If this had been the first episode of Watchmen, I don’t think anyone, myself included, would have been on board. But this isn’t the first, its the sixth, and we have been properly prepped for the mindfuck that is “This Extraordinary Being.”
For the first time in this series, the title appears to be an original commentary, and not a reference to some outsider work of art.
UPDATE: Hat tip to Matthew Meylikhov, who reminded me, via /Film, that the phrase was used in the original “Watchmen” back matter. It is how Hollis Mason describes Hooded Justice in Under the Hood, his autobiography.
1. The reveal
By far the biggest piece of this episode is the reveal that Will Reeves is, in fact, Hooded Justice. This is something that will likely upset some people, but that is stupid. The origin laid out here is a logical one, and there is nothing in “Watchmen” that contradicts the interpretation here. But this is a bold move, and one that the show does a really nice job both preparing you for and slotting into the forming mosaic nicely.
This revelation has a lot of implications for the rest of the series, and it impacts nearly every character we’ve met so far. Since he is the OG masked hero, he set into motion so many parts of “Watchmen.” He, indirectly, is the cause of Angela’s profession as a masked cop, the reason Veidt became Ozymandias, and…well, just about everything that isn’t Dr. Manhattan related.
Because of the way the episode was constructed, there was a lot of distortion of reality and memory, giving some parts hyperrealism, and others a story of sheen of nostalgia (pardon the pun). But we essentially get the ‘highlights’ of Will’s life from his early 20s through, let’s call it his early 30s. There are some absolutely harrowing moments, especially an attempted lynching that gives birth to Hooded Justice. And while I’m sure there was some joy in there, we don’t get any of that. We just get Will’s obsession with justice, and how that goes onto poison his life.
That said, there are a lot of elements that seem thrust upon him: specifically by June, his wife and the baby he found crying outside Tulsa in the pilot’s opening minutes. Speaking of June…
2. More Superman stuff
This episode continues the show’s intermingling of “Watchmen” and Superman, like a more subtle, non-DC canon “Doomsday Clock.” Although subtlety went out the window this week, where we encounter someone reading “Action Comics” #1 and talking about how it is more hopeful than the real world. I feel ya, bro.
But also, the more I thought about the opening sequence of the entire show, with Will being sent out of his own Krypton, Tulsa, in a rocketship of a car. I realized that Will is actually on both sides of the Superman mythos, as he was both the child sent away, and also the Kents, as he finds June wrapped in the American flag.
I’m not exactly sure what the show is trying to do with the Superman parallels, other than just be clever, but they keep coming.
3. The family tradition
I liked a lot of the imagery for Angela and Will being similar, both in terms of the eye makeup they wear, to the almost total covering their costumes provide, to both having tempers, to both being cops that are dealing with nefarious racists groups. As I mentioned above, the show has mostly dispensed with subtlety at this point, which is fine, as it allows things to be plain and clear instead of cute. I couldn’t help but feel like some of this stuff would’ve been just as effective if half as obvious, but I’m also fine with the show deciding that people need to know this stuff, and so beating us over the head with it.
4. Checking in at the Castle, part 5: Wait, no Veidt this week?
My one gripe with this episode is the lack of Veidt, especially after last week’s insanity. But I also appreciate the show giving all of its attention to Will and Angela. There is so much in that story that, as a white man, I have very little to add to the overall discussion of, but deserved every minute of screen time.
Continued belowBut I still missed my Adrian fix.
5. The battle lines really seem drawn
With this episode, it seems more clear than ever that there are real, stark, sides in this battle. The 7K, Keane, and maybe Judd? against Will, Trieu, and maybe Angela? What is interesting about Angela, thus far, is not just that she hasn’t taken a side, but rather that her allegiances have shifted multiple times. So many times in shows like this, our protagonist must convince others to join their side. But, much like The Leftovers, here Lindelof puts Angela in a position to have to decide, like the audience, which crew to side with. It makes for fun television, and I legitimately can’t wait to see what happens next.
1. What did Will do since the end of being Hooded Justice?
So, we see Will’s story end, more or less, in the 1950s (or so). At some point, we know he retired the alias. What did he do after? We know he was a cop still; was he happy? Did he ever remarry? Did he wind up shacking up with that dickhead Captain Metropolis? I’m really curious to see what the 60+ years of inactivity were like for him.
2. How prevalent is the mesmerism tech?
When Will takes down Cyclops, we see him take some of the equipment used to mesmerize/hypnotize folks. We then see him, more or less, use that on technique on Judd. Is he the only one who has this tech? Or were there multiple Cyclops headquarters, and so he’s been developing/perfecting this tech in some what parallel with Cyclops?
3. Were these memories hand selected? Or, how does Nostalgia work?
So, when Angela swallowed the entire bottle of Nostalgia, she gets flooded with all of these memories from Will. Did he specifically choose just those memories? How specific was he able to be with these choices? Obviously, he needed her to know that he was Hooded Justice, but did he want her to know about his affair with Captain Metropolis, or was that just part and parcel with his heroism, and so she got all of that.
Basically, I want to know how targeted the nostalgia is/can be, and just how weaponized Will wanted his memories to be.
