If you’re wondering why people are saying “Watchmen” predicted president Donald Trump’s Tulsa Rally or that the show is more timely than ever, you can find out this weekend.
Starting Juneteenth, this Friday, June 19, and continuing through Sunday, June 21, HBO is making all nine episodes of “Watchmen” free. According to an HBO press release, you can watch “Watchmen” on HBO.com and Free On Demand as “an extension of the network’s content offering highlighting Black experiences, voices and storytellers.”
The Peabody Award-winning series, created by Damon Lindelof (“Lost,” “The Leftovers”) and starring Regina King, is a remix on the 1986 alt-history/superhero comic series of the same name. Set three decades after the source material, the show takes a hard look at issues that may seem directly ripped from today’s headlines, such as systemic racism and even police officers obscuring their identities.
Rolling Stone recently asked “Watchmen” writer Cord Jefferson about the show being unusually prescient, and the writer explained that’s because history is prescient:
The fact that we made a show about police violence and white supremacist violence, and, several months later, we’re dealing with police violence and white supremacist violence, that’s just because we’re making a show about history. Unfortunately, police violence and white supremacist violence are something that you can set your watch to in the United States of America.
Executive producer Nicole Kassell reflected on the show’s timeliness to HuffPost last November, telling us, “It’s pretty eerie.”
“I think this happens a lot in storytelling that the zeitgeist is kind of out there in the culture. It’s both eerie and then also affirming that we had our finger on the pulse,” Kassell said.
If you haven’t seen this series, this weekend is your chance to check it out. And if you somehow came away from “Watchmen” thinking it was pro-cop propaganda, now’s the time to do a rewatch.