HBO’s 9-episode Watchmen series, created by Damon Lindelof, triumphantly concluded in an emotional and powerful finale that resolved every major storyline, but left some unanswered questions lingering. As a “remix” and sequel to the classic graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Lindelof’s Watchmen provocatively re-examined the source material through the lens of racial injustice in America while moving the story forward 34 years, mixing new characters with originals like Doctor Manhattan (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons).
Watchmen’s story centered on Tulsa Police Detective Angela Abar, aka Sister Night (Regina King), her journey to discover her legacy as the granddaughter of Will Reeves, aka Hooded Justice (Louis Gossett, Jr.), the first masked vigilante, and Angela’s romance with Doctor Manhattan, who was revealed to be her husband Cal Abar, in disguise as a human. Meanwhile, villainous forces converged on Tulsa after discovering that Doctor Manhattan was posing as a human being: Senator Joe Keene (James Wolk) secretly led the white supremacist group the Seventh Kavalry, while trillionaire industrialist Lady Trieu (Hong Chau) pursued her lifelong ambitions, both wanting to steal Doctor Manhattan’s godlike powers for themselves. But both failed, thanks in part to Ozymandias, who stopped his daughter Lady Trieu from becoming an all-powerful despot.
Although all of the major characters received fascinating resolutions and Watchmen admirably told a complete story, even 9 hours of television couldn’t fill in all of the gaps and answer every question left lingering. If Watchmen ends without a season 2, there will be numerous questions left hanging that fans will surely be debating for a long time to come.
12. Is Angela The New Doctor Manhattan?
Watchmen concluded with Angela eating the last remaining egg that Doctor Manhattan told her to “watch” and testing to see if she can walk on water. The main conflict of Watchmen involved Lady Trieu and Senator Joe Keene vying to steal Doctor Manhattan’s god-like powers for themselves; however, since Doctor Manhattan could see his entire life simultaneously (with some exceptions), he was aware of when and how he was going to die, and it seems he chose Angela as the person he would pass his powers to. The question is, did he indeed place his essence in that egg hoping (but not knowing for sure) that Angela would eat it?
Thematically, Angela inheriting her husband’s powers makes sense, and her taking on the responsibility is foreshadowed by her grandfather Will Reeves’ words about Doctor Manhattan: “Considering what he could do, he could have done more.” However, fans have seen the original physical transformation of Jon Osterman into Doctor Manhattan, and it involved cascading blue energy and his human body being destroyed, none of that occurred when Angela ate the egg. So did Sister Night become the new Doctor Manhattan? Fans will be debating this for years to come — unless the question is answered in Watchmen season 2.
11. Will Adrian Veidt Stand Trial For His Crimes?
At Karnak, Adrian Veidt was shocked when FBI Agent Laurie Blake placed him under arrest for the murder of 3-million people on November 2 1985 (The Dimensional Incursion Event). Despite Ozymandias’ umbrage, Looking Glass, aka Detective Wade Tillman (Tim Blake Nelson) knocked Veidt unconscious with a wrench so they could take the World’s Smartest Man into custody.
When she was Silk Spectre, Laurie was present at Karnak 34 years earlier when she and her fellow superheroes reluctantly agreed to keep Veidt’s hoax secret, but now Ozymandias will finally have to answer for the mass murder he committed in order to “save the world” from nuclear war. But fans are left to wonder what the potential trial of Adrian Veidt would look like, and whether he will indeed be punished for 11/2/85.
10. Will Robert Redford’s Presidency Be Affected By Ozymandias’ Arrest?
Looming in Watchmen’s background is President Robert Redford, who has been in office since 1993 (placed there through the machinations of Adrian Veidt). After 26 years in office, Redford is up for re-election, but according to the files in Peteypedia, Watchmen’s tie-in website of ancillary materials, President Redford won’t be running for another term. Senator Joe Keene had designs on the White House as the Republican candidate, but now that he’s dead, who will run for the Presidency?
But, more importantly, Redford knew everything about 11/2/85, thanks to Veidt’s videotaped “instructions,” and he helped keep the hoax a secret for decades. If Veidt stands trial and his hoax is exposed, how will that affect Redford? Would the FBI actually try to arrest the President like Laurie Blake implied?
9. Will Tulsa’s Police Remain Masked?
The conclusion of Watchmen — and the revelations that the war between the Tulsa Police and the Seventh Kavalry was orchestrated by the late Chief Judd Crawford (Don Johnson) and Senator Joe Keene — throws the Tulsa P.D. into chaos since their chief has been exposed as a secret white supremacist.
It’s also not clear if the Seventh Kavalry (7K) is really gone; Lady Trieu killed the senior leadership of Cyclops and several members of the 7K, but there’s no telling how many people in Tulsa secretly own Rorschach masks. So, it’s possible that the Tulsa P.D. may retain their masked identities, although since Cyclops engineered the legislation to create masked cops, their identities are probably known by the 7K anyway. The Tulsa Police Department is going to have a lot to figure out in the wake of Watchmen’s finale.
8. How Will The World React If Veidt’s Hoax Is Publicly Exposed?
Adrian Veidt is quite convinced that “the world will end” if his hoax on 11/2/85 were made public knowledge — and he may be right. Ozymandias drastically altered world events in ways large and small; from the rejection of networked computers and technology out of fear of Doctor Manhattan’s “cancer-causing” M-class lithium, to Robert Redford’s Presidency, to the decades of trauma millions have suffered as a result of Veidt’s continuous squid rainfalls to maintain the fear of 11/2, Veidt’s crimes against the world are incalculable. Looking Glass will almost certainly see to it that the truth is put out there, but if the world finds out that the tenuous peace forged out of fear of extradimensional monsters was all a lie, the chaos it would conceivably bring could alter the world again, possibly to an even worse state.
7. Will The Truth About Hooded Justice Become Publicly Known?
Watchmen provocatively retconned the history of Hooded Justice to reveal that the first masked superhero was secretly an African-American man, Will Reeves. By overdosing on Will’s Nostalgia pills, Angela lived his life through his eyes and learned her grandfather’s origin story. Further, Sister Night realized that she inherited a legacy from the founder of the masked and costumed vigilante. But will the rest of the world ever find out that Will Reeves was Hooded Justice, and not the propaganda they’re seeing on the TV show American Hero Story: Minutemen? What would happen if Will’s true story was publicly revealed? Maybe Will Reeves should write a book, which would surely become a bestseller like Hollis Mason’s Under the Hood did in the 1960s.
6. Will Dan Dreiberg Be Released From Prison?
Nite Owl aka Dan Dreiberg is the biggest Watchmen character who was totally absent from the TV series. This is because Dreiberg is in federal custody, where he has been held since summer 1995 when he and Laurie Blake (then known as The Comedienne) were apprehended after they stopped the Oklahoma City bombing.
While Laurie confessed, was released, and then joined the Bureau as the head of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, Dreiberg took a vow of silence and sat in prison. When he asked Laurie to go to Tulsa to investigate Judd Crawford’s murder, Senator Keene implied he would pardon Dreiberg if he becomes President — obviously, that offer is off the table (if it was ever real to begin with), so is Nite Owl stuck forever as a jailbird?
5. What Happens To The Clones On Europa?
When Adrian Veidt abandoned Europa to return to Earth, he left behind his poor, pathetic cloned servants. Modeled after the Lord and Lady of the British country manor Jon Osterman took sanctuary in as a child, the clones were the new lifeforms created by Doctor Manhattan on the idyllic haven he built on Jupiter’s moon. However, the clones such as Mr. Phillips (Tom Mison) and Ms. Crookshanks (Sara Vickers) only exist to serve a master, and now Manhattan and Veidt have left Europa, never to return. What will become of the clones? Will they form their own society, or tragically wait in vain for a new master?
4. What Happens To Bian And Lady Trieu’s Corporation?
The death of Lady Trieu throws the fate of the world’s largest multinational conglomerate up in the air. Taking up the challenge laid down by her father Adrian Veidt in 2008, Lady Trieu built her company “from nothing” and the World’s Smartest Woman eventually became a trillionaire, even purchasing Veidt Industries when he vanished to Europa. But what happens to the company now that Lady Trieu is dead, and what happens to Bian (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), her “daughter” who is really a clone of Lady Trieu’s dead mother? Can Bian run the company in Lady Trieu’s stead, or will her conglomerate collapse since everything was funneled towards Trieu’s scheme to turn herself into the new Doctor Manhattan?
3. Did Lady Trieu Clone Herself?
Another big question is could Lady Trieu return via cloning? The trillionaire built Trieu Industries by commercializing Adrian Veidt’s cloning technology, but she has also proved adept at creating humans like her mother Bian, whom she feeds memories through the use of Nostalgia. Lady Trieu fully intended to become Doctor Manhattan, and she even told the newsstand vendor when they met that it would be the last time he sees her “in the flesh,” but she was also the World’s Smartest Woman and Trieu must have considered what would happen if her plan to become Doctor Manhattan failed. Did Lady Trieu clone herself so she could try again or, if not, will Bian clone Trieu, proving that, at least in their family, nothing ever ends?
2. Who Is Lube Man?
One lingering question that the Watchmen finale shockingly did not answer is the identity of the mysterious Lube Man. Briefly introduced in Watchmen episode 4, Sister Night encountered the skinny, silver-coated masked man, who escaped her capture by dousing himself in a slick substance and sliding into the sewer. Lube Man hasn’t been seen since but he captured fans’ imaginations. However, the true identity of Lube Man may have been revealed in Peteypedia and the bizarre vigilante is almost certainly FBI Agent Dale Petey (Dustin Ingram), Laurie Blake’s partner. This makes sense considering how Peteypedia documented Dale’s expertise in superhero history and that Lube Man appeared in Tulsa soon after Blake and Petey arrived in town.
1. Will Watchmen Get A Season 2?
Damon Lindelof purposely designed Watchmen as a self-contained 9-episode series that tells a complete story, just like the graphic novel was a complete 12-issue tome. But is Watchmen really a one-and-done? HBO was certainly pleased when Watchmen became their biggest ratings hit since Big Little Lies, racked up glowing critical reviews, and became a sensation on social media. It stands to reason the network would want more Watchmen and so do the fans, but as of now, Lindelof claims he hasn’t thought about what Watchmen season 2 could be about. The writer-producer also stated that perhaps he should step aside and let someone else take over Watchmen, turning it into an anthology like True Detective. So, there currently are no plans for Watchmen season 2 but this could (hopefully) change in time.
Next: Will Watchmen Season 2 Happen? Here’s What It Could Look Like
