Let’s overanalyze the first footage from HBO’s Watchmen series

HBO released a 2019 sizzle reel at Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards. We got new footage from some of our favorite returning shows, including Game of Thrones and True Detective. There was also a quick glimpse of Watchmen, Lost creator Damon Lindelof spin on Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel. Check it out:

The brief clip starts off with Jean Smart’s Agent Blake pulling through a checkpoint guarded by masked police officers. That’s Blake in the rearview mirror.

HBO has given us looks at these mask-wearing lawmen before. Lindelof’s Watchmen show is set after the events of the original comic, and for whatever reason, this is what the future of law enforcement looks like:

Back to the new footage, we then see a hallway filled with what appears to be some low-quality masked vigilantes. Put a little effort into your super suits, guys!

Also, notice the brim of a cowboy hat on the right side of the above photo, because we close-up in the next one:

My money is on this being Don Johnson’s unnamed character. He has that signature Don Johnson walk. Also, what are cowboy guy’s affiliations? He’s walking by the low-rent masked vigilantes in the first shot, but then he’s walking down a hallway lined with cops in the next one.

Next, we have Jeremy Irons standing in front of a Gila Flats sign — fans will remember that it was there where Dr. Jonathan Osterman became Dr. Manhattan. Although it’s unconfirmed, it’s rumored that Irons is playing Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, the superhero/villain who who killed thousands of people in New York City in an attempt to bring the world together and prevent an impending nuclear war. He’s gotten older. “It’s only just begun,” Irons says, cryptically.

That phrase seems like a reference to something Dr. Manhatten said to Ozymandias in the graphic novel: “Nothing ever ends.” HBO has used that line a lot in its marketing:

Finally, we have this Rorschach wannabe, standing in the light of a police car:

Rorschach, a superhero with a shifting ink blot mask, died at the end of the graphic novel, but left his secret knowledge about Ozymandias’ misdeeds in the hands of a conspiracy magazine, hoping it would be published and the world taught the truth. Is this a copycat vigilante?

The masks the police officers wear also recall Rorschach. What do you all make of this?

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