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Adrian Veidt on Watchmen

Fans Are All Asking The Same Question About Veidt On 'Watchmen'

by Ani Bundel
HBO

It was perhaps the most poorly kept spoiler in modern TV history. Watchmen's "The Lord of the Manor," played by Jeremy Irons, was Adrian Veidt from the original comics. (It was so poorly kept, showrunner Damon Lindelof all but referred to Irons' character as Veidt at NYCC.) Now that the show has caught up to what viewers already guessed, the question becomes where he is. The Gatekeeper referred to his "imprisonment," but that can't last, can it? How long until Veidt escapes his prison on Watchmen? He's already got a plan. Warning: Spoilers for Watchmen follow.

Episode 3, "She Was Killed By Space Junk," offered viewers a hint of Veidt's whereabouts. After building a primitive space suit, he sent poor Mr. Philips flying via catapult. The butler returned, looking like he'd flown through the endless depths of space, frozen solid.

The Gatekeeper's threat, demanding Veidt start behaving, came when the Lord was out hunting himself a buffalo, looking to carve a new hide. If at first, you don't succeed, toss more clones at the problem? In Episode 4, "If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own," Veidt confirmed that was the plan. It started with him fishing out on the lake. He was collecting embryonic balls, containing tiny newborns.

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In the time it took to eat a slice of cake, these two clone babies had grown into a new set of Phillips-and-Crookshanks. They were a little unsteady on their pins but built to please.

Veidt had good reason to have grown a new pair. He needed helpers to clean up his latest mess. Upon entering the dining room, a horror scene greets them with dozens of murdered clones covering the room, their faces frozen masks of terror as their master stabbed them all to death.

"I had a rough night," he explains.

But the new clones are unfazed. Soon, they're carting the dozens of bodies out to the catapult, cheerfully flinging them through the sky one by one. Veidt cheers them on. Through his telescope, he watches as each clone reaches the same spot in the sky and winks out of existence.

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According to the Peteypedia documents, Veidt disappeared over a decade ago, in 2007. But he hasn't been in this place for that long. "Four years," he tells Crookshanks, as Phillips reloads the next body.

Four years since I was sent here. In the beginning, I thought it was a paradise. But it's not. It's a prison. So, by your help, with your lives, with your broken and mangled up bodies... One way or another, I will escape this godforsaken place.

Where Veidt is still isn't clear, but the running theory he's a prisoner of Doctor Manhattan, in a domed prison on Mars, seems like a likely guess. Still, as the episode transitions to the next scene, the circle of the sky in Veidt's telescope transitions into the moon floating overhead back on earth. A hint to where Veidt is being held?

But if Veidt is on Mars (or the moon), what's his next step? It's one thing to escape the dome. But so far, there seems to be no ship to take him back to earth, even if he does get out.

But considering Veidt's madness always has a method to it, fans are just going to have to wait and see.