‘Watchmen’: The Backstory Guide You Need to Decode the Show ~ Digital Library

HBO’s Watchmen series has become one of the most exciting, must-see shows in recent weeks. It’s not just because Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers) is the mind behind the story, indicating this is going to be a twisty puzzle-box of a show that will keep you jonesing for more. It’s also not just because the series boasts an incredible cast, including Regina King, Jean Smart, Jeremy Irons, Tim Blake Nelson, Hong Chau, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. One of the biggest factors in Watchmen being must-see television this winter comes down to the fact that it is rooted in the lore of the DC Watchmen comic book series which ran from 1986 to 1987 and was written by Alan Moore with illustrations from Dave Gibbons.

Lindelof’s story is very much a continuation of the story Moore created more than 30 years ago. This new Watchmen builds upon the alternate timeline central to the haunting world which gave rise to masked vigilantes fighting crime in 20th-century America, expands on the fates of the characters introduced in those comics, and tries to find a natural connection between the Watchmen lore and timely conversations around race, trauma, the burden of history, and beyond. But in order to continue the story, Lindelof’s Watchmen acknowledges, both overtly and covertly, certain bits of lore and key plot points from Moore’s Watchmen. Newcomers to the world of Watchmen may not know they have to be on the lookout for key references that make certain moments in the show all the more important or impactful to this new storyline.

So, ahead of the final Watchmen episodes, let’s look at some key references from the Watchmen comics that may help deepen your understanding of what’s happening on HBO’s Watchmen. The show does a good job of explaining the big events like Adrian Veidt’s (Jeremy Irons) fabricated interdimensional squid attack, but there are some deep cuts the show skims over to keep things moving. Let’s take a closer look.

The Keene Act

Photo Credit: HBO

In HBO’s Watchmen, we meet Senator Joe Keene (James Wolk), the son of former Senator John Keene. The Keene name is an important one in the world of Watchmen and not just because Joe is at the heart of the present-day operations of the Seventh Kavalry. If you’re a fan of Watchmen and have been keeping up with the Peteypedia materials that add more meaning to the events of the show, then you’ll know Joe has been a looming presence with a connection to the late Judd Crawford (Don Johnson).

In the Watchmen comics, John Keene is just as looming a figure and was responsible for the Keene Act of 1977, which outlawed masked vigilantes from operating of their own accord. Up until 1977, masked vigilantism was a legal practice. In the present day, Laurie Blake’s (Jean Smart) FBI task force upholds the Keene Act as it tracks and arrests masked vigilantes.

The Repeal of the 22nd Amendment & Robert Redford’s Presidency

Photo Credit: HBO

HBO’s Watchmen rarely misses an opportunity to remind us that Robert Redford is the current President of the United States of America. What isn’t discussed in the show, however, but is explored in the comics are the factors that lead to Redford’s election in 1992 — a fact revealed in Episode 5, “A Little Fear of Lightning.”

Central to Moore’s alternate timeline is the historical diversion wherein the 22nd Amendment is repealed and President Richard Nixon is able to then secure a third term in office amid growing fears of a nuclear attack at the Cold War rages on. In case you fell asleep during high school history, the 22nd Amendment put in place the two-term limit for presidents. The repeal of this amendment is huge in its implications. But, as far as HBO’s Watchmen is concerned, argues some potential benefits to having a president oversee the nation’s affairs for more than four years, like Redford upholding the issuing of reparations for black Americans.

The Importance of Clocks

Photo Credit: HBO

The Watchmen comics are big on clocks as a means of creating dread as you read, especially through the use of the Doomsday Clock. The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock whose minute hand is moved closer and closer to midnight as the threat of a nuclear attack rises. The moving on the Doomsday Clock’s hands is shown throughout the Watchmen comics and ties in to Adrian Veidt’s decision to create a false interdimensional squid attack in order to prevent nuclear war and bring humanity together.

HBO’s Watchmen repeats the clock imagery for creating both dread and curiosity. When the show flashes back to the White Night, we see that it is two minutes to midnight when members of the Seventh Kavalry burst into Angela (Regina King) and Cal Abar’s (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) home and attack them. There’s also the matter of Lady Trieu’s Millennium Clock, whose purpose is still unknown other than the fact that it could maybe deter the Seventh Kavalry from their ultimate goal. How? We still don’t know.

American Hero Story & Tales of the Black Freighter

Photo Credit: HBO

Both the Watchmen comics and HBO’s Watchmen feature stories-within-stories that function independently of the primary action but serve to illuminate ideas or themes about that larger action. On HBO’s Watchmen, that story-with-a-story is the TV show American Hero Story, which is a dramatization of the pre-Keene Act days where vigilantes reigned supreme. Up until Episode 6, “This Extraordinary Being,” American Hero Story goes through the motions of name-checking or showing characters from the Watchmen comics, like The Comedian and Rorschach. But in Episode 6, we learn that the show has whitewashed the character of Hooded Justice and, in doing so, gravely misrepresents the impact and importance of the real Hooded Justice’s role in modern vigilantism. In doing so, American Hero Story connects to the show’s overall exploration of race.

American Hero Story’s analogue in the Watchmen comics is Tales of the Black Freighter, a story which breaks in at different points in the main Watchmen action to tell the story of a sailor whose ship is taken down by a pirate ghost ship and he survives on a raft made from the dead bodies of other crewmen. The sailor returns home and believes the crew to have occupied his town and in doing so, kills his wife and other townspeople; what he realizes is that the Black Freighter crew only wants him. Tales of the Black Freighter highlights Watchmen’s exploration of the human cost of survival and the ways in which doing unspeakable things can take a toll on a person, thus building on the comics’ overall impact on the reader.

The Minutemen

Photo Credit: HBO

Also mentioned in “This Extraordinary Being” is the origins of the Minutemen, the first group of masked vigilantes to operate in the U.S. The Watchmen comics introduce the group which formed in 1940s and operated through the 1950s. The team — which consisted of Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis, Silk Spectre, The Comedian, Nite Owl, Silhouette, Dollar Bill, and Mothman — was just the first wave of masked vigilantes who also became pop culture icons for their daring feats.

The second wave was the Crimebusters, which was formed in the late 1960s by an aging Captain Metropolis and consisted of Doctor Manhattan, Silk Spectre II, Nite Owl II, Rorschach, Ozymandias and The Comedian once again. The group became just as famous and ingrained into the pop culture consciousness; in HBO’s Watchmen, Laurie Blake’s apartment is home to an Andy Warhol painting of herself, Doctor Manhattan, Ozymandias, and Nite Owl II which serves as a reminder of her fame.

The Veidt Method

Photo Credit: DC Comics

In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in “A Little Fear of Lightning,” a teen is seen reading a pamphlet on the Veidt Method. Back when Adrian Veidt was not just a member of the Watchmen, but also business mogul at the head of Veidt Enterprises, his company developed what was known as the Veidt Method. Reminiscent of other health and fitness crazes of the ‘80s, the Veidt Method was a system of self-improvement through diet, exercise, and spirituality the promised any person could become as superhuman as Veidt (he was considered the World’s Smartest Man before he disappeared).

Judd Crawford’s Sheriff’s Badge

Photo Credit: DC Comics

In the final moments of the premiere episode, it is revealed to us that Judd Crawford (Don Johnson) has apparently been killed by Will Reeves (Louis Gossett Jr.). The camera pans down Judd’s body, which is hanging from a tree, and on the ground we see Judd’s sheriff’s badge which is streaked with blood. It’s a grim, grim note to end a premiere episode on but this image — as well as Judd’s murder — is actually an important callback to the inciting incident of the Watchmen comics.

When The Comedian is murdered in the first panels of Watchmen, we see him pushed out of the window of his high-rise apartment and tumbling down next to him is the smiley-face button he always wore. The button ends up streaked with The Comedian’s blood, a symbol of the cost of vigilantism which, in the world of Watchmen, always ends in pain even if it’s meant to help the innocent. Similarly, Judd’s sheriff’s badge covered in a similar streak of blood hints at this same idea and is, thematically, linked to the show’s theory that when everyone wears masks, you can’t tell who is good and who is bad.

Watchmen airs every Sunday at 9/8c on HBO.

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