LINDELOF And she has a hood, which is totally charged as a costume, especially for a woman of color .

“Watchmen” echoes some of America’s societal ills, and things like “Joker” have been condemned recently for doing so irresponsibly, according to its critics. Does that concern you regarding how people will receive your show?

LINDELOF Are we trying to be topical just for the sake of being topical? No. But we did want to tap into what was happening around us and tell a story that was reflective of the times we’re in. That’s what the original “Watchmen” did, and that’s what we wanted to do.

At the same time, it’s a TV show and it’s a parable. So you will see people in Klan robes, which is a real thing, and then squids will fall from the sky, which is not. We know we’re playing with fire and we know that the audience is increasingly having a difficult time telling fact from fiction, when fact feels so absurd and fiction feels so real. I also think that there’s a clickbait-y culture right now that is saying “Joker” is a dangerous movie before anyone has even seen it, just because it feels dangerous. So if the filmmakers of “Joker” come out and say, “We had no idea we were making a dangerous movie; we’re incredulous about it” — how could that be?

We know that we made something that’s potentially dangerous and upsetting. We know that we appropriated a beloved graphic novel and we know that white supremacists appropriating the mask of someone who was construed as a hero in that graphic novel is not going to be loved by everyone. But we still feel like it’s interesting. The show in and of itself is a Rorschach test — everybody’s going to see something a bit different, based on who they are and what their relationship with “Watchmen” is.

KING I would hate for people to walk away and just say that they didn’t feel anything. We didn’t do our jobs if we didn’t make people feel something. My hope is that people are honest about what they feel.

LINDELOF I mean, I’ve done a lot of therapy to get to the place where I can say, “I want to generate strong feelings, and I may not have control over what those strong feelings are.” But it beats the hell out of apathy.