Thoughts : Watchmen [HBO, Episodes 4-6] (2019)
After the initial three episodes, HBO’s immaculate continuation of Watchmen had me hooked. Now that we’re two-thirds through the run of season one, I’m willing to say with near certainty that Watchmen is top tier original content from HBO. With each question that is answered, we are presented with information that raises even more intriguing questions. Full disclosure, I’ve started this blog entry prior to episode six because episodes four and five had such a strong impact on me, requiring multiple viewings and deep dives into both before I ever put eyes on what looked to be an amazing episode centered around Sister Night’s family connections.
THE STORY CONTINUED
Episode 04 : If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own Sister Night breaks into the Greenwood Cultural Center moments before her van is dropped out of the sky right in front of Special Agent Laurie Blake. In an effort to cover up her involvement with Will, Sister Night cleans her shop and chops the wheelchair into enough pieces to fit into a gym bag, but during her disposal of the bag, a mysterious masked man witnesses the drop. Sister Night gives chase, but the mysterious man escapes into the sewer. A quick investigation reveals that the van was likely lifted into the air by one of Lady Trieu’s (Hong Chau) flying vehicles, and the pair pay her a visit at the Millenium Clock, where the mysterious trillionaire provides the pair with requested information. Sister Night inquires about Will’s whereabouts to Lady Trieu, who is later revealed to be in league with Will in hopes of exacting an as of yet unknown plan. After a night of killing all of his helpers, Ozymandias begins the process of trying to escape his imprisonment after fishing new helpers out of the nearby lake and growing them.
Episode 06 : Little Fear of Lightning Looking Glass is revealed to have been in Hoboken, New Jersey on 11/2/1985, the day that the giant squid landed on Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, killing hundreds instantly (including world famous band Pale Horse) and hundreds more in the ensuing psychic wave emitted before the squid’s death. As a direct survivor of such a profound event, Glass leads an isolated existence, with much of his life anchored to a fascination with the squid and a fear of similar psychic waves. This very fascination and fear leaves him vulnerable to both Special Agent Laurie Blake’s influence and the plans of the Seventh Kalvary, which in turn impacts Sister Night. Ozymandias is revealed to be on Jupiter as he manages to get a message out to an unidentified satellite.
Episode 07 : This Extraordinary Being Shortly after discovering that Will’s pills were long-outlawed Nostalgia before admitting to covering up Will’s possible involvement in Police Chief Crawford’s death, Sister Night is arrested by Special Agent Laurie Blake. Just before being accosted, Sister Night manages to swallow the entire contents of the bottle of Nostalgia. Through a series of immersive memories that Angela is implanted into, we learn about young Will Reeves (Jovan Adepo), his time as a New York City cop in 1938, his connections to Captain Metropolis (Jake McDorman) and the original Minutemen, and the mysterious KKK-connected origins of a secret society known as the Cyclops.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The Peteypedia : A weekly collection of documents relevant to the world of Watchmen, similar to the opening and closing inclusions in the original comic issues and graphic novel.
The Official Watchmen Podcast : Host Craig Mazin and showrunner Damon Lindelof discuss the HBO Watchmen series. A new podcast episode will be released after episodes six and nine.
THOUGHTS ON THE SHOW
This show continues to be brilliant, giving us a handful of questions with each answer that is revealed, and at the end of episode 6, dropping a canon-altering bomb that re-contextualizes all that we’ve thought we previously understood about the origin of heroes in the Watchmen world. Parallel to this, we are shown (for the first time) events in the Watchmen world that were previously only presented to us in comic form, drawing an exact and direct line between the source material and the character of Looking Glass. The levels of easter eggs are starting to hit like the Inception storyline as new elements and old elements are folded together with ever continuing juxtaposition of an uncanny valley-esque 2019 that contains very futuristic materials sprinkled few and far between, all meant to hearken back to the latest trauma exacted upon the citizens of the Watchmen world.
Lady Trieu clearly holds extreme power in this world, and is key to the narrative, but her cards thus far have been played close to the chest. Her connections to Will Reeves seem to be deep, but if the key information to this connection has already been presented, it was done so in secrecy. Her logo permeates the entire series, appearing to the level of common commercial logos that we have become desensitized to in our personal experiences. The origins of her daughter seem mysterious, and the promise she presents of a master plan has me intrigued.
We know that Adrian Veidt is stuck on Europa by someone who has yet to be revealed, and we know that his master plan is an SOS message in the form of the many versions of Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks that he has catapulted outside the barrier he is captured within. The origins of these helpers is revealed in a way that does nothing to comfort our thirst for answers, and the nature of his captivity (as well as the identity of his jailer) is still one of the biggest unanswered questions in the series.
Tim Blake Nelson continues to put on a clinic with his performance as Looking Glass (though, to be fair, many members of the main cast are running on all cylinders in terms of performance). His direct connection to the culminating events of the original Watchmen comic are revealed, which in turn unveils a well of information about the manner in which he lives his post-traumatic life. For a character so deeply rooted in truth, the way that his entire worldview is shattered without one lie being told to him is as heartbreaking as it is masterful.
What is Joe Keane’s endgame in regards to his connections to the Seventh Kalvary and the intrinsic field generator that they possess? It is hard to ignore the parallels between the Seventh Kalvary adopting the visage of Rorschach’s masked vigilantism and Keane’s legislation to turn the cops into masked vigilantes (eventually on a nationwide level), and it makes me wonder how many of them are playing both sides, if any.
After the Watchmen film chose to alter the ending, I wondered if we’d ever get to see the Giant Squid event in a visual medium. Not only did we get to see what has now been dubbed as 11/2 in a stunning opening scene, but the way that it has been contextualized into the idea of a multi-generational trauma works very well. I really enjoyed the allusion to Schindler’s List that was used to describe the in-world film Pale Horse, and I would love to see even just the clip mentioned in episode 5.
If episode 1 ruffled some feathers, then the internet is going to have a field day with the direct origin story given to the previously origin story-less Hooded Justice. There has been speculation since episode 1 that Will Reeves was the true identity of the first hero in the Watchmen canon, the man who inspired the Minutemen, but going full fledged with this is a brave move. The episode in which this information was revealed is a subtle visual effects masterpiece, and hopefully it will get recognition come seasonal awards time.
THE QUESTIONS
- Where did Cal disappear to during the White Night? How in league is he with Special Agent Blake, who continuously brings him up to taunt Angela, and even uses him in hopes to bring Angela back from her Nostalgia overdose? Why does he, at times, seem so cold and detached for a character that professes he doesn’t like to lie?
- Who was the man in all silver? Is that Agent Petey? Is this how he gathers his intelligence, does Special Agent Blake know about these exploits if so, and has he been in the background of other events in this world?
- How mad is Alan Moore going to be at the alteration of the Hooded Justice legacy and lineage? How mad will the fandom be at the idea that the Tulsa Riots were a heavy source of inspiration to the character, as well as systematic racism within the NYPD? Will the idea of the Cyclops and mesmerism being used as a direct cause of black on black violence nationwide be shunned as a narrative device, and will the obvious allusions to Birth of a Nation be overlooked?
- How deep is Lady Trieu involved in all of the events we have seen thus far? How connected is she to Dr. Manhattan, if at all?
- How is time moving for Adrian Veidt in relation to time on Earth, and when/how will all of these threads connect?
