Watch HBO's First Look At Watchmen And More

Award shows are understandably a great time to promote things to passionate consumers of film and television. That may be why HBO decided to use the Golden Globes telecast to drop a promo for its upcoming 2019 programming, featuring the first look at the highly anticipated Watchmen as well as some other upcoming HBO shows. A couple moments from the upcoming superhero drama (and other shows) rolled just after a reel for the upcoming season of True Detective.

There's a lot to unpack here as it all opens up with Jean Smart's FBI Agent (possibly named Agent Blake) rolling up to a compound. It appears she's arriving on the scene of something big and weird, as evidenced by the yellow-masked police force that appeared more than once throughout the footage. A previously released character description teased Smart would be covering a murder during Watchmen, so this could be where that deed goes down.

Next up, we have a person with a golden latex mask sharing a look with someone else in a similar wool mask. This makes it a bit hard to distinguish which actors are playing this duo, but context appears to show us these two are cool with the yellow-masked police force. Behind them is a character who also appears to be in law enforcement, but is rocking a noticeably different look from the more generic officers.

The character who appears to be roaming the halls could be Tim Blake Nelson's character, reportedly named Looking Glass. Nelson's character is described as an Oklahoman cop, which may explain the non-metro law enforcement garb. It's hard to gather much else about this character (provided it even is the character) from HBO's promo, but past reports have implied he's a bit of a sociopath.

Then we're on to Jeremy Irons, who is believed to be playing the role of the noted Watchmen hero-turned-villain Ozymandias. If that foreboding statement of "It's only just begun!" is any indication of what the megalomaniac is up to in Watchmen, things might get quite ugly indeed. Did anyone really expect this to be a fun light-hearted story where nothing bad was going to happen though?

Last, but certainly not the least, the footage gives fans a familiar-looking patch of ink blots on a mask. The holes in the mask, plus the way this show is twisting the source material up, might lead some to believe this isn't specifically Rorschach. It's hard to believe two characters could sport such clothing, but lots of weird things are possible in Watchmen's universe.

There's not a ton known about Damon Lindelof's Watchmen, but we do know the HBO superhero drama is an original story that takes place in a present day timeline. The story has been described not to be an adaptation exactly, but a work that stands alongside it similar to what Noah Hawley's Fargo series is to the Coen brothers' original film.

As for what followed the Watchmen footage, there was a quick peek the Zendaya-starring high-school-centric series Euphoria. We also got a short glimpse of Meryl Streep in Big Little Lies Season 2, which is highly anticipated. As is the seventh and final season of Veep, whose hilarious star Julia Louis-Dreyfus also popped up.

Fellow awards-worthy comedy Barry was next up, as the assassin turned actor punched a wall that exploded into a dragon and scenes that teased Season 8 of Game of Thrones, with Sansa handing over Winterfell to Daenerys. No lie, a Barry crossover with Game of Thrones is everything HBO subscribers need in 2019.

Things went rather quickly from there, with a quick scene of Succession giving way to much shorter glimpses of returning shows Divorce and The Deuce, as well as newer series Chernobyl and Catherine the Great. It all culminated to the tagline "it all starts here," which certainly seems to be true following all of those great teasers.

Watchmen and all of those other shows are headed to HBO in 2019, and judging from the looks of that footage, it will be a good time to have a subscription. For a look at all the crazy things coming to television besides that, visit our midseason premiere guide.

Mick Joest
Content Producer

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.