Watchmen creator Damon Lindelof on fan theories, Easter eggs, and why we might not get season 2 for a really, really long time

Watchmen creator Damon Lindelof on fan theories, Easter eggs, and why we might not get season 2 for a really, really long time

Watchmen kicked off last month and has had both sides of the Atlantic gripped week after week. As we edge over the halfway mark with episode five, Little Fear Of Lightning, and with the show continuing to scatter more mysteries and clues in equal measure, we thought it was the perfect time to catch up with showrunner Damon Lindelof.

Metro.co.uk exclusively chatted to Lindelof over the phone about a number of topics, including fan theories, Easter eggs, and whether or not a second season could be on the horizon.

And of course, we kicked things off by asking whether all our questions will be answered by the time the finale airs.



‘My feelings about what a definitive answer is, turns out to be highly subjective,’ Lindelof replied. ‘My feeling is that this is mostly yes. I think most of the central questions that we presented as mysteries over the first four episodes, for the most part, all of those answers will come by the end of the ninth episode.


‘There might be one or two that we purposefully didn’t answer, but they don’t feel like central mysteries to the show.’

And don’t worry folks, it looks like we’ll soon come face-to-face with Doctor Manhattan himself too.

Doctor Manhattan will be revealed as the season progresses

‘I will just say as a lifelong fan of Watchmen, I would be very disappointed if Doctor Manhattan did not make an appearance, a significant appearance, before the end of the season,’ Lindelof teased.

Since Watchmen kicked off fan theories have been in full swing and fans have been eagerly trying to prove that Will Reeves really is Hooded Justice and that Adrian Veidt really is in a prison on Mars, to name but a few.

Discussing the theories, Lindelof said: ‘I’m not on Twitter but things filter to me. A lot of the writers and actors on the show are on Twitter and they will send me things.

We will eventually find out who Agent Laurie Blake has been trying to reach (Picture: HBO)

‘I will say that I’ve seen some theories which are incredibly accurate and I’ve seen some theories that are wildly inaccurate but very amusing. It would be somewhat hypocritical of me to dismiss any theories at this point.’

That being said, Lindelof did point out that he’s dropped a number of pretty sizely Easter eggs in previous episodes that guide the viewer to the bigger picture.

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‘The truth is, if we’re playing fair, we’re giving clues as to where we’re headed, so the fans who are looking for clues should be able to piece things together,’ Lindelof pointed out. ‘I think that everyone has a different idea between glaringly obvious and subtle, the storytelling.

‘I want some things to be surprising and so things that I want to be obvious are very obvious.’

We should pay closer attention to Angela Abar and Will Reeves

Explaining what snippet of information we should pay close attention to, Lindelof said: ‘I would say that the centre piece of the story is the relationship between Angela and her grandfather.

‘He says to her in the second episode that he wants her to “know who she is and where she came from” and so basically everything that he says to her in the second episode before he is whisked off into the sky, I would give a closer look.’

We need to be casting a beady eye over Will Reeves (Picture: HBO)

Jeremy Irons’ character Adrian Veidt has provided a huge element of mystery since Watchmen made its debut and we’re still none the wiser about what exactly he’s up to in his remote mansion.



While Lindelof wasn’t able to give us any spoilers, he did confirm that Veidt is actually living in the same timeline as the rest of the Watchmen characters.

‘Although it seems like he’s completely and totally disconnected from everything else that’s happening on the show, they are quite connected,’ he insisted. ‘I’m not going to tell you when they connect, but if you are patient then I promise they will.’

And while we’re close to seeing Veidt finally make it into the main story, we’re also not far off learning what is up with Lady Trieu’s Millenium Clock.

Angela and Will’s relationship is a main storyline (Picture: HBO)

‘I would say that when Angela asks, “Well what does it do?” and Lady Trieu’s daughter says, “It tells time” it seems like a very elaborate mechanism to just tell time,’ Lindelof revealed of the massive construction.

‘So I’m very comfortable saying that it definitely does do something more than tell time, but we are not going to tell you what that is until later in the season. You aren’t going to have wait too long though, you’ll know before the finale, but there’s definitely more to it then it tells time.’

Lindelof was approached twice to work on creating a Watchmen television series before he actually accepted the offer.

‘I have somewhat a romantic attachment to Watchmen,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve loved it for all of my adult life. I read it for the first time when I was 13-years-old so I’ve put it on a pedestal as this thing that was not mine and had nothing to do with me.


‘I was offered it a couple of times over the course of the last six or seven years and the first two times I said, “No, that thing has nothing to do with me.” The third time they asked me I started to have inklings of, for lack of a better word, inspiration.’

A second season of Watchmen might never happen

While we’re completely gripped by the current season of Watchmen and have no idea (at this point) how the show will end, we might not be getting a second season for a really really long time, if at all.

‘I think there’s a fair amount of hubris in planning multiple seasons of a television show in this day and age’, Lindlof said. ‘Every single idea we had is represented in these nine episodes, there was no time where we were like, “Let’s save that for later.”

There are so far no plans for a second season of Watchmen (Picture: HBO)

‘We wanted the audience to have a complete experience of a story with a beginning middle and end.

‘I didn’t want to be frustrated by mysteries that went unresolved so we’ll see how this series is absorbed and digested. If people are like, “That was a pretty good meal, I’m good”, then there doesn’t necessarily need to be anymore.’

He added: ‘But more importantly, I haven’t had any ideas of what subsequent series of Watchmen would be. Until those ideas come, I’m content with just letting this one sit out there for a while.’

We respect that.

Watchmen airs Sundays and is available to stream on HBO, NOW TV and Sky Atlantic.

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