I suppose I should offer a spoiler warning even though the events took place in Alan Moore‘s comic series way back in the mid-80s and were also teased several times in the first episodes of HBO’s “Watchmen”.
With that, last night’s “Watchmen” brought us our first full look at the enormous squid-like creature that was teleported to New York City, killing 3 million and traumatizing the survivors. We saw it in the background of an interrogation scene earlier in the season (shown above), and also witnessed a “squid storm” that hails down some 34 years after the world-changing event documented in the comic book series.
It’s kind of a big deal, at least to us fans of Moore’s “Watchmen”, who wondered if the Damon Lindelof-led HBO series would remain canon or deviate like Zack Snyder did for his 2009 big screen adaptation (he changed the squids into more believable energy reactors).
And now that we have our answer, Lindelof explains why he decided to stick with the giant squid, and the challenges in doing so.
“Obviously, there’s a silliness to saying a giant transdimensional cephelopod with one eye basically drops into the middle of Manhattan and the resulting psychic shock wave kills 3 million people,” Lindelof tells Collider.
“That sounds completely and totally absurd, but that’s the true genius of Veidt’s plan, that it had to sound absurd to be believable. But when you want to really ground the absurdity in to something that’s tangible and people will feel, I think the idea of PTSD — no pun intended, but some kind of post-traumatic squid disorder — the idea that the squid was literally genetically engineered to cause people emotional trauma so that many years after this event, they would still fear it. We needed to palpably relate that to the audience.”
This led to a problem, which in turn created one of the most complex and interesting “Watchmen” characters:
“So the question was, which character on the show is still emotionally feeling the terror of what happened in 1985?
“Tim Blake Nelson felt like he was the perfect conduit to demonstrate that,” Lindelof continues in speaking to Collider. “So that idea with someone who feels like they need to be carrying around a security blanket at all times for fear that another squid attack is going to happen and that security blanket is sort of a version of wrapping your head in tin foil, and why not make that idea literal? Why not wrap your head in this fabric called reflectatine, which would insulate you from any future transdimensional psychic attacks? And that became his mask.”
In an actual spoiler, it is revealed to Nelson’s “Wade Tillman” (aka Looking Glass) that he’s been living a lie and now understands the truth. He’s been set free. And now that he knows the truth, will he turn his back on everything that he once stood for and join the cult of Rorschach?
A can of squids has been opened as “Watchmen” continues to allow the past to reshape the future.
