WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for the latest episode of Watchmen, "This Extraordinary Being," which aired Sunday on HBO.
Damon Lindelof, the creator of HBO's Watchmen, shed some light on the shocking revelations from Will Reeves' past exposed in Sunday night’s episode "This Extraordinary Being."
In the episode, we learned Reeves, a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa massacre and protagonist Angela Abar’s long lost grandfather, was none other than Hooded Justice, the very first superhero in Watchmen’s continuity. This was a powerful decision that completely re-contextualizes a character whose true identity was intentionally left out by original series author Alan Moore. "I’ve been obsessed with who was Hooded Justice, it was this great unanswered mystery from the original Watchmen and Alan Moore didn’t want it to be answered, and so I had to start with saying the most active piece of hubris I could possibly engage in — trying to answer who was Hooded Justice," Lindelof told Collider.
Lindelof came to the realization that Hooded Justice should be black when he thought about what type of person would need to wear a mask to find true justice in 1940s America. He asked himself "…what if he was an African American man and he had to hide his identity because you could not be a black superhero in the 1940s? You would literally be murdered if your identity was known. That idea scared the living daylights out of me but I couldn’t shake it, and the entire season was all about trying to pull that off in some authentic way."
"This Extraordinary Being" plays out as a series of flashbacks experienced by Angela Abar/Sister Night, who had ingested pills invented by Adrian Veidt called Nostalgia, which contained her grandfather’s memories. The episode blurs between black-and-white memories, weaving a story of racism, ignorance and rage. It’s a gut-wrenching, uncomfortable tale that makes viewers look at an iconic character in an entirely new and relevant light.
Lindelof credits the quality of Sunday’s episode to his writers’ room saying, "I just have to give a tremendous amount of credit to the other writers, particularly Court Jefferson who on day four — we co-wrote that episode together, but basically pitched Hooded Justice’s origin story whole cloth and we shot it kind of beat for beat."
There are only three episodes left of Watchmen and with Will Reeves’ heartbreaking history revealed, the stakes have certainly been raised. The trailer for next week’s episode, "An Almost Religious Awe," implies Will’s plan is to "save the world," but Sister Night appears to make a deeply disturbing discovery. What Will Reeves/Hooded Justice and his co-conspirator Lady Trieu have in store for his granddaughter and the people of Tulsa remains to be seen, but the clock is ticking.
Developed by Damon Lindelof, HBO's Watchmen stars Jeremy Irons, Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jean Smart, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tom Mison, James Wolk, Adelaide Clemens, Andrew Howard, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, Lily Rose Smith and Adelynn Spoon. The series airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.