HBO has released a few teasers for its Watchmen sequel/remix show at this point, giving us a chance to make some guesses about how it’s adapting and expanding Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ original comic, but now the premium cable network has shared a behind-the-scenes featurette that straight-up explains what’s going on in the show. There’ll be some twists and turns, certainly, but here’s the basic setup: At some point after the events of Watchmen, a terrorist organization (evidently inspired by Rorschach) murders a bunch of police officers, forcing the police to begin wearing masks to hide their identities—meaning actual cops are adopting the iconography of masked vigilantes in order to protect themselves from bad guys who have also adopted the iconography of masked vigilantes. There’s going to be more to it than that, since it seems like Doctor Manhattan is going to be involved in some way and there’s repeated imagery of something in the sky crashing to Earth, but now, at least on some level, we do know exactly what HBO’s Watchmen is about.
Also, Damon Lindelof’s desk has a big squid on it. Get it? Like from Watchmen! Also, there are some interesting looks at the cast here, especially Jeremy Irons, who really seems to be playing an older version of Adrian Veidt (as has been rumored) even though some leaks from while they were filming implied that he had died at some point prior to the events of the show. So we can scratch some Watchmen mysteries off of the list, but others still remain.
Watchmen premieres on HBO on October 20.