New trailer for HBO's Watchmen lays out 'a vast and insidious conspiracy'

In a little more than a month, we'll finally get to see Watchmen, Damon Lindelof's (Lost, The Leftovers) HBO series that offers a much-anticipated new take on the world first created in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen comic book series back in 1986. So far, through early teasers and a blockbuster Comic-Con trailer, the series has managed to pull off the tricky high-wire act of getting us all extremely interested in the story while never giving too much away. Now a new trailer for the series has landed, and while still shrouded in mystery, it does give us our best peek at the actual plot of the series so far.

Watchmen follows Detective Angela Abar (Regina King), a police detective working in a world that's dramatically changed in the years following the events of the Watchmen comic. Police officers wear masks to protect their identities now, which means that as a detective, Angela is a hooded, costumed hero while investigating crimes. The new trailer shows us that Angela's job gets more complicated one day when she realizes a mysterious terrorist group known as the Seventh Kalvary has resumed operations in some form. The Kalvary are a group of extremists who wear masks in tribute to and emulation of the costumed vigilante known as Rorschach, a moral absolutist who became a martyr figure for them in the wake of the comic's climax. 

Apparently, the Kalvary's been dormant for some time following devastating extremist attacks in the past, but as Angela and her colleagues (including the extremely cool Looking Glass, played by Tim Blake Nelson) investigate, they uncover something big. War seems to be on the horizon, and a "vast and insidious conspiracy" has led to the Kalvary getting its hands on the home addresses of various costumed cops. 

These details are new and exciting, but the trailer still creates the sense that we've only just scratched the surface of what's to come on this show. Elsewhere in the footage we see that Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons) is somehow pulling someone's strings in the background of all of this, and the whole thing ends with what would appear to be Nite Owl's ship crashing in front of Angela. Plus, there's the whole Dr. Manhattan thing to consider, which is barely even touched upon in this trailer. Watchmen looks rich and detailed and filled to bursting with big ideas. We can't wait. How about you?

Watchmen premieres Oct. 20 on HBO.