Watchmen: Is Lady Trieu Tied to SPOILER?

Thus far, HBO’s Watchmen has been introducing almost as many mysteries as it’s solved, as the conflict between the Tulsa Police and the Seventh Kavalry has continued to grow and change. This week’s episode saw Angela Abar (Regina King) at the center of that in a very specific way, just after consuming an entire bottle of her grandfather’s Nostaglia pills. During the latest chapter in Angela’s journey, we learned a major detail surrounding one of the show’s most intriguing supporting characters — and maybe added a whole new layer to the episode’s biggest mystery. Spoilers for this week’s episode of Watchmen, “An Almost Religious Awe”, below! Only look if you want to know!

The episode saw Angela being held in a sort of Nostalgia rehab by Lady Trieu (Hong Chau), in an attempt to sever Angela’s traumatic memories from the ones she consumed from her grandfather, Will Reeves/Hooded Justice (Louis Gossett Jr.). During her stay, Angela was visited by Trieu’s daughter Bian, who wanted to perform an “empathy test” on Angela as part of her dissertation. Bian also revealed that she’s experienced other people’s Nostalgia before, through seeing visions of an older woman being attacked in a village (something we saw a few episodes back).

As Trieu later told Angela, she gives Bian the Nostalgia through an IV for a specific reason — to gradually ease her into the memories of her past self. Yes, as it turns out, Bian isn’t actually Trieu’s daughter, but her mother, who Trieu cloned the genetic material and memories of shortly after her death.

Some eagle-eyed Watchmen fans had begun to speculate as much, after the show’s “Peteypedia” tie-in website shared an in-universe article detailing rumors about Trieu and her mom. The mom, who was also named Bian, reportedly had a stern approach to making Trieu into a “super-person”, but was believed to have grown resentful of her daughter as the years went on. The article outlines various potential details surrounding Trieu’s life, including the rumor that Trieu’s father is The Comedian (which is deemed false) and Trieu is “in love” with Doctor Manhattan (which is deemed a possibility).

Of course, there’s also the nature of one of the other scenes in the episode, in which Trieu says that her father is arriving soon. When combined with the biggest reveal of the episode – that Doctor Manhattan has been living on Earth as an existing character on the series – that line takes on a whole other meaning. The connections to both The Comedian and Manhattan in the Peteypedia article – and Trieu’s roots in Vietnam – could potentially prove another theory related to her origins. In the comics, Manhattan’s time in Vietnam includes watching The Comedian kill a pregnant Vietnamese woman in a bar, who claims that he is the father of her baby. He then kills the woman and her child, while Manhattan chooses not to intervene.

Given the ways that Watchmen has subtly rewritten the graphic novel’s lore thus far, there’s a chance that within the world of the show, Manhattan did intervene and save the woman. The woman would have ultimately been Bian, and her daughter – possibly from Manhattan, as opposed to The Comedian, would have been given the chance to grow up and become Lady Trieu. Considering all of the context clues thus far – and the fact that next week’s episode is literally called “A God Walks Into a Bar” – that could very well end up being the case.

Watchmen airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.