Episode 1, Watchmen, Season 2

Title: “New and Old Beginnings”

Mock Script Treatment / Stephanie Chuang

I. Opening Scene

Title Card: “Watchmen” appears in gold letters on what appears to be an iPhone screen before
being “swiped” to reveal our opening scene.

Opening Shots: The scene opens to some farmland in Midwestern America and the words
“Omaha, 2012” can be seen in the sky. A green tractor is driving across the plains and a large
modern silver complex can be seen farther back.

Exterior, Complex Entrance: A car comes into view under a covered area just outside of the
complex. A worker in white opens the back door and Lady Trieu steps out.

Interior, Silver Complex: The camera tracks backward and follows Lady Trieu, dressed in her
customary white, who walks purposefully into a large, silver atrium. She hands her coat, gloves,
and sunglasses to an attendant and is welcomed back by her workers, who update her on the
status of several unnamed “subjects.” It has been a few years since she has visited her facility in
Omaha. The shots always keep Lady Trieu in view from various angles and distances as we
follow her and her attendants through several doorways and down hallways resembling that of a
hospital. Each doorway is accompanied by a hand scanner, eye scanner, or some form of security.
The camera stops as Lady Trieu and her entourage look into several chicken wire observation
windows. In each observation room, younger and older clones of BIAN are sleeping, eating,
playing, or drawing among many things in small, furnished rooms.

As Lady Trieu walks from window to window, there are labels on each window denoting which
BIAN clone is in the room and which version of Nostalgia they have been receiving. The
workers detail the effects the different versions of Nostalgia have had on their subjects, ranging
from mild anxiety, psychosis, death, nightmares, and more. As this is mentioned, they pass
several BIANs in straitjackets, several dead BIANs lying on covered gurneys, and a few BIANs
with caps with wires coming out of it connected to beeping machines. Lady Trieu and her crew
approach a final door and observation window containing a young BIAN where they inform her
that the “final version” of Nostalgia has been given to this BIAN, BIAN #43, and is “ready for
distribution.” What started as an attempt to clone her mother has turned into a pharmaceutical
opportunity for profit. The camera focuses on Lady Trieu’s face as she stares at BIAN #43.
“What would you like us to do with the rest of the BIANs?” A worker asks. Lady Trieu
responds, “Have them frozen. They might be useful later.”

Interior, Observation Room:

Lady Trieu enters into the observation room containing BIAN #43, who is around 6 years old.
BIAN #43 sits at a metal table, hands folded, and wears a thick pair of glasses. Lady Trieu sits
down and the camera displays them on each end of the screen. Lady Trieu says, “Hello BIAN.
I’m your mother.” The camera focuses on BIAN’s face and cuts to black.
 II. Relationship to Story World

This episode reveals the origins of BIAN, Lady Trieu’s mother/daughter in season 1, as well as
the idea for Nostalgia. BIAN is initially introduced as Lady Trieu’s daughter, but she is revealed
to be a clone of Lady Trieu’s mother who is being secretly imbued with Nostalgia, Lady Trieu’s
failed memory drug meant for those with Alzheimer’s and Dementia. The Nostalgia has BIAN’s
memories of her life in Vietnam, which was implied to be strife with war and suffering. Season 1
BIAN has nightmares of her old life, but is unaware that she is a clone. However, she manages to
piece this together in the season finale.

BIAN, like many of the workers under Lady Trieu’s supervision, follow and revere Lady Trieu
without question. Even when Lady Trieu makes obviously problematic power grabs, she isn’t
questioned or criticized. Even though the audience understands the underlying evil in Lady
Trieu’s actions, we are led to believe that her care for her mother and father are genuine despite
the smooth, emotionless facade she puts on when being interrogated by Angela. However, BIAN
and Nostalgia’s origins are revealed to be much more sinister. BIAN herself is the result of many,
many, failed clones who were frozen and given no chance at life and were tested on with Lady
Trieu’s Nostalgia. This reaffirms Lady Trieu’s relentless motivations to get what she wants no
matter the cost. In a callback to Lady Trieu bribing two Tulsa egg farmers for their land with
their (illegally, problematically, secretly, and invasively) bred baby boy, this episode offers a
darker insight to Lady Trieu’s usage of cloning and its legacy (BIAN).

At the same time, it is revealed that Lady Trieu’s motivations for creating Nostalgia were
originally rather personal; she wanted to imbue her mother’s clone with her original memories,
thus exactly replicating her mother’s image so she could be with Lady Trieu during her greatest
achievement. While Lady Trieu blames the failure of Nostalgia from a profitable level on
humanity’s inability to move forward, her own motivation for it is an attempt to preserve a
portion of her past, her mother. Assuming that memories for Nostalgia must be harvested from a
living subject (which appears to be in line with Watchmen canon), it seems likely that Lady Trieu
started preparing for this before BIAN passed away. Thus, it’s likely that BIAN was probably
suffering from illness or memory issues in old age, and Nostalgia started out as Lady Trieu’s
personal attempt to stop the illness, until the idea grew into something bigger. Lady Trieu acts as
if Nostalgia was a gift meant to help humanity move forward, but it is at its core, it is a desperate
attempt to hold onto the past.

This episode sets up an exploration of the complicated relationship between BIAN and Lady
Trieu. While both did care for each other, Lady Trieu’s control and manipulation of BIAN (and
her clones) is no doubt problematic, and BIAN herself must come to terms with her mother’s
sins, and the fact that she is the result of them. How can BIAN, herself an attempt to preserve the
past, move forward without her mother/daughter? BIAN must reconcile her own views of what
Lady Trieu has done and find out who she is outside of that.