Tim Blake Nelson Has Revealed Damon Lindelof’s Original ‘Watchmen’ Backstory For Looking Glass

Ahead of HBO’s Watchmen debut last year, Tim Blake Nelson told us about a trauma that would reveal much about his Looking Glass character. Sure enough, showrunner Damon Lindelof gave us one hell of an origin story in the “Little Fear Of Lighting” episode, which titled itself after a Jules Verne quote (from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) about a giant sea squid. What unfolded was the story of how young Wade was in New York City when Ozymandias unleashed his giant squid hoax upon the metropolis.

Needless to say, Wade’s trauma had plenty of layers, including sexual humiliation, and the effects of the psychic blast led him to build a safety bunker, wrap his head in that reflectatine mask, and closely monitor the squid rain for his entire adulthood. As a result, Looking Glass ended up being the glue (and audience POV) that fastened the story’s more fantastical elements with a more grounded reality, but Lindelof originally planned a different story, as Nelson revealed to Entertainment Weekly:

“”[I]t involved an interracial relationship that Wade had had that had ended very badly. And I loved that notion. I’m in an interracial marriage myself in my own real life and have three children in that marriage, and so these are issues that are very close to me. And although my interracial marriage has a very happy present — and, I think, future and past — Wade’s was really tragic and really dark and really just changed the course of his life.”

Nelson loved this story, but he also believes that the Looking Glass origin story that made it into the series was “a better decision” for the course of the show. Indeed, that was when sh*t got real for comic book fans, who realized that Lindelof was gonna put the pedal to the metal, so to speak, on weaving choice elements from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel into the show. Also, we got a really good “Careless Whisper” cover out of the whole thing, so yes, HBO’s Watchmen was a success on several fronts.