Watchmen episode 2: Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship
Letters from the sky
While Watchmen episode two doesn’t revisit the events of the Tulsa race riot directly, we do see an earlier scene set during World War One, when William’s father is serving in the US military.
Anti-US propaganda is dropped out of air vehicles, with messages questioning the US’ treatment of persons of color as second-class citizens – in order to demotivate soldiers or attract defectors to the German cause.
It’s one of these sheets of paper on which he writes “WATCH OVER THIS BOY” when sending his son to safety out of Tulsa.
Why is Angela hiding what happened?
One of the curious character choices in the episode is how Regina King’s Angela doesn’t turn in William straight away, despite him claiming credit for the death of the police chief.
It’s clear there’s more going on than meets the eye, and the idea of the chief (a close friend of hers) having “skeletons in his closet” is clearly enough to keep her from turning him in immediately – and that’s well before she finds out William is her grandfather.
Indeed, when Angela goes to check Crawford’s closet, she finds a Ku Klux Klan outfit, suggesting he may have been involved in some of the Seventh Cavalry’s plans.
Wait, did you say grandfather?
Yup. Angela takes William’s DNA – from a mug of coffee – to the Greenwood Centre for Cultural Heritage, a museum dedicated to (seemingly) those affected by the Tulsa race riots and similar acts of racial violence in American history, and finds out that William is her biological grandfather. Twist!
Was that Mothman?
As the police investigate the scene of Crawford’s death, various moth-themed characters flit and fly about the scene with cameras, attempting to get a close eye at what’s happening.
From the remarks of Red Scare (“F***ing moths!”) and their replies (“I have a right to see what’s happening here!”) we’d assume that they’re either journalists or voyeurs trying to capture and sell footage of high-interest crime scenes, not unlike Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie Nightcrawler.
Mothman was one of the original ‘Minutemen’, the first band of masked heroes in the Watchmen comics, and this little interaction shows another way the legacy of those vigilantes has been shaped in modern day.
What was that Christmas scene?
One tense scene is set on Christmas Eve, when Angela and her husband – played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II – are attacked by members of the Seventh Kavalry, after which the (now deceased) police chief visits her in her hospital bed.
This is a flashback to “White Night”, the night when many police officers were murdered in their own homes.
Who is Topher – and what is he building?
One thing we learn in this episode is that Topher – one of the children under Angela’s care – was a child of a police officer killed on White Night. She also refers to the police chief Judd Crawford as Topher’s “uncle”, though Topher reminds her there wasn’t a biological link.
When Angela goes to tell Topher that Crawford is dead, he seems to be building a medieval castle out of magnetic blocks – like a futuristic version of Lego – that mirrors the castle inhabited by Jeremy Irons’ Adrian Veidt.
Tomato trees? Really?
One of the weirder moments of a consistently-surprising series: Adrian Veidt appears to pluck a tomato from a tree, though they grow on runners in our own reality.
More signs that something isn’t quite right where he is, though whether it’s something transdimensional, virtual, or otherwise is yet to be revealed.
Did Veidt really kill his servant?
Yes and no. We see a stage play, The Watchmaker’s Son, written by Veidt in his castle and performed by his two servants.
Except, he actually has a lot more servants, as the two characters we’ve seen, Mr Philips and Ms Crookshanks appear to have numerous doubles or clones, one of which is burned to death during the staging of the play.
More on this as the story progresses – though it’s worth mentioning that Dr Manhattan could make duplicates of himself in the comics, and that title of “The Watchmaker’s Son” certainly refers to the blue superhero himself.
What was that grocery store all about?
The grocery store is shown in a section of the American Hero Story TV-show-within-a-TV-show. We see Hooded Justice, the first-ever masked vigilante, crash through a window and assault various criminals attempting to hold up the store.
This points to more potential clips from the show in the episodes ahead, and a way of revisiting classic characters despite the 30-year time jump from the comics.
There was a UFO?
Certainly a bold ending for the episode, possibly matching that of the first. We see William, now being arrested by his granddaughter, lifted into the air by a flying machine that connects magnetically to Angela’s car and drags it out of shot.
Aliens didn’t play a part in the Watchmen comics – other than perhaps the so-called ‘alien squid’ – and knowing the technology available to the likes of Nite Owl and Veidt, it’s likely this was a terrestrial kidnapping.
Martial Feats of Comanche Horseman?
The title of the episode is an intriguing one, especially as it’s also the title of the painting shown in Crawford’s home.
The painting is an 1834 work by the artist George Catlin, and depicts Native American warriors on horseback – specifically concealing themselves on one side of the horse to prevent being seen or struck, which is also shown in the Ballad of Buster Scruggs mini-series starring Tim Blake Nelson (who plays Looking Glass in Watchmen).
The weight given to this painting suggests something is being hidden, or even that a character thought to be dead may have more of a part to play than first thought...
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Watchmen episode 1: It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice
What's all this about the Seventh Cavalry?
The story kicks off 30 years after the events of the graphic novel, which is taken as canon for the events happening onscreen. In an alternate timeline to our own, masked vigilantes not only exist, but are treated as outlaws. At the same time, state police officers resort to donning masks themselves to protect their own identities in the fight against a band of white supremacists, the Seventh Cavalry – who, much like show creator Damon Lindelof, have riffed on their source material, taking the writings of the deceased character Rorscach as gospel for their racist ideology.
We’ve seen at least one police officer killed by the group, and the police force has been granted access to more firepower to meet this threat.
What were the Tulsa race riots?
The historical flashback that the show opened with was the Tulsa race riots of 1921, a real-life event where swarms of white American citizens descended on the population of Tulsa, Oklahoma – trashing businesses and killing hundreds of black residents. It has been called “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.”
A young boy caught up in the violence is shown wandering away from the wreckage of a carriage shot from behind – and seems to be the same person found with the body of police chief Judd Crawford (more on that later).
The brief mention of “Redfordations” in the classroom appears to be a system of reparations granted under Robert Redford’s presidency, allowing descendents of those affected by the riot some kind of financial support – and it’s clearly a sensitive subject within the TV show.
What is American Hero Story?
American Hero Story would be a somewhat clumsy name for a TV show, if it wasn’t such a clear play on words around the American Horror Story anthology series. You’ll catch sight of the title on various vehicles – and a blimp – in the first episode, with an audio announcement stating that “tomorrow night, the countdown ends. American Hero Story: The Minutemen.”
It seems that the history of the comics is being adapted for TV in HBO’s TV adaptation too – though how they’re represented, and how it matches up with reality, may well be explored in later episodes.
What was White Night?
The chillingly named White Night sounds like a classic Christmas horror movie, and its use in Watchmen episode one isn’t far off. It marks the Christmas eve when members of the white supremacist group Seventh Cavalry attacked the homes and families of Tulsa’s police force, leaving many dead and others injured – and sparking the use of masks for police offers wishing to keep their identities safe.
Where is Nite Owl? Have we seen him yet?
While there’s no explicit mention of Nite Owl, the owl-themed vigilante from the Watchmen comics, there’s plenty to suggest his presence in the story. Regina King’s character is seen holding an owl-shaped mug in the police chief’s office, while Nite Owl’s flying contraption (“Archie”, as its known in the comics) is seen flying, diving, and crashing while under the command of the same police chief.
The Nite Owl persona was passed down to Daniel Dreiberg in the comics (as seen in the 2009 film), so it’s possible we’ll see a brand new character who’s taken on the mantle – or an old character returning to do so.
Did squid really rain from the sky?
Yes.
It’s likely a reference to the giant squid that demolished Manhattan in the comics – which was the original endgame threat that brought humanity back from the brink of annihilation, though it’s unclear whether Adrian Veidt’s hoax was ever revealed as such to the American public. And if the original squid was a fake, we’re unsure where these squid rainstorms may have come from.
What's in the pod?
Tim Blake Nelson takes on a curious role as the police interrogator, though it’s not the vein you usually see in American crime dramas. Nelson’s character – Looking Glass – wears a reflective mask and asks a suspect leading questions in some kind of interrogation chamber filled with flashing images, seemingly to confuse or disorientate those brought in. While not a mind-reading superpower, it’s a good example of the enhanced, trained abilities of the heroes in Watchmen, as well as harking back to the psychological examinations Rorschach went through in the comics.
Who killed Judd Crawford?
Chief Judd Crawford is found hanged at the end of the episode, but the circumstances around it aren’t exactly clear. While the Seventh Cavalry seems the obvious choice, the mysterious wheelchair user seen earlier in the episode is the only one nearby, and seems to be the one who summoned Sister Knight to the spot. His prior lines also asked whether he “he could lift 200 pounds”, which could have been foreshadowing to him lifting the police chief’s body.
What is Jeremy Irons even doing?
Hard to answer this one. The Tony, Emmy, and Oscar-winning actor is clearly up to something as billionaire Adrian Veidt, though how his time spent in the countryside with a number of servants – with terrible table manners, apparently – is yet to be revealed. But the use of a horseshoe for a knife, and seemingly lacking mental faculties of Veidt's butlers, suggests something is amiss – and we wouldn't rule different dimensions out.
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