Having a hot streak of a night at the 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Watchmen capped it with an Outstanding Limited Series win and a call to meet the challenges of history and today.
“History is mystery, it is broken into a million puzzle pieces and many are missing,” said series creator Damon Lindelof in his acceptance speech for the HBO show. “We know where those pieces are, but we don’t seek them out because we know finding them will hurt,” he added, wearing a “Remember Tulsa ’21” T-shirt and standing in front of the masked team of Watchmen writers and producers. “Sometimes we cause that hurt, maybe we even benefited from it, but we have to name it before we can repair it.”
“Be careful, be clumsy, run hot, stay cool, be the bull in the china shop, pick up what you broke and glue it back together,” Lindelof addedin one of the most passionate speeches of a night of passionate speeches. “Don’t stop until it’s great, affirm, it’s never great enough. Dissent, be consistent, embrace paradox, never contradict yourself.
“And finally, stop worrying about getting canceled and asked yourself what you are doing to get renewed,” the Lost alum concluded. “We dedicated this award to the victims and survivors of the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. The fires that destroyed Black Wall Street still burn today, the only way to put them out is if we all fight them together. God bless, stay safe, thank you for this, I’m going to go throw up.”
Having become even more poignant and prescient amid the coronavirus pandemic and the renewed spotlight on racial injustice and police brutality since the killing of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd earlier this year, Watchmen looked at an alt-history America grappling with masked realities, cultural appropriation and trauma, and white supremacy rearing its ugly hooded head anew.
Based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ iconic comic series from the 1980s and inspired in part by Ta-Nehisi Coates, HBO’s Watchmen went into the Emmys with 26 nominations, the most of any show or series this year. The nine-episode show entered tonight having already snared seven wins at the Creative Arts Emmys earlier in the week.
Peabody Awards winning and Regina King-led series from Leftovers co-creator Lindelof
The King, Jeremy Irons, Yahya Abdul Mateen II, Louis Gossett Jr. and Jean Smart starring
Emmys 2020: Wins By Program & Network/Platform
On Sunday, star Regina King scored her fourth Emmy with her Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie win, and Lindelof and a therapist-thanking Cord Jefferson took the trophy for Outstanding Writing. Co-stars Jeremy Irons and Jean Smart came up short with their nominations tonight, but Yahya Abdul Mateen II won the Supporting Actor category in which he competed with castmate Louis Gossett Jr.
Along with odds-on favorite Watchmen, Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere and FX on Hulu’s Mrs. America were also nominated in the Best Limited Series category, as was Netflix’s Unbelievable and Unorthodox.
Lindelof executive produced Watchmen with Nicole Kassell and Tom Spezialy. Having debuted on October 20, 2019, the limited series is produced for HBO by White Rabbit in association with Warner Bros Television.