WiC Watches: Watchmen

Colin Hutton/HBO

Episode 107: “An Almost Religious Awe”

Adrian Veidt has been on trial for a year, and Angela Abar has known her husband — Cal Abar — is Doctor Manhattan this entire time. Yeah, that happened.

Throughout this episode, Angela is connected to a tube she’s been told is also connected to her grandfather Will Reeves, aka Hooded Justice. It’s part of her treatment to nurse her back to health following her taking a lethal dose of Nostalgia. Later, she finds out the tube is connected to a sleeping elephant — yet another unsolved mystery in a show full of them — and disconnects. Because of the side effects of the treatment, she vividly relives memories of her past. We learn that her parents were killed by a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his back back when she was a girl in Vietnam.

Mark Hill/HBO

Angela was put through the wringer as a child. After losing her parents, she lives in an orphanage until her grandmother June, whom we met in “This Extraordinary Being,” comes for her. She dies of a heart attack right as they’re getting into a cab to go to the airport.

We also learn little incidental details about Angela’s life, like how she chose the persona of Sister Night based on a blaxploitation movie of the same name, and how she chose to become a police officer after helping the Vietnamese police force carry out an extrajudicial killing of the man who murdered her parents. We’ve already gotten deep dives into the pasts of characters like Laurie Blake and Looking Glass, so it was long past time Angela got her turn.

Mark Hill/HBO

In Tulsa, Agent Blake talks with Judd Crawford’s widow in her home. Everything is going as planned, when all of the sudden Jane pulls a lever and drops Blake into a room below, where she’s then tied up and transported wherever the Seventh Kavalry are plotting their dastardly masterstroke. Apparently, it involves Senator Keene transforming into Doctor Manhattan, or at least getting his powers.

Elsewhere — somewhere — Adrian Veidt is on trial. It’s been going on for a year, and at the end, when the Game Warden asks him to speak in his defense, he only stands and farts. It’s still hard to tell where this plotline is going, but that was funny.

Some other thoughts:

• Looking Glass killed the five Seventh Kavalry men who were going to be attacking him at the end of “A Little Fear of Lightning.” But we don’t know where he is.
• Lady Trieu is cloning her mother and calling her daughter. Whatever, man. That shit is weird. Apparently, she wants both of her parents to be there when she turns on her Millennium Clock. So who’s who father? Given the big statue of Ozymandias in her garden, my money’s on Adrian Veidt. I’m betting she’ll be the one to bring him back to Earth, if she hasn’t already. Remember that something fell out of the sky back when she was first introduced, onto land she just bought.

Mark Hill/HBO

• Doctor Manhattan was Cal Abar the whole time and Angela knew it. And damn, that hammer scene where she bashes Cal’s brains out to get Doctor Manhattan’s symbol…”Hey baby,” she says, as a blue glow begins to shine in her eyes.
• The clones Adrian Veidt has been using for years in his prison consider him guilty for killing them. Oof, Veidt never had a chance. He was also on trial for killing his fellow vigilantes of the Watchmen group, as well as the millions he killed with the giant squid alien.

Damon Lindelof just dropped a twisty bomb on us, the viewers, and I totally dig it. I can’t wait to see how the final episodes play out. This show could be Lindelof’s masterpiece.

Episode Grade: A+