It’s kind of perfect that the name of the drug Angela finds herself tripping on is “Nostalgia.” Watchmen, both this TV show and the original comic, is built on nostalgia. The comic was a subversion of old Steve Ditko superheroes, taking their Randian ideals to their logical extremes. It was a modern (at the time) take on comics that were nostalgic memories for many of its readers. This show is a nostalgic throwback to the comic series that made many of us fall in love with the medium in the first place. It’s very much aware of that, too. It knows where the comic exists in popular culture. It knows there’s a dissonance between how certain characters were actually portrayed and how many fans (including the fan that directed the movie) perceived them.
That’s why this series is so on the nose with its racial commentary. It has to be. It’s dealing with moments in history that most history classes give a passing mention at the most. Any ambiguity allows certain segments of the audience to ignore the message. To convince themselves that the hero of the story is the racist paranoid doomsayer who smells. To whitewash other people’s stories and make themselves the hero. This episode heavily explores that idea. It opens with a TV show about Hooded Justice. The early Minuteman is being interviewed by two FBI agents. His lover, Captain Metropolis, has video of himself having sex with J. Edgar Hoover. They want to blackmail Hooded Justice, threatening to reveal his secret identity if he doesn’t retrieve that footage. In the show, Hooded Justice removes his mask to reveal himself as a white man. As we soon see in Angela Abar’s Nostalgia-induced flashbacks, that’s not the case.
Jean Smart (Credit: Mark Hill/HBO)
Shot mostly in black and white, this is one of the most hauntingly surreal episodes we’ve seen all season. Angela is in a coma after consuming a lethal dose of her grandfather’s nostalgia. As she lives his memories, the show takes on a dreamlike quality, with doors unattached to buildings taking us between scenes. We often see a young Will Reeves living through an event in one shot, only for the next to show Angela in the same position. It puts us in Angela’s shoes. Like her, we’re simultaneously watching her grandfather’s backstory while taking part in it. It’s a fascinating, mesmerizing way to tell us all about a character we previously had almost no context for.
We find out that Will married the little girl he escaped the Tulsa Massacre with. They moved to New York and have a kid. Will becomes a policeman, where he’s told by the only other Black officer to watch out for the Cyclops. He doesn’t know what that means at first, but it’s apparently code for the Ku Klux Klan. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that they enjoy a sizable presence in the NYPD. Will arrests a man for burning down a Jewish deli. The other officers pretend to book the guy, but he’s out on the street almost immediately. Will starts asking questions and his fellow officers lynch him for it. They cut him down with a warning to stay out of their business.
That incident flips something inside him. As he’s walking home, he sees a couple getting beaten up. With the noose still around his neck, he puts the hood he was just lynched in back on and chases the muggers away. Will Reeves was the actual Hooded Justice. Not the attractive white man we saw in the TV drama that began the episode. Interestingly, that ties into Will’s idol, Bass Reeves. Bass Reeves was a real person, the first Black deputy U.S. Marshall in the American West. Historians have suggested that he was the actual inspiration for the Lone Ranger. Will, like his hero, is a pioneer who gets whitewashed by history.
Regina King (Credit: Mark Hill/HBO)
Will becomes a cop by day and masked hero by night, and is eventually contacted by Captain Metropolis to form The Minutemen. This show’s been pretty sparing about when it brings in elements from the original comic, so it feels like it really matters when it does. Despite his wife’s reservations, he joins the Minutemen after Metropolis promises to help him investigate Cyclops. He also begins a brief affair with Metropolis, so that part of the TV drama was true. Predictably, the Minutemen are more of a PR stunt than a serious superhero force. He keeps trying to bring up real problems and Metropolis shuts him down and quickly changes the subject to an advertisement for a bank.
Will takes down a KKK hideout, and where he finds a book on mesmerization. It’s not long until he sees why they have it. A riot broke out at a movie theater in Harlem. The white cops just write it off as Black people being inherently violent. Will gets inside and a woman tells him what really happened. After the movie started, the screen started flashing. Everyone in the theater then heard a voice imploring them to attack each other. With proof of what the Klan is up to, Will calls the Minutemen for backup. He receives none. Metropolis just doesn’t believe him. In fact, it sounds like he shares the same ideas as the racist cops, implying that riots just naturally happen in Harlem. Will finds the warehouse where the mesmerizing cameras are being produced and shoots every Klan member cop inside. When he reaches the man making the recording, he runs out of bullets and strangles him with his own audio cable. It’s a brutal scene that’s just as chilling as it is satisfying.
Jovan Adepo (Credit: Mark Hill/HBO)
Will returns home to see his son putting on the same white makeup he does when he dons his hood. He forcefully tries to wash it off, and that’s the last straw for his wife. They leave him behind and return to Tulsa. His memories then flash forward to the events at the end of the first episode. We finally get some answers to the questions surrounding Sheriff Crawford’s death. Will uses the same mesmerization technique to compel Crawford to answer for the Klan robe he keeps in his closet. Then, he compels Crawford to hang himself. For one last time, Angela finds herself in her grandfather’s place before waking up in Lady Trieu’s complex.
There’s really no word to describe this episode other than “stunning.” It’s the most stylish, surreal episode we’ve seen so far, and all that style is there for a reason. It advances the story and avoids making an entire episode about a character’s backstory into an infodump. This episode also gives us a new perspective on a major aspect of the comic. At first glance, it’s a retcon of the Minutemen and Hooded Justice. It could also be seen as a different interpretation. However you look at it, it’s the strongest case this series makes for itself. It loves the original comic as much as any fan, but that doesn’t stop it from looking at the source material critically. Watchmen is full of unreliable narrators. The histories it presents are obviously one-sided. This adaptation knows that and is ready to grapple with the sides of the stories the comic leaves untold.
Watchmen airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO
Previously on Watchmen:
- Watchmen Season 1 Episode 5 Recap
- Watchmen Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
- Watchmen Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
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