One thing you can’t accuse HBO’s Watchmen sequel of is subtlety. It’s hard to criticize any aspect of this show for being too on the nose, when being on the nose is the whole point. It’s joyfully, defiantly on the nose, and so was the original comic. The title of this week’s episode might be stretching that just a little. They must have predicted there would be backlash. That some segment of the internet would accuse it of adding “politics” to Watchmen. You know, by the famously apolitical Alan Moore. That’s why I had to laugh when this episode’s title popped up: If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own. It’s just so perfect.
Last week’s episode was less perfect, slowing the pace of the story way down so the former Silk Spectre could tell a brick joke. This week starts to get the plot moving forward, albeit at a still reduced speed. That is, after a stylish sequence where two characters meet, fall in love and get married all set to The Beegees’ “Islands in the Stream.” (Anyone else feel the urge to sing “Ghetto Superstar” whenever that song comes on?) They get a visit one night from Lady Trieu, a trillionaire who wants to buy their land. In exchange, she offers them a child they thought they couldn’t have and $5 million for expenses. When they see the baby is actually biologically theirs, they can’t sign fast enough.
Hong Chau (Credit: Mark Hill/HBO)
It’s not long before we find out what she wants with the land. She builds a giant manufacturing plant to make flying machines and what her daughter refers to as “the first wonder of the new world.” The only concrete detail we’re given about that project is that it tells time. Always with the clocks. She comes into the main plot after Angela and Laurie find Angela’s missing car. It falls out of the sky, right back in the place it disappeared from. Laurie, now taking Crawford’s place at the police department, has it dusted for fingerprints, and finds some belonging to a man over 100 years old. She points out that men that old tend to get around in wheelchairs.
The part of this episode I really like is how much more Laurie appears to know vs. how much she’s letting on. In this regard (and a few others), the show is playing its cards close to its chest. That’s just how Damon Lindelof likes to write his shows. Sometimes it’s cool and mysterious, other times it’s annoying. This instance leans toward the former. You get the sense that Laurie is testing Angela with every conversation. When she asks a question, she always knows at least part of the answer and wants to see if Angela is being fully truthful with her. She knows Angela’s whole past and even spoke with her husband earlier that day. It makes every scene between the two of them feel like a dance in a minefield. Even when it’s expository dialog about Laurie’s trauma from the comic.
Jean Smart (Credit: Mark Hill/HBO)
They figure out that the only thing that could lift a car into the sky is one of the flying machines Lady Trieu has been building. They to the factory to ask some questions. To Laurie, Lady Trieu puts up the appearance of being cooperative, but not having the answers. Under the guise of sharing a Vietnamese proverb, she delivers a message to Angela. “Your grandfather wants to know if you found the pills.” Angela responds in Vietnamese that her grandfather should ask her himself. The truth is she did find the pills and immediately hid them from Laurie, along with Crawford’s Klan robe. As for what the pills are or what they mean… What, did you expect a Lindelof show to just give us those answers this soon?
This show remains a lot of fun, and the expansion of the world of Alan Moore’s comic continues to be fascinating. Here though, the puzzle box is starting to get in the way of the story. We’ve now spent two episodes introducing new characters who each bring a host of new questions with them. It’s not that I want answers to those questions right away, I just want the sense that all this is going somewhere. With the glacial pace of these last two episodes, that’s become harder to find. The first two episodes bought the series a ton of credibility. I still have faith that this is all leading up to something. I’m just going to need some idea of what before too long. Rather than characters speaking in the vaguest possible language to try and force the episode into something resembling a cliffhanger. Lady Trieu even tells Angela’s grandfather that the pills are pointless exposition. At least the show knows what it’s doing. It’s a sign that it does have a plan, even if the joke doesn’t make the pointless exposition any less frustrating.
Regina King (Credit: Mark Hill/HBO).
There were still some fantastic surreal moments, though. When Laurie spies a masked man watching her and she takes off running, he sprays himself with some oil and slip n’ slides into a sewer grate. Hey if you’re going to build an episode around confusing the hell out of me, at least make me laugh. Or disturb me, like the Ozymandias scene did. At this point, I don’t even care if he ever does affect the main story. The old man’s antics are so strange and horrifying, I’ve come to look forward to them every episode. This time, we see him fishing strange fetuses out of the river and put them into a centrifuge. He turns up the music so he can’t hear their screams, which is the most in-character and the most truly disturbing thing we’ve seen him do. The centrifuge ages the fetuses until they are perfect clones of his servants. So that’s how he’s getting all of them. Yeesh. It’s even more disturbing when the first thing he has them do is clean up all the identical dead bodies of his older servants. He had a bad night, he says. Boy, how long before these creatures turn on him?
Jeremy Irons, Sara Vickers (Credit: Mark Hill/HBO)
These last couple episodes didn’t quite live up to what came before. The advantage to starting from such a high, though, is even a dip in quality results in a pretty good show. I hope the story picks back up and the show gives us some new information rather than just new questions. Until then, the strangeness and on-the-nose commentary remains entertaining enough.
Watchmen airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO
Previously on Watchmen:
- Watchmen Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
- Watchmen Season 1 Episode 2 Recap
- Watchmen Season 1 Premiere Recap
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