Watchmen reunites the Minutemen, possibly satirizes Donald Trump’s father

It’s hard to say what was most impressive about “This Extraordinary Being,” this past Sunday’s new episode of Watchmen. Maybe it was the stylization. Almost the entire episode was a flashback to the early life of Will Reeves, Angela Abar’s grandfather. It was filmed entirely in black and white, with lots of long takes courtesy of director Stephen Williams. “It wasn’t written in the script as being black and white, but then we told HBO that was our intention and that there would be bursts of color to evoke memories that Will was having from Tulsa ’21, because that memory, that trauma was so vivid and it was bleeding into all his other memories,” showrunner Damon Lindelof told Collider. “And HBO was like, ‘Let us have a think on that,’ and then they came back to us and said, ‘If it’s just for this one episode, we’re cool with it as a stylistic choice.’”

Or maybe it was the way the story interfaced with Alan Moore’s original Watchmen comic. In Moore’s work, the superhero Hooded Justice is only briefly seen, a mysterious, violent man who’s true identity is never uncovered. “This Extraordinary Being” reveals him to be Will Reeves, who took to vigilanteism after it became clear that his colleagues on the New York City police force weren’t serious about addressing racial violence, and at worst were aiding it.

“The first few lines of the series, you know, the first dialogue spoken is that little boy saying ‘There will be no mob justice today. Trust in the law,'” producer Nicole Kassell told io9. “But Will walks outside, mob justice is happening, and he realizes that he cannot trust in the law. That is the critical beginning of this character’s journey and what this show is talking about. What happens when you can’t trust in the law? There’s a huge portion of our society that cannot, and those of us who can have taken that for granted for so long. Today, people are really talking about police brutality and inequality in terms of how justice is served, and we really wanted to contextualize the conversations people are having now within a larger history.”

Clearly, Watchmen has a lot on its mind. It includes wonderfully iconic touches, too, as with American Hero Story, a show-within-a-show that’s all about the Minutemen, the 1930s-era group of superheroes Hooded Justice joins in his quest to right the wrongs of the world. But unlike the gritty tale we get in “This Extraordinary Being,” American Hero Story is cheesy, an overly grimdark reading on textured events. “They’re poking fun at themselves,” Kassell said of her fellow producers, “but there’s an appreciation for the fact that they’re creating fan fiction, there’s a whole community of people out there who are creating fan fiction. Damon’s been very open about that because that’s what this is: fiction inspired by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. There’s absolutely that self-awareness, but we’re playful with it.”

It’s hard to tell where the sequel ends and the fanfiction begins with this show. Blurring the lines further, Lindelof and company brought together all the Minutemen — most of whom don’t feature in the actual episode in any significant way — to recreate a famous photo from Moore’s comic:

The original:

And here’s how it looked in Zack Snyder’s 2009 movie adaptation, for good measure:

Or maybe people are responding to the way the episode rewards close readings. Remember the racist who breaks a window at a Jewish deli towards the start of the episode? As he tells Will early on, his name is Fred, and he owns a market in Queens. He’s also part of a white supremacist organization. A lot of people online have drawn comparisons between this character and Fred Trump, father to Donald, especially after they saw that the truck he uses in his business is labeled “F.T. & Sons.”

Like Fred from Watchmen, Fred Trump also owned a market in Queens around the time “This Extraordinary Being” is set. It was even described by the Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society as the “first supermarket of its kind in this part of Queens.” He was also one of seven men arrested during a 1927 Ku Klux Klan march, for refusing to disperse from the parade. Finally, a deleted tweet from Watchmen writer Claire Kiechel adds more fuel to the fire. “Look up who owned Queens first supermarket…” she wrote.

Watchmen is just a rich text, full of connection and feeling. We’re looking forward to seeing how it follows up this thrilling installment this upcoming Sunday!

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h/t Vox