In the early aftermath of the Icepick leak last week, I posted a comment on Bluesky about a plot point in HBO’s Watchmen series: that part of a white supremacist plot in the show involved putting police officers behind masks and making it illegal to publicly identify them.
Some users responded by challenging whether this was actually a part of the show, a point of confusion that’s understandable due to the way the show jumping back and forth to different points in time, and plans changed and collided. While this part of the plot is only mentioned a few times, it’s both hinted at and spelled out in the show’s text: the white supremacist group Cyclops/the Seventh Kavalry orchestrated the “White Night” to (presumably) force their enemies out of law enforcement while putting their people into positions of power, and putting police officers behind masks through the show’s “Defense of Police Act.”
Exhibit A: DOPA built Senator Keene’s reputation
Senator Joe Keene, both a member of Cyclops/the Seventh Kavalry, explained that the Defense of Police Act was the key to his rise to power. In his words, his name and reputation were built on it.
Exhibit B: Agent Blake figures it out
FBI Agent Laurie Blake figures it out part way through, postulating that the Seventh Kavalry and Cyclops were essentially the same group, that “Senator Joe used them to kill a bunch of police so that he could put all the cops in masks” as part of his rise to plan to take over the White House.
Exhibit C: Jane Crawford admits it
Jane Crawford, both a senior member of Cyclops and Keene’s campaign manager, confirmed Agent Blake’s theory to her, admitting that it “was the original idea.”
Exhibit D: Senator Keene confirms it
In the middle of a racist rant during the show’s denouement, Senator Keene confirms that until they discovered Dr. Manhattan was hiding in Tulsa during the White Night, the plan had been to “get cops in masks” and start a culture war that they would control both sides of until Senator Keene “could come riding up on a white horse right into the White House.”
It’s perfectly understandable that some viewers missed or forgot this – it’s a background detail to the show and part of a plan that was heavily revised and virtually abandoned before the “present day” of the show.
