Well folks, here we are, at the end of our Watchmen journey. The episode, “See How They Fly,” ties up an insane amount of loose ends, and references so many moments from the prior eight episodes. However, more than anything else, this episode succeeded due to the cast. And so, that’s what I’m going to focus on for this final review. Each bullet point will focus on both the performance of the actor, and how their character arc wrapped up.
1. Tim Blake Nelson / Looking Glass
After not having been seen since the end of episode 5, we get a reunion with Looking Glass in this episode. He has been undercover in the Seventh Cavalry for an undisclosed amount of time, and is trying to free Laurie from her captivity. This is the character least served by the finale, especially because we saw his entire world collapse in front of him in “Little Fear of Lightning.”
That said, Tim Blake Nelson does the most with his limited time here, and we see him having a real mixed sense of responsibility in helping Veidt. Yes, he wants to save the world, yes, but he has to help the man who ruined his life, and killed 3 million people. But in the end, he’s a lawman, and he does what is right, followed by what the law prescribes. He also has the most cartoonish/Three Stooges moment of the series, where he bonks Veidt on the head with a wrench, and then tosses it over his shoulder like Luke Skywalker with a lightsaber.
2. Jean Smart / Laurie Blake
Laurie is the character from the comic that we spend the most time with on the show interacting with non-Phillips/Crookshanks. We got a pretty good sense of who she was at this point in her life, her motivations, and where she stood. She’s also the character that has changed the most since the comic, as she’s now a vigilante hunter working for the FBI under her father’s last name.
Jean Smart was a revelation on this series, and while she doesn’t get too much to do in this episode, she absolutely shines every moment she’s on screen. Her shift in this episode is also significant; for years, she let Veidt live a normal life, despite knowing he killed three million people. But here, we see that she’s now decided that isn’t going to fly anymore, even though he saved the day, in his eyes, again.
It is interesting that she is paired, yet again, with Looking Glass, and how they actually have an awful lot in common, despite being at odds for the first moments of their interaction. I like Glass as a foil for her, as her bluster and his quiet sardonic wit are a great match.
3. Louis Gossett Jr / Will Reeves
The casting on Watchmen was never more perfect than when they grabbed Louis Gossett Jr. for Will Reeves. An actor of note for over 50 years, Gossett brings an instant presence to the screen. The old Reeves is a very different man than we see joining the police force, and Gossett conveys a life lived, and not an easy one, in his portrayal. In this episode, we don’t see a lot of Gossett, but when he’s on screen, he is finally playing the role that Will wanted to play all along: the wise, elder statesman. He’s dropping wisdom like “wounds need air” and talking to Angela about fear versus anger, and it’s all wonderful stuff. There’s a pathos and a believability to his performance as Will that wasn’t really able to shine through in earlier episodes, because the viewer is just so focused on the ‘mystery’ of Will.
But now that we get him, just him, Gossett is able to flash those Oscar-winning chops and really bring home the emotional hammer of the series.
4. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II / Cal/ Dr. Manhattan
For a character that, previously, has all been about certainty, it was an interesting choice to show Dr. Manhattan as being so unsure of when he was in this episode. His uncertainty and quiet poise was in director contrast to Senator Keane and his scenery chewing cowboy machismo. That was one of my favorite things about the episode, actually: show that neither the passive, cold approach nor the over the top hype train were the best ways to wield all that power. Manhattan was ineffective by choice, and Keane would’ve been ineffective due to ego.
Continued belowAbdul-Mateen brought a grace to everything he did on the show, blue or not. The big change to Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen as opposed to the comic was the presence of a greater emotional core for the character. He talks more freely about love and fear and being alone, and while that may bother some purists (and, confession time, it sort of bothers me), it also allows the character to do more than just be this annoying blue nagger that he sometimes was in the past.
I have lots of Manhattan questions, which we will get to soon enough.
5. Jeremy Irons / Adrian Veidt
We get to spend a fair amount of time with the man sometimes known as Ozymandias in this episode, and Irons continues his over the top fun throughout. There is a different kind of confidence that Irons brings to the role than what Matthew Goode brought to the film adaptation (in the worst cast role): while Goode brought superiority through a snobby, turned up nose, Irons brings a more playful, though equally cruel, Veidt. This Veidt can’t be bothered with you, but will make some witty remark to let you know that, whereas Goode’s would’ve just walked away from you. That attitude brings such incredible line readings out of him, such as when Laurie asks if they can save Jon, and he answers, without a bit of regret or sadness, “oh, I’m sure he’s already dead!”
Veidt is the character from the comic who is most similarly portrayed in both the television show and the original source material. He hasn’t had big revelations, or events rock his world. He’s just Veidt still, and he’s bored by your lack of imagination.
The biggest change for Veidt comes in the episode’s final minutes, when it is revealed that he will be arrested for the crimes of 1985. This change is more about Laurie than it is about Veidt, but he seems totally perplexed that anyone would either hold him accountable or doubt his overarching plan. This is the brilliance of both Moore’s original writing and Irons’s performance: the moral certitude from Veidt suggests that there is only one way to see things: Veidt’s way. Irons really leans into that in the finale, and it works.
6. Hong Chau / Lady Trieu
The most upsetting part of the finale is that we won’t get more Hong Chau as Lady Trieu, because she was so wonderful in this episode. From the way she spins and takes a silent complement on her hat, to her portrayal of an ‘innocent’ version of herself before she meets her father, to the greatest line reading in the history of the show. She asks Veidt if he wrote his message to her in dead bodies, to which he replies yes, to which she replies, “Wow, there must be a COOL story behind that.” It’s the best. I want a button on my tombstone that, when you press it, you get that exact line reading.
Ultimately, which I never really trusted Trieu, I didn’t think she would try to take the power of Dr. Manhattan herself. I thought that she would want to use him to set up some sort of sustainable power source or something of the like. A few weeks ago on the podcast, Zach and I said we didn’t want to see dueling Doctors Manhattan in the finale, and I’m glad we didn’t get that. It is much more interesting to see people fighting over how to become him than to see people try to ‘fight’ him.
Ultimately, Lady Trieu’s story isn’t really a tragic one, except that she fails at her largest goal. She is truly the Veidt of this story, in that she does sort of save the world by stopping the Seventh Kavalry from gaining Manhattan’s power, but her ambition poisoned what could have been a long, successful life. Whether or not Bian will learn from that is one of the lingering questions from the fallout of this season.
7. Regina King / Angela Abar
The star of this show has always been Regina King, and the entire series has been built around her acting chops and character decisions. But in this episode, Angela is reduced to, more or less, a passive observer. This episode, in many ways, is about showing Angela how to proceed in the future. She learns a lesson from just about everyone she encounters, but for a character that has been all action for 8 episodes, it’s a little odd to see her take a backseat for the finale.
Continued belowBut of course, this being Angela’s story, it has to end with her, and we see her find and ingest the egg that she believes contains the essence of Dr. Manhattan in it. We don’t see what that exactly means for her, but we see her at least play with the idea that she can be an agent for change. Her grandfather says it to her plainly: “Considering what he could do, you could’ve done more.” Now, I think that Will means that Angela, as a compassionate person, could make more change in the world than a cold nuclear man, not that Angela with his powers could’ve done more.
I like the ambiguity at the end of the season with what exactly happened when Angela ate the egg, Rocky Balboa-style. I also wonder how the hell she’s going to explain all this to her kids, but that’s a story probably best told off screen.
To close out the season, and potentially the series, I’ve got three more big questions:
1. What happened to Manhattan’s energy?
So, we think that Manhattan left some sort of powers to Angela in the form of an egg, but it also seemed like that wouldn’t account for all of the energy that was zapped out of him, right? Trieu collected that energy and, before she got dead, was going to absorb it all. It seems like quite a different level of power, no? I also think that Angela wouldn’t want to be Dr. Manhattan; she would want to be herself, still.
So, since energy can’t be created or destroyed, it seems like Manhattan energy would’ve maybe dissipated across the universe, right? But here is where I’m also a little confused: Dr. Manhattan wasn’t really a person; he just put himself together that way for our benefit, right? He knew what it was like to be a person, and so he presented himself that way. But he could’ve presented himself as anything, or as nothing, right? Or am I giving him too many god-like powers?
My point is that Dr. Manhattan made himself look like Cal, he wasn’t Cal. So when all the energy is zapped from him and “Cal” is all that’s left, that doesn’t really track. I know I’m being pedantic as fuck, but the only explanation I can think of is that Manhattan used his final act as a ‘living being’ to look like Cal one more time for Angela.
(That detail is one of two small quibbles I had, plot wise, with the finale. The other is how the Karnak crew would have the incoming number of the Mars phone booth in Tulsa, which probably doesn’t take incoming calls? Again, I’m being a pedant)
2. Lube Guy?
What’s the deal with Lube Guy? I want a spinoff.
Today’s Peteypedia seems to suggest that it was Petey, which I’ve disputed on the podcast. Come at me, Lindelof.
3. Season 2?
If the show does a season 2, it will have to be as big of a shift as The Leftovers season two was, and my fear with that is that we would lose some or all of this amazing cast. But hey, I am totally content with this being a one and done show, as it was a pretty amazingly executed plan.
But if there is a season 2, go even bigger and even bolder, Damon. We’re here for this.
Thanks for reading everyone!
