Photos from the set of HBO’s Watchmen show reveal new plot details

HBO is prepping a TV show based on Watchmen, Alan Moore’s seminal 1987 graphic novel about an alternate history where superheroes are real and treated as outlaws by the governments of the world. The show will premiere sometime in 2019, although we still don’t know much about it. We know it won’t be a straight adaptation of the original comic, but producer Damon Lindelof — the guy behind Lost — has been vague as to whether it’s a sequel, reboot, remix or what. We do know that the series will largely focus on a new set of characters. According to Deadline, one of them is a junior senator from Oklahoma played by Mad Men alum James Wolk.

Wolk joins a cast that includes Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson and Louis Gossett Jr., among others.

The Oklahoma connection explains some recent set photos, which come courtesy of the Watchmen Brasil Twitter account. Caution: there are potential SPOILERS from here on out.

As you can see, the police officers are riding in cars and on motorcycles marked “Tulsa Police.” That’s a natural enough place for our Oklahoman character to be.

By the looks of it, the Wolk character isn’t content staying a Senator. “Keene to announce run for president,” reads a headline in a (fake) copy of the Tulsa Sun, below.

And also his name is Keene.

There’s another interesting sign in this batch of photos: “No one knows how to stop worldwide squidfalls.” If you haven’t read the original graphic novel, it ends with Adrian Veidt, aka the superhero Ozymandias, genetically engineering a bizarre squid-looking monster and dropping it on an unsuspecting Manhatten, killing thousands. His intent is to trick humanity into believing the Earth is under attack by aliens and thereby force an alliance between countries that would otherwise destroy each other. In the graphic novel, this is limited to a single event, but it seems the “squidfalls” continue in HBO’s series. This is one of several pieces of evidence that suggests the show will be set after the events of the original Watchmen.

We can find another piece in the following set photos:

On a bus and on the street, we see ads for a documentary series called American Hero Story: Minutemen. The Minutemen were a team of American superheroes formed in the middle of the 20th century. Hooded Justice, the figure in the ads, was a member, and the first-ever masked hero to appear. While we know what happened to most of the Minutemen, Hooded Justice’s fate remains a mystery. Perhaps the documentary will look into it, as well as at the other members of the group. In any case, the fact that there’s a retrospective documentary at all tells us that this show is set later in time.

SPOILER we can talk about, and if true, it’s a big one. It concerns Jeremy Irons, the biggest name in the case. Proceed with caution.

Still here? Okay. According to the same outlet that published these photos, Irons is playing none other than Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, aka the mass murderer who also may have saved the world, now grown old and grey.

This rumor remains a rumor, but it’s an intriguing direction to go, and Irons certainly has the gravity the role requires. Perhaps Ozymandias is still trying to bring about world peace by stoking fear of a mutual enemy, which would explain the continued “squid drops.” In the graphic novel, the superhero Rorschach writes the truth about Ozymandias in his journals before Dr. Manhattan kills him, but if Veidt lived to see old age, we’re guessing no one has uncovered them yet.

2019 can’t come soon enough.

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h/t Newsweek