Ryan Shoots First: Watchmen (S1 Ep5) “Little Fear of Lightning”
Welcome back to the weirdest show on television! After getting some answers to some early mysteries of the show this weeks episode titled “Little Fear of Lightning” steps back somewhat to give us an origin story of Looking Glass.
This week’s episode starts one again with a flashback to a group of what appears to be Mormons evangelizing. We meet Wade as it is one minute to midnight on the doomsday clock in the 80’s. He begins evangelizing mentioning how close the world is to ending when he is taken away by a young lady who takes him into the fun house. He tells him he is from Tulsa and believes the nuclear end is near. She strips him down in the fun house before leaving him abandoned and naked. While in the fun house the room is shattered by an event. He awakes surrounded by broken glass. He emerges from the house to find a large portion of the people dead. We pan out to see this event happening all over and the giant octopus that was referenced earlier in the season dropped in the heart of Manhattan.
We cut to a board room where Looking Glass is in his day job analyzing people’s reactions to a promotional video to get people to revisit New York. People are still not prepared to return there after the 3 million people died in an instant. Back at HQ Laurie is taking over and has teams focused on trying to find the church the Kalvary film their videos in. He sits down with Laurie who finds out about where he was the night the giant octopus showed up. Laurie finds out about the pills Angela has him looking into but he gets out of it for now.
Back at his home while watching American Hero Story an alarm is tripped in his bunker but he realizes it’s a malfunction. He calls the agency in charge to get the system fixed as soon as possible. He is told by Cynthia to come get his pills at a pet cloning company. The pills are something called Nostalgia which is memories in a pill form and it’s been outlawed. He then goes to a dimensional support group for people who can’t deal with the events of the past and present. Wade mentions how the events of 11/2 united people and prevented nuclear war that was inevitable. He meets a lady outside the meeting who tells him to follow her and they have a beer. She tells him on 11/2 about a scene in a Spielberg movie about a girl wandering through the aftermath of 11/2 and how watching that movie makes her feel better. While driving off he realizes the truck that picks her up is the Kalvary truck that shot the police officer a few episodes ago.
He decides not to wait for backup and goes into the hideout without even his mask. He finds the set they are filming their shots in front off so it is not a church. While looking a ball seems to transport into the room as the Kalvary is experimenting with trans dimensional teleportation. He comes out and it turns out the whole thing was a setup to lure him there. No backup is coming as they intercepted his radio call. They know he is Looking Glass and it turns out the Senator is a member of the Kalvary as well. Turns out they are using this tech for some big plan and the Senator tells him in exchange for shutting down Angela’s investigation into Judd’s murder he will show him something to erase his fear of the dimensional events. The video is a message from Adrian to the president Robert Redford years before predicting he would be elected. Adrian reveals he was behind the events of 11/2 and that the whole thing was a hoax and how mankind would not be ready for change right away but it’s believed they are now.
Just as the video gets into the details we transition to Adrian attempting to leave his prison on the moon. His plan works and he escapes to the surface of the moon he is on which appears to be close to Jupiter. There are bodies all over from his previous tests launching subjects into the sky. He assembles out of the bodies a message saying Save Me as a satellite passes by. He is then quickly pulled back into his prison by the Game Warden. He places him under arrest and knocks him out.
We cut back to Wade back at his day job trying to cope with this new info he has received. At his desk Angela calls him and Wade tells her the pills are nostalgia and he tells her he wants to help. Angela tells him everything about her grandfather and Wade knowing the Cactus was bugged turns her over to Laurie. She then swallows all the pills as she is taken away. He returns home to his new alarm that he throws away originally before coming back to retrieve it. We pan out as the Kalvary show up with guns and the episode ends.
Once again the show does a good job of answering some questions but unlike last week we didn’t get a ton of new ones which is ok with me. Next week will be heavy on exposition as Angela trips out on her grandfather’s memories which apparently taking someone else’s Nostalgia can really mess you up. It will be interesting to see going forward what Looking Glass’s role will be, that is if he survives the Kalvary attack but I’m guessing he will or else why not just kill him to close out this week’s episode. Regardless it was cool to see some of the 11/2 squid attacks and see how much it has affected people living through the aftermath. Till next week be sure not to follow any strangers into a fun house, tick…tock…tick…tock.
Observations
- Finally seeing the octopus drop is nice
- Who hasn’t been stripped naked in a fun house and been left alone. Like every nightmare ever!
- I think I may like Mirror Guy better than Looking Glass as names go.
- It seems the alarm is supposed to alert you when a dimensional event may be happening similar to when the octopi rained earlier in the season.
- That poor puppy, monsters!
- The mask and his lined hat have something to do with the psychological effects from 11/2.
- Looking Glass pretty much recites why Adrian did the whole thing in the first place to prevent nuclear annihilation. The old “kill millions to save billions” line.
- Man what that Spielberg movie would have been like.
- Poor looking glass falling for a Kalvary member.
- Kalvary much smarter than the hillbillies the police think they are.
- Looks like Kalvary doesn’t need Wade anymore.