The Watchmen comic series shed light on the morally corrupt, broken, and deranged beings the comic-book world lifted to superhero status. The popularity of these fictional beings impacted how people wanted to see themselves—physically perfect, wealthy, and willing to break the law to find justice. It was time for a deep exploration from an insider as to how these heroes’ antics would play in the real world. Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons gave a piece of popular Americana to each of their heroes. The pillars of the story, Doctor Manhattan (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons), behaved as polar opposites. Manhattan became a god through a technological mishap; Veidt singlehandedly orchestrated world peace.
Two white European men of the Silent Generation found their way to America. Manhattan, a child refugee, fled Nazi Germany in search of a safe space to start a new life. Adrian Veidt got rid of his substantial wealth and became an adventurer hell-bent on building an empire in his likeness. Jon’s always enjoyed sex, while Veidt’s never expressed an interest in anyone sexually. Manhattan’s fallen in and out of love, while Veidt’s never pursued anyone. Adrian enjoys grand costumes. Doctor Manhattan likes to strut in the buff. A lack of barriers allows them to communicate. Frequently, they arrive at the same conclusion. This is how the squid drop went uncovered. It’s how Veidt avoids prosecution, and why so many people, in the world of Watchmen, live in abject terror.
Despite these endless differences, they understand one another’s perspectives. Jon agrees not to turn Veidt in because if the world knew the truth, America would once again be seen as having made a significant advance in dangerous weaponry. A new arms race would begin, destruction would reign—or they could have peace. If the world believed a third party existed that could destroy the planet, the nations of the world would band together to protect the planet’s peoples. So in “A God Walks Into Abar,” Damon Lindelof and Jeff Jensen kick off the second act of the conclusion to Manhattan and Veidt’s misdeeds. Last week, we learned Angela’s origin story. Her parents were killed by a radicalized citizen, of a recently conquered territory, on a holiday meant to honor the tyrant that murdered thousands without impunity. This week, Angela shared a drink, a world-shifting conversation, and fell in love with the tyrant.
Over the course of the conversation, Manhattan reveals the first time he saw the visual representation of love, and how it changed him. Abandoned by his mother, left with an angry father, and surrounded by literal Nazis, the boy knew only fear and anger. What he learned in the château brought love, beauty, and stories into his life. He buried the memory of that temporary heaven when he returned to his father. The comic describes the following years for Jon as adhering to the status quo. He fell in love, got the job his father wanted him to have, and became a moderate success. Most likely, he would have continued on that path if he hadn’t been fried. Instead, he became an empty shell of a man and a war hero, so repressed he never thought to ask for what he wanted, so sure he already knew the future. Recklessly, Manhattan began dating a 16-year-old girl, Laurie (Jean Smart), when she was in crisis. Laurie learned that her real father, The Comedian, attempted to rape her mother, before they got together consensually, and conceived her. She’d been groomed her entire life to replace her mother as a sexualized crime fighter. (I’m really hoping the show will address this with Laurie in the finale, even if Manhattan has died.) That’s predatory, it’s sick, and it’s something someone who no longer identifies as a human could do without feeling remorse.
This episode tries to humanize that monster. It’s a journey Jon’s been taking since the final issue of the original comic series—he was ready to give up on humanity, until Laurie convinced him to get over himself and help save the world. This was the moment Jon revealed himself to be a romantic. He said he changed his mind because of, “Thermodynamic miracles… Events with odds so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold.” He then compared Laurie’s unlikely conception, and the near impossibility that any human comes into being, to air turning into gold. Miracles are everywhere. With that thought in his heart, he skipped off to Europa and created the idealized paradise his love muses inspired, until he found the dream lacking because they didn’t love him, they worshiped him. So he sent his former enemy and colleague to the paradise, either to punish him or to help him find solace. Gods work in mysterious ways.
On that moon, Veidt found he ruled without impunity. He favored Eve and reveled in destroying Adam. Lives were as easy to create as visiting the amniotic lake, and microwaving the infants for thirty-seconds until they reached maturity. Veidt’s experience lined up precisely with Manhattan’s: In the end, being worshiped left him hallow and feeling alone. But now they’re obsessed with him. Their last god left them, they won’t lose another. He could stay, but he isn’t allowed to leave. The message Veidt wrote, “Help me D…,” was for Doctor Manhattan.
If I close my eyes and think of the greatest love stories—Romeo & Juliet, Titanic, Love & Basketball, Thelma & Louise—tragedy rises as the sole link between the narratives. Often these tragedies arrive in toxic forms. Partners ask that their significant others forsake family and friends in favor of idolization. Creators take dangerous violations like stalking and harassment and turn them into examples of affection and pining. As extraordinary and unique a feeling love can be, it’s also a dangerous endeavor because it requires complete trust and vulnerability. Damon Lindelof and Jeff Jensen lean into the elements of vulnerability in their moving reveal of Angela (Regina King) and Dr. Manhattan falling in love. The writers take classic romance tropes like the meet-cute, the heated argument, and love at first sight, and twist them on their heads with the advantage of Dr. Manhattan’s powers. What if you knew a relationship would end terribly, but decided to pursue the love tunnel anyway?
“Tunnel Of Love” plays on the jukebox and Manhattan spits some of the sickest game in dating. Angela asks him, “Why’d you leave Mars?” He replies, smoothly: “So I could meet you.” To hide in plain sight, Manhattan wears a mask of his own face. Manhattan, like everyone on a first date, wears a plastic version of his face. He’s as forthright about his identity as he knows how to be. Manhattan experiences time not in a linear fashion as we do—there is no before, middle, and after—but all at once. Angela takes comfort in his knowing; to be seduced mentally often means experiencing a profound shift in one’s understanding of the world. Even if Angela doesn’t recognize the shift taking place, it’s occurring.
One of my favorite aspects of the original graphic novel resides in the way in which Gibbons and Moore illustrate time. Knowing that time is relative to each individual, then we must acknowledge that we too experience our lives in a non-linear fashion. My memories of running through an open field under a dome of stars is as close as the memory I’m creating looking at the LA skyline, even though I cannot see the stars here. Though we cannot know our future, everything we do now impacts the people we will become. Little inklings, gut checks, and inspirations give us flashes into what tomorrow will bring. The greatness of humanity is enduring despite knowing immense and unavoidable pain lies around the corner of every perfect moment.
Manhattan tells Angela, “This is the moment. I’ve just told you, you can’t save me. Yet, you’re going to try anyway.” I wonder if this line is less about this specific moment, and more a definition of love in general—a statement from the writers through their characters. Maybe I’m over romanticizing the moment, but I shed real tears throughout director Nicole Kassell’s incredible action sequence: Black love in the face of white supremacy and certain death surges forward undaunted, as Angela lays waste to a small army like she’s been doing it her entire life. Every department leans into the romantic tragedy of the moment, but Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor really bring it home with the score. When that guitar solo starts and Manhattan begins blowing people to smithereens, it brings the entire moment to crescendo.
In a little over an hour, Jensen and Lindelof take the audience through an intense emotional journey of a decade-long relationship. Once again, time takes center stage as a device. Because the series has established so clearly their love and devotion to one another, hearing of all their ups and downs over the course of their first date makes those 10 years flash by in seconds. The foretold fight hits like a ton of bricks. The fight needed to happen in order for Manhattan to grow. Ozymandias moved to a new planet to become a mortal god and succeeded. Manhattan cloaked himself in a human form and became a human, even maintaining the face of Cal Abar when he returned to his god body. Why did the change occur? There are multiple ways to look at it. The romantic in me wants to believe that the face his love chose became the face he saw in the mirror, the one that made Jon feel like Jon for the first time. Some could call it appropriation. Maybe there’s a scientific reason I’m too ignorant to comprehend, or perhaps if you keep making that face, it really will get stuck like that. Either way, it’s not a mask. For the first time, he isn’t hiding. He revealed the only secret he kept from Angela, about visiting her grandfathers. He laid out a plan to keep her safe. I think he made her a god.
If he did, there are two, maybe three god level heroes on the playing field in the finale. Lady Trieu, Angela Abar, and Adrian Veidt all have either money, power, or a cult following. We’re one week away from the season finale. There’s a lot to wrap up, but the strings have been pulled closely together. Hopefully Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson) pops up to assist Laurie with taking out the Kavalry.
Stray observations:
- Why would Veidt have a plan A, but not use it? He said, “A little elephant told me…” Was the elephant Lady Trieu? It doesn’t seem there was a lot of time to plan before Veidt was sent away. I have a feeling there will still be some final show down between these titans.
- Europa was one of Zeus’ mortal lovers. She bore him three sons. They ruled the major Greek islands. She was worshiped as a queen. Look who else has three children who were magically whisked away to their grandfather.
- Visual representation of eggs in Watchmen reached its peak. Eggs appear when Angela gives her tragic backstory to Topher’s class. They re-emerge when William explains part of his backstory to Angela in the kitchen, right before she learns he is her grandfather. Eggs represent trauma. When does it begin, and when does it end? I wonder if episode nine will offer any definitive answers to the show’s biggest question.
- That particle cannon will be the new door from Titanic. Move to the left or the right, sir! Did you really have to die?
481 Comments
I can see how being Dr. Manhattan’s girlfriend would be a chore. Veidt had an elegant (if convenient) solution. I wonder why Jon never made the leap with Laurie?So are Will and Lady Trieu going to save the day? Is Veidt? A combination?
I mean the obvious answer is that he knew he wouldn’t consider it with Laurie because he experiences everything simultaneously.
That’s the brilliant, infuriating thing about Doctor Manhattan. Does he really do anything with motivation? Or is he just doing things because he knows that he does them?
That is also the beautiful,infuriating thing about all human beings. Do we choose to do things because we want to or do we think we want to because stimuli and responses at a less perceivable level have been involuntarily set in motion before we even have a chance to choose
With the return to Antarctica in the previews I wonder if they’re somehow going to try and undo Veidt’s squid attack
Basically everything you could possibly want from a Doctor Manhattan episode and an HBO Watchmen episode. It’s brilliantly written, stunningly shot, beautifully scored, and all sorts of other meaningless adjectives.My only complaints are aesthetic—for all the issues with the Watchmen movie, Crudup’s voice IS Doctor Manhattan to me, and his perfect indifference was missing here. The choice to give the good Doctor pupils and eyebrows was also unfortunate, in my opinion, purely because it made him look like a guy in cosplay in the moments when he wasn’t glowing. Yahya was absolutely perfect, though. A flawless performance for a deceptively tricky role. There’s a seemingly insurmountable amount of things to reveal in the last chapter, but we’ve essentially received 8 perfect Watchmen chapters thus far, so even if the ending falters, we’ll always have the journey.
I had the same thought re: Crudup. He should play the Silver Surfer someday.
But I think that’s kind of the point, right? Crudup Manhattan tries, but doesn’t really care. Yahya Manhattan cares, but is so trapped by his abilities.
Truth. I think some people crticizing this portrayal of Manhattan being a bit too human. Dr. Manhattan has had time to reflect on his choices and experiences he should change and be different.
I think the show has a really good grasp on how an audience can look at Dr. Manhattan and still maintain suspension of disbelief. Hiding his face from us initially, getting him in his Cal suit quickly, making him an iota more human—that allows us to believe that he’s real, and believe that all these women are falling in love with him.
We don’t want to watch Regina King acting against a wall, and we certainly don’t want her devoting her life to one. We’re given an amazing Laurie in this show—this version of the Doc makes way more sense of the implication that she’s still carrying a torch* for him.
*Giant blue dildo
“Crudup Manhattan” sounds like a Key & Peele football player.
I can’t read the other replies to this for some reason, but I didn’t read Crudup as not trying, I read it as the sorrow of someone who knows their trying can’t change anything, and that even if they try that is just baked into the result that is already inevitable. It was the best thing about the movie, bar none, other than the hatewatchable elements.
I mean, that’s the thing that the show gets that the movie didn’t get. Oz’s gamble that Dr. M still had morals – that he still cared – was the key insight into Dr. M’s character in the book. He’s trying to care and to love even though he exists simultaneously in all times.
I wouldn’t trust many people to pull off an ending, but I trust the guy who did “The Book of Nora” wholeheartedly.
Me too. But I’d trust him more if he weren’t also the guy who did whatever the hell that was with Lost.
LOST finale.
I agree that Manhattan in the bar doesn’t sound like Manhattan. When he’s Manhattan-as-Cal he sounds more remote, like I’d expect him to be.
You could argue by this point in the bar (and for Angela’s benefit) he already knew he was going to be Cal, so his voice and likeness were already there.
But then she wouldn’t have to figure out a disguise for him.
Crudup’s voice IS Doctor Manhattan to meHe really nailed that one. It was a great choice to have the most powerful being in the world so soft-spoken.I feel like they Yahya tried his best to emulate that somewhat, but the other design choices for the character ended up too distracting.
Yahya also has a very big head. I don’t know if it was the bald cap or whatever but his cranium tho…. lol.I mean I get it they are working with a budget it can’t possibly look as polished or perfect as a Hollywood production. But I think I like it for that. The comics never had any of the heroes looking polished and perfect.
Agreed. I adored Crudup’s depiction of Manhattan and this fell so short of that performance for me. And the eyebrows and obvious body makeup, really disappointing.
It’s interesting because I feel like the outlier. Crudup was good, but…lacking something to me.
Idk if it was the budget or what but he just looked like he was part of the blue man group.
My only complaints are aesthetic—for all the issues with the Watchmen movie, Crudup’s voice IS Doctor Manhattan to me, and his perfect indifference was missing here.Yeah, I would have loved it if the just gotten Billy Crudup to do the voice — not even the body, just the voice for Manhattan in the bar and before he takes on Cal’s body.
I woulda loved Crudup returning for the voice too, but even if he would have agreed to it, the show probably wisely wants to avoid any sort of connections or perceived shout outs to the movie…
My only complaints are aesthetic—for all the issues with the Watchmen movie, Crudup’s voice IS Doctor Manhattan to me, and his perfect indifference was missing here.I agree with you. I kept expecting Crudup’s voice and cadence. He nailed the distant-but-trying God that Dr. Manhattan was, and his voiceovers were some of the strongest of the movie adaptation. Like others, I almost wish he’d been available for those early scenes, which took place when the Doctor was still, ostensibly, a white Jewish man in superhuman form.But…Jon-as-Cal? Perfect. As soon as Jon’s voice changes and deepens into Cal’s natural voice, I’m locked in. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II really, really nailed those scenes. His far-away looks and the gentle patience with which he explains his perception of time? One moment that I loved was when he betrayed the tiniest hint of excitement in his scene with Adrian. For once, he didn’t know something and you could see that it intrigued the scientist in him.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought—Jon-as-Cal was brilliant. Pre-Cal Manhattan was a little weird.
I wasn’t sure about the eyebrows, etc, either but I assume it was to show that he was keeping the Cal body (which he had anyway before he lost his memory) and it was simply that his colouring changed? No other features like body hair, etc–he wasn’t switching to his old look, but… I dunno… lol
I think Crudup’s performance is why we don’t see much of pre-Cal Manhattan.
I thought the actor WAS actually trying to mimic Crudup’s performance in this one. Woulda been nice if they could’ve actually gotten him for this.
I feel lucky for having next to no recollection of the movie. Happy I could go into this mostly fresh with no expectations because I thought Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was perfect.
Glad I’m not alone. I’d seen the movie 10+ years ago and remember almost nothing. I may have fallen asleep.
Oddly enough, bar-Manhattan really felt like V to me.The dialogue was a bit more playfully-circular than Jon’s typical logically-circular stuff. And all of the shots of the mask and the hands were very theatrical and V-like.
I don’t mind the pupils and low-glow. He chose that appearance to make Angela more comfortable and frankly it’s little less obnoxious. It did look goofy with the blue skin and symbol, but hell, canonically Manhattan isn’t very concerned with looks usually (even if he always look like a freakin’ Adonis in every appearance).
Absolute agree on the voice. His voice in the bar wasn’t good.
so even if the ending falters, we’ll always have the journey. I hope so, since that didn’t work out too well for Lost or Game of Thrones. A little disappointment, and some fans throw out the whole show.
TBF it wasn’t just the ending of GoT. It blew the final 3 seasons, with the last one like an 18-wheeler falling off a cliff.
Recklessly, Manhattan began dating a 16-year-old girl, Laurie (Jean Smart), when she was in crisis. Laurie learned that her real father, The Comedian, attempted to rape her mother, before they got together consensually, and conceived her. She’d been groomed her entire life to replace her mother as a sexualized crime fighter. (I’m really hoping the show will address this with Laurie in the finale, even if Manhattan has died.) That’s predatory, it’s sick, and it’s something someone who no longer identifies as a human could do without feeling remorse.Yeah it’s a common plot point in a lot of Moore’s stories where young, sometimes underaged, women have sex with much older men. Evie in V for Vendetta is a 16 year old sex worker and has sex with a much older man whom is sheltering her from the Fingermen, Mina Murray and Alan Quartermain hook up when they went off to find Dr. Murrow in League of Extraordinary Gentleman, that entire issue of Promethea where the protagonist bangs an old man, and Lost Girls.
Laurie learned that her real father, The Comedian, attempted to rape her mother, before they got together consensually, and conceived her.Oh, look, this is what happened in the actual story. Curious why you previously accused me of saying “women could just get over getting sexually assaulted” when I was merely stating what actually happened in this work of fiction, hmm? Makes me wonder if you’re just trying to be disingenuous.
Alan Moore loves putting rape (statutory or otherwise) in his books.
That’s at least partially wrong though. He doesn’t start dating her (at least from Laurie’s perspective) when “Laurie learned that her real father, The Comedian, attempted to rape her mother, before they got together consensually, and conceived her[;]” She doesn’t even know about the sexual assault at that point.
In the same meeting where she’s introduced to Dr. Manhattan, Eddie comes up and starts a conversation with Laurie. Sally (understandably) misinterprets what’s going on and confronts Eddie leading to him saying the famous line, “Jesus Christ, Sally. Can’t a guy talk to his… An old friend’s daughter;” Which is the final piece of the puzzle to Laurie figuring out Eddie was her father 20 years later on Mars when she’s in her mid to late 30’s.
Laurie doesn’t find out about the sexual assault until Under the Hood is published. I don’t think the comic gives an exact date but, based on the five chapters in comic, it was probably sometime in the mid to late 70’s. Ten years after the Crimebusters meeting.
And what exactly is age appropriate for an (for all intents and purposes) immortal being who experiences every moment of his life simultaneously? A woman in her 90’s is going to be young compared to Dr. M.
And what exactly is age appropriate for an (for all intents and purposes) immortal being who experiences every moment of his life simultaneously?An adult, not a child. At least over the age of 18, for christsakes.
Yep! Pretty sure that in the book she’d assumed Hooded Justice was her father. (Possibly until she finally read Under the Hood, which Sally tried to keep her from doing? I think Hollis outed HJ and Mr. M in that.)
Laurie finds out about the attempted rape immediately after the Crimebusters meeting. Sally went off on Blake for talking to Laurie and told her what happened in the car. Under the Hood had been published three or four years earlier, but Laurie wasn’t allowed to read it, at least partially because Hollis wrote about the assault.
She didn’t figure out he was her father until the events of the book, though.
Dr Manhattan may have cosmic concerns on his mind, but he should still understand the meaning of 18 yrs old and asking for consent.
And what exactly is age appropriate for an (for all intents and purposes) immortal being who experiences every moment of his life simultaneously? A woman in her 90’s is going to be young compared to Dr. M.Are you Alan Dershowitz?
I do wonder how they are going to wrap it up next week, but I do not worry.Nothing this season is as I imagined it would be, and that’s why it’s the best show of the year.
Yep. As Imdb says the next and last episode is only 67 mins. Just an hour to see how they will defeat the 7th K, rescue Laurie and Dr. Manhattan, see what Trieu is up to, how Ozy gets off of Europa, what Will is going to do, if the Night Owl makes an appearance, and, who, what where is the Lube Man. I’m confident though that Lindelof will pull this all off flawlessly.
Read through the peteypedia for a hint of who Lubeman is.
Honestly, even if the finale is awful, this series was worth it. At least a handful of the episodes are masterpieces and the rest have all been great. I’m confident they can stick the landing, but either way this is a massive win.
I agree. This was one of the greatest and best retcons ever made.
What did it retcom? Seems pretty in tune with the original continuity.
Last time I checked, Hooded Justice being a black man from Tulsa is not in the original continuity.
We don’t know that.
Wat? Did you even read the original comic at all?
Sure. His identity was hinted at, but never conclusively.
Hence the point of this retconning. It confirms his identity and the reasons behind the creation of this character.Just stop already.
I don’t consider anything retconning if it doesn’t actually change the continuity. Which this doesn’t. It works within the original story without actually changing anything.Yes, it confirms his identity, and the reasons behind it. If you want to consider that a retcon, go for it.
Good thing then that what you think and your personal opinions doesn’t correspond and match with reality. Even Lindelof himself calls it a “radical retcon.”
I’m curious. I have seen this purely as a sequel to the comic. In what way is this a retcon?
I was just saying that even if they somehow blew the ending, I feel like these eight eps could stand on their own as a fantastic series.
Amen to that.A lot of adaptations these days, you know, we like them not so much on their own merits but for their ability to remind us of how much we loved the source material.But this would still be a phenomenal show if “Watchmen” wasn’t a thing, and that excellence only multiplies its value as an adaptation. We are just in an abundance of riches these days regarding TV production quality. It’s nice to see that being put to good use toward science fiction.I haven’t been this much into a “prestige” spec-fi/sci-fi drama since, like, “Battlestar?” This one and “The Expanse,” man. . . .
I think Lindelof will stick the landing. He’s learned his lesson. Famous last words! But I honestly think he will.
Do hope Laurie and Manhattan get a moment if he comes back next episode.
Just an hour to see how they will defeat the 7th K, rescue Laurie and Dr. Manhattan…Assuming these things will actually happen.
Lindelof’s explanation for eventually involving Dr. M was that when he brainstormed what he would need to see if he were watching the show he was about to make, Dr. M would be near the top of the list. I’m not Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield, but he already has Laurie sitting right next to the portal they just sucked Dr. M into, so I’m pretty sure he’ll give us that moment. I also hope he hasn’t deprived Laurie of all of her agency, having her so easily captured was a bit thin. My guess is that we have a “kill me” moment and she does it for him.
“Lindelof and the black writers in the writers’ room”Yeah, we often valorize showrunners as if they operate alone. But to me, this show, more than any other, is one where it is clear the showrunner could not have conceived of this on his own. And I feel like the contributions of those black creatives are not getting mentioned enough in the media. We should know their names, too. Their names should be in all the articles. Because it would be nuts to think a white man came up with this much insight into the black experience all on his own. It just wouldn’t and didn’t happen.
completely forgot about lube man, going to guess it’s pete maybe he’ll help looking glass save laurie
I forgot about lube man!!
Lube man will be the key to all of this.
No night owl, they’ve been very clear on that in numerous interviews beyond the point where they’d be bluffing, honestly if he did show up now I’d be kinda pissed because there’s really no need to have him in this story right at the end just showing up…can’t imagine an 80ish year old bloke who’d spent 20 odd years in a prison cell would be much use in a scrap either…
You never know with Lindelof.
I’m confident though that Lindelof will pull this all off flawlessly.Like he did with Lost?
More like what he did with The Leftovers. Nice try though…
If we’re picking and choosing, then he cancel himself out.
No. Nope.
Yes, unless you can come up with another series that he actually ended in a satisfactory way. Can you?
I just did. But since you’re just here to be a disagreeable troll looking to pick a fight instead of good faith discussion, i’m not surprised that it didn’t matter what I said as i’m not going to continue on further and delete this thread. Get your last word in. Bye now.
I asked you to name another series besides The Leftovers. Are you stupid or something?
We better get something about Lube Man. Six episode spin-off series, maybe?
It is terrible, though.Why am I alone in this? I mean, I suspect because people who agree with me just aren’t watching, but this is really bad? Like, way worse than Lindelof’s Star Trek, in terms of getting the point all wrong and making all the references work against the thing. But yeah, this is Watchmen’s Star Trek Into Darkness. It makes no sense either mechanically or in the point it’s trying to make. As an insult to the original book, every character is off. Veidt is a cackling maniac, Dr. Manhattan isn’t distant, he just seems to have never considered the bootstrap paradox, so he acts like a moron… I mean, I get that Lindelof is kinda stuck in reading Laurie Blake as “Dr. Manhattan’s washed out Lois Lane”, but he’s had her tied to a chair for two episodes now, which is just insulting. And as a story about “Cop superheores vs the Klan”, which would have been a heck of a premise, it is diminished by basically every Watchmen connection. Angela is revealed to just be Dr. Manhattan’s latest sidepiece for basically no reason. I strongly suspect they’ll have Veidt deus ex machina the show away, which is terrifying in its stupidity. The whole Hooded Justice angle is severely hampered by the whiteface thing, which I can’t rationalize for the life of me outside of “we wanted to retcon this thing in the original book and this gave us a way”. This would have been a much better show without calling it Watchmen, and you can’t make a sequel to Watchmen that works, period. It was an allegorical novel about the relationship between superheroes, propaganda, the Cold War and Reaganism. You’re not gonna successfully redeploy those symbols to talk about 2010s white supremacism. Much less if you’re Damon Lindelof, FFS.
Well, there’s always one.
This may be the most fascinating comment ever made. Two years later, in a review of a show nobody is talking about anymore, attached to a reply I strugled to find even looking for it on purpose (because Kinja), and it just says “there’s always one”. Why? How? What does it mean? I feel like if I give the right counterpassword I’m gonna be handed a microfilm with Cold War secrets or something. By the way, I still think Watchmen was really, really bad.
Hey, I was still in lockdown a month ago, looking for shows I hadn’t already watched. A lot of people watch a show when it’s first released, but a lot of people end up watching it months/years later.And thank you – I did put a lot of thought into that “Well, there’s always one.” comment. You’re right – it *is* a fascinating comment.“By the way, I still think Watchmen was really, really bad.” Again, there’s always one. I hope you enjoyed your time in the minority.
You can’t trick me, you sat on this comment for a month specifically to trigger that “wait, replied to WHAT post?” moment again. Well played, sir.For what it’s worth, I genuinely need no external validation for my opinions about TV shows, so my time in the minority was a hint of bafflement with a dash of sporadic recognition when I see other posts buried in here saying the same things.
“I genuinely need no external validation for my opinions about TV shows” That’s good news, because your opinion on this show, all these months later, is still waiting for any external validation.
I mean, nobody is talking about this show at all, so I’m not holding my breath. I think there was one other guy down here somewhere who was also in my wavelength. We can nod at each other in silent understanding if we ever meet, I suppose. For the record, I’d much rather be alone with my opinions here than have a host of assholes weaponizing the show’s *many* flaws for the sake of undermining its underlying themes for all the wrong reasons, so yeah, I’ll take the quiet secret society approach here.
“I mean, nobody is talking about this show at all” Is this surprising to you? Did you expect people to talk about this show forever? This was a self-contained show (a mini-series, basically) that had a beginning and ending. Lindeloff publicly stated this was a one-and-done series for him.One other guy – wow, that’s something to hang your hat on. “99.99% of the people loved this show, but me and one other person hated it, so we’re obviously right.”Also, I love that you couldn’t convince everyone else that you were right and they were wrong, so therefore they were “a host of assholes”. Great attitude – if I can’t convince them that they’re wrong then they’re assholes.
Dude, you’re misreading a bunch of stuff. I mean the bunch of racist assholes that hate this show for racist reasons instead of the actually valid storytelling reasons. And I already said I don’t need any external validation. The show is bad regardless.Also, the original Watchmen was also a self contained story and it comes up fairly frequently today and throughout. Seems relevant if we’re talking about whether this is a competent sequel or maybe a bit overhyped at the time.
“And I already said I don’t need any external validation. The show is bad regardless.” Apparently so, based on your comments here. You are definitely in the minotory, and a tiny minority at that. Like within the margin of error. And you’ve given nothing to back up your claims.
I actually wrote a whole bunch to back up my claims, but that was two years ago and you pop into this thread like once a month to post B tier online barbs on it for some reason, so I don’t begrudge you for having forgotten. It’s still up there on this thread, though, if you’re willing to deal with Kinja’s awful navigation to respond to this I’m gonna trust you to find it on your own.
“you pop into this thread like once a month” Yeah, because that’s how often I check my notifications. Sorry but your ramblings aren’t important enough to make me check more often.“to post B tier online barbs” Wow, if I had known your ego was so fragile maybe I wouldn’t have replied to your original post.I read through all your previous comments. Like I said, you’re in the minority. A very tiny minority. This show was (and still is) universally praised, but for some reason you decided you hated it and it was trash and everyone should agree with you, and you can’t handle that the majority of viewers don’t agree with you.
Sorry but your ramblings aren’t important enough to make me check more often.But they’re important enough to keep responding. So what’s that? Like a 6/10? 5.5? I’ve built meaningful relationships on less, to be perfectly honest. I think we have a future here, like a Before Sunrise kinda sporadic but long-running thing. You’re like my snippy comment thread Ethan Hawke.For the record, I didn’t say everyone should agree with me. Hell, I even mention a few times in comments section that I *am* in the minority.What I said is that the show is crap for the reasons it’s crap and honestly, looking at it with some distance I’m pretty satisfied that I’ve made a good case of it. Your mileage may vary, but it seems pretty convincing from where I’m standing. I mean, it’s a Damon Lindelof mystery box show with Jeremy Irons in Dungeons & Dragons mode playing Adrian Veidt. There may be opinions I recant on my deathbed after seeing the light of popular consensus, but I’m pretty confident this won’t be one of them.
Joelle mentioned it, but yeah, a very unsatisfying resolution to the “inevitable” tragedy looming 10 years in the future: a racist with a future-gun slowly moving in the background.Dealing with omnipotence/omniscience in fiction is tricky, so I guess just not dealing with it at all is… well it’s an option.An interesting choice to not cast a “before” Dr. Manhattan, leading to weird obscured camerawork and the “present” Manhattan being “blue Cal.” Particularly interesting because they have Angela and Adrian react openly to his changed appearance, so they’re not shying away from the concept completely.These past few weeks have been heavy on flashbacks, and as a result it feels like there’s a truly massive amount of stuff this show needs to wrap up in just one episode. Even just linking up Veidt to the rest of what’s happening seems like it could take the whole runtime. Having the Crawford stuff reduced to just appearing out of whole cloth in a paradox is an odd one to pile on there with everything else.
The point is that the Dr. knows that gun is there but can’t move because he doesn’t move, the only reason he knows it’s there is because he’s going to be shot by it.
I find that line of reasoning pretty unpersuasive.Yes, his whole “experience all time simultaneously” shtick presupposes a totally predetermined universe, but deploying “I forsee this easily-avoidable thing defeats me for no reason, therefore I guess I won’t/don’t/didn’t avoid it, shrug” reduces him to a mechanical tool of the writer. You might as well have him just “know” he’s going to blink himself out of existence at the end of the 10 years, so he just does it: it’s predetermined, after all.This comes at the tail end of a whole episode spent with a very human Dr. Manhattan. Even for Manhattan, even with all that knowledge, there’s a “why.”I’m surprised the show didn’t have the beam hit be the result of him coming to protect Angela. This still has issues with omnipotence, but chalk it up to his weakened/confused state upon regaining his memory, or something. We almost get that, but instead he just gets shot during a casual chat after mostly, but not quite, finishing the job.
I’m surprised the show didn’t have the beam hit be the result of him coming to protect Angela.
Did it not? That’s exactly how I read it. Jon fell in love with Angela because she would sacrifice herself to save him even knowing it was hopeless. He, in turn, sacrificed himself to save her, creating something beautiful through an act of love just like young Jon promised the lord and lady of the manor so long ago.
Yeah but that’s not what actually happens: he comes out and casually dispatches almost everybody, they have time for a little chat where Angela says he was wrong, he says he wasn’t, then he gets hit by the ray gun thingie.There’s nothing there to indicate that him getting hit was necessary to protect Angela. Certainly he had the time and the capability to just completely eliminate the threat. Either next episode provides some reason why it was actually necessary/desirable to get hit (definitely a possibility), or there’s just no reason.
I read it as a example of Jon being surprised in the moment by something he foresaw earlier. (“You mean that you’re sleeping with Dreiberg?”) Both he and Angela think they’ve killed all the 7th Cavalry, but crucially, the one manning the teleporter is shot by Angela, not blown up by Jon. So he gets back up and fires the teleporter while they’re distracted talking to one another. Just because Jon knew it was going to happen doesn’t mean the guy didn’t get the drop on him.
But he could have sent the last living 7K dude and his tachyon cannon for a ride on Haley’s comet at the blink of an eye and saved her without the sacrifice.
This reminds me that every time there’s a new actor in Doctor Who, their first episode spends a lot of time with “regeneration trauma”.
Which is interesting because much of that scene between Veidt and Manhattan felt VERY Doctor Who-like to me. From the blocking, to the ‘console,’ to the dialogue spouting ‘advanced supernatural science.’
I think he intentionally gets hit by the beam, not because it wasn’t avoidable, but because it was necessary. Why? We just don’t know yet.
I don’t think the gun actually destroyed him. Veidt tried something similar and it didn’t work, Dr. Manhattan called him out on it. “It didn’t kill Osterman, did you think it would kill me?”There’s more at play here. 7K doesn’t want to kill him, they want to become him. I’m not assuming anything until I see the HBO logo after the final credits of the final episode.
Yeah they explicitly said it was a gun that would force him to teleport, not destroy him. He was presumably teleported to that 7K cage where Laurie is.
The cannon “forced him to teleport” if I recall correctly. It did not kill him.
”because it wasn’t avoidable, but because it was necessary. Why? We just don’t know yet.”It’s possibly similar to the Dr Strange thing, as in this occurring is the only possible way it all works out for the best. The best in this situation might not be great, especially considering Watchmen and this show, but ultimately better than any other way it could occur.
That would imply the he knew what happens after he gets hit/killed, and if that’s the case then that implies he was being purposely vague in delivering information about the future, and he’s usually known to do the exact opposite.
It’s not a shrug. The eternal moment through which Dr Manhatten experiences all time simultaneously must be predetermined. If he gets shot he was always going to be shot and always is being shot and there isn’t a thing he can do about it. The only exception being Veidt’s tachion shielded device that sent him into the tunnel of course – but only in the sense that he could not see it, it’s still predetermined. As a counter example look at the first ep of this season of Rick and Morty. Morty keeps a ‘death crystal’ that shows him his death, but due to the future changing due to every minute decision in the present it shows him multitudes of deaths across multiple universes which diverge constantly due to Morty’s free will. This allows Morty to try and influence the nature of his eventual demise. Watchmen’s universe does not posit such free will as Manhatten experiences all time simultaneously, it does not suggest that he experiences an infinite splintering of reality where all possible outcomes are there for him to select at will. Therefore he cannot stop himself being shot.
I would just echo what several others are saying, Dr. Manhattan isn’t omniscient in any traditional sense. He doesn’t see the future, he experiences it.
What he knows of what’s to come is what he has personally experienced.
Deciding to step to the left of the beam for him would be like me trying to avoid a car accident five years ago by thinking about avoiding it now.
“Deciding to step to the left of the beam for him would be like me trying
to avoid a car accident five years ago by thinking about avoiding it
now.”That’s a really good simile.
I responded to PPB as well, but I feel like you might be able to help me wrap my heard around this. I loved the episode other than the ending, I assumed the unavoidable tragedy would be more unavoidable than it was. Maybe there’s a them here, Laurie’s capture was incredibly avoidable as well.Deciding to step to the left of the beam for him would be like me trying to avoid a car accident five years ago by thinking about avoiding it now.You have it backwards, we can’t avoid a car accident from five years ago by thinking about it now, Manhattan can since he experiences everything simultaneously. The only reason for him not to avoid the beam is because he didn’t. The whole “he can’t change the future” bs doesn’t explain why he didn’t step out of the way in the present, he is experiencing the future that he created.
Laurie got captured because she wasn’t able to figure out the couch was a trap door, which is totally understandable really.His actions are predetermined, he doesn’t have the ability to change them, only experience them all at once. He explains that in both the comics and show.For example, when he’s talking to Angela and Will at the same time he has to ask Angela if there’s anything she wants to ask Will because he already asked Will the question that Angela wanted him to ask. Because to him it’s all happening now he’s forced into doing everything the way it’s already been done.
Thanks for the reply, I think the whole concept is just beyond my ability to comprehend. I’m still enjoying the show though.
Hum…maybe look at it this way: Causality isn’t a thing for him. Cause and effect happen at the same time. Remember the chicken/egg thing he says about the whole ‘Will murdering Judd’ deal while he’s standing on the pool? That maybe neither came first, they appeared at the same time? That explains how he sees literally his entire life.
It’s definitely a tough concept to wrap your head around. I’m a huge fan of science fiction and have been thinking about stuff like this ever since I read Slaughterhouse 5 in like 6th grade; it’s the kind of thing you have to train your brain to conceive because it’s not anything like how we experience the world.
I read the causality thing on anther comment (maybe another one of yours) and that got me closest to understanding. Someone else brought up the lack of imagination, I don’t know if it has anything to do with it but it was mentioned twice in the episode and that helped as well.ETA – I’ve always had a tough time with time travel, I get so wrapped up in the logistics that I pull myself out of the story.
Deciding to step to the left of the beam for him would be like me trying to avoid a car accident five years ago by thinking about avoiding it now.You have it backwards, we can’t avoid a car accident from five years ago by thinking about it now, Manhattan can since he experiences everything simultaneously. The only reason for him not to avoid the beam is because he didn’t. The whole “he can’t change the future” bs doesn’t explain why he didn’t step out of the way in the present, he is experiencing the future that he created.
This is the correct answer. The paradox of Dr Manhattan is that he perceives all (pre-determined) time simultaneously, but he is powerless to change it.
Haven’t read the source material. Has he ever tried to change what’s predetermined? This would have been a good time to give it a whirl.
Whether or not you find it persuasive that is, indeed, the character. He explains that in the original comics. He’s deus ex machana, the hand of god, the reason Padme died(because ‘it’s in the script’). He lives his entire life at the same time and cannot change it.
“You might as well have him just “know” he’s going to blink himself out of existence at the end of the 10 years, so he just does it”Yeah he specifically tells Angela that: After 10 years there is a period that he can’t see, she is there before it and after it.
I’d forgotten how little we know him based just on the TV series! I think if you already know the character you’re thinking, “I feel ya Angela, but there is no way Doctor Manhattan is doing something that contradicts what he’s already experienced, that’s not how he do.” But if you don’t know the character well you’re probably going, “Wait why not just teleport all of you out of there??? Or teleport the 7th Kavalry to Mars??? Or SOMETHING???”
Well, actually, if you already know the character you’re probably saying both things at once, like I was.
Honestly I think they do a good job of laying out how he works within the episode itself. I think having Angela and Will talk through time like that illustrates it really well. It’s just kind of hard to get your head around if you’re not used to thinking that way.
I disagree. Even if Manhattan considers himself only “a puppet who can see the strings,” he still acts coherently in sequential time: he responds to events, can hold a conversation, etc. He does not act, or fail to act, arbitrarily with just the excuse that he’s destiny’s plaything: in all cases he acts according to his nature. (A point made in the comic after he fails to save the woman’s life in Vietnam. He may have seen it turn out that way and not perceived himself to have a choice, but the course “fixed” for him is determined by who he is.)
And I don’t think allowing himself to be killed in this situation, or being unable to deal with one guy behind a cannon, is really in line with his nature, unless there’s some greater plan behind it.I would also recommend “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang (the basis for Arrival) for a very well-considered idea of what it would be like to experience all of time simultaneously, and how you could still relate to others stuck in the present.
He acts coherently in sequential time because that’s how regular people perceive his actions. He sees all of those actions happening at once.Yep I’ve read Story of Your Life, the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse 5 are another example.
The problem with your (non)explanation of “it happened because it had to happen, no other reason” is that it could be used to rationalize literally anything, including Doctor Manhattan acting in ways that are completely random, irrational, meaningless. If arbitrary things happen “just because,” there would be no reason that saying something to him should reliably elicit a reasonably coherent response, for example. He might just as well start singing, begin rotating rapidly around his axis, or explode into a cloud of butterflies. Given his capabilities, the possibilities are endless.
The fact that he does not shows that there’s more to it: the future may be fixed, but it’s fixed according to certain regular patterns that we perceive as causality, and Doctor Manhattan perceives in some more holistic way (while still experiencing himself as a being with wants and motives). A god walks into a bar because he knows that’s what he will do, sure, but it’s what he knows he’ll do because he wants to meet Abar. He asks Veidt to help him because he wants his help, and because (from our point of view) the option was available. If he had refused that help just because “that’s what was going to happen” and he “didn’t have any choice,” that would be inconsistent with his nature/motivations and therefore not a satisfactory explanation.Basically, his actions have to make sense from a causality perspective, though it’s a causality where future events may be among the causes. Jon laughs because what was just said is funny in the context of what happens six months from now; he doesn’t arbitrarily laugh just because that’s what fate tells him to do.
And it’s the same with the particle cannon. Him refraining from doing something he was certainly capable of (avoiding the beam) needs to make sense from a causality perspective, not be something that arbitrarily happens just because fate decrees it. And most likely it will make sense, in time.
“The problem with your (non)explanation of “it happened because it had to
happen, no other reason” is that it could be used to rationalize literally anything, including Doctor Manhattan acting in ways that are completely random, irrational, meaningless.”Yes if those things are in service to the story it certainly could. None of what you’re saying is contrary to my explanation. He walks into the bar because he wants to meet Angela from our point of view, from his POV he does it because it has/will/is happen(ing) right now. That doesn’t contradict the fact that he does want to meet Angela and has always wanted to meet Angela and is in the bar meeting her right now.
“he doesn’t arbitrarily laugh just because that’s what fate tells him to do.”Of course not, he does it because it’s what he is doing.
Yes if those things are in service to the story it certainly could. None of what you’re saying is contrary to my explanation.I think your analysis of the rules that apply in the story (certainly in the original comic, and presumptively in the show) is wrong. Maybe putting it another way will make you see the contradiction.Doctor Manhattan perceives everything as predestined. That doesn’t include only his own actions, but everything that happens. As he explains, “We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.”So any argument you make that Doctor Manhattan did something merely because it’s preordained (“he does it because it’s what he is doing”), dismissing the need for any further explanation, could equally well be applied to any other character who cannot see the strings.So by that logic, the show should completely dispense with any and all character logic, psychology and motivation. Characters would do arbitrary things just because that’s what happens, without regards to causality.Clearly this is wrong. Even if the course of events is preordained, that course still follows causality, with people acting according to their psychology, motivations and logic — including Doctor Manhattan. You cannot handwave away a departure from that simply with reference to predestination.
Determinism doesn’t rule out motivation, there’s no reason why it should.
“So by that logic, the show should completely dispense with any and all character logic, psychology and motivation. Characters would do arbitrary things just because that’s what happens, without regards to causality.”I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. It’s a story, characters generally don’t do arbitrary things, they do what the writer wants them to do. Having the show dispense with character logic is in no way a logical outcome of determinism within the universe that’s been created.
Manhattan is absolutely not subject to causality. Everything happens to him at the same time, meaning cause and effect happen at the same time, which is not causality.
Determinism doesn’t rule out motivation, there’s no reason why it should. Well, quite. And the corollary to that is that determinism doesn’t remove the need for motivation. It is not an answer to why someone does one thing instead of some other thing. That’s what makes your responses here (“The point is that the Dr. knows that gun is there but can’t move because he doesn’t move,” “Because he literally can’t,” etc.) not so much wrong as moot. They don’t address why it is this way rather than the other way.
Manhattan is absolutely not subject to causality. Everything happens to
him at the same time, meaning cause and effect happen at the same time,
which is not causality.Of course he is. It’s not like “everything happens to him at the same time” and to nobody else. He is living in the same universe as all the other characters, he just perceives it differently. And the universe he is living in is subject to causality. That’s what “Story of Your Life” spends so much effort explaining: it’s just two different ways of looking at the same reality, both equally valid.Early on you did gesture towards a more coherent explanation:the only reason he knows it’s there is because he’s going to be shot by it.If that is correct, then it makes sense: the course of history cannot be inconsistent, so if there would be no way for him to know he should dodge the cannon if he does dodge it, then that cannot be what happens, and ergo he does get shot.However, I don’t think it is correct. Doctor Manhattan differs from Louise in SoYL in that he routinely creates loops in causality by “telling the future” — as in this episode, when he relays Angela’s question to her grandfather in the past: from a causality POV, his actions in the present can be based on information from the future. (Louise, on the other hand, finds that nature abhors a time paradox: experiencing “the future” changes her psychology so that she still acts consistently with a linear perception of time and having no foreknowledge.)It would therefore be perfectly consistent for him to avoid the blast from the cannon simply because he knows that it is going to be fired and miss him. The fact that he doesn’t, that this is the shape of the fixed future even though it appears to violate how he would behave, his motivation, is a problem in need of an explanation.
I guess I should specify ‘linear causality’ if we’re going to split hairs here? His ability to make effect come before cause with the Angela/Will conversation is a good example of how causality doesn’t apply to him. He even says about the chicken and the egg happening at the same time to reinforce the idea that causality doesn’t apply to him.
Anyhow I think we’re too far in the weeds here, there’s no way I’m typing more paragraphs about this subject until after the next episode.
His whole shtick does not necessarily presuppose a totally predetermined universe. Jon’s more-human-than-given-credit-for mind is not conceiving his ability to see time non-linearly as an opportunity to make change. He steps in front of the cannon presently because he already saw it succeed and made himself a slave to that moment. It has to happen because he already saw it happen but he saw it happened because he made it happen so it matches what he saw happen. It’s paradoxical. Much in the same way everything is happening simply because Jon served as a bridge between Angela and her grandfather. Her grandfather acts on information he got from Angela, that she learned investigating the actions he made based on that information.
we still haven’t received confirmation that Jud was in on it all the way, even if it seems very likely.
Laurie figuring it out and getting Judd’s wife to admit she was right and then serve Laurie to the Kalvary seems like confirmation.
It seems all but confirmed…but it hasn’t been confirmed. I think that if I recall he did yes admit that the Klan robe was his (grandfathers? I forget, sorry), but he didn’t say 100% that he was in on this exact plot with his wife and the senator. He was also offering differing explanations when grandpa hood had him well-hung. The show played with ambiguity for a wonderful second when the Senator said to Laurie that he had other justifications for their plot…then a second later went straight to racism. So, all of these things SEEM like confirmation, just saying there is still some wiggle room remaining for Don Johnson’s character…not much.
I think Don Johnson’s character was the third gunman at Angela’s house on White Night. Cal/Jon instinctively teleported him away, then Johnson’s character knew he had to take a different tack.
I guess that would explain how they knew Cal was Jon, but it seems like a pretty slow timeline from that point (that comes together at exactly the same time for perfecting a portal, starting a “millennium clock,” people waking up at the right time, etc. 🙂 ).
I’m sticking with what I said previous, Laurie made a guess and the wife confirmed it. Why shouldn’t I believe that?
I’m going to have to see that scene again…did Laurie’s guess directly implicate Jud? Or was it about the wife and the senator? I’m sure it doesn’t matter I just don’t remember the show being explicit on that point yet, maybe I missed that line?
Something to consider is that thematically, Manhattan knows the end result that we don’t. It’s just as Dr. Strange said, “If I told you, it wouldn’t happen.” Our natural expectation is to change the outcome, but at what cost to the final outcome?
And that’s truly what gives him god-like power: the ability to change outcomes at any moment but the indifference to do so.
But again, we haven’t seen the final episode, so we don’t know if this is a “have to go through hell to get to heaven” situation.
I buy some of this argument because the show is walking a tightrope with the nature of Dr. Manhattan’s consciousness and how he acts. In the comic, as a watchmaker’s son, he is entirely passive. He watches Blake shoot a woman and does nothing; he meets Laurie because he’s called to a meeting to form a new super group; he goes to Vietnam because he’s ordered to by Nixon; he does nothing knowing Kennedy will be killed. He is God as the watchmaker. The thing being set in motion, now he just watches.The show makes him a bit more active in that he intentionally seeks out Angela and begins a relationship with her in the bar. He then wins her back by giving up his powers. He is showing agency for the first time in decades. But when the plot requires it he falls back onto the perspective of the predetermined universe.
Agreed that this annoying flaw is the essence of who he is as a character–but I don’t know that pursuing Angela is the exception. He goes to her when he does because he sees himself doing so, right?
My feeling about Doctor Manhattan is that he’s not actually bound by fate, it’s just that his perception of time gives him the illusion of being bound by fate. Even though he perceives himself as having no control over what will happen to him, so many of his interactions with people become these self-fulfilling prophecies, where his insistence on telling people the future is part of what creates that future. He’s constantly making choices, it’s just that, since he already knew about making the choice, he’s unable to see it as a choice.The way I like to think of it is, imagine that time is three dimensional. Doctor Manhattan can see two dimensions of it, which is more than the single dimension we can see, but is still less than the full three dimensions of it. So he’s able to see the entire length of his timeline at once, but unable to see all the potential timelines that branch off of it and exist parallel to it, leading him to believe that the path of decisions he is able to see are immutable, and leaving him blind to his own agency. But anyways, getting back to your post. I can understand why you’d see his pursuit of Angela and his being shot by the tachyon cannon as being different; one is an active action, the other is passive. But to him, there’s no distinction. Going to the bar and meeting Angela is just as predetermined as being shot by the tachyon cannon. Even going to meet Will in 2009 and telling him about Judd. It’s a very proactive action, and sets so much of the plot in motion, but as far as Manhattan is able to perceive it, that’s just what was always going to happen. There were no choices made. And if you have no choice, you can’t have agency. Or, at least, if you don’t think you have a choice. Because, again, I think he does have choice, it’s just his perception that dooms him to never being able to perceive his choices as such.
I have to rewatch, but it sure looked to me like Cal/Doc killed every 7K member threatening Angela, including the one manning the tachyonic cannon. Which leads me to thinking that Manhattan shot himself — because he HAS to be inside that special cage with Keene and Laurie (and maybe Looking Glass) for a reason he sees but we don’t yet know.
Jon’s kryptonite is the same here as it is in the comic. It’s his own unwavering faith that his perception is absolute and immutable that leads to his intractable fatalism. Laurie talked him out of it for one brief moment back in the eighties, and it seems he’s determined to never let that happen again, even, maybe even especially if, he doesn’t survive to admit he was wrong.
Laurie talked him out of it for one brief moment back in the eighties, and it seems he’s determined to never let that happen again, even, maybe even especially if, he doesn’t survive to admit he was wrong.If we’re accepting the pre-determined nature of space and time, he can’t be determined to never let anything happen again. It either does or it doesn’t.
Suggesting that Jon could simply avoid the canon is like saying he could have simply avoid becoming Dr. Manhattan. He is experiencing entering the chamber to retrieve his watch before he is torn apart in the exact same moment that he is experiencing getting blasted by the tachyon beam. To refer to this as a “line of reasoning”, let alone “unpersuasive”, is to reveal a complete lack of understanding of the character.
I wondered if he can’t see the tachyon cannon. He’s not dead, yet, so this likely isn’t the “tragic end” he was talking about, just the beginning of it, so it being a tachyon cannon he might not be able to foresee how it’s used or interact with it.
That’s literally how it works for him, though. He’s a puppet who can see the strings, as he says. He doesn’t avoid any of the bad things in the comic either, even though he knows they’re coming.Yes, this does make him a mechanical tool of the writer, or destiny, or fate, or whatever you want to call it. We’re all mechanical tools, though.
Well he knows what’s coming in the future, so I’m guessing he knows something that we won’t find out til next week, that makes him want to let himself get shot (in a Dr.-Strange-lets-Thanos-use-the-gauntlet-type of strategy). The fighting against the 7th up to that point was just because Angela needed to survive.
“Yes, his whole “experience all time simultaneously” shtick presupposes a totally predetermined universe, but deploying “I forsee this easily-avoidable thing defeats me for no reason, therefore I guess I won’t/don’t/didn’t avoid it, shrug” reduces him to a mechanical tool of the writer.” Did you read the comic? As he said, we are all puppets, he can just see the strings. Whether you want to call it predetermined or not, he knows his whole life’s experience (barring some tachyon interference in some parts) and accepts it. That’s the way he always was.
He must know what happens after he gets shot, and knows that it needs to happen.
From what he says he doesn’t know anything for a while after he gets shot and then Angela is there when he does know things again.
I thought the time he couldn’t see was just referring to when he had the tachyon in his head. When he was just Cal
He was referring to the tragedy at the end of their relationship.
He was able to see the time period when he had the tachyon irradiated ring in his head, he tells Angela that they’ll move to Tulsa and have 3 children that aren’t theirs, etc…
I just rewatched the scene and the period of time that he can’t see is when he has the tachyon in his head. Angela – how long are we living in Tulsa before we adopt themDr M – That I do not knowA – what do you mean you don’t know? I thought you know everythingDM – There’s a period of time that I cannot see, when I try to look there’s only darkness. All I know is that you were there before it began and you were there when it ends.
Why are you smiling?A – Nothing, just what you said…just sounds like a tunnel…a tunnel of loveCut away to them looking at the tachyon and talking about creating the tunnel of love
Yeah I just checked it out again and you’re right.
Yes, it’s unavoidable because he wants it to happen.
Yeah see that doesn’t make any sense to me. If he knew the gun kills him then why didn’t he just take it apart with ease? He could’ve obliterated all of the attacking 7k with a wave of his hand.
Because he literally can’t. Someone downthread gave a very good simile:
“Deciding to step to the left of the beam for him would be like me
trying to avoid a car accident five years ago by thinking about
avoiding it now.”
Causality isn’t something that happens to him, cause and effect happen at the same time because all time is the same time for him.
Pay attention, the cannon doesn’t kill him. He specifically says it is a tachyon cannon that will involuntarily teleport him somewhere, and THEN destroy him. He obviously needs to be transported to play out some other series of events. Maybe before he is killed anyway? But the cannon hasn’t killed him.
When he’s talking to veidt about the silver ring veidt says he irradiated it with (something like) tachyon radiation or whatever which meant Dr Manhattan couldn’t ‘see it’ so I guess since the transportation beam thing the 7K had was made from the same stuff (Dr M called it a tachy-thingy beam to Angela) were meant to assume he can’t properly judge where it is/where it sends him? Its not great but I think that’s the vague element of “explanation” where meant to go with…
He got shot on purpose and has something up his sleeve dealing with him standing on the water.
I assume the decision about pre-Manhattan was more practical. They didn’t want another actor to be playing this role for most of the ep. At the end though it almost felt like they were going to reveal his face in the bar.
I though the actor’s voice was similar to Billy Crudup’s, so I wondered if it was going to be a cameo from the movie, though it’d be a weird reveal. Also, I thought for sure Veidt was trapped in Lady Trieu’s golden statue.
I think he’s in the statue as well. We now know that Jon sent him to Europa in 2009 and IIRC the cake in his cell had 7 candles on it. I think that Lady Trieu was able to rescue him somehow but in a way that froze him in carbonite.
I mean, there’s a whole episode left. Given that the whole thing about Veidt’s actions that created lots of this world, and Will Reeves’ complexity as a character, is whether its worth awful things to make other awful things not happen, plus the little pool thing, I’m guessing we’re going to figure out other reasons we don’t know yet that Manhattan felt he had to let himself get exploded here.
Sure, that’s absolutely a possibility.
Imagine you’re lying in a pool of your own blood, dying. Think of all the regrets you’d have, all of the things you’d wished you said and things you’d wished you’d say.Now imagine that you knew you’re entire life that your life would end lying that pool of your own blood.
Doctor Manhattan has the luxury of doing all of the things he would someday wish he’d done, say all of the things he would someday wish he’d said.Because of the way he perceives time, his criteria for deciding what is important is very different. The way he used the minutes between Angela removing the device from his forehead and the Calvary forcibly teleporting him using the cannon made sense to him given everything he knew before and after that moment.He has said he will be destroyed, and I believe him. But that doesn’t mean the bad guys will win.
Check out Star Trek: Disco, which dealt with a very similar thing this year in a rock that shows you your fate
He also can’t see beyond a major tachyon event. Teleported with a tachyon gun I think qualifies. He doesn’t know what happens to him after teleportation.
I was thinking, “Why not just send the gun or the gunmen to Mars?” but maybe it has to do with the bit where he walks on water on the pool? Hinting that he’s Christ-like and will be resurrected? (Although Jon already was once, so maybe not!) Also, it’s possibly he told Angela’s grandfather how to resurrect him way back when and that’s what the Millenium Clock is for? I dunno!
The “tachyon cannon” bugged me. The show brought back the Intrinsic Field Subtractor (at least in conversation, and also in Veidt’s play), and the Teleporter. But the comic had no “tachyon cannon”, and why would a massive blast of tachyons destroy Dr Manhattan? In the comic we saw that tachyons affected his time perception… but destroy him? That seems very… convenient.
“ but destroy him?”
“They have a tachyon cannon that in five minutes will be used to involuntarily teleport me to their lab, where they will destroy me.”
The cannon didn’t destroy him.
The cannon teleported him. It did not kill him.
didn’t he explicitly say that it will forcibly teleport him somewhere else, not destroy him?
I feel like there was a bit of emphasis on tachyon particles that might’ve been left out of the final script, it’s the same thing that led him to forget for 10 years and maybe that was why it was something of an immovable object for him.
“To know the future is to be imprisoned by it” – Muad’dib
I imagine there’s a financial reason for having Dr Manhattan obscured for so much of the show, it’s still a TV show budget they’d be spunking away a decent chunk of their cgi allowance on big blue so I suspect they wanted to also obscure him as much as possible so when the do show him in all his glory it can look the best it can
Kudos for the relatively uncommon realization that with great power comes great writing responsibility. Most people are probably gaping instead of thinking, but then, that is the mere viewer’s burden. Writing for writers is hard.
On a rewatch on a very large screen in 4K, after the cannon fires there is NO ONE standing behind it. I believe “Calhattan” made a copy of himself to shoot himself, because there were no 7K survivors to take care of things.
Joelle mentioned it, but yeah, a very unsatisfying resolution to the
“inevitable” tragedy looming 10 years in the future: a racist with a
future-gun slowly moving in the background.
As I told a friend of mine, the show has been nearly pitch perfect the entire run. I have a hard time believing “he could have just moved” is something that wasn’t already calculated into the story. The only thing that makes sense is that being shot was a conscious choice. He wanted this. Why? I have no idea.
But if that isn’t the case, however, then… yeah, it’ll be a very rare disappointment in the narrative.We’ll see next week! 😎
I don’t think Dr. Manhattan’s knowledge works quite like that. It’s not time travel and he can’t change events. He is experiencing every moment at the same time. I don’t think he can use his foreknowledge of his death to prevent it. It just is. And given his vantage point, knowing it is coming, he both knows he can’t prevent it and doesn’t even want to try. It just is, and he accepts it.
Hmm. Eeh, alright. I’m fine hand-waving this away as “unique temporal mechanics problems that only Dr. Manhattan has”. Stuff that side-steps our usual understanding (if largely fictional at the moment) of time travel ideas. Kind of refreshing, I think. 😏
“Hey, Jon its no longer the 80’s. You cannot cultural appropriate.” I loved the banter between Ozy and Jon.
The post credit sequence was such a perfect, unexpected spin of the absurd for an episode that was a beautiful romance deconstructed. More than just once it reminded me of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; brilliant in the sewing together of fragments and memory, in a compelling folding of time of a love, never once losing the thread and yet remarkably inspiring.I loved that Manhattan maintained Cal’s face. That seemed so very right.
You still got it AJ
It seemed like an elaborate joke that Laurie might have made. Something about for want of a horseshoe. Perfectly ridiculous and tragic and triumphant all at once.
Wait, are there post-end credits scenes in every episode? I thought the run times had an extra few minutes at the end because HBO always previews the next episode so I turn it off part way through the credits, do I need to go back and fast forward through every episode to see what I missed? (dammit, I did the same thing with Banshee’s first season).
Just this one, to my knowledge, because most of the time I listen to the closing music.
Ah, thanks.
a lack of blue wang still, but happy there was wang all the same.
Cal’s wang was….impressive
Yeah…I’m sure the internet will begin arguing whether that’s the real thing or digital.
It’s referred to as a prosthetic in the behind-the-scenes video.Who knows, though. Maybe Yahya is just incredibly modest about hanging massive dong.
I’m choosing to accept it’s a prostetic. Mostly because my ego couldn’t handle if it isn’t.
Yeah, at least your wife didn’t exclaim, “Oh my god he has a huge penis!”
To me it means that Angela is a size queen. He could have any size wang she wanted and that’s what he had so…….
That ass was his though right? Cause damn
He make that booty pop, boy.
Cal’s everything is impressive.
“What if you knew a relationship would end terribly, but decided to pursue the love tunnel anyway?”Even worse in this case: What if you knew a relationship would end terribly but had no way to not enter into it?
It reminds me of the heartbreaking perfect ending to Arrival, where Amy Adams is well aware that if she enters a relationship it will lead to a daughter who will die far too young, but happily does it anyway because the good will far outweigh the bad.
Sarah Vickers might have enjoyed squishing tomato on Jeremy Iron’s face too much.
That face is just so tomato-able. How could you resist?Irons really looked like Rod Stewart to me when he was in Antartica this episode.
Loved the action sequence at the end with Angela. And it was a nice touch that when she presses the accelerator the car whines instead of revs, since they drive electric cars in the Watchmen universe.
wow 8 episodes in and every scene in the show is still a boring, clumsy, exposition dump. I love scene after scene of character blowing the mind of another character (and us!) with some badass, what-the-fuck revelations. This is some of the worst shit I have ever watched in my life.
Then why are you still watching?
You might as well be on Europa because you are alone, my guy.
I’d tell you you’re alone on this, but I have a feeling you know what being alone means.
Mr. Moore?
If only you had the mental capacity to stop watching something you hate.
This has really taken a dive towards the end for me. Surprise, it was a bunch of Lindelof mystery box twists without the box after all. The only way to make twists work any more with all those people out there rewatching over and over and playing detective is for them to only be retroactively justified and not set up beforehand, so.. maybe don’t do them, instead of doing that.
The sheer degree of Watchman knob-polishing on avclub is unreal, given how uninspired and hacky it all really is.
Go read about another show then.
u sound mad
It’s fine if you don’t like a popular thing but you have to realize that you’re in a tiny minority with this. I’m sure there’s some lame corner of Reddit you could voice your distaste for this if you really have to say something though.
Hahahah! Some lame corner of reddit. That has me rollin’
Does every space in your life need to be circle jerk? You can’t afford to encounter one negative opinion? I don’t like Watchmen because the reviewer raves about it each week as if it were some amazing and brilliant continuity with the original canon. When it has nothing to do whatsoever with the original. It’s literally just a copy paste from Lindelof’s own re-branded original script, with some things shifted about to make room for a few nonsensical Watchman tie-ins that are not true to their original characters.
Buddy it’s a TV show, it’ll be A-OK if it’s a bit of a circlejerk. My point is just that you can’t be surprised when no one really appreciates your negative take. Btdubs your reasons for not liking the show are lame as hell.
Because the Damon Lindelofs of the entertainment business and their backers can afford to buy the rights to beloved source material, and then use it as a thin veneer of branding for their own projects, rather than try to engage in world building or tell a story that can stand on its own, without Watchmen plastered on it.
It just feels like you’re trying too hard to not like the show.
criticizing creative choices and bad storytelling is completely rational and belongs right here on these boards not some reddit craphole
I don’t think the show is this perfect adaptation that the reviewer thinks it is (with every episode being graded an “A”), but it’s got some interesting ideas and actually attempts to create something new with the comic book universe, unlike the movie which was just a reproduction of the book. That’s more than most shows can say about their adaptation of source material.The first 2 episodes were below average, and the only reason I kept watching was because I wanted to know how they’d actually tie it into the comics story. But episodes 4 and on have been pretty good, with the latest two being great. I wonder how the show can possibly tie everything up satisfactorily in only one more episode.
I feel like the first episode at least earned its grade in part by being so bold for a series premiere, it felt bold to just throw people into the middle of such a complicated tale that even comic readers were probably going “what the hell?” And it meant the audience had to both use their brain but more importantly invest and trust that things will unveil over time and you don’t see that kind of thing so much these days, most shows play it a lot safer…
Didn’t really give any reasoning for this, may as well stated “I hate this show”. Great! Don’t watch it, it’s not mandatory.
Thanks for dropping by!
Lol god. HOT TAKE INCOMING! Sure ok. I think it’s been absolutely amazing. Especially how well it’s captured the comic. Shoot my gf likes it and she usually hates super hero stuff.
Edgy.
I’d rather watch a hobo jack off than ever read another one of your shitty comments about this show.
I’d rather watch a hobo jack off than another episode of Lindelof’s Cloverfielded Watchmen, so that’s fair.
I think AV Club likes shows that have an esoteric/idiosyncratic tilt, such as Watchmen, Legion, Twin Peaks, etc. But the good reviews are deserved. They utterly trash shows that don’t pull things off (like Westworld, etc).
People who come on forums just to hate shit should fucking eat a pile of shit.
Yeah, that’s why it was nominated for both a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice award in the last few days, because it’s uninspired and hacky. Try again, bucko.
THANKS FOR YOU OPINION MISTER MOORE
Are we watching the same show? The only people who don’t like it, seem to be closet racists.
Yeah, okay. It couldn’t possibly be the fact that this Watchmen has no true relation to the source material than the Cloverfield sequels. They just ripped it off for the branding and copy pasted the names onto Lindelof’s own original work.
That is the most idiotic comment I have read in AV.
So everyone who doesn’t like a show you and others do is a horrible human being. Fantastic logic. (not)
Episode 6 of this show alone shits on most every other show this year. It also somehow made a throwaway character in the comic actually interesting and compelling. An adaptation in 2019 making the original work that much more interesting. And this show is getting praised pretty much everywhere.Stop being a fuckin clown. smh.
What a compelling argument!
You know, there’s potentially an easy answer to the tachyon issue. There was no one controlling it, meaning it aimed itself. That also, to me at least, means it was going to aim at Jon no matter where he was standing and hit him.
one 7th kav dude got up and got behind it.
We’ve been getting great reviews for this show thanks to Joelle. Meanwhile, over at io9… Charles just made a throwaway comment that Manhattan-as-Cal is blackface and refused to elaborate.
Charles just made a throwaway comment that Manhattan-as-Cal is blackface and refused to elaborate.I mean, Veidt himself made the same comment in this episode.
I missed that, then.
He tells Jon, “It’s 2009. This kind of appropriation is considered quite…problematic.”
I definitely missed that line. Oh, well.
We’ve been getting great reviews for this show thanks to Joelle. Meanwhile, over at io9… Charles just made a throwaway comment that Manhattan-as-Cal is blackface and refused to elaborate.
1. Well, it was Ozy who pointed this out to Manhattan in the episode.2. Charles did say: “still blackface of a sort that Watchmen hurriedly glosses over.” How could he elaborate on something the show itself didn’t elaborate on?
Okay, I must have missed that then.
oops I see there’s another thread already saying the same thing as my post, nvm
Still miffed the omnipotent black guy gets it at the end.
That’s because Charlie’s reviews – and not only for “Watchmen” – have been increasingly poor and shallow…
Ozymandias is the one who pointed it out. He called it “problematic.” Charles gave it just as much attention as the show did.
Blackface is when a white actor changes their appearance to play a black character. Problems with blackface include its history of mocking people of color and denying them opportunities to play themselves.This is like…the opposite of that. They took an incredibly iconic role and gave it to a black actor, without even changing the character’s backstory.
There’s a lot about this that’s INTERESTING considering there (I would be super interested in a spinoff webisode about “Cal” adjusting to being black in America without knowing that this is a new experience for him) but I think it’s wrongheaded to imply that the show, whose writers and producers feature some brilliant people of color, is doing something appropriative in this context.
(Though Cyclops and the 7th Kavalry would probably say it’s appropriating from white men or whatever.)
It does touch on authenticity and immigration. He was in a black man’s body with no knowledge of any other life-how long before you become authentic? Is ten years long enough? When do immigrants truly become citizens?
Exactly! Arguably getting too into all of that would’ve brought us into appropriative Tootsie territory, so it’s probably just as well they didn’t spend a lot of time on it. I get why they lampshaded it. It seems to me like the opposite of blackface in terms of the SHOW but maybe in terms of the character? Interesting that Angela held back on suggesting the body she actually wanted the most–maybe it felt problematic to her, too.
Your definition of blackface, applying only to actors is a little narrow, but in this case what is being referenced as blackface is not with the actors of the show but the characters within the show, in that Jon Osterman is a white guy who is now being a black guy. When the character of Jon Osterman a white man assumed Cal’s body, a black man, Jon Osterman was engaging in a type of blackface. Ozymandias was referencing that but it’s too be assumed he was joking as it’s not really applicable in the case of Dr. Manhattan.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a tricky one because blackface is about appropriation and/or mocking of black people’s appearances in such a way that it becomes a costume that a person of a different race can take on and off. The difference here, I think, is that with blackface, the idea is that the “costume” can be easily removed as it doesn’t come with lived experience. With Dr. Manhattan in this show and characters like Martian Manhunter, they assume the appearance of black men, but also commit to living as black men and taking on the experiences that come with choosing to live as black men in America. In a way, it still is appropriative because they’re putting on a “costume” and don’t have a full life’s worth of experience living as black men, but on the other hand, there’s the commitment to making and accepting blackness as part of their identity that paints it in a… less… problematic light. I’m not an expert on this by any means, but that’s my understanding of why characters like Martian Manhunter who choose to take on the identities of black men aren’t considered outdated, offensive characters.
This entire series has been black face ( or whiteface) if we are being honest. This was a great concept for a show but no one had the honesty to make it without trogan horsing the watchmen name. Blaxploitation at its finest. The most impressive thing is how shameless it is, I’ll be tuned in next week though.
If the complaint is that “the adaptation of a major American crisis in the 80s is now tackling a major American crisis in the 2010s” then it doesn’t make sense to accuse the show of blackface, when it is most interested in tackling that material in the first place. I feel like whiteface doesn’t apply either since that assumes that comics are an inherently white medium.Trojan horse analogies don’t seem too off to me, but with shows like Orange is the New Black or basically every English language martial arts movie set in Asia starring a white boy, a lot of the time the white protagonist is used as a gateway to tell stories about the other characters. (Though in the latter case it often feels exactly like the exploitation of borrowing Orientalist trappings, rather than delving the way Watchmen tries.)
He laid out a plan to keep her safe. I think he made her a god.So I wasn’t the only one thinking that! As soon as she asked if he could give his powers to her, I’m like, “I bet that’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to become the next Doctor Manhattan.” That particle cannon will be the new door from Titanic. Move to the left or the right, sir! Did you really have to die?I think he was right in front of Angela, so if he moved, she would die. Or he already knew the future and knew how things would turn out (with the Seventh Kavalry failing in their plan) and so knew he needed to be taken by them.
the thumbnail poster they use for watchen has sister night looking very blue. from the start we were wondering if she was manhattan. maybe she just becomes him.
My suspicion is that the waffles are how he’ll pass his powers through. Otherwise, why the hell is he taking the time to cook at that moment?
“Watch the eggs.”
That connection between Europa the moon and the mythical figure of Europa is really neat. Europa is always a popular place for life to exist in sci fi (see, for example: 2010: The Year We Make Contact) so I never considered that it might have some other significance.
Plus the very music from 2001.
Europa is close enough to Jupiter that the magnetic field has created enough internal heat to have liquid water under a thick layer of ice. Life on earth might have started next to volcanic vents back before we had an oxygenated atmosphere.
They tried their darndest but they couldn’t quite convince me that Dr. Manhattan getting taken out that easily is remotely plausible. The rest of the episode was great though.
They’re all just puppets though. Dr Manhattan is merely a puppet who can see the strings.
I don’t know why everyone seems to think that the cannon killed him? Doesn’t he blatantly say that the cannon is going to “involuntarily teleport” him somewhere? He very well may die, but I don’t think that was it.
Yes, he did say involuntarily teleport. I know the tachyons didn’t kill him, but they did “take him out”, at least temporarily, at least seemingly. And that’s the part I find implausible.
Well I think that’s just the misconception a lot people have about Dr. Manhattan. He can see the future, but that doesn’t mean he can alter it.
For one thing, if everyone believed until recently that Manhattan has been on Mars for years, where did the tachyon cannon come from? Especially since, in this version of the story, the Manhattan “threat” was secondary to the squid hoax.
But what of Lube Man?
He’ll save the world next week.
Prediction – When it’s probably Pete he’ll tell Laurie – I told you my name is ____ – since he wasn’t so fond of her usage of “Mirror guy”. I’m guessing Mercury or like Quicksilver or something.
I don’t really think it makes sense for it to be Petey. For starters he traveled to Tulsa with his partner who works for the Anti-Vigilante Task Force. and he had his Lone Ranger mask so it’s unlikely he brought a second full costume and some lube. Plus Lube Man seemed to know the area he was in pretty well, the way he moved that piece of sheet metal to go through that fence. Finally if it was him there’s no way he wouldn’t have written a memo about the mysterious new hero Lube Man on Peteypedia.
Lube Man did nothing but observe Angela. He’s a historian who observes (and adores) super hero history and scoffs at the TV show’s inaccuracies. He would totally memorize a map of Tulsa. Plus he was part of IT or something as a low level whatever just running the projector. Your thoughts on what he packed is kinda irrelevant since I don’t remember luggage probably because it was in the hold of the private plane. Him having a hokey mask on him seems like more proof he actually likes heros, possibly planning on working his way up in that department and being a mole.
I dunno how you go from “he’s a historian who likes heroes” to memorizing a map of Tulsa, Oklahoma but ok. As far as I know Tulsa held no significance re: heroes prior to the start of the show. I get that he likes heroes and we don’t see his luggage, my point with the mask is why would he bring both a Lube Man suit and the lone ranger mask?
Wow, yes I think it’s Mr. Peteypedia himself.
He could slide in at any minute.
Where can I buy Episode 8: The Soundtrack? Verdi, Strauss, Offenbach (with a reprise!), Brook Benton, and Doris Day – this episode certainly covered a lot of ground.
Thanks for another excellent review!As for my own opinion on this eps, a solid 9.99! That faulty 0.01 is due to my opinion that everything else in this episode – and in the show, so far, to be honest – was amazingly well written, but… Canonically, Manhattan is, for all effects and purposes, a god, or at least the closest thing this universe has to it. Other than plot necessity, there’s no way to make believable him getting taken by the 7th Kavalry. Damn he wouldn’t even have to get out of the house to handle this, just snap his fingers and all of those clowns would be vaporized into atoms or sent to die in the vaccum of the space, at the other side of the galaxy…
There is no free will.
i didn’t find it hard to believe that he simply needed to be captured for something we don’t know yet to happen. we will be shown what that something is next ep.
Perhaps it’s because, of course he can control their bodies, but to have lasting peace he has to change their minds. He could snap his fingers and do that too I suppose but maybe he doesn’t want to because he wants there to be free will. So maybe we will see him show 7k (and the rest of humanity) the error of their ways?
It was kind of glossed over with everything else going on, but after all the speculation over Veidt’s prison, how perfect was it that he ASKED to be sent to paradise on Europa?
I like the glossed over twist better that its the clones that are imprisoning him there. Not Manhattan or anyone else originally as thought.
Moreso as he was a lower-case G god sequestered away dropping squids and being disappointed in the world he helped to create but couldn’t properly control (because otherwise he’d be a terrorist).
So who’s been dropping squids while Veidt’s been on Europa?
My fan wank would be that he had some contingency plan in case he died or was otherwise unavailable to squid the people.
In my fan wank, Squid the People is the next version of Foster the People.
I believe it was done automatically.
Right, he was pissed that humanity wasn’t doing what he wanted, so he went to Europa where everyone did EXACTLY what he wanted and was so bored he went a little nuts.
Fuck that was good.
Not to go off on a tangent, but I don’t think Manhattan is viewed as a tyrant in this timeline’s Vietnam. I’m not sure how much detail was revealed in this universe-like the fact the war was started by the comedian faking an attack on US ships to escalate intervention- but assuming otherwise, I imagine most of the south would likely see Manhattan and the US forces as liberators. Ending what would’ve been a 2 decade war in 2 months and saving hundreds of thousands of lives. If modern measures are anything to go by, I’m guessing the country is significantly wealthier as a US state than it would be under communism, and a hell of lot of freer. People forget Vietnam is basically the same as China in terms of human rights abuse and oppression, currently only a half point lower on the freedom index. Apparently the US also went on a purge during occupation, which probably wasn’t popular in the north. Though I’d assume they also ousted the useless and corrupt southern government in an overhaul. Though certainly the CIA was probably up to some shady shit.Anyway, point is, you’re seeing the liberation day/Manhattan celebration as some kind of twisted, brain-washed conquerer worship, but I’d submit that it’s a genuine admiration and that Dr. Manhattan is viewed as a savior. I mean, the comic explicitly mentions he was seen as a god by the VC and probably many more. And who wouldn’t?
They literally wrote murderer over the Dr. Manhattan billboards in Vietnam. Not everyone takes a colonist viewpoint.
gods are meant to be feared.
Nice we got Irma Thomas’ “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)”in the bar. Like Black Mirror hasn’t taught me that song is up tp no good.
And I had to find that disco “Rhapsody in Blue”:
The best you can ever say about a story involving a godlike being is that it strains every artistic muscle to the breaking point to make you forget the simplest thing: motherfucker can do *anything,* so no, there are never any believable losses for it. It strains all credulity that Dr. Manhattan was doomed. What’s worse is that they set up quite literally the perfect way for it to be more believable – Dr. Manhattan takes a risk, even seeing a universe *without him in it* for the rest of all time after this blackout period – and they made the hard, fuck-logic-this-is-emotional choice to not do that.
This episode is probably the closest I’ve ever witnessed to a piece of art actually succeeding at that impossible task, and the obvious door they passed up makes that even more impressive.It still failed, but, shit dude. It was fuckin’ good.
There is no such thing as free will. Even for gods.
That’s definitely the most elegant thesis to justify Dr. Manhattan, and you are probably correct that it’s the operant one – but I actually think it’d be cooler if he really *did* have a painfully deficient imagination, and that’s why he’s so fatalistic. He’s convinced himself that he has no free will because he just can’t imagine doing anything differently as he experiences it all simultaneously.
It’d also be more consistent with Ozymandias being able to surprise and occasionally one-up him, despite being a mere, pathetic mortal.It is one thing that the property has been missing, though: a direct interrogation of his seeming lack of free will by somebody who’s well-versed in the science (or science fiction,) philosophy, and straight-up practicalities of such scenarios. Ozymandias is the obvious choice.The dialogue practically writes itself: “because I don’t.” But I think the conceit deserves to be prodded by an expert instead of just by some random cop in a Vietnamese bar.
“I actually think it’d be cooler if he really *did* have a painfully deficient imagination, and that’s why he’s so fatalistic.”I absolutely agree with this, and I think that’s what the show itself is leaning towards as well.
The episode title is “A God Walks Into a Bar.”
Or….
And the in-episode title card is “Abar.”Wordplay!
The “Moment” Jon fell in love with Angela made me cry actual tears. I never thought a Watchmen show would do that to me.
Veidt’s plan A was basically belling the cat. That’s why he didn’t do it.
I finally understand why Moore wants nothing to do with any Film or TV adaptation of his work. This was truly self-indulgent, vomit-inducing dribble. I won’t even bother watching the last episode.
“You need to see me on the pool. It’s important… for later.”Then, the way he pauses as he takes the last step out….
Maybe I’m misreading/misinterpreting him, but I read Jon not moving away from the particle cannon as part of his self-inflicted tragedy. He can’t conceive of changing the future, follows the rules of time to the letter, like a good scientific determinist. Maybe he really can’t change his future a la the Back to the Future movies, or maybe he just doesn’t have the imagination, as Vedt said.
The most obvious analogue episode from Lindelof that comes to mind is Lost’s The Constant. I also thought of the movie, Arrival.
We got some great psyhological profile of Adrian tonight. I didn’t know the extent of his narcissism—that his motivation to save humanity and create a utopia was really to be loved. (It’s been a while since I read the graphic novel so forgive me if that was clear in it.) So Ozy choosing to go to what will become his prison, because there he will be worshipped, and think that’s enough, until he won’t, is neat and brutal tragic irony. Whereas Jon actually finds love, in all its messiness and pain, and is happy in it.In a facepalm moment, I will admit to not getting the pun in the title until it was pointed out to me after the episode.Fantastic character writing to have Angela fall in love with Manhattan because he can tell the future and so it makes her, who’s lived a very turbulent and painful life, feel safe. But then of course you can’t live long term in a relationship like that. Great allusions to Laurie and their fight in the novel. Angela and her can bond over that.
Someone on Twitter argued that the last three episodes of this show may be among the best three episodes runs of any show, and I can’t disagree. So if the final doesn’t live up to an already very high level of quality this show’s been pulling off week after week—I won’t really mind.
Came here to point out the similarity with Lost’s “The Constant” and am glad to see I’m not the first.
I like your point about him not having the imagination to change the future. Even when he creates life, he does so on an existing surface, using all preexisting animals and plant life and settings, down to literally bringing in the place he felt safest as a child. Nothing about his creation is creative.
He can’t conceive of changing the future, follows the rules of time to the letter, like a good scientific determinist.No, see, that’s what most people don’t get about Dr. Manhattan. He doesn’t see the future (he even said as much here), he’s IN the future. Or better, it’s not the future for him. So to ask why he doesn’t change it, it’s like asking why you don’t change what you did yesterday. If he experienced it, it happened already, can’t be changed anymore. If he could change it, he wouldn’t have experienced it in the first place. The moment he became Manhattan, his entire life was experienced, completed and over, in every moment afterwards. And the most he could do about it was reflecting on it and talking about it, like a living audio commentary on his entire existence, like someone who’s watching a movie they already saw, and tells you about what’s going to happen on the screen, but of course they can’t do anything about it, they can only keep watching.
You make a good point. Ok, I can accept that.
An absolutely stunning hour of television. I had my doubts going into the show in the beginning, but week to week, it has proven to be thematically rich, expertly written, produced and acted, and thrilling in ways that both honor and surpass the source material. (Yes, I said it; Angela is the kind of relatable protagonist I felt was sorely missing in the book, and Laurie’s world-weary cynicism and wry wit are an excellent development of her character.) The chicken-egg paradox was expertly deployed as you come to the mind-blowing realization that by asking Will why he killed Judd, Angela actually set this whole thing in motion. And yes, I agree with you, Ms. Monique, that Cal/Manhattan has slipped some of his DNA to Angela (and possibly the kids), therefore making them all safe from harm as we reach the endgame.I was about to make a comment that Manhattan needs to find a way to do that with Laurie, because I don’t want her to die, but is it possible that by sleeping with her all those years ago he already has? Does it work that way? I was initially thinking of the eggs he served for breakfast a few episodes ago as the delivery system for his god-DNA, but now I’m wondering if sleeping with Angela might serve the same function. Either way, if the finale keeps up this level of storytelling, and provides solid answers for the few remaining questions (most surrounding Lady Trieu) it should be pretty fucking epic. I would happily accept further seasons of this show if they can maintain the superior quality of this one.
Sex can’t be a way for Manhattan to transfer his powers because in the Original Comic Jon’s 1st wife dies of cancer which people falsely assumed came from him.
Oh yeah, I forgot he and Janey Slater continued their relationship after his accident. Duh. My mistake.
I too loved how they presented the chicken egg conundrum, but it still doesn’t explain how Cyclops knew who Cal was. I’m looking forward to the next episode whether the answers are good or not.
I assumed it was because Cal/Jon zapped that 7th calvary attacker. Perhaps they were wearing body cams or someone in their ranks saw what happened.
Assuming it was intentional (and what detail in this show isn’t?), I liked the foreshadowing in the very beginning of the episode, where the blue neon “WATCHMEN” sign has its “M” (for Manhattan?) flicker and burn out.
Interesting that, in all the time he spent with Angela, he never simultaneously spent his time with Laurie.
He started his relationship with Angela after a major tachyon event, so his future vision was kind of fuzzy, a good time to start a new relationship.
I don’t fully get it…. but I don’t have to. I have faith in the characters and their truth. That’s what you have to let go of watching Watchmen — control. It’s not OUR story… it’s theirs. Accept it and enjoy it.
The real tragedy of this story: No waffles.
Unless Cal materialized them, put his essence in them, and gives Angela his power. Or maybe the series will end with the oldest child eating a waffle, and he starts to turn blue.
Oh no. You may or may not be setting up a blue waffle joke here and either way I hate myself for thinking it.
I can see that
“Watch the eggs.”
I cried, Dr M probably makes really awesome waffles too.
That’s the tragedy of Dr. Manhattan’s existence: he still starts to make waffles, even though he knows all the eggs will get smashed on the floor. What a world.
Now I want a spinoff/Marvel crossover cooking show:Waffles with Legion and Dr. Manhattan
The true tragedy is that this show has not brought up that the Vietnamese do crawfish better than anyone in Louisiana ever has.
I wasn’t aware of the connection between crawdads and Vietnam but now the Cajun pho place in my hometown makes a little more sense. (I assumed it was just a Francophone thing, aside from lack of Belgian waffles, or maybe someone’s weirdly specific life story in restaurant form)
Pretty sure the waffles will come into play next episode, when Angela eats them and becomes the new Doctor Manhattan, but like you, I was ready to see those golden fluffy boyz in this episode.
Ya I felt this episode, was bad. Doctor manhattan has the same issue as superman but even worse. He should have been left on mars for this series. I dont feel his relationship with angela is meaningful, and the reveal of the squid conspiracy was a big enough point to the plot. Doctor manhattan subdued the vietcong but couldnt just obliterate from space a bunch of rednecks. Or I dunno teleport away and tell the FBI from safety. Like he sent his kids away. This whole doctor manhattan storyline brings this series from an -A for me down to a solid -C we will see if they can savlage anything. The made a god look like a Fool.
The reveal of the squid conspiracy was a plot point from the novel. This show is telling its own story. Also again, there’s no free will. That’s literally the tragedy of Dr Manhattan.
Except he does have free will, and even in this show has referred to making decisions. And he makes decision in the comics as well. He absolutely does have free will. And seeing how important the squid conspiracy has been to this story no they are not telling “its own story” And the showriters have said the comic is canon. As i said doctor manhattan, outside of the original watchman story is very very hard to write around, and I feel they have failed.
I don’t think it makes sense for Veidt’s message to have been to Dr. Manhattan. For one thing, it was made to be seen by a satellite, which could reasonably only belong to Trieu. And, as far as Veidt could be aware, Dr. Manhattan was living his life as Cal without any memories of his past or powers. If Veidt had any hope of anyone rescuing him, it would have to be Trieu.
It’s a brilliant episode, and having Dr. Manhattan retain Cal’s face was absolutely right and very moving, from both within the story and as metatextual commentary on race in comics.I’m also fascinated, though, by the power dynamics of the scene in the chapel where the Lord and Lady present Jon with a Bible- something they will clearly do to all their Jewish guests, as evidenced by the pile of identically wrapped books. Kind and loving as they are- and Lindelof gives us every reason to believe in their sincerity- they’re still trying to erase the Jewishness of the Jews. Would it be possible to host refugees without the soft-pedaled evangelism? Of course- but this is part and parcel, as it were, of their mission.
I liked the woman’s response when he said he was Jewish, though—she said “That’s OK, they’re still beautiful stories.” Which seems like a pretty cool and non-judgmental attitude for the time. Heck, for evangelical Christians now.
He didn’t say he was Jewish; he said his father didn’t believe in “that stuff (or words to that effect). And while it was a Christian Bible, and evangelism was probably a goal, the specific “beautiful stories” discussed were strictly Old Testament.
Excuse my ignorance, but isn’t the 1st Testament creation story the same for Jews and Christians? The Moses story transcends both religions.
I love how you draw out the parallels between Veight and Manhattan. You can see how theyre friends, or as close to it as these two unique individuals would be capable of being to someone else.But as much as i loved this episode.And as much as i was moved by their relationship.. and how sad it must feel too know everything… especially the fate of those you love.I gotta say, it nagged the shit out of me that neither of them went for the device FIRST.Mere bullets cant hurt Manhattan.Both he and Angela should have made a beeline for it. Im not convinced he could be so easily thwarted. Hell just teleport it to deep space. Simple.Im guessing theres a deeper a”that is meant to happen will find a way to happen” subtext there, but im unconvinced.I mean he’s god level powerful.Besides that i was actually moved to the verge of tears. This is probably Lindelofs best workLost fell apart towards the end.The Leftovers took a whole season to be more than just existential crisis porn lolThis has been tight, efficient and consistently brilliant from the first scene.Ps…im not clear what Veight wants? Is he planning on telling everyone it was him? I mean that would nullify all his efforts.
“This has been tight, efficient and consistently brilliant from the first scene.Ps…im not clear what Veight wants? Is he planning on telling everyone it was him? I mean that would nullify all his efforts”
Fair, but with Watchmen, Lindelof had one Hell of a foundation to build off of. (Of course he had a source novel for Leftovers as well, and the least successful season, the first, more or less covered that novel—ironically its author, Pettorra, by Linelof’s own admission became more deeply involved with the plotting as the seasons went on—and actually co-wrote the key episodes of season 3 including the finale).
As for your second comment—I thought that was Veight’s dilemma and why he was so miserable? He wanted the recognition or… something, but as you say, if he admitted to what he had done, it wold cause people to hate him. At any rate didn’t he as Doc Man to get him recognition–and it looks like he got that when he was gone to some extent, somehow.
I mean he’s god level powerful.And as gods so often do, when an intervention was necessary, and at least from our perspective, deserved, he did nothing. I think it very much suggests there’s a reason Dr. Manhattan needed to be captured.
Right. Im remembering now he told Angela that it was important for her to see him standing on the pool. So yes, i suppose he needed to be captured so that x, y, and z can happen. Ps.. “as gods so often do…”. I felt that. Well said.
Yeah, it’s like an Obi Wan situation. He just gave up and allowed Vader to strike him down.
This was the first episode that didn’t really work for me. I found it to be really boring honestly. Beyond that, this was the first time where I thought the show really messed with Moore’s creation for the worse. Up to this point, it’s just been adding on to things from the source material or filling in gaps (Hooded Justice’s backstory), but this completely goes against everything we knew about Dr. Manhattan. Basically we’re hit with an “actually!” and told that all of Dr. Manhattan’s motivations are a complete 180 from what we knew of him. I also really didn’t like Cal’s voice as Dr. Manhattan and really didn’t like the look with the eyebrows and pupils (as other commenters mentioned). Also, the setting up of him passing his powers on seemed way too obvious as a solution for Angela to likely become the new Dr. Manhattan, which just seems odd. The end of the Leftovers was perfect, so I’m holding out on being too critical of the end of this, but this episode didn’t really seem to set things up too well in my opinion.
Star because these are good points. Still loved the episode, but yeah, the passing on powers and fundamentally changing Dr. Manhattan’s character are a a bit awkward …
How the hell are they going to have a season 2?
There was so much great stuff in that episode, but the ending with the cannon just didn’t ring true, somehow, and it took me a minute to figure out why.Moore built his whole story around Dr. Manhattan’s powers. Everything in the Watchmen conformed to the central truth of how they worked, and how he operated. Literally everything revolved around him, from the technology the planet was capable of having, to the clothes people would wear on the street after Manhattan’s tv appearances. Lindelof is doing the opposite. He forced Dr. Manhattan’s powers to conform to his story.Which, you know, in any other situation I can think of, I doubt I’d even notice, but the Watchmen was perhaps the one truly perfect piece of art I’ve ever seen in my life. An “A-” is fantastic, but it isn’t good enough to stand beside those twelve comic books. I can’t say I’m totally surprised, either. If there was one thing that was going to trip Lindelof up, it was going to be Manhattan, and it did. You really do need to be an Alan Moore level genius to handle a character like that, and Lindelof is very, very clever, but he’s no Alan Moore.And I hope there’s a whole lot of Looking Glass in the finale, because I’m still waiting around on any meaningful resolution to a cliffhanger from EPISODE FIVE. Talk about “peak Lindelof”. Go back to Wade! Go back to Wade!
I really, really hate to be that guy but – it’s ‘with impunity’ not ‘without impunity’.
First let me say that Regina King’s acting in this series and particularly this episode has been stunning. No matter how this wraps up next week, I’m sad that we won’t have her superb take on this character to look forward to after that.And on the subject of wrapping up…The problem of omnescence/predestination in an actual god is complexly interesting, though I wonder if the good doctor isn’t being disingenuous with his ultimate intent. He may actually want his existence to end, or again have other aims…Someone pointed out that all the clues to the watchmen series are right in the original graphic, down to the blue illumination on Angie’s face…Just speculation but what if that blue cast doesn’t represent the glow from Dr. Manhatten but impending transformation, i.e.; the intent is for another ‘Dr. Manhattan’ to be created, but in comic book logic, Angie’s efforts to save Doc M result in her being the one in the chamber and transformed… ?Whether Doc M’s intent would be to create a companion at his level, or simply to pass on from an existence he finds increasingly troubling, or some strange cosmic predestination variation of that, it would be in keeping with the double and subtle twistiness of the show. But then again, given the show so far, I’m suspecting the denouement will prove to be even stranger than that…
Yes, he had to get hit by the beam. Dr. Manhattan views all of time at the same time, but he also views what he sees as an inevitability for which he can make no alterations. He knew he got hit by it, therefore he didn’t move therefore ensuring he got hit by it. Another chicken/egg dilemma as he mentioned when Angela set the whole story in motion with a simple question.
An all-powerful being who creates life, then comes to Earth in mortal form…Of course he had to die. You can’t be a Christ analogy if you don’t.
So *my* question is how did Original Adam manage to grow a mustache and become Zorro Game Warden? It seems obvious to me that Doc Manhattan partly sent Veidt up there because he felt he might or would become a danger to Earth (again), but it wasn’t implied that he placed Original A in that role. (Poor Original Eve doesn’t seem to have the same power). I mean this is really important, people! (I do like the mask and mustache look on Ichabod guy though–I’m not complaining!)
I admit that until this review, I hadn’t really realized that Veidt only destroys Adams… I could have sworn some of those moon bodies were female as well, but…
1. He 100% sent Ozy up there purely at his request and also as a “thank you” of sorts for that amnesia device. He was more of a threat to himself than to Earth more than anything.2. He’s killed Eve’s before. Plenty of scenes showing her bodies everywhere.3. Original Adam is that way because he was created directly from Manhattan. Remember, all the other clones were directly created, controlled, and manipulated by Ozy and don’t have the same level of self-awareness/consciousness and freedom that original Adam and Eve has (I’m guessing original Eve was the lawyer in court and the one who baked the horseshoe in the cake).That’s why he made himself head clone and leader of the whole thing.
It’s also possible we haven’t met Original Eve yet. Maybe she’s the executioner?
Or, like I said, she was the prosecutor in the courtroom. She actually knew of and specifically mentioned the squid attack.
You’re probably right, though I wouldn’t be 100% sure about anything on this show 😛 But did he know that Original Adam would keep him trapped on Europa? Because wouldn’t that show the possibility of wanting to keep Veidt up there? I admit I can’t see Manhattan having any real ulterior motive for sending Veidt there, but I can’t see him wanting to make him happy either, particularly.
As for your second point—thanks. I was wondering from this review if I was remembering wrong as I could swear we saw Eve bodies.
Adam admitted and said as much to Ozy why he’s trapping him there. He’s mad that Manhattan abandoned and ditched them, so he’s taking it out on Ozy for the same thing. Though Adam isn’t wrong since Ozy is trying to bail out of there. I think they made a deal where he can be a king and can do whatever he wants, but he can’t ever leave which is connected to why Manhattan created them which is to help/think about others. When Manhattan ditched them, they had no one to care for which probably drove them insane since it left them without purpose. With Ozy there, now they have a new God to serve and they’re making sure he doesn’t leave this time. I think Original Eve was Crookshanks the Prosecutor, since she mentioned the Squid Attack and called it genocide, she winked at him, and she’s the one who probably passed on the horseshoe. She seems smarter than the other clones. It’s interesting how original Adam thinks Ozy is petty and cruel, while original Eve wants to help him. One is a believer, one is not just real like Adam and Eve. As you can see, that’s a dead Eve being launched:
Yes, yes, man—I don’t need visual confirmation about Eves being cannon fodder as much as Adams 😉 But it’s appreciated. I’m not sure if Joelle reads the comments or not, but it was her comment that made me wonder if I was misremembering, and I can’t go back to previous episodes right now… I also think you’re right about Original Eve being the prosecuter (but does she live wherever the Game Warden lives? 😛 Actually, I don’t really care…)
So if this is the seventh year Veidt has been up there, so in theory he probably has three more years to catch up with the main narrative? And is no one gonna mention that he was reading… Fogdancing? Is that the first time we’ve seen it in the series? (I often miss details like that, but did catch that and make the connection…)
I don’t think DM was motivated by keeping Veidt happy, or protecting earth from him. He sent Veidt there at his request in exchange for the thingy he put in his head so he could live as Cal.
Actually, I think you’re probably right here. Doc wouldn’t really care one way or the other about Veidt being a threat or his happiness.
So Doc Manhattan is OP in general so the ending in this episode which he kills pretty much all 7K members but leaves one alone felt a bit forced
Just wanted to say that I always thought that the chapter with Dr. Manhattan’s origin story in the Watchman comic was very beautiful and moving to me and I feel like this episode really captured that tone well. It felt like revisiting that part of the book, or an echo. But I’m more invested in the characters this time around (Angela is a amazing, where I felt like the women in the original comic were written without much depth). I loved this episode!
moore is shit at writing women. angela is written as a human being, not as a not very interested man’s assumption of what a woman is like.
Kind of wished for more of a lean-in with the notion of Cal as appropriation. Four age-appropriate family-less men destined for the incinerator- two white, one Asian, one black. Who does Angela choose and why? She’s a black woman living in Vietnam, grew up with Vietnamese orphans, rose through the Saigon police structure much like Will Reeves rose up through the white NYPD of the ‘40s/’50s, last loving relationship she had with a black man was the father that got blown up and not knowing the racial profile of the 51st state she is a minority in a place with an Asian majority and white power structure. Was the choice based off of aesthetics (I mean yum, but it’d be weird if Angela was pervign on corpses before bringing her man down there), or the constant ability to underestimate black men in the world, even one with reparations? Did it matter to Dr. Manhattan who he picked, being a blue god longer than he had been a white Jewish man if the form he chose was a dark man? Was it like the white face her grandfather used to be a hero, but in reverse and it’s a part of Angela’s make-up, much like tragic childhoods and belief in the law? Gah, this show.
And seriously – blow the fucking truck up if you can blow up heads. Unless he knows something.
According to Peteypedia, Vietnam gets disproportionately Black immigration from the CONUS:
And so I visited the local library and consulted Ebert’s Guide to Practical Filmgoing (2012 edition). From this book I learned that Sister Night lives in a proverbial parallel world of American cinema. I speak of Vietnam, which has always had its own unique pop culture. For example, the seventies and eighties saw a phenomenon of films made specifically for the large population of African Americans who migrated there after the war to escape the institutional racism of the Nixon era and seek new opportunities in the new frontier. My impression is that she’s supposed to be part of a decent-sized African-American diaspora community in Vietnam.
That’s the part I don’t get either. If he knew something tragic was going to happen, why didn’t he avoid it all together after saving Angela? Unless he HAD to let it happen to fulfill whatever future holds for him and Angela?
According to armchair and pop psychology, women like men who remind them of their fathers. Subconsciously or otherwise, Angela picked the one of the four who looked most like hers.
And seriously – blow the fucking truck up if you can blow up heads. Unless he knows something.Thank you!https://gfycat.com/heftyappropriateirrawaddydolphin
So, was that 8 candles on Veidt’s cake? He still has a couple of years to escape with his horse shoe and get to Earth.
I imagine that is about how long it will take him to dig his way out of a cell with a horseshoe.
Horseshoe? Did y’all stay for the post-credit scene?
He wasn’t killed, he was teleported, presumably to some sort of containment in the abandoned mall. Also, everyone’s been harping on him not trying to save himself, but that’s completely consistent with who his character is and how his powers work. The reason he’s able to tell Angela that they have a gun that’s going to teleport him is because it’s already happened to him. It’s not the future as far as he’s he’s concerned, it’s just an unchangeable part of the present that is his entire existence. Just like you can’t decide not to eat that seafood 3 days ago because it gave you food poisoning, he can’t decide to not doing something he knows he will do 3 days in the future. And I get why this is maddening to some people. It implies that there is no such thing as free will, that everything is predestined. And in fact, that is what Doctor Manhattan believes to be the case. However, we also know that, even before he had powers, Jon never had a strong sense of agency. He learned to make watches because that’s what his father did, and then studied science ‘cause his father told him to. He met Jenny ‘cause his friend introduced him to her, and she’s the one that bought him a drink and pursued him. Once he got powers, he fought crime because he was told he should, and went to Vietnam because the president asked. He left Jenny as soon as she needed him to take more agency in the relationship, and got with Laurie ‘cause she was there. He’s a man who never had a strong point of view of his own to express, and so it makes sense that when he gains full awareness of his past and future, he simply takes it all as a foregone conclusion. So, it may be that in the world of watchmen, there is no free will. Or, it might just be that Jon lacks the imagination or desire to even consider challenging that which he perceives to be inevitable. Either way, he would never move out of the way of getting shot because the only way he knew he was about to be shot is because he’d already been shot, so if he’d moved out of the way of being shot, then he wouldn’t have been shot and therefor wouldn’t have known that he was about to be shot and wouldn’t have known to move out of the way, and this is why Doctor Manhattan is super infuriating to everyone close to him.
Does Jon’s failure to stop the canon or its shooter imply that he’s complicit with the Kavalry’s plans (or at least okay with them) or is it simply that he could do nothing about it?
A) POST CREDITS SCENE! I didn’t see a lot on here so not sure if everyone saw it…it had a really great acting moment for Kid A, but the end bit (basically a file in a cake) was pretty anticlimactic.
B) I think Dr. Manhattan didn’t know the guy was about to shoot him because he hadn’t been shot yet. Yes, he knew he was shot, and by that guy, but he learned that from being shot, and he couldn’t change that. A better question is when you can see the Kavalry and their cars right there why not disapparate them all at once? That isn’t a chess move in time, it’s swatting a gnat. There seems to be a choice there.
C) I thought it was pretty wacky that Lindelof underlined the initial causation problem (someone has to have the idea in the first place or nobody will ever have the idea in the first place and the idea will never be had by that means) and then went intentionally straight at it with the Jud/Cyclops moment. I hate when writers mess that up, but jury is out when they put in bold caps that they are messing with it.
D) I am guessing we will have a “kill me” moment with Laurie/Dr. M (she’s sitting next to the portal he just got sucked to, right?), and that Dr. M put his powers into the eggo waffles or something (are the kids going to turn into POWER PACK? someone give me a point for that reference), but Lindelof is good enough that could be a feint. The only thing to keep in mind is: this is Angela’s story.
E) I miss Tim Blake Nelson. After seeing this Dr. M I need to work out more. Yahya was amazing as the butt nekkid Dr. M, his scene with Irons was excellent. Blue Yahya was a bit eh but it was quick and people overall look weird when they’re blue.
F) watch either Rick and Morty or Star Trek: Disco for rocks that let you see your fate and accept it or not…seems a common subject over the last year with our planet headed to disaster 😉
G) That question would you start a relationship anyway knowing it will end in tragedy is always a close shot for me. I trust Lindelof after Leftovers, and feel the same way I did before the last episode of that show, even if the end weren’t right on: 3 of the last 4 episodes have been the best of the year, dayeinu, that’s enough for me.
I’m not going to pretend to understand what it means, but I loved that in a show so devoted to the exploration of how people change when they put on a mask, that Dr Manhattan’s mask was his own face.
That was one of the best hours of TV I’ve ever seen. Nothing more to add.
“That particle cannon will be the new door from Titanic. Move to the left or the right, sir! Did you really have to die?”Of course he didn’t have to die…he knew what was coming, and let it happen. The question is, why, and I’m sure that’ll be answered next week.
Brilliant, beautiful episode. Though I felt like they wrote Angela a little dumb in the swimming pool scene (she’d lived with full-on-aggravating Dr M for 6 months, she understands his perceptions of time.)I also feel really silly that I had the thought, “Jeremy Irons is a really good actor.” (Duh Belle. Duh.) But I just thought he was wonderful in the Antarctica sequence.
Also fuck, if Dr Manhattan really dies my heart just breaks for those poor fucking kids.
Assuming they live. Will alluded to some sort of betrayal of Angela and we don’t know if it’s the death of Cal, the kids under his watch, or maybe setting everything into motion by having Judd kill himself. (Or maybe the clock somehow destroys Tulsa)
“The message Veidt wrote, “Help me D…,” was for Doctor Manhattan.”No, it’s “Save Me D…”, and the D is for Daughter. Trieu’s satellites found Manhattan on Europa; she is the elephant that told Veidt, so he knew she’d have a camera pointed right at his paradise/prison.
Does anyone refer directly to their daughter as “daughter” as opposed to their name?
My big problem with the ep is that I just don’t quite buy that someone like Angela would fall for Dr Manhattan. We get the meet cute, but they really skip over when she falls in love with him. The “motherfucker” whenever he used his powers in Tulsa seemed more in keeping with her character
I agree. Superweird pickup in a bar. Presumably a dinner. And the next thing you know they’re picking out corpses in the morgue.The comic gave us enough of Laurie’s monologue that it made sense and seemed like something she wanted, but this feels too predetermined.
With Laurie I always felt that she was probably this young woman who felt flattered by the attention of this powerful man (the most powerful). But I don’t get how Angela gets to loving him
I realized that my last comment ignored the skeeviness of the Laurie/Jon relationship…even though it is definitely skeevy.But at least we get it in Laurie’s words: she thought he was hot, crimefighting was exciting, electric kisses, etc. Laurie clearly fell in love with a man. (a blue man with magic powers, but still a man)For Angela though,did she fall in love with a parlour trick? Or with a god (which is an even skeevier power dynamic than Jon and teenage Laurie)? The episode is basically just a giant monologue by Jon, and it really needed a bit more of Angela’s POV.
There were a lot of ellipses from her end of the story, but it seems plausible she would be enticed by the idea of stability and knowing a nominally safe future for at least a decade after all of the other shocks?Then the idea she secretly longs for a stable family despite what she initially proclaims, he eventually ends up in the body of someone she seems to either know or just be attracted to, and at the very end it’s implied she she just went with it on a lark and got sucked in.
The problem Veidt ran into with plan A was how to get the device into Jon’s brain. First, he wasn’t sure Jon had a brain, so that was a big question mark he wasn’t able to answer in … heh … time. Second, even knowing that, he had to find a way to get it in there, which seems to require Jon’s immobilization or cooperation in some way. My interpretation is, he couldn’t figure out a way to do either (and maybe was working on immobilization) and came up with plan B.
I read the graphic novel, I saw the movie, but I have to give big props to the show- this is the first time I felt I really understood how Manhattan goes through life, and why he doesn’t change things that will happen in “the future” (like avoiding getting hit by the cannon). He’s not seeing “the future,” he’s seeing the present, because it’s all the present to him. He couldn’t avoid getting shot by the cannon because he couldn’t- things happen to him just as they do those of us who see time in a linear fashion; he just is able to experience it at any point in his existence. Adrian Veidt is all about planning for the future, but Dr. Manhattan can’t (which is what one has to do in order to change something foreseen), because he has no future and no past; it’s all the present. I finally put that together at that beautiful moment where he said he fell in love with Angela.
One of the things in the book is that Dr. Manhattan does what he wants to do, which includes dumping Janey for Laurie. This story rejects this premise. In addition to the intrinsic unbelievability of Dr. Manhattan choosing someone so “old” by his standards, it rewrites all interactions between Laurie and Angela, and between Reeves and Angela. In retrospect they are entirely unbelievable. Also, none of the plot makes any sense at this point. Reeves is the one with the Cyclops mind control, whereas the Cyclops people should have it. One might pretend he picked it up from them, despite us not seeing him do that while failing to kill Cyclops. But he just aged and did nothing with it? Also, Reeves should not be in Gardner’s mansion, not even if Gardner left it as a guilt offering, assuming he ever felt guilty, which is doubtful as the show just depicts him as abusing Reeves. also, Crawford was relentless in nailing 7th Kavalry hoods, even though he’s supposed to be the leader. Frances Fisher clearly is in cahoots with Wolk, who really is 7th Kavalry and she doesn’t care about Crawford being killed. This makes no sense. There is a plot hole, where Rorschach’s diary proves Dr. Manhattan was framed. His very disappearance was proof of dirty work from Veidt, just like Looking Glass’ disappearance showed there was something fishy about the case against Angela. Lastly, the plot is actually Ozymandias’ plot which failed once, and should not be a threat again. The removal of Nixon and the disappearance of the USSR by the way leaves the fictional universe of this series unrelated to the book, raising the question, why?None of this makes any sense, especially not in character terms. And it is nons
Regarding the cannon, I think most people accept that Manhattan “knows” the future, but like he says in the show, he just experiences time all at once. My understanding is like this: take a movie and cut it into one second chunks and then arrange them to all play at once. Then hit play. That’s Manhattan’s experience with time. As he’s being shot by the cannon he is also experiencing what is happening to him in the next episode, as he is experiencing killing Rorschach, meeting Laurie, forgetting his watch… That’s all happening while he’s getting shot by that cannon
He ruled with impunity, not without. Impunity means exemption from consequences.Can I get out of the grays for this service?
Why would Veidt have a plan A, but not use it? He said, “A little elephant told me…”Veidt sort of explained this part with his questions about physiology vs. physiognomy. Veidt’s amnesia device only works on human brains. The “original” Dr. Manhattan might have looked superficially like a glowing blue version of Jon, but beneath that surface was only a pattern of mass and energy held together by will. The device would not have worked on him then.Dr. Manhattan/Abar is different – he has human physiology, including a human brain, and not just a human appearance. On this version of him, the device could work.
I’m not the first to note this, but I think it’s her grandfather who is going to become a god. He’s for no reason eating hard boiled eggs in the second episode and then subsequently regains the ability to walk.
Do you think Lady Trieu built the tachyon cannon? If so then I guess it was an … elephant gun.
I’m not convinced Doctor Manhattan is dead. Based on Adrian’s technology, I suspect he’s just incapacitated. I don’t think “You can’t save me” necessarily means he’s dead, it could mean “I’m immortal, so no one can save me because I still live.” But as you point out, he also could have passed on his powers to Angela, and in that case, his death would make sense.I never thought I would cry because of this show, but that last scene did it! This reminded me of Arrival in the best way, and I’m very excited for the finale.
God, such a fantastic episode. Absolutely masterful. I am almost in shock of how good this Watchmen show is. Last nights episode cemented it in my mind as one of the best shows on TV right now, hands down.
How exactly does Angela fall in love with Doctor Manhattan? The episode is blessfully fragmented so the episode never actually has to deal with what their relationship is like — god and mortal – outside of his charming-but-not-on-purpose first date. That fight in bed they have, where Manhattan knows everything she will ever say all the time, and never expresses fear, or regret or vulnerability…isn’t that what that relationship would be like ALL THE TIME?How does Angela invest her emotions into that?
How do I?Look, I think as Doctor Manhattan romances goes, this is probably the best case scenario, but for me there are built in problems to this character that just make it really hard for me to engage emotionally in any relationship where one party appear to have transcended human emotional spectrums altogether…
I haven’t read the comics or watched the movie and I don’t find this show as stunning TV, just really well made and top quality of acting and production.
One of the best love stories ever?
I literally fall asleep. I found it boring repetitive and shallow and well not interesting at all. I didn’t even get why they fell in love with each other, especially Angela. And the dialogue was so frustrating… this has happened already or is happening right now and you will know later what this and that is so important…blah blah impressive blah blah.But I also realize this show was made for the fans of the comic. And I am not one of them.
Being familiar with this universe and the characters can help you enjoy the show more.
For me at the beginning was interesting and intriguing, but the whole thing started to decline, because we have a story that is based on a character that we get to know ONLY a little, just one episode before the season (series?) finale.
Am I supposed to feel something about Dr Manhattan? I don’t even find him interesting, how could I? The show relies heavily on prior knowledge about him and I do not have any. How can I feel for him? We cannot even see his face..
IMHO, this is a good show for the W fans. Just not a great show in general.
I’m absolutely adoring this show but I know the comics. I have friends that have no clue about the comics that have not been nearly enamored with the show and their reaction has been along the lines of “great acting but WTF is going on?”
at the beginning I didnt mind, but that was because we were introduced to new characters, like Angela. But with the old characters I have no connection at all. Dr Manhattan is indifferent to me. A faceless blue god that falls in love with a random lady using stupid “catchphrases about time”. If someone like him was flirting with me this way I would have run away from boredom.
You know you can read the comics right? This show is about literally about aftermath of the comics…so read them if you want to know what’s going on.
No.
I am not going to read the comics to understand a TV show that it doesn’t advertise itself as “strictly for the Watchmen fans”. As it possibly should do.
There is one episode left and I will watch it. No clue what I would do if there will be a second season, it depends I guess if they will move forward or all of their story will be still completely attached to the past.
I adore the show but only have loose familiarity with the comic since I read it when I was much younger and out of a sense of obligation. (Sort of like Sandman except I came around on that one relatively early on in its trades)I wasn’t really into the characters of the original story but I feel like they cliff notes the important details before we finally meet most of the original cast. It seemed like most of the confusing material they introduced would have been new to hardcore scholars of the original comic as well.
If you dislike not so, why do you continue to watch?
oh chill. it’s really interesting to get a perspective from ppl who haven’t read the comics. i had a hunch it wouldn’t gel, and it seems like that’s the case.
Because I enjoyed it a lot for half of it till it started relying heavily on past knowledge of the comics? As I already wrote in my initial post.
Then the show proved that it is only for the fans.
I will watch the last episode, but unless something really promising happens not sure I will bother with a 2nd season.
I miss Mirror Guy.
Europa was one of Zeus’ mortal lovers. She bore him three sons. They ruled the major Greek islands. She was worshiped as a queen. Look who else has three children who were magically whisked away to their grandfather.Damn, Joelle! I bet your copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology is worn out!
This episode was good but with mixed results.Why did Manhattan choose / fall in love with Angela? He must’ve surely come across women who also suffered similar tragedies in their life. What was it that drew him particularly ot her? For plot reasons I suppose.Loved the Veidt / Manhattan scene finally explaining how Vei ended up in isolation. Jeremy Irons was brilliant as usual. The only issue I had is how quickly Veidt agrees to go to another place he knows nothing about. You’d think that someone with the capability to orchestrate a large scale genocidal attack to preserve world peace, would’ve had a few more questions on this world and how it works.Sorry, but the whole idea of Angela triggering the murder of Judd doesn’t work. She cannot be the cause of an event that has already happened. Judd was murdered before she awakened Manhattan right? Therefore there is an original timeline where Judd is killed with Angela not knowing why and so not causing it to happen. It makes no sense when you really think about it.Manhattan not destroying the teleporting device because he’s seen future events is illogical as well as only coming to Angela’s rescue after she as entered enemy fire. He could’ve easily destroyed the machines without even stepping outside the house. He lets her go out knowing she could’ve easily got shot but he’s in love with her.Anyway good episode , not quite sure how they’ll wrap everything up next week. Overall i think there’s been far too much focus on Angela and it would been far more interesting if the other vigilantes were involved in the story.
There are no “timelines”, there’s only one and it is pre-determined. Everything happens all at once. There are no causality-loops.
Attention: Peteypedia’s new entry has somebody who infiltrates a facility through the air ducts 😉
I’m not normally one to nitpick grammar, spelling, syntax, etc. outside of an academic or professional context, but since you did it twice, I just can’t help myself: “with impunity” not “without impunity.”
“This is how the squid drop went uncovered”. It was not uncovered, it has remained “covered”You misused “Without impunity” a couple of times so it’s not just a typo. “With impunity” means unpunished, which I do believe is what you were trying to convey.
A brilliant episode, and I actually laughed with joy when it was revealed how Will found out Judd’s secrets. Talk about closing the loop!Brilliant episode of a brilliant show. The labor-intensity of the writing continues to amaze me.Can’t wait till next week.
I was as glad as Veidt to finally “get” the horseshoe.
“Did you really have to die?” He’s not dead (yet?). The doc explained that the cannon teleports him against his will, and when Keene* explains his plan to Laurie he mentions that they need the Doctor there to make the plan work. *Just realized the play-on-words with the senator’s name- Joe Keene = Joking.
8 terrific episodes (terrifically summed up by the reviewer, too). This show reminds me of the last season of The Leftovers in that it is nothing like I thought it would be and still amazing. I hope the finale is just as satisfying.
Black love? When did love become racial? Is is awful or lovely that she picked the body that looked like her?
Seems like Anyone Who Knows What Love Is is a required needle drop in all dystopian science fiction shows these days. Or are Watchmen and Black Mirror set in the same universe?
I had the same thought.
thank you once again for a stunning recounting of the episode – the romance and fascination and terror and pain…the best
It was an episode with many lovely scenes but, as I feared when he showed up, Dr. Manhattan is almost impossible to write. The logic becomes completely garbled and it’s hard for me to enjoy. Alan Moore just *barely* managed it with the tachyons: making his vision “muddy” and then having him simply not care enough to use his omnipotence to fix everything, and instead leave the galaxy. Which, Nerd Alert™, also now means they *didn’t* use the original series as prologue after all. Oh well. Still worth watching.
Just because you can’t follow it doesn’t mean “the logic becomes completely garbled”.
Maybe I missed something. Maybe this is the way he experiences time, but it really bugged me that he didn’t just teleport somewhere else.
Dang it! Jon wasn’t recovering his watch, he was recovering his girlfriend’s! Get it right, Jon!
And apparently, the bar is the same one the Comedian shot that woman.
Some spectacular writing in this episode, I loved every second of it. I’m not sure why Dr Manhattan couldn’t stop himself from being teleported though, he destroyed huge parts of Vietnam all by himself, I don’t see why he couldn’t blow up the car that had the teleporter in it, unless it’s him influencing the future or something. Still, one of the best episodes of television this year. Also, I don’t think Dr. M is dead, there was a shot of him in a cage in next week’s episode, unless he dies in it.
Was it Manhattan that preyed on Laurie or her own mother?
both
Very true.
So if Manhattan created Paradise, and Adrian is the snake, how will he corrupt the Garden?
well ‘adam’ turned jailor, and cloned humans are being killed in bizarre ways regularly. that’s pretty corrupt to me.
But they are still innocent, so to speak. When and how will they know sin?
Dr. Manhattan said why. He wanted to move forward.
I feel almost everybody guessing the fate of Manhattan is forgetting him wanting Angela to see him standing on water.
Wow! Another incredible episode. Best show this year.
Nobody’s talking about that magnificent dick. Gotta count as HBOs male nudity quota for the year.
It occurred to me as I watched the big beautiful muscular man with the huge cock on screen that I cannot imagine and will never experience what it is like to have a body that another human being would want to touch or desire. It’s a great episode, but fuck, I’ve got to distract myself from my reality really hard for awhile. It’s no one’s fault, but damn Mr. Abdul-Mateen reminds me why I’ll never be loved.
Right after Manhattan had exploded the heads of the Kavalry and was talking to Angela, the tachyon cannon behind him was still in view. “DISMANTLE THE CANNON” I was yelling in my head, but alas, Manhattan knew something that we didn’t (that he apparently had to be transported in that moment). Hopefully he can do more damage on the inside.Amazing review, Joelle, as usual. I look forward to whatever show you cover after this one is over.
“That’s predatory, it’s sick, and it’s something someone who no longer identifies as a human could do without feeling remorse.”But we know he doesn’t identify as human, plus the fact that he actually isn’t human. So is it predatory?
I wonder if Angela was at all getting nervous as they got closer to the 10-year mark. Kind of want to check the first episode to see if there’s any hint of that but I don’t think there was.
While I am totally loving the show, I have issues with their treatment of Dr. Manhattan, specifically his behavior and motivations in comparison to how he was written in the comics. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that he would create life not only with so accelerated a development cycle but also of such a limited variety. It would literally defeat the purpose of why he wanted to create life.And also what’s the explanation for his involvement with Angela? I mean his other relationships in the comics were predicated on him knowing the women he was involved with. Whereas with Angela, he loves her because he loves her? He dates her because he dates her? Seems a little weak. Perhaps it will be addressed later on.
Massive disappointment. Not only is this story a retread of the original Manhattan story, but it takes away some of the grandeur of the character. He moves on to higher planes of existence but keeps getting pulled back to earth because he gets weak kneed over hard luck girls with plucky spirits. The makeup on this one is pretty weak when they use it. Making him look more like a member of the blue man group than the movie version.They basically just took the storyline from the Marvel comic Secret Wars and mixed it with the old Manhattan story. In Secret Wars a god is born in our reality and has difficulty accepting that he can have anything he wants when all he has had as peers are mortals. Who all appear to be driven by desires for what they can’t have. So he plans on rebirthing himself in a human body to understand and enjoy what they go through but the process is halted, before it can complete.The show was going so well without him. They should have just used him as a symbol. I preferred the human stories that came after him than the super powered plot device.
Let me preface by saying I’m enjoying this show.But my problem is this: Two white European men of the Silent Generation found their way to America. Manhattan, a child refugee, fled Nazi Germany in search of a safe space to start a new life. Adrian Veidt got rid of his substantial wealth and became an adventurer hell-bent on building an empire in his likeness. Jon’s always enjoyed sex, while Veidt’s never expressed an interest in anyone sexually. Manhattan’s fallen in and out of love, while Veidt’s never pursued anyone. Adrian enjoys grand costumes. Doctor Manhattan likes to strut in the buff. A lack of barriers allows them to communicate. Frequently, they arrive at the same conclusion. This is how the squid drop went uncovered. It’s how Veidt avoids prosecution, and why so many people, in the world of Watchmen, live in abject terror.How are we supposed to know all of that coming in to the series? Some of what’s above has been revealed in the series thus far, but there is absolutely no way an average viewer can know all of that (and put it together as eloquently) without having read the book, or perhaps having seen the movie. I feel like I’m missing a lot of stuff when I watch. The writers have done a good job of including things and telling a powerful story, but I’m afraid I don’t fully understand everything that’s happening because I don’t know the book, though I’ve heard different plot points from it before.My wife has even less prior knowledge (no idea it existed before) and she feels completely lost. It’s a testament to the quality of the writing and storytelling that she’s enjoying the series at all, and maybe the backstory really isn’t all that important to telling the story as told, but every review refers to the backstory as if all of us know it and it’s paramount to enjoying the series.
But you know, you can read the comics or watch the movie, blah blah blah..
That is my problem with the show, to the point that I really do not get the Reviewer’s reactions to the show..I am not sure what makes her so ecstatic..
Yeah, I don’t want to be assigned homework in order to fully understand a TV show…
I totally agree. I’m a huge fan of both the graphic novel and this television series and I completely agree. The “Peteypedia” materials help a little bit but I can’t fathom how someone who had never read the source graphic novel or at least seen the (very flawed) movie adaptation could possibly appreciate this or even follow what’s going on. There are so many references to the graphic novel and just so much assumed knowledge that I would think you’d be completely lost. The narrative of the tv show itself is complex enough but it’s all built upon this equally complex prior work and it really helps if you’re familiar with it. This is the one flaw of this great show (or maybe it’s not even a flaw?) I think most people who have read the graphic novel are kidding themselves about how much someone who hadn’t read the book could follow this show
Because you mentioned him, I smile every time I see Jeff Jensen’s name in the credits, especially this week as a writer. I assume he’s the same man aka Doc Jensen who wrote such elaborate LOST recaps and theories for EW back in the day. He was my favorite part of the LOST fandom and I’m just SO happy to see him working on something so awesome. 🙂
As mentioned on the podcast, he is.
which podcast?
The official one.
thank you!
Thanks!
I’ve been enjoying this show a lot but do have a problem with Watchmen as a whole; the comic and tv show. If Adrian was so worried about the Cold War possibly happening, why didn’t he have Manhattan stop both sides nuclear weapons? I mean DM helped win the Vietnam War for the US, he couldn’t be bothered to stop Russia either? It’s been awhile since I read the comic book so maybe there’s an explanation as to why he didn’t.
Also, I’m curious as to how the 7K knew Cal was Dr. Manhattan. Hopefully they’ll explain that in the finale.
I haven’t read the comics in like 10 years, but I vaguely recall someone saying something along the lines of “Even Dr. Manhattan couldn’t stop every single missile.” Which I thought always sounded like bullshit but was the answer to this problem.
I really enjoyed this episode, but the biggest “whoa” I got was during the closing credits when I saw Jeff Jensen (aka Doc Jensen, EW’s Lost recap extraordinaire) co-wrote it.
Thanks for the recaps! So much to process I wasn’t clear on.. why did Dr Manhattan come back to earth to start a relationship with Angela Abar, when he’d already had a relationship with Laurie (Jean Smart) — who was still here, thought he’d gone off to another planet and still loved/loves him?
There is nothing and no one more adorable than Regina King playing coy. That is all.
Yahya’s quiet but earnest excitement at NOT KNOWING SOMETHING sold this entire episode for me. Just brilliant acting, brilliant direction in general.
This series could’ve been an abject disaster. It’s instead one of the most striking and wonderful things HBO has ever greenlit.
Used twice in the article, “without impunity”?Or with?
IMHO, this was the weakest episode of the season, although the last 5 minutes before credits were pretty great. This felt like the most beholden and the most regurgitation of popular elements of the original book.
SAVE ME DAUGHTERI thought this was a message to his daughter, Lady Trieu. She mentions in a previous episode that her father would be arriving soon. According to google, Europa is about 390 million miles away.
https://europa.nasa.gov/europa/faq/ says “ It would be possible to get a spacecraft to the Jupiter system in about three years,”Assuming the tech there is just a smidge more advanced, than our world, the timeline plays out (candles on the cake), and Lady Trieu buying the farm because her father’s craft just crash landed on their, now former, farm
Has anyone yet speculated that Jon, who can be in (at least) two places at once was on Mars at the same time he was Cal, and will be returning for the finale? I’ve also been thinking that Keene will succeed in becoming another Manhattan, but will become as indifferent to skin color as Jon is, thereby ending the Kavalry’s plot with a fizzle.
“Her parents were killed by a radicalized citizen, of a recently conquered territory, on a holiday meant to honor the tyrant that murdered thousands without impunity.”“without impunity?’ ha ha. you write funny.
I’m a month late on watching this (my husband and I struck a deal that we’d watch it together, and then he proceeded to fuck off and watch The Expanse for two months), so no one will see this, but Cal being Dr Manhattan makes the Things Fall Apart scene the best joke – Angela is able to spoil the book for Cal, which is justice for him spoiling their relationship for her on their first date.Having not read the comics (I did watch the movie but I also have zero memory of it), what I find interesting about this show is that it’s providing the answers about two or three episodes behind when I have them. (“wait, what is the deal with the squids again?” Three eps later: Veidt’s monologuing his plan for the president). That can be frustrating but it’s also a really rich experience and has made the answers feel more earned, to me.
This episode deserves so many emmys. Acting score script. Everything was damn near perfect. Geezus round of applause
I’m very late to the party here and I apologize if this has been discussed, but… was Sister Night given the last name Abar specifically to make the punny title of this episode possible?
Hoping you can help me understand how Dr. Manhattan works.What if you knew a relationship would end terribly, but decided to pursue the love tunnel anyway?Initially I understood that he experiences all time at once, but he’s powerless to change it. If you know your enemies have a particle cannon nearby and you can instantly teleport yourself anywhere else, but you know you can’t because you do get hit with the cannon in the future, wouldn’t you be imprisoned from your own free will?But then the quote above implies that he can execute free will if he chose to ‘pursue the love tunnel anyway?’.Also, if I may – he experiences ALL time simultaneously, not just his own experiences? Otherwise, how does he know so much about Angela?
Did nobody else feel that the love story was completely nonsensical? At the original meeting Angela showed no interest in Jon, then when it cut to the fight they had essentially split up because his omnipotence made it impossible for them to connect.Once he gave up his memory/knowledge he essentially became Cal which is the person Angela actually loved, caving his head in and bringing Jon back only seemed to infuriate her as he was back to not being able to understand her feelings. I did really enjoy this episode but the more i think of it the less sense it makes.
Decided to give the show a re-watch (now, in 2023) and…*man*.a) there was SO much detail I’d missed the first time through (when it was airing), and b) I have been in tears since the end of episode 7, and all through episode 8. The love story is real, and it breaks my fucking heart every damned time. /kudos