When we decided to take on Watchmen for the podcast, we had no idea how different the series would be from its graphic novel source material. The show has proven to be exactly the “remix” that showrunner Damon Lindelof said it would be, but a central question of our podcast discussion is this: Do you have to be familiar with the 1986 Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons comic in order to understand what’s happening in the HBO series?

Other points of analysis include why this version of Watchmen decided to make race a central factor, whether or not police chief Judd Crawford is a good guy, why the costumed vigilantes like Red Scare and Looking Glass have such simplistic costumes, and what the heck is going on with Will and Adrian Veidt: two equally mysterious characters. We also break down nods to the original comic such as the squid storms, the Minutemen biopic, the Rorschach masks, and the many references to Dr. Manhattan.

As with most of our show discussions, we focus on the events in the first two episodes of the season, and because that’s all that has aired on HBO so far (until tonight anyway), there is no “spoiler zone” in this edition of the podcast. However, the opening story gave us plenty of fodder for discussion and debate even as far as analyzing the delightfully cumbersome episode titles: “It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice” and “Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship.”

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