Ryan Shoots First: Watchmen (S1 Ep9) “See How They Fly”
We’re all experiencing the Watchmen finale and reading this review at the same time… well Dr. Manhattan is.
Hopefully you watched last night’s finale first first cause we bout to spoil some stuff. After the huge revelations from last week and the simultaneous back story and present story of Jon and Angela, we are at the grand finale and something terrible has happened.
The episode starts with Adrian recording his message to President Redford that Mirror Guy saw. We see a member of his cleaning staff hacking into his computer and getting access to a vile of what I assume is his uhhhh man juice. I’m gonna guess this is Lady Trieu’s mother that is also the clone of her daughter. We cut to 2008 and Lady Trieu is confronting Adrian at his artic hideout, she knows the truth and uses it to get into his hideout. She tells him his squid idea is a re-run and is the one who informed Adrian about Jon’s presence on Europa. This also reveals that it is her satellite that Adrian is spelling out the “Help Me Daughter” for. We also now realize it is Lady Trieu who wants to harness the power of Jon to achieve her goals. She lets him know she is his daughter and how she was conceived. Adrian denies her the funding she is seeking and claims to never call her daughter.
We cut to the present with Adrian in his jail cell when the walls start shaking as a ship is landing outside. He escapes through a hole and we learn he still has the ability to catch a bullet when he stops the game warden with a horseshoe impaling. We learn in his final moments that Adrian commanded the Game Warden to be his worthy adversary but sadly he did not succeed at the job “but he put on a good show”. Adrian gets bronzed into the most exclusive Adrian Sideshow statute of all time and sent back to earth. Lady Trieu intends to tell her daughter the truth before Adrian is dethawed but she has figured it out on her own. Adrian takes one look at her and knows the truth. It’s still not clear if Trieu is just aware of the Kalvary plan and intends to hijack it or if she is funding the whole thing. They descend onto the theatre as a giant orb hovers overhead.
Back at Kalvary headquarters all of cyclops has gathered for the show as they report on the radio about Abar exchanging gunfire from the end of last weeks episode. Just then Looking Glass shows up in Kalvary disguise to get out Laurie when Jon is teleported into the holding cell. Senator Keene is delivering a monologue as he prepares to transform himself. We find out the watch batteries we discovered way back in the beginning of the season were to build this cage. Just as they are gonna start Angela shows up and informs them Lady Trieu knows their plan and it isn’t going to work. Despite her warnings, they fire the system and everyone is transported outside with the ball floating overhead and Lady Trieu in control. Adrian reunites with Laurie and she asks him “Am I dead?” to which he replies “no but the night is still young.” Lady Trieu opens the door to Senator Keene’s cell and the watery bloody ooze of his essence comes pouring out in a pretty gross encounter. Lady Trieu then vaporizes all of the members of cyclopes just then Jon manages to use the bloody ooze of Keene to transport Laurie, Adrian, and Looking Glass to Adrian’s base. Angela asks why she was not transported and Jon tells her because he does not want to die alone. Adrian plans to drop squids on Tulsa to try and stop the process tearing Jon apart. In his final moments, Jon experiences every moment with Angela and tells her he loves her. Just then Jon disappears in an explosion sending Angela flying back.
Back at Adrian’s, they plan to freeze the baby squids and send them flying down obliterating Tulsa to save the world. Back at ground zero, the phone in the Manhatten box begins ringing and its Laurie warning of the coming storm. Just as Trieu is to receive the energy a squid rips through her hand. Angela takes off running as Lady Trieu is crushed by the broken machine. Angela seeks safety in the theatre where Jon transported their children and where her grandfather is. Angela informs Will of what all has happened and Will informs her of the idea to work with Lady Trieu was Jon’s idea. After a short conversation, Angela offers the guest room to her father and Adrian shows Laurie and Looking Glass how to get back home. Laurie and Looking Glass arrest Adrian for the murders of everyone back when the Squid dropped. Angela gets everyone home safe through her Bakery Bat Cave and her children learn of her alter ego. Later while cleaning up the broken eggs from Jon’s waffle session, Angela discovers one egg left in the carton she smashed. She recalls the conversation in the bar where Jon informs her he could infuse his powers to someone else through food. Angela eats the egg and then goes to step on to the water. Right as her foot touches the water the credits roll.
And that’s it for season 1 of Watchmen. People are really over the moon for the series and I fully expect it to clean up at the Emmys next year. It was a master class in character development and reveled in allowing it’s actors to work in the bounds of the scene. It did come off a little pretentious to me at times and was sometimes frustrating in it’s stop and starts with so many plot threads but now that the mystery is over and all the pieces are connected I can look back and see the accomplishment that it was. Much like Dr. Manhattan, the show is happening all at once over multiple times and while we are conditioned to see them as flashbacks the show treats them as current events feeding the story at the moment all at once. It’s very meta and much like Angela doesn’t fully make sense until we see the entire picture.
If I had to pick I still think Westworld Season 1 was better. The week to week mystery and picking up of clues and timelines was more rewarding and I think it told a more relatable story than God’s and timeless creation we have here, but both give HBO a big feather in its post Game of Thrones hat. I think Watchmen is set up well for next season with Angela’s story and that the truth of Adrian’s crimes may come to light and what that means for him and humanity. We will also see if as Adrian expects, the clock starts ticking again. Who knows when we will return to Tulsa, if it is anything like Westworld it took 2 years to get season 2 but rest assured it will all play out here at Bulletproof Action and until then tick…tock…tick…tock.
Observations
- Hard to make observations when all of my brainpower is going into tracking timelines.
- I get the Millennium Clock was essentially “Dr. Manhattan McGuffin” but after so much hype a little more detail into what the heck it was would have been nice.
- I wonder if Adrian had to be sprayed gold like that, I feel like it was a daughter troll job.
- The soundtrack for the series is great but pretty on the nose sometimes.
- Adrian may have been better off staying on Europa.
- Lots of great lines but Adrian and Laurie’s interaction may have been the best. Laurie’s whole reaction to all of this going on was great.
- Nice bit for Adrian recognizing he actually had a worthy adversary and a twisted perversion that it had to come from his seed.