'Watchmen' director Nicole Kassell reveals key details in the pilot that hinted at the Dr. Manhattan twist

• Warning: Spoilers ahead for the series finale of HBO's "Watchmen."
• "Watchmen" director and executive producer Nicole Kassell has been nominated for best director at the upcoming 2020 Emmy Awards.
• Insider spoke with Kassell about her approach to the pilot episode of "Watchmen," including how there were both deliberate and "happy accident" foreshadowings of the two Dr. Manhattan twists to come.

Aside from the writing team that "Watchmen" showrunner Damon Lindelof had assembled for HBO's limited series, director Nicole Kassell was the first major hire for what would eventually become the most Emmy-nominated show of 2020. Kassell read the first "Watchmen" script in December of 2017, and soon became a key player in the series.

"I was just deeply embedded in setting up the whole world," Kassell said in a recent interview with Insider. "From hiring the crew to finding the locations, and just being the force behind production. I came in early and sold the look of what I would want to do."

To that end, Kassell knew about one of "Watchmen's" biggest reveals very early on: Calvin "Cal" Abar (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) was really Dr. Manhattan, hiding in plain sight and living as Angela's husband.

Some close-viewers might have seen this twist coming if they paid attention to Kassell's use of blue tones and circle-patterning throughout the pilot episode of "Watchmen."

Kassell crafted a blue-ish hue around Angela and Cal from the get-go, and chose circular decor to hint at the reveal to come

In the original "Watchmen" graphic novel, Dr. Manhattan is seen primarily in his naked and blue God-like form. Kassell knew Cal Abar was really Dr. Manhattan, so she made creative decisions that would visually link both him and Angela to that character.

"It was very important and deliberate that their house and the choices of their home life would have those cool, gray-blues," Kassell said. "And I wanted circles. I wanted the table to be a circle. I wanted the light fixture to be a circle. Those came foremost for me because Angela was from Vietnam, but also because obviously the circle is such a strong theme throughout ['Watchmen']."

In addition to the circular light fixture and table (as you can see in the below image), the scenes between Angela and Cal in the pilot episode frequently included blue-ish lighting or costume elements, further linking both characters to Dr. Manhattan.

"I did not know, though, what was going to happen at the end," Kassell added. "I did not know Angela was going to eat the egg."

By the series finale of "Watchmen," Cal was exposed as Dr. Manhattan and killed. But before he died, Cal had taken care to show Angela that it was possible to transfer his powers to another person via an organic medium, e.g. an egg.

The final scene of the series shows Angela picking up an egg from a carton Dr. Manhattan had used the night before. She swallows the egg, and then the screen cuts to black just before we'd see her testing her powers.

In the end, Angela became Dr. Manhattan, making the entirety of the "Watchmen" HBO series essentially a new superhero origin story. After seeing the finale, many fans looked back at the official poster and thought Angela's blue lighting was a hint at her fate to come.

But Kassell says she didn't know about the big egg moment back when planning out the pilot episode.

"The fact that Angela is bathed in that blue was a happy accident in my book," Kassell said when Insider asked about this particular foreshadowing. "It's an accident because it was all about Dr. Manhattan. I just didn't know she was going to become Dr. Manhattan."

Why creating Angela's first 'suit-up' moment as Sister Night was a challenge in the pilot episode

Before Angela transformed into Dr. Manhattan in the limited series finale, she was already operating as a masked vigilante called Sister Night.

In the pilot episode, which landed Kassell her Emmy nomination for best directing, Angela suits up for the first time.

"There was a lot of pressure around that sequence because this is our version of introducing our superhero," Kassell said. "I hesitate to say superhero because she doesn't have superpowers, but [she's] our superhero. That sequence has been done in every hero- or Marvel- movie, so how do we do that and make it original, make it badass, and make it a reveal? Those were all the challenges that I had put on myself."

The feel of that sequence was motivated by Sister Night's costume and the props, which included a nun-like hooded robe and a weaponized crucifix, all stashed in an underground bunker accessed by an empty bakery's storefront.

"It was essential to me that we would believe she could dress herself and do her own hair," Kassell said. "I just wanted it all to feel very grounded and real. She was doing this transformation alone. There was nobody to help her and no butler coming in."

Once she was ready to go in her Sister Night outfit, the scene takes on a new kinetic energy as star Regina King moves to her car, and then the camera tracks the car's aggressive journey to a trailer park. The camera follows behind Sister Night, capturing the way her skirt billows as she strides up to a trailer door and kicks it in.

"I just love the super bada-- strut Regina [King] takes on when she becomes Sister Night," Kassell said.

King herself is nominated for best actress in a limited drama series at the upcoming Emmy Awards. You can see the full list of nominees here, where "Watchmen" leads with a staggering 26 total nods.

You can tune into the upcoming Emmy Awards on September 20 on ABC.

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