Seven years of bad luck, insidious plots, and a “Careless Whisper” inspire fear in latest Watchmen
TV Reviews Recap
Watchmen takes us to ground zero on 11/2, and inside the mind of Looking Glass in “Little Fear Of Lightning.” Religion, PTSD, and that insidious plot give us three new themes to marinade in. Plus, they actually drop the squid! Comic book fans rejoice, we have been avenged.
Debauchery in Hoboken brings a young Wade Tillman from Oklahoma to the East Coast so he can spread God’s word. As he walks along the crowded carnival streets, writers Damon Lindelof and Carly Wray throw out some great Easter eggs. Veidt’s famous interview appears on the back of a magazine cover. The guys and gals with the top knots are not hipsters, but part of a cult-like gang. They wear knots on their heads, have tattoos and piercings, love rock music and scare the living daylights out of the “normal” people. Knot Tops, as they’re referred to in the original comic book, murdered the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason. They mistakenly believed he had freed Rorschach from prison. So, the Knot Top girl sexually luring an innocent Tillman into a funhouse mirror maze and then robbing him didn’t come as a surprise. But that didn’t make the moment any less devastating. Director Steph Green brings a terrifying scale to the aftermath, highlighting both the intense fear that gripped the victims and the casualty count.
This opening scene communicates that Looking Glass always walked a just line. Truth stands as a core pillar of his identity. Fear fuels the engine that drives him. The doomsday clock young Wade mentions counted down the minutes to Armageddon. Under Doctor Manhattan, the fear of mutually assured destruction, a term used during the Cold War to describe the eventual outcome of a nuclear war, reached near hysteria. Days before 11/2, Manhattan appeared on a television show where a reporter accused him of giving cancer to his ex-wife and former lab partner. Distressed by the news, Manhattan banished everyone from the live studio recording. Panic began to brew. What would the human atom bomb do?
He went to Mars.
Fear plays a huge role in Watchmen. Those who put on masks fear their true selves. Wade (Tim Blake Nelson), reborn in fear and broken glass, learned to create a tough exterior most could not crack. Remember, dropping the squid meant triggering world peace; the side effect of law and order has been intense fear. If you’re the type of person whose heart stops when you’ve been pulled over—not because of the price of a ticket, but because you may end up dead—this entire episode hits hard. There’s been much speculation about the recent rise in Black police on television. Some go as far as to call it a conspiracy. I think there’s an active desire to understand how Black folks in blue reconcile police corruption and the desire to protect. Bryan Tyree Henry as Miles Morales’ father in Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Angela Basset in Fox’s 9-1-1, and of course, Regina King as Sister Night—all play cops. Interestingly, Watchmen removes the burden of Black characters having to navigate the waters of fear and justice and gives it to a neutral white man.
I say “neutral” because Wade does not toe any political party line. Last week, Angela (Regina King) brought Wade the KKK uniform she found in Judd’s closet. “He was a white man in Oklahoma,” Tillman said nonchalantly as he agreed to hide the robes. This week Wade says, “What red-blooded Oklahoma man’s going to admit they’re afraid,” as he works his side hustle as a human lie detector. He’s telling on himself.
Laurie sees right through him. Hell, she was him a long time ago. I love the way she constantly strips her employees of their defenses. Forcing Looking Glass to remove his mask, compelling Angela to answer her questions there’s no one better to run this precinct. Who understands heroes better than Laurie?
The title of this week’s episode comes from a quote by legendary science-fiction adventure writer Jules Verne. “Our weapons, which were noiseless, were not likely to have any great effect on these natives, who only respect noisy firearms. If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning—although the danger is in the lightning, not in the thunder,” Verne wrote in his 1867 book, In Search of Castaways.
Wade’s fear, irrational or not, consumes him. After all, if it happened once, it will happen again. Wade only controls his warning systems. Consumed by his terror, Wade checks an emergency alarm system multiple times a day so that he won’t ever be caught off guard again. He pushes the love of his life away because he can’t let go of that impending doom. Many shows have tried to depict PTSD, and get caught up in the hysterics of the disease. Screaming, cold sweats, mood swings present in individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Like most emotional scars, over time, the symptoms become routine. The pain still feels intense, but people get better at hiding what makes them different. Fear can either be a useful primal trick for survival or a spirit-crushing weight around one’s neck. In this episode, Wade experiences both kinds of fear. Knowing the weight of that anxiety, I find myself caring for him as a character in ways I never saw coming.
The women in Wade’s life see his fear most clearly. Men, as Wade earlier stated, do not like to admit fear. An ex-wife, a new boss, and a possible flame all see straight through his mask. They all offer different solutions. Laurie (Jean Smart) wants him to turn rat, and do his job as an officer of the law. His ex wants him to find a nice woman and learn to trust her. The new flame seeks to recruit him to a national power organization. Secrets often mask themselves as power. Linking into a group of politically connected individuals, people with a plan offers comfort to those who feel weak. Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor” plays just before this final impossible option is laid before Wade. I fear we may lose our yellow-bellied, but good-hearted disco cowboy.
American Hero Story showcases the relationship between Hooded Justice and Metropolis. Last week, Petey (Dustin Ingram) warned us that American Hero Story held wild inaccuracies within its text. In the graphic novel, Larry, the publicist for the Minute Men, confirmed the relationship in a letter to Sally Jupiter. But this front and center sex scene raises some flags. If the relationship existed, maybe it’s the partners involved whose story we have wrong.
Speaking of the wrong story, let’s pause here to talk about the technology jump. Cloning, as we learned last week, can be done in a lake or a lab. For a world that still relies on pagers, it’s jarring to see easy access to consumer cloning. But, it seems this world keeps technology in labs with highly trained professionals. The benefits of technology are worth the money, but no one brings it home. Even Wade’s security system operates like a WWII bomb shelter. Life contains less value in this universe. Veidt’s clone babies drown in the lake. Dogs, smaller than expected, meet an untimely end in a garbage can. This injustice will not stand!
Medical technology also takes a huge leap this week. The pills in Angela’s glove compartment left by Will Reeves (Louis Gossett Jr.) have a name, Nostalgia. They’re essentially capsulated memories that the legal system outlawed due to their psychoactive effects. Shoving memories insides a person’s consciousness sounds complicated—I wonder if this is Veidt (Jeremy Irons) technology, Trieu (Hong Chau) technology, or something leftover from Manhattan. Seeing as Reeves works with Trieu, and Trieu seemed to be dosing her daughter with a liquid version of the pill, my guess would be Trieu invented the pills. If that’s true, what goal did she hope to achieve through this product? Trieu teaches her daughter the first-hand experience of war and trauma, perhaps developing a distrust of the system that ravaged her country.
Of course, they didn’t know just up the street, someone was opening portals. Last week, I predicted that Lady Trieu would be the big bad. But, as one reader pointed out, the show doesn’t seem to care about right and wrong, but about how we make decisions. I don’t know Trieu’s objectives, but I know the devil when I see him, and Senator Keene’s (James Wolk) got horns and a tail for sure. His TV observation room looks eerily similar to the screens through which Veidt watched the world. Removed from humanity, and taking advantage from atop the world, Veidt and Keene both seek power through their humanitarianism. A lack of altruism makes for immediate suspects.
The number one suspect, Adrian Veidt, isn’t imprisoned on Mars. He’s on one of her moons. “Clair de Lune” plays in the background as he uses the corpses of his former servants to spell out “save me” on the rock’s surface. The Warden pulls him back into their fantasy land and promises to show him, “no mercy.” They also speak of a god. In last week’s episode, Veidt told Mrs. Crookshanks that he was not her creator. The warden tells the servants, “It’s not likely (our god) will return.” The blue man figured out how to create organic life, and used that life to imprison Veidt on a moon.
Back in Tulsa, Wade must make an impossible decision. If he doesn’t betray Angela, her family will be murdered in their sleep. The fact that the senator threatened this action leads me to believe the first White Night was his orchestration as well. Were these the only options available to Judd, too? What will happen to Angela now that she’s under arrest? Who knew there could be even more feelings hidden in “Careless Whisper”? Come back next week, when we’ll try to reach some conclusions. Congratulations, we’re halfway through the season!
Stray observations
- At the carnival, Wade describes the importance of pandas as symbols of peace in the kingdom of heaven. I wonder if that’s why Panda chose his mask? He does seem to want to be a peacekeeper over being a police officer.
- OH MY GOD THE SQUID DROP AND CUT TO NYC PROMO COMMERCIAL! Have you ever seen capitalism so perfectly articulated?
- Instead of making Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg directed Pale Horse, depicting the horrors of 11/2. This is a creative way of expressing the fear that grips this society.
- Cigarettes labeled as a controlled substance boggles the mind. What’s that drug trade like?
402 Comments
Really great episode, and not least because it gave us so many answers. I love Tim Blake Nelson, and I hope the ending isn’t implying he’s about to get written off the show. Also, he’s just about the only person from this generation with something like a superpower.
The senator’s pun was a groaner, but the support group being named “Friends of Nemo” was gold.
The group itself isn’t named Friends of Nemo, it’s just a phrase members use to discreetly ask others if they’re members. It’s supposed to be like AA and “friend of Bill W.”
or the old gay community joke about being a “friend of Mary (or Judy).”
“friend of Dorothy” added fact, many people think it means Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, but it originally meant Friend of Dorothy Parker. She’d throw gay friendly parties back in the day where they could be themselves discreetly.
oh yes, that’s right — Dorothy, too. we have so MANY friends, lol
is that 100% confirmed? I always thought it meant Judy Garland Fan but if it was in currency during WWII that’s a really quick turnaround.
It is a bit debated, but I do think while Wizard of Oz is very iconic to the gay community. It was a hugely popular movie that we now associate that way with rainbows and Judy Garland and stuff. She and the movie right at that time weren’t like pro-LGBT+ or anything. We’ve crafted it into that more and more. Dorothy Parker was more open minded from the get go, but you’re right it’s debated.
Yeah to me the timeline is important, as I said I think WWII is just too quick for Oz to have been the origin (or maybe I’m wrong and its immediate huge popularity immediately spurred the phrase)
Nemo means “no one”, which ties back to Wade saying he has no friends.
I think Wade’s last minute decision to recover the disposed security system component points to him recognizing that he’s in danger and will attempt to mount some sort of defense, even if it’s only slipping out a window and hunkering down in his squid shelter.
Although Wade allowed himself to be deceived, he’s proven to be pretty smart and at the very least thoroughly paranoid. I would be shocked if his home wasn’t setup with the expectation that the 7K might show up one day, though I don’t necessarily think him getting the security system means he realizes the 7k are right behind him. I read it more as a “old habits die hard” moment that might fortuitously aid him when the 7k starts shooting. Maybe he’ll already be in his squid bunker by then (or on his way to it) and have the edge he needs to survive.
That’s how I took it as well. He’s too used to being paranoid to throw it all out because he saw a video. He definitely seems smart enough (or paranoid enough) to expect danger from anywhere.
Same here. He’s too smart of a character to not realize that by turning on Angela, he’s fulfilled his usefulness to The Calvary and now he’s just a loose end who knows too much.
I think he retrieved the package for the roll of reflectaline. That it’ll be involved in what transpires and how he defends himself/escapes. He’s definitely prepared for what’s coming.
Also if they were going to kill him off, they would have just made the episode four minutes longer and killed him off.
It’d be pretty crazy for the show to cast Tim Blake Nelson and Don Johnson and kill them both off by about half way through.
Not really. About fifty percent or more of the main characters are big names. It’s a limited series so far, not a multi season series. It’s probably time for some of the hose names to start dropping, and as good as TBN is, I don’t think that he’s on the bigger side of names in this thing. That said, I don’t think he’s going down.
Well, according to IMDB he’s still credited with 9 episodes. Don Johnsons’ only listed in six (interestingly the last four), so it seems like the credits there at least are accurate. so I’m hoping the 7K were just there to bring him in…
Yeah, but on this show the dead may well rise by the end of the show, so…Speaking of which, the excerpt from the Requiem isn’t just any old bit of funeral grief. It’s the Lacrimosa, describing the apocalypse:“Full of tears shall be that day
when, from the ashes, shall arise
the guilty man to be judged.”Which feels very appropriate on all levels.
Fortunately:“Therefore spare him, O God.
Merciful Lord Jesus,
Grant them eternal rest.”
Squid pro quo was so corny that it looped back to kinda charming
What’s his super power?Don’t say he can see through lies. His entire life is defined by his inability to see through lies, even though he nominally can.
For every answer this episode gave, it posed several more questions. Is there such a thing as a “happy” person (or at least ignorantly content) person in the Watchmen universe? Everyone is carrying a lot of (capital W) Weight.
They sure nailed the feel of the comic series.
if they were gonna kill him this would’ve been the episode to do it in. You don’t cut away and then kill a character in the next episode like this, it’ just bad writing which isn’t what this show is doing.
I was pretty nervous the whole time he would die. You get an ep telling a character’s entire back story, that’s usually a bad sign. But I don’t think they would’ve teased an off-camera killing. Just sucks that we probably won’t find out until two weeks, since next week looks like all Sister Night hopped up on goofballs. Though this show doesn’t seem to care for traditional pacing. We got like 55 minutes of Looking Glass, then about 5 of Veidt.
After the ep, it was really striking that Laurie kept calling him “Mirror Man,” because while she was basically goading him, it really seems like a much more fitting name.
I thought the episode was great but I don’t think we got any real answers. We know what the pills are but we don’t know why Will gave them to Angela or what his plan with Trieu is. We know where Veidt is but not why he’s there. We know that Bob Benson is running the Kavalry but he didn’t reveal what his plan actually was.None of this is bad given the show is midway through, just saying I wouldn’t say this episode had any real answers to the actual mysteries of the show. It certainly advanced a lot of the plot.
I have not seen the preview for the next episode but I would guess it will be largely if not mostly or entirely filled with Sister Night experiencing memories
We know exactly why he gave them to Angela – so she’d take them and find out where she came from. They’re his memories.
That’s not really what I meant, that is obviously revealed in this episode. I meant there isn’t an answer on what he wants Angela to see and how it fits into his and Trieu’s plan. To me, when shows like this answer questions that just opens up new questions, it’s not really an answer at all.
The look on his face while he was watching the anal sex scene with “Some Enchanted Evening” playing in the background was priceless!
So my first instinct was correct and it was Manhattan keeping Veidt prisoner. Go with your gut, I guess. And those who thought he was on the moon and those who thought he was on Mars were both correct.What the hell is Keene up to? And are Will and Lady Trieu with him or against him?
He’s by Jupiter, on one of its moons, likely Europa.And no, its not Dr. Manhattan keeping him prisoner, its likely that Lady Trieu is the one doing the deed.
Maybe the decaying clone bodies will provide the DNA for eventual life on Europa?
Maybe there was already life on Europa, but it’s all damn contaminated now!
Yeah my bet would be Europa too, and the surface did kindof look like frozen ice. But I was already surprised it wasn’t Mars or the Moon, so hey, maybe it’ll be a deeper cut moon. Himalia, anyone? But in all seriousness, the coloration looks reminiscent of Europa, and just in terms of raw materials available it’d make more sense than most other options. Ganymede might bet a bit more realistic (a world-spanning ocean might not be the most stable place to set up a prison/paradise, surface being ice notwithstanding) but I’m not sure this show is gonna worry about such details to that kind of The Expanse level of realism.
Yes, Will and Lady Trieu seem to be against them. The moral of his encounter with Angela seemed to be that she was still a tool of others, specifically a racist power structure. We get that made explict here with Keene’s claim that he and Judd were essentially working together to control both sides of the conflict. They would seem to represent an alternative. It’s probably not a coincidence that their side is the one controlled by people of color, and both of whom seem to have had early experiences with violence committed by white colonial powers.
He’s way too close to Jupiter to be on Mars. He is clearly on one of Jupiter’s moons.
He wrote ‘save me D’. I don’t think Manhatten is the captor, he is asking him to come to the rescue.
I really want to know what Veidt did that caused Manhattan to decide to imprison him almost 30 years after the squid drop and almost 30 years after Manhattan peaced out.
I don’t think Manhattan imprisoned him. I think he created the prison, sure, but it’s more that it got repurposed to hold Veidt.
So question for people watching, does it feel like they intend to wrap this in one season or are they setting up an ongoing (the latter option seems less interesting which is why I’m curious)?
I think they have a contained story to tell, with room to grow if renewed.
Lindelof has said that it was planned as a complete story with no plans for a second season. Depending on response to the show, a second season is possible, but it would be a different story.
I don’t see how we can really wrap this up in a couple more eps. It feels like we’re just getting to know some of these characters.
We still got 4 episodes left. It’s 9 episodes in this season.
David Simon will know.
I think HBO falls somewhere between the BBC and Showtime with its willingness to let commercially successful shows end. Meaning, it won’t insist on milking the cow until it keels over and dies, but nor is inclined to let a good thing end. See, most recently, Big Little Lies, which was supposed to be a one-off, and then came back for a second season.
On the podcast, he more or less said this was going to be his only attempt at continuing the story, but that he’d be interested in seeing someone else’s take on the material.
I think I heard this is supposed to be a 1 season show. But then again, plans like that can change.
After playing things close for 4 episodes, tonight was a whole other story. I did not expect so many revelations in one sitting, and certainly not from a Wade-centric episode. Too bad it looks like his last. After doing Keene’s bidding, he was apparently just a loose end. Next week looks to be just as informative, this time on the Will Reeves front.
I’m pretty sure that we’re gonna find out that Will was Hooded Justice. I’ve been rewatching the first five episodes today and it definitely seems like they’ve been hinting at it all along.
Oh definitely.I’ve suspected it all along, considering his age and all, and once I realized that the “footage” of Hooded Justice was just a reenactment and therefore the white guy underneath that hood was irrelevant, it was even more sure.The fact that he stood up and seemed to have his strength back in the episode with Lady T’s tower just all-but-confirmed it.
They also speak of a god. In last week’s episode, Veidt told Mrs. Crookshanks that he was not her creator. The warden tells the servants, “It’s not likely (our god) will return.” The blue man figured out how to create organic life, and used that life to imprison Veidt on a moon.That’s because Dr. Manhattan is obsessed with Superman now.That’s why he rebooted the DC Universe so that Superman and Wonder Woman date.And why he turned Starfire was turned into a Sexy Goldfish.
I thought you getting banned from io9 means I won’t have to see this crap again. FFS, we get it, you read comics. Most of us do, too. We don’t need you seeking attention on every comic book show’s article.
Do not bring that evil here.
Make it stop, please just make it stop!I don’t mean your posts, I think I just mean all of D.C. Comics at this point.
That stuff about Pale Horse was kind of weird because, IIRC, The Girl in the Red Coat in Schindler’s List was based on a real person. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
According to Wikipedia the similarity to a real girl in the ghetto who wore a distinctive red coat was unintentional.
Whether or not it was a real person, the girl in the red coat was in the source book, Schindler’s Ark, it wasn’t something Spielberg made up for the film. So it showing up here as something he put in a completely different film doesn’t really fit, for a super-nerdy nitpick.
So, the rest of the book except for the girl in the red coat was in black and white?
I mean it’s entirely possible that there was a similar real girl in this alternate universe too. I’d imagine that there was plenty of coverage of the aftermath and that there was an image of a girl who survived in a red coat.
That Spielberg would use the same visual motif in a different movie he made in 1992 in this alternate history is totally artistic license on the writers’ part. While it’s improbable, I’ll allow it.
I think it was being used as a way to make sure the audience really definitely got the reference to how it was his equivalent to Schindler’s list without having lindelof pop up in the corner & go “get it? Pale horse is his in-universe Schindler’s list! Liam neeson even acted in it! *Wink*”
Correct. The girl in the red coat was based on the real story of someone who could only see in black and white except for little girl’s coats.
If you want to draw the line there then you’re not up for the spirit of the original. Is transposing the holocaust to supersquid distasteful? Garish? Yep. But I’m willing to go there and further.
This is my favorite episode of the first three. Some fine answers and yes all the shenanigans of Veidt’s were in fact practice to get to the surface of the Mars moon. But I just reveled in the chemistry of Tim Blake Nelson and Paula Malcomson, two pros that had me held completely in watching them deliver great work.Further there was such wit, a bugged cactus, playing Claire de Lune while on the moon, the equivalent of writing a huge message in the sand right out of Robinson Crusoe with catapulted clones, dropping in covers of South Pacific a broadway show that in itself was a remarkable take on systemic prejudice and fear of others even through the eyes of the heroine……… This show is firing on all cylinders.
The fifth episode is your favorite of the first three?
It gets a perfect 5/7
Veidt is on one of Jupiter’s moons, not Mars’.
I knew that but Joelle said Mars and I didn’t want to be rude.
Do you often perpetuate wrong information to spare some blogger from learning something?
Someone on the internet not wanting to be rude? This must be the seventh sign!
But we all know what happens when Jupiter aligns with Mars.
“Nothing ever happens on Mars. Boring. Boring.”
Silk Spectre I changed her last name to Jupiter. Intentional? Coincidence? Over-analysis?
I think over analysis, Jupiter’s moons are far enough away that veidt can be hidden and are some of the closest things to earth that we believe how of the relevant materials for life (too much human activity like rovers and powerful telescopes to out veidt on Mars it the moon, Europa is a far better location, ideal mix of practical and covert)
Was the bugged cactus a pun/reference or something I’m not getting?
One of Jupiter’s moons.
according to Peteypedia, Nostalgia is a Trieu Industries product – wonder if that’s how they’re going to open the next episode
why was it weird tho?? the little girl was highlighted in a b/w film by being colored bright red as she wandered nazi destruction. surly that didn’t happen irl…
great review as usual.Senator Keene was disappointed they put him on Appropriations? I buy it because he’s a spoiled ‘son of’ that got into politics for the wrong reasons and probably knows nothing about the system but Appropriations Is Sexy and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on.alas. they gave me an amazing LG episode, but at what cost? r.i.p.
In an episode featuring giant squids dropped on New York, consumer cloning, pills that contain memories, and a rescue SOS being created on one of Jupiter’s moons with clone bodies, a freshman U.S. Senator whining about being given a seat on the Appropriations Committee was by far the hardest thing to believe.
Fanwank: in this alternate timeline, the Presidency (particularly having been the same guy since 1993) has far more power and Appropriations doesn’t have the same weight to throw around. Maybe they exist mostly just to rubberstamp whatever the Executive Branch wants.
Keene would (I’m assuming) be a Republican, so being in the minority party would also put a damper on it. (According to the Peteypedia documents, Democrats have held a majority in both houses for most of the Redford presidency.)
Yeah, that rang false to me. Appropriations is one of the most powerful committees in the Senate. It’s essentially in charge of the economy. If they want to put him somewhere disappointing there’s plenty of other options.
arguably The Most Powerful committee in the Senate, power of the purse. I mean he’s not wrong that Judiciary Committee is sexy, Booker and Harris wouldn’t be running for president if they didn’t get all that airtime cross examining Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the JC during their confirmation hearings, but for a freshman senator to complain about Appropriations is… lol. show hasn’t mentioned his age either but Keene wouldn’t just be a freshman senator, he’s a BABY in political years. in our universe the average age for a US Senator is 62.
I do think Laurie mentions in an earlier episode that Keane has his eyes on the presidency. I assumed he was following in the Rubio/ Obama model of serving 1 term, and then running for President. He doesn’t seem like he wants to be a Senate lifer.
Yeah, but the youngest Senators are usually in the late thirties or early forties. The actor is 34, but the character could easily be, say, 38 or 39. And of course this is a different timeline. In the days of Nixon and then Reagan, there were Senators in their early 30s, so maybe there still are in this world…Plus, it’s already been established that he’s the scion of a political dynasty, and they’re often younger than other politicians. Maybe he’s like Joe Kennedy III (39, Congressman, and running for Senator in our world, and he’d probably have done so earlier if his state didn’t have very popular senators already).
38 or 39 is insanely young to be a Senator. He would’ve been one of the youngest ever in any timeline
I’m sorry, but as I just pointed out, that’s not remotely true. If he were 39, he wouldn’t even necessarily be the youngest senator in OUR timeline TODAY (Josh Hawley is also 39, having been elected at 38, and looks of an age with Keene, allowing for hollywoodising), and certainly wouldn’t have been a few years ago (Tom Cotton was 37 when he was elected, and actually might be partially who the writers are trying to evoke with Keene and his obvious presidential ambitions – perhaps also Marco Rubio, Senator at 39). In our timeline, the youngest Senator ever was 28. (early on, there were dozens of senators below the constitutional age limit).Even today, the Senate may on average be the oldest it’s ever been, but there’s still young(ish) people. In 2015 (the only immediately-available list I could find), 5% of the Senate had been elected when they were 39 or younger – so, unusual, but by no means ‘insane’. The youngest at election was Leahey, Senator at 34, which wasn’t that unusual in that period.In fact, there has been at least one Senator (often several) under the age of 40 CONTINUALLY from 1789 to 2009, with the exception of most of the 1880s, a few years here and there in the late 90s and early 2000s, and the occasional week or month (less than a year) of non-overlap around elections. And even since then we’ve had Cotton (37), and Carte Goodwin (36), as well as Hawley, Mike Lee, and Chris Murphy (all 39). Other famous examples in the last few decades include Rubio (39), Rick Santorum (36), and Russ Feingold (39).
But even just a few decades ago, the average age was much younger, and there were many more young senators. Don Nickles, for example, became a Senator in 1981 at the age of 32. Bill Bradley, 1979, at 35. Ted Kennedy, at 30! Perhaps an analogue to Keene: Russell Long, son of the legendary Huey Long, became Senator at 30 (another relevant figure, though rather older, might be Joe McCarthy, didn’t become a senator until he was 38). Frank Church, 32, John Tower, 35, Maurice Murphy, 34, etc etc.
And the one that makes your claim particularly remarkable because he’s kind of in the news a lot: JOE BIDEN! Biden became a Senator at 30 (iirc he was actually 29 when he was elected).
So Keene? Very for our current time period, but only moderately noteworthy by even relatively historical standards, and entirely plausible in a slightly altered timeline (maybe having Presidents stay in power for so long has encouraged voters to prefer more dynamic Senators by contrast…)
The average age of a current sitting Senator is 61 or something. So when most people think of a Senator they think of an older person. That’s the point I’m making. But if you’re limiting it to the ages people were when they were first elected to the Senate apparently 30s is not unusual
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I took his comment to mean that he’s an idiot.
Yeah, Keene also basically confessed to stealing TS/SCI information to a guy he pulled in off the street, so he may not be the brightest light in the Senate.
I took his comment to mean that the writers were just using lazy shorthand…also not sure why being on appropriations related to being shown the video…which committees are NOT shown the video…but we’re all putting more thought into this than the writers did.
Yeah, it is hard to imagine something like that staying a secret if like most of the senate knows about it. There’s some serious suspension of disbelief here.
I think they were going for something like the Bill Hicks joke about what they show the new president on Day 1, who really shot JFK…but from all of these nits we are picking off it, even minor ones, it just shows that this was kind of an important moment that came off half-baked, and if that dude is supposed to be a big bad I hope they will craft him with more care in the future.
Some people are big headed and think they deserve more no matter how much they have. And maybe it’s just boring to him.
My point is that there’s nothing bigger than Appropriations. For a first term Senator to get it is pretty damn good.
My point is that there’s people that always think they deserve more. No matter what they get. You know there’s a guy named Donald Trump, right? People like him. Also maybe he wanted something more exciting.
Depends what he wants. Power? Sure, he gets an insight into government and he can steer bribes to his constituents. But a path to the presidency (or even just sexy celebrity)? Not really. The ACTUAL young(ish) Senator from Oklahoma who serves on the appropriations committee is Jim Lankford, and who’s heard of him?
I’ve been listening to Caro’s books on LBJ and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that Appropriations is one of the most powerful committees. They control the means.
Petty point here, because I love the show, but this drives me nuts when he speaks… Keene is supposed to be from Oklahoma, but his accent on the show is terrible. It’s southern, and has drawl, not twang. Tim Blake Nelson, being from Tulsa, nails it of course, but Keene sounds like he’s from Georgia.
His father was from New York, so it might be like how George W. Bush has this Texas cowboy accent even though his family is from Connecticut.
The episode would have ended with his death if he were truly being killed off. I’d bet the farm LG survives.
Keene reminded me of Aidan Gillen’s politician chatacter from The Wire from the very start. If they tried to hide him being a “bad guy”, they did a poor job.
Knowing this show so far, and perhaps guessing they will kind of reboot the original, Keene’s intentions will turn out to be noble and carried out in an unpalatable way, this time by unpalatable people. I do wish they would be more clear about the Seventh Kavalry’s obvious KKK affiliation and white supremacy, they are just throwing out “this bunch of racists” but the original dead cop on the show wasn’t killed because he was black, they’re being too soft on the klan (and, so, leaving Paula Malcolmson as a possible continued love interest despite working for the klan, which is dicey)
Point of order, Veidt’s prison appears to be one of the icy moons of Jupiter. That’s a good ways off even compared to Mars, so I don’t know how quickly his white-on-white corpse message will result in a rescue…
Yeah, I was thinking that was Europa he was on. Unless Jupiter really does look that big near Mars.
It most certainly does not.
Mars is over 340 million miles from Jupiter. Earth is about 390 million. 50 million miles wouldn’t make that much of a difference from what we see of Jupiter from Earth.
I’m glad I didn’t have to be the one to point this out. But there was a satellite monitoring him, so someone will see it sooner or later.
He’ll probably be rescued via the Europa rapid transit system:
I mean, there’s a satellite right there that seems placed to spy on him specifically. And whoever put him there has the technology to put a viable habitat on the surface of a moon of Jupiter, so they could presumably get him back if they wanted.
I thought he knew about the satellite and was timing his message for when it went by?
I’d imagine that whoever put him there could certainly get him back, but they already know they imprisoned him there and presumably aren’t inclined towards a rescue. We haven’t seen anything so far that suggests humanity has a robust manned interplanetary space program (nor confirmation that they don’t, do be fair), but my assumption was that the satellite was something along the lines of the planned Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer and he was familiar enough with it’s schedule to know when it would be passing by.
It appears Veidt is on a Jovian moon, not a Martian one. I don’t believe either of the Martian moons have enough gravity to keep him on the surface.
“. . . I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. Call it a squid pro quo . . .”As much as any show has ever manifested a most uncanny capacity to tap into the sociopolitical zeitgeist with timely (pun intended) sci-fi references to time travel and world-altering events, could this episode possibly be any more directly related to this week’s national news, right down to the very transcript quote and crime headline soundbite?! Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed, when such art aptly anticipates life out of the mouth of an imitation politician.
I wondered about that. I imagine this episode was written and filmed more than two months ago, before quid pro quo became a mainstay in news headlines. It would be weird to go re-shoot that scene just to get a timely pun in yeah? Talk about a happy accident.
Veidt isn’t orbiting Mars. He’s on one of the moons of Jupiter, probably Io, Europa, or Callisto.
Likely Europa, given its under-ice ocean with easy access to water.
That was my guess as well, but I don’t know enough about them to really guess and we don’t get that extensive a look at it’s surface.
Almost definitely Europa – we saw the the orange/red ‘tiger stripes’.[which means that in reality, Veidt would probably be dead now, since the surface of Europa is bathed in lethal radiation, and while I buy that he could build an air-tight, warm suit, I don’t think the metal will keep out the radiation adequately. Maybe Manhattan left a helpful forcefield, so Veidt wouldn’t be hurt if he tried to escape…]
If it’s Europa, that’s kind of a little call back to the movie 2010, where the aliens / gods send the message:ALL THESE WORLDSARE YOURS EXCEPTEUROPA(etc.) 😀
Yes, glad someone else pointed out it’s Jupiter. Almost certainly Europa based on the surface.
confirmed by lindelof
Thanks. I knew the planet wasn’t Mars, but I didn’t see the big red storm that would have confirmed the planet was Jupiter.
The weather stripes confirmed it was Jupiter. AFAIK Mars doesn’t have stripes.
But you DID see the telltale stripey lines, yes?
You can actually see the great red spot in one of the later shots
Well, Io would be a volcanic hellscape, but yeah, Europa would be a likely candidate.
It’s Europa; the credits had a listing for “Europa Consultant.”
Absolutely.
It was pretty obvious since you wouldn’t be able to see Jupiter like that from Mars. Considering they’re estimated to be over 300 million miles apart after all..
A question, is that Tom Mison playing the Game Warden too? I couldn’t tell.
Yep.
Definitely was. Loved his speech, it reminded me of Ichabod Crane.
Fyi on Tom Mison which I found funny. His choosing process and all. https://tvline.com/2019/10/27/watchmen-tom-mison-penis-naked-season-1-episode-2-interview/
Wait, it wasn’t Cary Elwes? Inconceivable!
The planet is Jupiter not Mars, Viedt is probably on Europa.
Wasn’t “Nostalgia” that cologne or perfume that Veidt was putting out in the comic? Was that supposed to have some kind of mental effect that I didn’t realize? Man, I love this show so much. Every single piece of it is fascinating. It’s so dense and playful, but also really incisive and personal. I seriously don’t want it to end. I would happily watch this for years.
The advertising campaign around Nostalgia was supposed to abuse public fears of an uncertain future, and if it wasn’t a psy-op itself it definitely helped Veidt develop his skills of mass manipulation. I don’t think the perfume had any mind altering effects, though.The drug feels more in line with someone using Veidt’s brand in an attempt to one-up him. A pill that actually gives you memories, instead of a perfume that simply reminded you of them. Feels like something Lady Trieu pushed out after taking Veidt’s company.
It was described in an earlier episode, perhaps the one just before this, as a lifestyle brand. So there were probably a number of products that it covered, many more than just the fragrance brand that the comic had billboards for.
The number one suspect, Adrian Veidt, isn’t imprisoned on Mars. He’s on one of her moons.
Uh… The planet shown is very clearly Jupiter. The moon that Adrain Veidt is likely stranded on is Europa, given the access to its water.All in all, excellently gripping episode. Can’t wait for the quite-literally mind-bending episode next Sunday!
Veidt in the 1985 video doesn’t seem to be at all like Veidt in the comics. Veidt wasn’t that nakedly proud of his work and had doubts about what happened. Also, if that’s really supposed to be him in 1985 they did a terrible job of making him look younger.
Also, IIRC Redford was being talked about as a possible presidential candidate in 1985, so it’s not like it’s crazy that Veidt would consider him as a potential future president.
Looking Glass’s line in therapy that “everything ends” is interesting too. For those who haven’t read the book, Dr Manhattan’s last words, before leaving for parts unknown, is “Nothing ends Adrian, nothing ever ends.” But the idea of nothing ever ending in the show is the opposite of what Dr M meant. In the show it seems to refer to the trauma which Wade and the other suffered, which the show seems to suggest they won’t be able to get away from. Even after learning that the squidfall was a hoax, Wade still has trauma and still needs to rely on his rituals to live comfortably. In the book “nothing ever ends” is just the opposite. It’s Manhattan’s answer to Veidt’s question “Jon, I did the right thing didn’t I? In the end?”. The book is saying that there is no stable steady state. The Veidt’s whole scheme might work temporarily, but can’t bring lasting peace because nothing ends. That’s the ultimate theme of the book and why Veidt’s superheroic name is Ozymandias. It’s from a poem by Percy Shelley about the impermanence of all things.
I’m very confused on the whole accent front too for Ozymandis. What’s going on there? Is that a British accent? Is that Jeremy Irons trying and failing to do an American accent?
It’s Jeremy Irons playing Jeremy Irons. I was willing to accept it in the prison because its 30+ years and he’s gone a little batty. But it’s jarring in what’s supposed to be the same era as the comic.
Veidt disappeared between 2007 and 2012, so a dozen years at most. I gather his accent is a pretentious mid-Atlantic accent that used to be common among rich, Ivy educated upper-crust Americans who spent part of every year in Britain or attended school in Oxford (Listen to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt for example). In more recent times Madonna sported an awful one. In reality I think you have the right answer in that the producers wanted Jeremy Irons to play Jeremy Irons.
Oxymandius was born in the Mid-Atlantic, and has an accent to match.
In the middle of the ocean?
Oxymandius™ now comes in convenient capsule form, so you can relive your stupid typos forever and ever!
That’s not a Mid Atlantic accent. Veidt is a little older than my father and no one in his generation has an accent like that.
I dunno, it sounds more like Jimmy Stewart than anything else to my ear.
I used to hear accents like that back in the 80s and early 90s. We called them “prep school accents” since that seems to have been the transmission vector. Never common, and AFAIK they’ve wholly died out now.
Wasn’t Hannibal Lecter also supposed to be from the mid-Atlantic? I hear some resemblance in the accents (though to be fair, I haven’t watched the movies in a while). And don’t neglect to give some credit to an affectation from someone who traveled around the world and considers himself to be the smartest man alive.
Mid-Atlantic (in the sense of the accent) isn’t really a place – it’s meant to mean something like an accent that meets in the middle of the Atlantic, i.e. partly British, partly American (sometimes called a transatlantic accent). Like others above have pointe out, not many were still speaking it by the mid-80s (although Frasier Crane?), but you could still hear it amongst older folks even then – William F. Buckley, John Houseman, etc. It would make some sense that Lecter used it.
That’s a shaky American accent.
Sounded like mid-Atlantic (a.k.a. mid-century American movie star/socialite) to me, which was indeed an artificial accent blending posh American and British speech patterns.
It’s an eccentric upper class English accent that’s leaning very deliberately into its campiness. It’s not quite comic Veidt but it works for Irons’s take.
It’s Jeremy Irons looking like Boris Karloff and sounding like Sean Connery.
he’s moira rose’s second cousin twice removed.
Jeremy Irons has always just spoken however Jeremy Irons chooses too, accents be damned. At this stage in his career it would be fruitless to even try to get him to put on an accent, I think it works as ozymandias though because I truly believe Jeremy Irons thinks he’s the smartest man on earth so he’s really just playing himself here anyways for the most part…
But the video, if it was accurate, was being recorded by Veidt the day before Squidfall. So he would have been, at that moment, at the height of his hubristic arrogance, as his plan was just about to fall into place.It was only after it happened, and after Dr. Manhattan humbled him (even if briefly) and then he still proved victorious, that his doubt manifested. At least, the comic could be read that way.
I’m just not sure why Veidt made the video. His plan only works if nobody knows about the conspiracy. Going by the graphic novel, the only other (surviving) people who knew the truth were Dr Manhattan, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. One left the planet and the other two promised not to say anything and Veidt accepted that. The only thing I can think of is that the video isn’t real. It could be something that the 9th Calvary put together as propaganda since they could have gotten the story from Rorschach’s journal. Otherwise, we’ll just have to accept this isn’t the graphic novel Veidt, but a reinterpreted version who likes to chew scenery and reveal his plots.
Maybe it’s to inform non-readers that Veidt was behind the squidfall? But I think that could be accomplished other ways. Perhaps some pillow talk between Laurie and Petey.
pillow talk between Laurie and Petey.Laurie: Hey Fanboy, lose the latex suite but bring the lube. Petey: (Puts on his mask and salutes in obedience.). . . Afterwards . . . Petey: But nobody is going to see your autograph if you sign there.Laurie: Shut up and roll over on your stomach!
Veidt’s purpose in making the video though is to make Redford complicit.He’s saying 7 years after the fact, “yeah, so the peace you’ve known the past seven years was built on a lie I created. And I know you’re going to want to maintain that peace because otherwise you can’t push your socially more liberal agenda I see eye to eye with. And I also can’t keep up this hoax alone.”Sounds to me like he basically roped the US Govt into maintaining the lie themselves rather than continuing to be the sole person maintaining it. Thus why Keene found out through Appropriations.
Still doesn’t make any sense. The more people that know about a conspiracy, the more likely the truth is going to come out. Eventually, somebody would whistleblow that Adrian Veidt created the squid and the U.S. government covered it up. And Veidt would realize that being the smartest person in the world. There’s no upside to telling anybody else about it.
Note that keeping the deception up forever wasn’t part of the plan anyway. Veidt seems to have badly overestimated his ability to reform society.
The one reason that potentially works is that he knew he needed someone to continue the lie otherwise people would eventually forget, hence blackmailing the president into maintaining the squidfalls.
Which explains the continued squidfalls. Obviously someone had to be keeping those going. At first I was thinking that the government found out independently what really happened (maybe through investigating Rorschach’s allegations) and decided to do what they could to maintain the hoax’s power. But having Ozy tell them to do it also makes sense.
Veidt is telling Redford “I’ve bought world peace with this giant lie. And if you want to make sure the world’s nations don’t eventually bring us to the brink of nuclear destruction again, you’ll need to continue the lie with occasional squid rain.”
I agree his excitement/pride/sociopathy seemed out of character for him, based on what we saw in the comics. But, in the comics, Veidt was in his mid 40s (Irons around Die Hard III) so the aging was fine for me. Especially since it was supposed to be a bootleg of what would have been a SD video from the 80s.
But my point is that the video is from the time of the comics. It’s the day before he launches the squid. I can accept that thirty years on Veidt has changed, especially after being captive on Europa, but the Veidt we see in the video is supposed to be the same guy as in the comics and they seem nothing alike.
Another problem with Veidt here is that his plan depended on secrecy about the artifice involved — after all, this is why Rorschach had to go after promising to tell all — so why would he ever make a video that, if exposed, would unravel the whole thing and make it all for nothing?
Right. The whole point of Veidts scheme was to end the threat of nuclear war by scaring the various world powers into thinking that there was an external threat which they should unite against. Letting a US President, even one as presumably peacenik as Robert Redford, in on the gag would reintroduce the kind of asymmetry which made MAD not work in the Watchmen universe.
Who’s to say he didn’t send a video to Moscow, too. Either way, I think its supposed to be authentic, if only to gives me one thing to be true and ancored in this universe’s mystery box.
Isn’t he in his late 40s in the book? He’s not exactly a spring chicken in ‘85, but I do concede he’s looking a bit older than that in the recording.
I think “nothing ever ends” is referencing the old taoist (buddhist?) parable, where the narrator keeps continuing the story, which makes whether what happens at the beginning is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ keep swapping. [a man breaks his arm, but that means he’s not conscripted into the army, but that means… etc] In the end, the sage points out that the story never ends, so you can never judge whether the initial incident was good or bad.
Veidt’s working on a consequentialist calculus: in the end, do his works do more harm or good? But from Manhattan’s point of view, the question makes no sense, because there is no ‘in the end’ – nothing ever ends. If you judge your morality by the final consequences of your actions, and your actions have infinite consequences and none of them are final, how can you judge at all?
Wasn’t Veidt in his 40’s in the book? The video was set a few years after the ‘event’ I thought? I’ve only watched it once but I thought he said something about seven years? He’s 80 in present day (from Peteypedia) so they wouldn’t have been trying to make him look that young.
There’s no way that video was from 85. Veidt was the same age as he is currently. Veidt made that video fairly recently and it has something to do with why he’s imprisoned on a moon of Jupiter. He said he assumed what is his now prison was going to be a paradise. He either made a deal to reveal the truth, and was duped, or was forced to in exchange for this presumed paradise. There’s other powers to be here. It’s not Veidt that’s keeping the squid falls happening.
He says it’s from 85 though, unless you mean he was lying about when he recorded it? Either way, it had to at least have been in 92 since that’s when Record would have seen it. Unless you think it’s a major hoax and Redford didn’t see it at all in 92?Also, he definitely looks a lot younger in it
That’s a moon of Jupiter not Mars.
Ok I think now I can safely start predicting what is going to happen with near certainty:
When Adrien Veidt went out to spell “Save Me D…” the rest of the message isn’t shown. But what follows the D is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is the only one we can count on in these troubled times and also Veidt’s next pick for President.In order to finish of his fear of the Giant Squid, Looking Glass must go into cardiac arrest and kill it in the afterlife.Lube Man is Doctor Manhattan, or everyone is Doctor Manhattan. Except Panda.Angela’s husband was the real murderer of that kid from Broadchurch.Angela is a clone of that baby who survived Tulsa. Or Senator Keene is a clone of his father. Look at least someone’s a clone all right!Laurie Blake just does what she wants.Tom Mison will sometimes go into PTSD induced breakdowns over the last few seasons of Sleepy Hollow still. So forgive him if it looks like he was crying.The Seventh Cavalry are using the teleporter to make some sweet trick shots in basketball. Or to give themselves the advantage they think they need over black people at the game.
Everything in this post is 100% confirmed true.
Except Tom Mison wasn’t crying, that was just a hyper-localized rainstorm right under his eyes. They’ve very common on the moons of Jupiter.
The Seventh Cavalry was originally formed by disgruntled Washington Generals players looking for revenge.
So the 7th Kavalry are the Washington Generals?
WORST. CLUE boardgame. PLAYER. EVER.
“Clair de Lune” plays in the background as he uses the corpses of his former servants to spell out “save me” on the rock’s surface
Actually, it spells “SAVE ME D”, cutting right before we could see if there were more letters. So, it’s either Adrian not being able to finish the message before being yanked back to his prison, or knowing that the person he was trying to communicate with would get the message was to him/her just with the “D”. Now, since “Doctor”, as in “Doctor Manhattan” is too obvious, my bet is, absurd as it is, “Dreiberg”. For reasons yet to be revealed, Adrian expects the message being picked by the sattelite and seen by Dan Dreiberg, the second “Nite Owl”, wherever he is on Earth (and no, I’m not buying the “Dreiberg is im prison” FBI story).
I think it was SAVE ME DAN which would a, make sense to the people it needed to, and B, a lot easier to write in flattened clone-corpse language than DREIBERG.
They made good use of SS2, so it keeping Dan around for what he does best seem not to outlandish.
The reveal that Wade has a second mask specifically for wearing at home might’ve been the best moment of this show thus far.
You mentioned Lady Trieu dosing her daughter with a liquid form of Nostalgia, but …That’s totally her clone, right? Slowly giving her memories, grooming her to run the company … It’s as close to immortality as she can get.
Last episode for some reason I figured she was her clone. Now I’m more sure of it.
I also suspect that this Lady Trieu is a clone of a previous Lady Trieu.
She could also be a Veidt cultist like the the North Vietnamese refugees Ozymandias poisoned.
Sounds right, good call.This adds an extra layer to her conversion with the couple she gave the baby, too.
If you needed a reason to watch Watchmen, to binge Watchmen,
to immerse yourself into Watchmen,
Episode Little Fear of Lightning is your calling.
This season of Watchmen has been like the intrepidness of riding a
rollercoaster: You get on and fasten in, the car slowly makes its way
down the route(speeding up a bit, slowing a bit, bumpy slow turns),
then you begin to elevate while your anticipation escalates as you
look around and take in the totality of what you’re about to endure
-not really capturing the big picture….until the bottom drops out
from under you as you white-knuckle the safety bar
-Watchmen has engulfed you, has taken you in, and you will not
stop until Watchmen has decided to be done with you.
The cloned dog being put down reminded me of a similar scene in The Giver – which might connect to the transmission of memories in the nostalgia pills.
Knew it that the Senator and Judd were in on the calvary the whole time as they had us going there that the cavalry was more noble than we thought. So many unanswered questions and can of worms, so few episodes left to explain it all.
Veidt message was actually cut off it read “Save Me D.”
I was thinking “Save me Dr” If Manhattan imprisoned him then why would he be asking him to save him?
Also why he imprison him and why wait till only 4 years ago?
I saw that too! and if the message was meant for Manhattan, why would he need a satellite to see it? I think that’s a Trieu Industries satellite (they mention a Trieu orbital array in the Laurie phone booth episode) which makes me think he’s calling Lady Trieu for help… but then what word starting with D does the Save Me message end with ???
Unless it’s much longer and is “Save me Dr Manhattan has imprisoned me on this moon”
“Save me Dr. Manhattan has imprisoned me on this moo”
Ozymandias: Damn. One body short of being rescued.
Bending back through the “wall” into the meadow, “Mr. Phillips! Can you please come over here?”Also, I’m calling the male clones Phillippians.
“Save me, Dr. Manhattan has imprisoned me on this moo” Damn, should have skipped the comma…
Lady Trieu: Oh shit, Veidt is imprisoned on a cattle farm!
if it was a “moo” then he’d be on Io not Europaman I’m on fire this week
NASA employee: That’s no moo!
Those servants really needs to unionize
Save me Dan, aka Nite Owl II.
It’s not a “D”, it’s “Save me ;D”, because Veidt is a saucy lad.
I assumed it said “Save Me, Dickheads!”
Could it be, “Save Me Dan”?
Possibly Dan now works for Lady Trieu, so he would see the message through her satellite? As far as we know, Dan is still in jail from when he and Laurie were caught in the early 90s, But Lady Trieu would seem to have the influence to have him released or the power to break/sneak him out.
Possibly Dan now works for Lady Trieu, so he would see the message through her satellite? As far as we know, Dan is still in jail from when he and Laurie were caught in the early 90s, But Lady Trieu would seem to have the influence to have him released or the power to break/sneak him out.
Dan was my first thought but I dismissed it thinking what could he do.But thinking more makes sense if Adrian got him out and Dan worked for him. Because Dan knows the Squid plan and kept quite. We have the where of Adrian’s imprisonment but the why is still key. He said this week that he thought it would be a paradise. Think what happened 4 years ago is going to explain a lot.
Dreiberg is currently in Federal custody. He and Laurie were caught foiling the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. Laurie cut a deal and is now FBI. Dan did not. Veidt would know that.
Our only source for that, I believe, is Agent Petey’s memo about Rorshach’s Journal. Reading it again now, I find it a bit suspicious: “Dreiberg, now in federal custody, has steadfastly refused to speak to the Bureau about
“Rorschach’s Journal,” or anything, for that matter.” Could he be not speaking to the Bureau about anything because Lady Trieu or Dr. Manhattan broke him out and then covered it up? Possibly replacing him with a clone or simulacrum that doesn’t actually know anything?
Why in the world would Dan save Adrian?
For Old Times’ Sake?
Maaaaaybe? I mean, I’m not sure how Dan would even do that. He’s in prison and he’s got to be pretty old by now, and likely in not great physical shape. Plus, while he didn’t reveal what Adrian did in 85, he sure didn’t like it all that much. I do want to see Dan again but it feels a bit of a reach to have Dan be the person Adrian is reaching out to.
I’m thinking maybe Lady Trieu broke Dan out of prison and he works for her now, which would enable him to see Adrian through the Trieu satellite and also give him access to technology that might enable him to rescue Adrian. I’m probably wrong, but it’s a fun idea, and I do hope we see Dan.
Narrator: “He was wrong.”
I think President Redford imprisoned him. It was probably some sort of betrayal after they had been secretly working together.
I’m thinking it says SAVE ME DAMNIT
Hey Nite Owl 2 invented a spaceship right? Maybe it’s “Save Me Dan”
or “Save Me Dammit” lol
Do we know Lady Trieu’s first name?
SAVE ME D’OBI WAN KENOBI YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE
Save me. Duh.
I’ve been thinking about this and I think it has to be a D we’re not expecting.Interestingly enough, Senator Keene’s full name is J. David Keene.
I think it’s “Save me Dale Petey” personally. Veidt knows he’s stuck on Europa and what better way to get unstuck than to ask for probable Lube Man’s help.
I assumed he was asking President Redford for help.
“Save me Dan Dreiberg”
I’m thinking if Dr. Manhattan did imprison him, maybe it’s to keep him off of Earth to stir anymore trouble?
“To Whom it May Concern: I, Adrian Veidt, bid you hello! You don’t know me, though you may have heard of me, but that’s not the point. Long story short… I need helf”
Or “Save Me Dan.”
Veidt appears to be on Europa, the moon of Jupiter (the giant planet looming over), which is the most likely place for complex life to exist in our solar system (beneath the ice). I’m fascinated by the idea that Manhattan would anchor a pocket universe to Europa and it’s now heavily implied he created the ‘servants’ and imprisoned Adrian.What a zig-zag from the idea that Adrian might be on either Earth’s Moon or Mars, as they’d falsely alluded to through previous visuals.
found this little nugget in the new peteypedia entries from a Petey memo about the Minutemen TV show covering Silk Spectre’s backstory:“Contrary to how we’ve told this story in the past — a dim chorus that
includes myself — this was not ‘an attempted rape.’ It was, simply and criminally, a sexual assault,
period, full stop. It’s time we adopted this as our official language.”Dale Petey said FUCK RAPE CULTURE. peteypedia is an absolute treat so you can run and tell that.
Petey tries to hard and he’s a dweeb, but he appears to be the closest thing this story has to a good guy.
What are the odds he’s LubeGuy? 50/50?
Way higher. I’d say at least 69%.
Nice.
I was going for naughty, but I’ll take it.
Take the rest of the week off. You’ve done more than your share here today.
#1 – Nice. #2 – If you need lube in a 69, something has gone terribly wrong.
That didn’t cross my mind. He’s certainly lanky enough to slube into a storm drain.
SLUBE
“It’s time we adopted this as our official language.”“Oh, that belt? That’s for my Lube Man suit.”
as far as I’m concerned this is canon dialogue
Petey is also a hardline conservative. LAYERS!
Been rereading the novel and had a similar thought that bothered me. Everyone talks about attempted rape while ignoring the fact that he also beat the shit out of her. A crime was committed, not just attempted.
Good lord, how many people in this comment section can’t tell the difference between Mars and Jupiter??
Excellent reviews/recaps! Seems I can’t think of an episode as being over until I come here and get filled in. One small, stupid detail (that I’m sure someone else has already highlighted), it’s a moon of Jupiter, not Mars. Probably Europa, but who knows?
In the Peteypedia file on American Hero Story, Petey mentions that Sally Jupiter’s one woman show was called “Baby, This is Tops,” which if I recall correctly, is a line from the Silk Spectre Tijuana Bible seen in the comic.
How much CGI do you think it took to make Looking Glass’ face? Do they actually have a material that’s flexible but looks that shiny on camera, or is he wearing blue mesh that they project a texture over?Either way, it looks amazing. This show has some of the best superhero costuming I’ve ever seen.
It’s apparently totally CGI, since a real mirrored mask would reflect all the cameras and crew.
Okay, makes sense.
And also a real mask like that would be hard to breath through.Are the secret identities of the police officers basically an open secret?
Also, because he had such trouble seeing, they cut holes in it and digitally erased them.
For some shots, probably at a distance they just use a stretchy silver lamé. Which can be somewhat see through so he can probably get by. For close up and extra shiny it’s cgi altered. I read an interview with the costumer.
Either way, it looks amazing. This show has some of the best superhero costuming I’ve ever seen.For real, they put such care into the costumes. But Looking Glass’s mask is next-level good.
Jeremy Irons’ portrayal of Veidt is my only real issue with this show right now. I was willing to maybe write off the way he’s acting as the product of his isolation, but in the 1985 videotape he was behaving in the exact same way. Veidt was a reserved, studious presence, not Irons’ borderline manic presence.
I always read Adrian as sort of a clean-cut bon vivant, what with his tendency to give saucy interviews to lifestyle magazines and show off his acrobatic skills on TV. So Irons’s basic affect seemed right to me.I was more skeptical of the specific content of his video, how this guy who built a pyramid of death to conceal the truth behind his master plan was suddenly monologuing like a Republic serial villain. If Veidt had schemed so cleverly to maneuver Redford into the presidency, surely he could’ve found a way to get RR on board with his utopian plans without blabbing the one story that could bring them all crashing down!
Megalomania aside, he seems to have misread Redford critically given the article about Veidts death talks about Redford souring on Veidt after the election.Anyways I read him as a guy, who do love his monologues but think the flaw is when they are given. Anyways the triggering flaw here was an misestimation of a Democrats decency and a Republicans thirst after power
His ego wouldn’t allow no-one to know he did it. His name’s Ozymandias after all; his hubris is built into his name
Yeah I always thought that it didn’t quite fit the original story that he’d be willing to go without any recognition for what he did, I think this works pretty well although maybe you could argue that this would probably be more for the absolute upper echelon of government rather than any newly elected senator.
I always thought that was his biggest reason for letting Dan and Laurie live in the book–that there were at least two people alive that recognized what he had done.
Oh definitely, but I can imagine that not being enough for him eventually, maybe making the video we see in the show before dropping the squid, thinking it might be a bit too much, then going back to it years later after feeling like Dan and Laurie wasn’t enough and deciding to give it to Redford.
And right before he kills his subordinates, he laments how he won’t receive the “great reward” owed him for his brilliant stroke. Now, do I think Irons’-as-younger-Veidt completely worked? Maybe not completely. It still felt a tiny bit off to me. Like, he could’ve reined it in just a bit. Do I buy the futurist eventually using the government to keep his lie going? I think so, especially at that point when Veidt was likely a major player on the world stage and could make or break Redford’s presidency. (I so hope Redford shows up. You know he’d love this kind of role.)
I think he’s only blabbing because he knows Redford is the type who WOULD keep the lie going if only because exposing it would undo everything he was wanting to do. The same reason Dan/Laurie went along with it; because they recognize the necessity of the lie. And Veidt is offloading the responsibility for keeping up the lie onto the US govt.
But isn’t one of the original comic’s main criticisms of Adrian—and of superheroes in general—the fact that they aren’t willing to offload responsibility onto other people? After all, the novel ends by drawing a stark contrast between this superhero who thought he had to be the one to commit this horrific act to save humanity, and an average slob at a newspaper who would be given the choice whether to let him get away with it. It would kind of push against that ending if Adrian had intended all along to tell the feds, “I leave it entirely in your hands.”Now, I agree that if Adrian were to tell anyone, it would be someone like Redford, who’s also a larger-than-life superhero in his own way instead of an average slob. But the comic gives the sense that he’s assumed all the Great Man responsibility for the plan himself. It’s not like he tells the other superheroes on purpose to get their buy-in; they figured it out themselves and confronted him, after Veidt supposedly recorded his message for Redford.I would honestly feel much less skeptical about Veidt’s recording if it had been framed as something he composed following the squidfall, after being haunted by Dr. Manhattan’s warning that nothing ever ends and worrying that he might need some other Great Man to carry on his quest if something ever happened to him. Framing it as his plan all along is what doesn’t feel right to me.
Also, his presidency would be exposed to be faux from the start.
Presidents tend to do the bidding of those who get them into power. Some more cleverly, some less so.
That video, if real, is really, really stupid. Both as a thing Veidt would do and as a plot device. It’s an absurdly direct and clunky way for Veidt to act, and….it’s just a huge plot device that gets everyone from A->B. “Here’s this video where a mastermind explains everything.”
I think the video has to be real, although maybe made later than Veidt says it was. Some techs in the Watchmen universe are more advanced that we have now, but they’re behind in IT. We haven’t seen any evidence that anybody’s capable of doing convincing deepfakes.As for whether it’s stupid, it’s not obvious that the deception could be kept up forever — Laurie just assumes that the government will have already figured it out by the time of her arrest — nor that it needed to be. Finding out that the alien attack wasn’t real doesn’t suddenly make blowing up the world a sensible strategic choice. It wasn’t sensible before the squid attack either, but that was an outcome of a suddenly destabilized strategic situation. And Veidt doesn’t really want the US throwing billions of dollars away at defense from a non-existent threat.
He comes off like John Carradine in a really bad totally great movie. Like in Vampire Men of the Lost Planet where he plays a know it all scientist who calmly informs space control that his spaceship has been damaged and their oxygen supply is critically low. While smoking a cigarette.
I agree. For President Day/trapped on Europa Viedt I was willing to let Irons’s grumpy old man schtick slide because he would be a grumpy old man by this point. But that he portrays him basically the same way with the same mannerisms in 1985 means he just does not have a handle on the character. Like you say he was supposed to be reserved and serene. This is maybe taking it too far but I’ve thought that Owen Wilson would be really interesting casting for the Veidt of the novel. I see him as a sort of regal hippy type
I was confused at Keene suddenly being the head of the Kalvary, given how one tried to kill him with a real bomb at Jud’s funeral. And why then did the Kalvary start the war again by killing the cop and sending out the video that they were back? Was Keene not their leader then? When Keene told Wade he and Jud were the leaders of the militia and police, respectively, to keep an uneasy truce, Wade replied that he was lying. Could this Keene be a clone meant to have gotten Angela out of the Kalvary’s sights. Does that mean they’re working with Trieu?
Good episode but the episode spent to much time at the beginning redundantly recounting Wade’s trauma over and over again; we got it the first time. Great scene between Nelson and Malcomson, when the ep picked up sparks.I like the show toggling btwn pop and classical music.I guess I didn’t pay close attention to the previous episodes because I thought the squid attack as a hoax was generally known, found out in the show’s timeline after the events of the graphic novel ended; wasn’t it mentioned in Rorschach’s published journals? But keeping it a secret from the world at large is intriguing and thematically worked as a kick in the teeth to Wade and his trauma. Hope he doesn’t die!
You couldn’t tell from that episode that the whole kidnapping thing was hogwash?
Seems unnecessary and dangerous to you and your leader to strap on a real bomb tied to your chest for a fake kidnapping.
Well, you’re one of the only ones who didn’t see it. I mean the bomb didn’t even work like he said it would – dead man switch.
Didn’t it? When Angela shot him, he was writhing, about to die, and the bomb did go off.Okay, I can accept it was a fake kidnapping so nobody would suspect Keene of being their leader, but, realistically, I don’t think the guy would have a bomb on him. Then that choice was only for audience effect. which, don’t get wrong, worked.
Crackpot idea:the bomb was connected to neither the kidnapper’s hand trigger nor his heart, instead Reese had a remote and detonated it as soon as everyone was save. Or some variation thereof. Don’t ask me for the why though, as I’m still 90% unsure what the fuck is going on in the bigger picture.
Yeah, so far I don’t understand 7K’s motivation. Why would they want to looked at closely by Tulsa PD if they have a major plan underway? Did the 7K member who shot the Tulsa officer in the first episode do it impulsively? Or was it some part of a plan? If it was impulsive, wouldn’t 7K want to surrender up that member immediately in the hopes of keeping some kind of uneasy alliance? Why make a tape antagonizing Tulsa PD? It seems as if Keene is suggesting the murder of Judd is what is tipping the scales and screwing up the truce as opposed to the shooting of a Tulsa police officer.
Because he had a bunch of illegal stuff if he was caught with would shed light on their plans. How can you not get that?
The ‘keeping the peace’ thing is a lie, Wade calls Keene on it straight away. We won’t know their motives until we know their end game. I have a sinking feeling though that the logistics of this plan are not going to fall into place quite right and some of this stuff is just ‘action set piece’ that won’t make much sense on further scrutiny. It won’t matter that much though if their ultimate aim is strong enough and ties it all together thematically, but it really has to stick that landing.
The 7K could never offer up their member that killed the cop because he committed suicide in the first episode.
7th Cavalry’s activities since the first episode could easily be explained by internal factionalism. Someone near to leadership has discovered Keene’s identity and is making a power play. It wouldn’t even have to involve exposing Keene directly to the rest of the group: all it would take would be sewing dissension about Keene’s policies as a leader, then acting against those policies.
7K seems to be of two minds. The street level bomb building thuggery and those in power pulling their strings. To me it feels like the whole 7K vs Tulsa PD/heroes bit is all to keep the ppl in Tulsa occupied with infighting. Police gets shot. Judd escalates taking the security measures off of their fire arms…
Judd wasn’t murdered for being police. He was murdered for being a racist in secret. His murder a shot at those in power (someone knows their game) not the street level stuff. At least thats what I gleaned from Lou Gosset’s dialogue at the scene. That Judd’s death was about older wounds than the White Night, which is why he was lynched. We’ve got the “win” in Vietnam and the Tulsa massacre as backdrops currently.
Thats why Judd’s murder was bigger than the cop killing. Keene gets that whoever killed Judd wasn’t aiming at Police. They were aiming at the bigger play thats coming.
It is kind of weird, but the 7K member shot the officer in order to protect whatever was in the truck from being discovered. Making the video etc, who knows
The copy of Rorschach’s journal that would have made it out into rightwing media didn’t include anything about the squid. Rorschach mailed it right before leaving for Antarctica, so it would have simply named Veidt as responsible for framing Manhattan.
Remember, Rorschach mailed his journal before he and Nite Owl went to the Arctic. He knew Veidt was behind something, but didn’t know that he would drop a hoxed interdimensional invasion on New York.
The journal was sent to the far right crank newspaper The New Frontiersman. No one believed it was real except far right cranks like the 7K.
FAKE NEWS!!!
The music has been outstanding in general, but I have to give incredible credit to whoever engineered the needle drop to Sturgill Simpson’s “Turtles All The Way Down” as Wade follows the woman from the support group to the bar (then playing behind the entire scene in the bar). That was just sublime.
My impression of the vegetable truck shooting was that this was spontaneous. The driver seemed pissed to have been stopped by the cops and reacted with violence when it looked like he was going to get arrested. We also don’t know what their plan is. Keene didn’t just come down to take control of the 7k and keep a lid on their violence. He and Judd were going for something and perhaps announcing the return to the world was part of that.
Damned clones. Is this going to become like the first season of Westworld where every pet fan theory revolved around “so-and-so is really a robot”?First, now that we know Abar’s grandfather isn’t really disabled, his claim that he killed Judd becomes more credible.Second, Keene’s deception depends on no one within the 7th Cavalry knowing that he’s a member. Just like Veidt’s faked assault in the original novel depended on the hitman knowing that Veidt had ordered his own hit.
I didn’t pick up on that parallel. Another example of the show “remixing” the source material in a good way.
“First, now that we know Abar’s grandfather isn’t really disabled, his claim that he killed Judd becomes more credible.”
Nice find, I almost had forgotten about that.
Kavalry, sir.
Ha! It’s not a word I’ve used much, or even a little, before.
The war with the police starting up was probably meant to act as a distraction for whatever it was they plan to do, and with the chief of police as their leader it would have in theory been easy to control were it not for him getting murdered and all.The bomb was likely a false flag operation that helps out some pretty big distance between Keene and the 7 K, I’m guessing he had faith in getting through it since there was an entire police force to stop it, probably the safest way to publicly stage a fair assassination attempt…Right now Keene doesn’t need Angela or Laurie getting too close to whatever they’ve got going on so he wanted looking glass to help throw them both off the scent.Its been established pretty firmly in the TV show that Rorschach’s journal is considered crackpot conspiracy theory material by the majority and the 7K are seen as a fringe terrorist group who believe in it, like a militarised version of Qanon (as well as obvious KKK comparisons) but in comic canon Rorschach also filled his diary with horrible far right propaganda, sent it to a conspiracy theory filled far right newspaper and did so before going to Antarctica and learning about veidts plan so it makes total sense that nobody really bought any of it and that even those that did would still potentially be willing to believe the squid was real (not all I guess but some) until someone like Keene has better evidence of the truth.
The general theory is that Keene’s kidnapping was staged. Based on both the graphic novel “Watchmen” and some of the peteypedia stuff it seems like the average person doesn’t know and doesn’t think that Veidt was behind 11/2. There are some who think this but they’re dismissed as conspiracy theorists. Rohrshach’s Journal was published in some obscure right wing publication and was also mostly dismissed as kooky conspiracy theory stuff
“I was confused at Keene suddenly being the head of the Kalvary, given how one tried to kill him with a real bomb at Jud’s funeral.”At this point of the show (even before this episode’s reveal that Keene is in the Kalvary), it appears that the kidnapping was faked to make Keene look good. If Laurie hadn’t shot the bomber, likely Keene later would have escaped and been the hero.
I figured Lady Triue’s daughter is her clone and she’s feeding the clone her memories. For some reason I had three idea she was a clone last episode.
Do we have a Chekhov’s clone situation? I’m trying way too hard to be clever. What I’m wondering for the first time is whether we can expect to see an army (school? murder?) of Viedts.Red Scare had a throwaway line about time travel, but I don’t see that happening.I’ve read about four recaps of this ep, and none even mention what’s supposed to be the plot’s big reveal. The Senator replies to LG’s question about dropping a squid on Tulsa that the Kavalry is interested in something more original, a *strong* hint that it’s equally nefarious. I presume it will be up to Sister Night, Blake and Petey to stop their dastardly plan in the season finale.Overall, I liked this episode the least.Yes, we got a devastatingly effective backstory for LG. But there’s no way Sister Night would be so careless in disclosing her secret to LG damn near within earshot of Blake and lots of other rank-and-file cops just interested in revenge. I find it equally improbable that Blake would tell LG his desk is bugged without having some kind of leverage against him.
Good review. The planet in the background of the moon he was on looked like Jupiter to me, not Mars. Though the whole show has tied everything so closely to the comics, I’m not sure what Jupiter has to do with anything. I was a little thrown off by the Nostalgia thing. As a perfume it was an integral part of the comic, and I got they were doing the perfume testing at the end… but it seemed a little too cute by half to have it also be the name of a plot macguffin that (seemingly) has nothing to do with the perfume… unless it *was* created by Trieu and she named it that as a homage or something.
This episode was amazing. Tim Blake Nelson is blowing it out of the park as Looking Glass. And he just became the most sympathetic character on the show.Also he has distractingly nice hair lol. Anyway i wonder just where the hell dr. Manhattan actually is. Certainly no where near *Jupiter. Seems like he created that warden to monitor Veight and bounced. Veight clearly thinks this too as he believes someone ( Trieu?) can get to him and get him out of there before Manhattan notices. Speaking of Lady Trieu, im not almost certain Bian is her clone, not her daughter and she created Nostalgia and is using it to transfer all her memories to Bian, so she can live “forever”.
We know Angela was a suspect. I now say Lube Man was Petey luring her into chasing him while they recovered the evidence (wheelchair & KKK hood) she had just discarded. That’s why he was equipped with just a single escape move, and dressed weird for weird’s sake.
From the memo on RORSCHACH’s JOURNAL, which is on Wiki Petey, which is an awesome trove of supporting docs and such: These actions were in service of either protecting or fulfilling a mysterious project, one that
might have involved a private island staffed with artists, writers, and scientists. According to testimony given
to Rorschach by Jacobi, Blake understood the goal of the project, and it disturbed him so much that it drove
him to moral outrage and despair, ironic dispositions for a man known for being cold, glib, and nihilistic to his
core. (For the record, Blake’s official cause of death is listed as “suspected suicide.”)
You guys got it all wrong. Lube Man isn’t Petey. Lube Man is actually Dancing Pumpkin Man from Omaha.
Gee, thanks, Omaha.
Interesting. I did consider Petey might be Laurie’s personal superhero, doing recon while on the case… though he was pretty obvious and out in the open for that. Considering there is a scene right after Lube Man of Petey walking ashamedly into Laurie’s office while Angela is there, it does seem very likely Petey is the Lube-ster.
This show involves a pretty hefty suspension of disbelief, but he “memory pills” thing is just fucking stupid.
Nah man that’s a dumb line to draw
You were fine with Lube Guy but not memory pills? O-kay.
Hell yeah. That shot of him sliding into a grate was as incredible as it was hilarious. Plus “slippery dude slides easily” is plausible – there’s easily a dozen stupider things in the show where I’ve willfully suspended disbelief for the sheer joy of it. Eating someone’s memories in pill form just feels like a terrible plot device in what’s been an otherwise stellar season.
a giant squid with weaponized bad vibes teleporting in from another dimension is realistic though
My pet theory is that it’s an offshoot of the technology Veidt developed to encode the horror artists’ information into the squid’s brain.
it felt meta when Trieu said the pills were “passive-aggressive exposition”
And that Will’s response was “it’s better if she sees it herself (showing!) instead of telling her”
Psychic squids, blue humanoid gods and Vietnam as the US’s 51st state is fine BUT MEMORY PILLS ARE A BRIDGE TOO FAR…. Ok hoomer
You’re ok with men creating a giant squid and teleporting it into New York City, causing a psychic explosion, but pills containing memories is a bridge too far?
Creating a giant squid that somehow produces a psychic blast wave that kills millions is fine though?
I get the feeling we’re gonna get left hanging, pun intended, on whether Looking Glass is still alive if next week’s episode is primarily a “Nostalgia Trip” with Angela.Im thinking he’ll still be alive, though they may make it look like he was murdered or taken. It’s too risky leaving him knowing what he knows plus they probably think they can fully convert him.
I find it refreshing to see that HBO has guts to stay true to the source material. Zack Snyder’s thinking that a giant psychic squid might be too much for movie audiences to swallow. But for fans of the original graphic novel, we felt cheated. Thank you, HBO, for not dumbing it down.
The squid scene was chilling, actually raised goosebumps. Also who would have thought Looking Glass would turn out to be quite endearing instead of the cold weirdo that would be the more obvious route.
Keene’s going to bring Dr. Manhattan back and become President. MAGA like it was in 85 under Nixon.
Now with a nuke free Russia.
Trieu’s “daughter” is her clone. She’s dosing her with Nostalgia so that she has the same experiences as her and thus will be a suitable replacement for her.
“I think you remember me and my country. I think you remember us as long as you live!”If Lady Trieu is the Comedian’s child, as many have theorized, then these were her mother’s last words to the Comedian in the graphic novel, right before she’s shot.So much focus has been given to why Dr. Manhattan didn’t stop the Comedian from shooting this unnamed Vietnamese woman, and what the Comedian says to Dr. M after he shoots her, that her final words are forgotten, and are seldom mentioned in any synopsis or critique of that scene.Yet her final words take on more significance in the context of Lady Trieu’s plan to force everyone to experience a shared, collective memory or trauma (if the theories about Lady Trieu’s plans are correct). The revelation that Will’s pills are encapsulated memories further confirms this.I’m loving this show!
Yup! This is it. This is the one. I think you’re right about where the show will ultimately go. 100% all-in for this theory.
Can Dr. Trieu really be The Comedian’s daughter if, as in the comic, he shot the Vietnamese woman with the unborn child still inside her, killing them both? I thought that was how the story went.
Yes, in the graphic novels, Blake did kill the woman. Then he points out to Dr. Manhattan that he could’ve stopped the shooting but he didn’t because he no longer cares about humanity. Blake leaves, but the final panel shows Dr. Manhattan standing over the dead woman’s body, appearing to be deep in thought. We never see him leaving the body there. Later in the graphic novels, Laurie manages to persuade Dr. Manhattan that human life, a “thermodynamic miracle” is worth saving. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Dr. Manhattan could’ve gone back in time to save the woman’s child, given what his powers are. Considering that Lindeloff has already taken a few liberties with the original Watchmen story (Hooded Justice and Adrian Veidt), it wouldn’t be unusual for him to expand on this storyline as well. I have to think that the Vietnamese woman’s final words about “remembering” and Lady Trieu’s interest in memory is more than just coincidental at this point. If it’s not explicitly shown in the TV show, I’m assuming that Lindeloff’s idea for Lady Trieu’s plan was at least inspired by the woman’s final words in the graphic novels.
I certainly hope she isn’t the Comedians daughter. This isn’t Star Wars with its tiny, tiny universe, after all.
If Lady Trieu is the Comedian’s child, as many have theorized, then these were her mother’s last words to the Comedian in the graphic novel, right before she’s shot.This thought hadn’t occurred to me, but…damn.
After 4 episodes, i’m sure this is how all fan favorite graphic novel adaptations should be done. Unless of course, it’s done over ten years, MCU style. But anything less than that, they’re all definitely meant for a prestige drama premium cable min-series treatment. V for Vendetta.The Dark Knight Returns.The Sandman.Miracleman.The Dark Phoenix Saga.How awesome would any or all of these be, executed with the same care, seriousness and budget? For any streaming service, It would be like printing money. After this series, Damon could go back and try doing the original Watchmen graphic novel, too.
Y: the last man belongs on that list too!
That’s already in production, isn’t it?
This was really excellent. The opening scene was fantastic and erased the last of the craptastic movie from my viewing palate. The squid looked AWESOME.
*Jupiter’s moons
How do you not reference “Squid Pro Quo”? The writers have probably been giggling for weeks every time the President tweets no quid pro quo
OMG I thought the same thing, the timing of real-life ridiculousness and bullsh*t has met the fictional world in which it appeared to be a silly, crazy concept, but, lo and behold…it’s not.it’s the scary wacky world we now live in. LOL! (Because, what else do I say? “Laughing so hard I’m trying not to cry at the terrifying false-world we’re now residing in”?)
Some of this series’ callbacks to the original novel are so subtle I’m even not sure the producers did them on purpose. When we saw Veidt piling up the corpses of the clones to spell out his message, did anyone else think of the scene from “The Black Freighter” (the story-within-the-story for newbies) where the shipwrecked main character lashes together the corpses of his former mates to make a life raft?
I actually thought about the final season of the STARZ Spartacus series when Spartacus and his loyalists used a shit-ton of frozen corpses to build a bridge over a moat to escape.
So I wasn’t imagining that, thanks. It’s been quite a while since I read that.
See, if this were any other show and any other creators behind it? Yeah, I’d take it as coincidence, but these other episodes have been so chock-full of “logical endpoint” choices that I’m almost certain it was intentional. The Black Freighter’s really Adrien’s story anyway so I’m sure they had to have made the choice to mirror it in some way.
It is Jupiter.
The opening sequence was so good. I loved the depiction of the monster’s dying psychic scream and its aftermath, evocative of the corpse-piled MSG from the book. Also, loved all the single-eye imagery leading up to the actual depiction of Adrian’s beast: the camera close-up of Wade’s eye, the knot top girl’s eye reflected in her compact mirror, and the eye-ball-like visage of the giant ferris wheel as the camera pulls away from Hoboken. This show goes all-in on the details. The squid’s aerial depiction was an illuminating addition to the street level perspective the book provided for ground zero, and Wade’s story gives us the direct perspective of a survivor, in contrast with the book that only gave Jon and Laurie’s brief view of the carnage in aftermath.
I loved how the squid’s eye was behind Veidt and he didn’t yet (although we may flash back to more of this video…which should have looked more staticky and 80s) point and say “That’s the squid’s eye!!!!!”
I loved this cold open. It may be my favorite one yet, other than the brilliant and unexpected start to the first episode. It was almost like a brilliant stand alone short film in and of itself, but given so much resonance by all the connections to the graphic novel. Though I’ve loved this whole series this far that sequence was the one that felt the MOST like the source graphic novel, like it truly could’ve been taken directly from it, both in terms of the story but also in terms of the visual aesthetics and motifs. The pull out to show the immediate aftermath of the squid attack and the way that was portrayed was one of the most incredible visuals I’ve ever seen on any television show, and a far greater depiction of that part of the graphic novel than I thought we’d ever get. But at the same time it was a fascinating origin story for a brand new character that isn’t even in the book
Makes you wonder who Veidt was hoping would see his gruesome SOS on the moon of a far away planet? His use of corpses as a means of rescue definitely took me back to the Black Freighter. The castaway there used a raft of dead bodies to escape his exile. In a way, the Veidt sequences in the show had been filling the same ‘unrelated but related’ purpose of the Black Freighter sequences in the comic. But it looks like the show is taking it further as stories seem like their bound to intersect. I wonder if at some point we’ll see the real Robert Redford play himself. Too on the nose?
For Metropolis’s sake, I hope Hooded Justice was the original Lube Man.
Great recap, Joelle—just wanted to point out that the planet Adrian is orbiting is actually Jupiter, if we’re judging from the surface features. Maybe he’s on the icy Europa.Also how about that Michael Imperioli cameo in the New York commercial??
Ozymandias is imprisoned on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter -and- Laurie Blake = Laurie Juspeczyk = Laurie Jupiter = The daughter of Sally Jupiter = I just ran out of push pins and string for my conspiracy board. I have not idea what it means.
Forgive me if this has already been answered, either by the show or by others in the forum, but can someone explain if the reason that Looking Glass is “psychic” or at least an “empath” and able to read if people are lying or not is because he is a survivor of the “psychic blast” by the giant squid on 11/2? And, if that’s the case, seeing that the “squid explosion” was a hoax, how can this be?I’ve read the graphic novel a few times and have seen the Snyder movie a few times as well, although that’s a different version of the story. I like to think understand the original story at least.
I’m afraid this show might be dumb.
can’t be dumber than AHS
so much to think about here – thanks for another insightful recounting
I burst out laughing at at least 3 or 4 of the musical choices. also: “we even rigged the lettuce” lmao THIS IS A SHOW FOR LITTLE BABIES
Instead of making Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg directed Pale Horse, depicting the horrors of 11/2. This is a creative way of expressing the fear that grips this society.
Oof. That seems like one of those details that’s like…no.
hey
Is it the case that people that were within the psychic blast zone and survived now have certain psychic talents? It seems LG may have gotten them from the blast.
Nostalgia by Veight was in the original novel. You can see it in several ads in the background. IIRC, It was the experimental drug created from the brain of a psychic. The same brain, and the drug created therein, was cloned and genetically mutated to be the brain inside the alien squid. The creature’s death created a “Psychic Blast” that caused 11-2.
With every episode I hope for Ozy’s story to catch up with the modern days just so I can find out what the heck is going on with him. Right now I can accept that Dr. Manhattan created the clones and the warden, however none of it is in his style or Ozy’s for that matter. If Veidt was an actual threat to peace and therefore life on Earth, Dr. Manhattan probably would have just…atomized him. So I dunno, I have no idea what the big pay off is going to be for Ozy’s tale. He has now been seen by a satellite though, so it’s fair to assume that Redford knows that Ozy is off world, and if portal technology really DOESN’T summon squids, I would not be that surprised if it is used to bring Ozy home.
If Veidt was an actual threat to peace and therefore life on Earth, Dr. Manhattan probably would have just…atomized him. .Except that Manhattan can see forwards in time, and if he has some reason to believe Adrian is needed to play some part in future events, then he might just stick him in that terrarium until he was needed (knowing exactly when he would escape, and how).
I would disagree with that. Manhattan was shown having future knowledge in the graphic novel, it was also demonstrated on several occasions that he cannot act on that knowledge. The show could interpret this differently, however it’s still going to conflict a bit with the graphic novel’s depictions.
That doesn’t really make sense though — he may not be able to change future events, but that doesn’t mean he’s not already a part of how they occur. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all, ever.
Dr. Manhattan could see all “time” because he can see the actual literal panels of the comic. I think he actually says time is a series of static “moments” people just put in order to interpret them, and he couldn’t see what would happen in the future because the novel ended there.
Got around to watching this tonight. As someone who was so incredulous about a Watchmen series, I’m absolutely loving this. Just so Tim Blake Nelson doesn’t get offed.
I’ll make a steep bet that the moon Veidt left his message on was Phobos, given the theme of the episode
He’s obviously on one of Jupiter’s moons, not Mars’s. And I wish this generation of writers understood the difference between restrictive & nonrestrictive elements in sentences.
I just wanted to say that I’m really enjoying your coverage. Also, was the Kavalry member who attacked her on the White Night Judd or the Senator (or someone else entirely)?
Sometimes you miss things that are so obvious that i wonder if you watch with your arse instead of your eyes. Adrian is living on one of the moons of Jupiter since the planet that was in view when he got catapulted to another moon was definitely Jupiter.
No mention of Paula Malcomson, who lured Looking Glass to the 7K meeting? She was spectacular as Trixie in Deadwood; I just finished that series, so it was perfect to see her show up in this one.
Reminds me so much of “Two Boats and a Helicopter”, Season 1 Episode 3 of the Leftovers. A character driven side story, anchored by a phenomenal performance that cements the show as one of the best things on TV
Squid pro quo cracked me up in light of recent impeachment hearings.
Tim Blake Nelson, hot damn. Don’t know how this show’s managed to put together such an A+ cast, but they’re getting some great stuff out of them. Glad we got some time with Wade/Looking Glass, and you can bet I yelled “TRIXIE!” when Paula Malcomson showed up. Next week’s going to be fun, I’m sure.
“…three new themes to marinade in…”marinate.
For those who haven’t seen the other article, Lindelof confirms it is Europa.I do hope they won’t throw out Tim Blake Nelson, he’s giving such an incredible performance. The scene with him, Paula Malcolmson, and Sturgill Simpson in the background, then making out to Patsy Cline…just no matter where this show goes it will be worth the whole thing for that.The obvious guess is that Keene wants to do a giant teleportation that is an obvious hoax because people won’t believe just the Veidt video without it. However, Keene, though he runs a group of violent racists, talks only of keeping the peace, and destroying the myth of SuperSquiddy would ostensibly bring back the chain of events leading to nuclear destruction. Sending those killers to LG’s house at the end shows he doesn’t want to keep the peace, but then why did possibly Will and Trieu kill Don Johnson instead of the Senator? There is little question to me that the Senator (or whomever else he is in league with) is the season’s big bad.Btw, I thought Dr. Manhattan sent that car to fall out of the sky to mirror the punchline to Laurie’s joke about the brick coming down and killing god. Is that off?
No, the car was dropped by the same folks who took it — presumably Lady T’s ship.
Did Mars move or blink or something right before that happened? I thought it was in direct response to her joke, guess that was a writerly coincidence?
She saw a light above her after it happened. Presumably the light came from the ship, rather than Mars, which is never that bright anyway.
Wow, I really misread that whole sequence. The way I saw it, she went outside, looked up at Mars, the message was delivered, she said Dr. Manhattan never had a sense of humor, and then in response he essentially winked Mars at her and dropped a car in front of her in direct response to her joke about the brick. This also made sense at the time because “She was killed by space junk” and the blue dildo and just a few seconds before all connect to Dr. Manhattan, and then the joke, and space junk = blue dong AND car falling. See what your mind can do to you when you are looking for significance everywhere, man I’d be a great schizophrenic!
No, you didn’t misread it at all — they were deliberately being misleading. That was definitely what we were supposed to be thinking of, at first.We only find out later (combined with going back and watching when the car was taken) that it was dropped by one of Lady T’s ships.
To Laurie it’s an insane coincidence and probably a part of her really does believe it was Dr. Manhattan. But as viewers we know that it was merely a coincidence and one of Lady Trieu’s air ships just happened to have dropped the car at that exact moment
So…did Mars wink at her? Or was that just the light from the plane?
I don’t quite understand that part either
This show is fantastic, but I feel like some of the choices were too on the nose—or rather too obvious too often—even for a show with masked heroes. For example, we hear the line from “Careless Whisper”: “Calls to mind the silver screen,” as Looking Glass is looking in the mirror in his reflective mask. That’s fine, but there were a LOT of similar moments in this episode that seem less in the business of layering symbolism than as flashing signs saying “See What We Mean?” For me, I would slide the subtle<---->obvious bar closer to the left.
One disappointment from this week’s episode: No Lube Man sighting! How dare they!
I’m not hugely familiar with the original comic, so I’m reading up on it. Ya’ll will appreciate this ad placement. I snorted.
My favorite easter egg of the series so far: when Wade is doing market research, one of the products is cereal. And the cereal says, in tiny little letters at the top, that it was made by a company called “Happy Harry.” In real life, “Happy Harry” is the guy who made this:
“The guys and gals with the top knots are not hipsters, but part of a cult-like gang. They wear knots on their heads, have tattoos and piercings, love rock music and scare the living daylights out of the “normal” people.”It’s not a gang. The implication is that in this alternate universe, the punk movement adopted top knots instead of mohawks as their signature hairstyle.
Great episode, but it appears to be a moon of Jupiter not Mars that he is on. Does that complicate who might have built the simulator/incubator he is in?
Our weapons, which were noiseless, were not likely to have any great effect on these natives, who only respect noisy firearms.
I recall reading a short story with a very similar theme. Though it was a man trying to fend off a horde of alien animals with a silent weapon.
Careless Whisper was a great choice of song. Having the lyric “Tonight the music seems so loud / I wish that we could lose this crowd” after the sonic boom, along with him wanting to avoid being seen by everyone outside, just sublime.
That looked like Jupiter they were orbiting, which would make it one of the Galilean moons, probably the closest, Ganymede.Or if it’s Mars, he’d weigh about a tenth of a pound on Phobos and half that on Deimos.
Finally the mask makes sense. Wow what an origin
I thought it was important that Looking Glass signed up to become a policeman the day after the White Night. Was he trying to attempt literal career suicide?
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“Our weapons, which were noiseless, were not likely to have any great effect on these natives, who only respect noisy firearms. If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning—although the danger is in the lightning, not in the thunder,”This is such an amazing quote