WATCHMEN

The central character of the opening episode of HBO’s Watchmen, is Angela Abar (Regina King), she’s a Tulsa police detective whose public face is as a retired police officer wounded in the line of duty-turned-professional pastry cook, something which serves to protect her from the ‘Seventh Kalvary’, a growing group of Rorschach-inspired vigilantes who execute anti-police violence. She’s also known as ‘Sister Night’, a masked vigilante who kicks untold amounts of ass as she helps her fellow cops against the white supremacist extremists. Don Johnson plays her superior, Chief Judd Crawford of the Tulsa Police and Tim Blake Nelson plays Wade, a Tulsa Police detective code-named ‘Looking Glass’ because of his reflective mask.

Tim-Blake Nelson as ‘Looking Glass’

We do see one other unnamed character, presumably Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, played by Jeremy irons – who’s a rich recluse living in a castle with a butler and a maid. It’s a bizarre scene but nonetheless engaging, clearly signposting that characters from the comic will be introduced as the show progresses.

Lindelof told NPR in the US:

“At the time that I was sort of approached to consider rethinking Watchmen, I had to answer the question, "What is the pervasive sort of anxiety in America right now?" And it was impossible, as all these things were happening — not just Charlottesville but everything was happening through the lens of race and it felt like there was a great reckoning happening in our country, overdue and necessary. This idea that Watchmen has always been about the history that has been kind of hidden and camouflaged, and also it's about the pain and trauma that is sort of buried in the American consciousness. And I started to feel like it was incredibly important to tell a story about race. To not tell a story about race in the context of a political text in 2019 almost felt borderline irresponsible.”

Regina King as ‘Sister Night’

Even though its been green-lit for another series - Lindelof has said he doesn’t think he’ll return for the next season:

“[It’s] not my story, right? I appropriated it. And so the idea that someone else could come along and do another season of Watchmen, that’s really exciting to me, too. These nine episodes are sort of everything that I have to say at this point about Watchmen, and then we’ll kind of go from there.”

Lindelof also suggested that he would like to see someone like Black Panther‘s Ryan Coogler take over the Watchmen HBO series, if it continues.

This is as strong a pilot episode as you’re going to find among the avalanche of content these days. This new adaptation has been referred to as a ‘remix’ of the comic and I think that sums it up perfectly. If Lindelof can maintain the intrigue, mystery and tension for nine episodes without toppling off the high-wire, this could be a landmark adaptation of a comic.