Damon Lindelof on the Ambiguity of the Watchmen Finale

Seeing that Damon Lindelof is the guy behind The Leftovers, I was fine that Watchmen ended up with an ambiguous ending that left us asking whether Angela did gain powers or not. Lindelof talks a bit about his choice to keep things vague and says that it keeps to the spirit of the original.

Talking to Vulture, Lindelof was asked about the ending, to which he explains, "Well, there are a couple of reasons. The first is that Watchmen, the original 12 issues, ended with a similar ambiguity: An ancillary character was [choosing] whether or not they were going to publish Rorschach's journal, thus undoing the entire plot of Veidt and the saving of the world. And then, just as the terrain for the question, it didn't feel that ambiguous to me. It felt very clear to me if we had rolled another 10 seconds forward, what would have happened."

So at least we know that Lindelof does have a definite answer in mind. If you ask me, everything was already pointing to Angela getting powers, and it's kind of anti-climactic that she shouldn't get them. Then again, I don't know how a second season of the show following Angela getting powers is going to be as interesting as the first season that we got.

Lindelof continues with "If someone wants to argue that Angela sinks to the bottom of the pool, I would want to hear their points. I have my index cards ready to make an argument for why she doesn't sink. But we still chose not to show it. If ending No. 1 is "she walks on water," and her No. 2 is "she sinks to the bottom of the pool," and then, No. 3 is "we stopped right before her foot hits the surface of the water," ending No. 3 felt like it was the best ending."

For now, I think everyone agrees that Watchmen ended in a great note. While I'm good with just a limited season, I'm interested to see where Lindelof would take the story if he found a treatment that was right.

The second season of Watchmen has not been officially announced.

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