The weekly WATCHMEN episode sum-up

[JirinPanthosa]

Adrian seemed to believe that any reasonable person would see things his way. So in the presence of people he considered smart, he felt uninhibited.

When the Senator showed that tape to Looking Glass, they fully believed their attempt to murder him after they were done using him would be successful.

I wonder what Robert Redford thinks of his alternate fate.

 

[The Old Mixer]

When the Senator showed that tape to Looking Glass, they fully believed their attempt to murder him after they were done using him would be successful.

That they had the tape at all, and apparently so many had seen it, is the point. It had gotten way out of Veidt's control. He's smarter than to have allowed that to happen.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Veidt, a narcissus, was taken out by Looking Glass just like in the myth.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I should also point out that when Veidt conveyed his life story in the comic, he was doing so to his dead servants. His favorite audience was always himself.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Veidt, a narcissus, was taken out by Looking Glass just like in the myth.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Veidt had to make sure that the US and the USSR did not try to track the jellyfish down to their homeworld and frakk it, or spending billions of dollars a year "trying" to track the Jelly fish down.

Oh.

Did he want Russia to bankrupt itself trying to destroy imaginary Jellyfish, or did Viedt send a confession to Russia as well, so that they could enjoy the peace?

 

[The Old Mixer]

And yet he didn't cooperate. Comics Veidt wasn't that sloppy or stupid.

 

[gblews]

The climax of the comic was all about keeping the horrific secret. I don't see Veidt boasting to the future president...or if he did, not doing so by laying it all out in a recording that anyone could watch.

I think what we were being told was that Veidt so thought he was home free that what happened in the past wouldn't matter and in fact, he would be hailed as a hero. I know I was surprised when Laurie pulled him up short. In fact, I thought she was kidding at first. I also think there'd have been a sizable outcry from fans about allowing him to walk after killing 3 million people would have been pretty significant.

Overall, I thought all of the storylines were wrapped up pretty efficiently and satisfactorily. I'm a big fan of Lady Trieu and the actor who played her. I thought the character was really interestingly written and acted. It seemed like nothing she said, or the way she said it, was predictable. So I was pretty pleased with her role in the finale. But I wish she had lied.

I loved her, "that motherf-----!" I did guess that her and Will's plan was to take Dr. Manhattan's powers so that 7K couldn't get them, but Lady Trieu's obsession with the power was a surprise.

I also liked that Lady Trieu didn't beat around the bush when it came to her plan to finally eliminate 7K. I wanted to hear the rest of her speech. And yes, the Senator Keene as a pool of goo was pretty funny. Especially when Lady Trieu let it be known what a first class dummy the guy was.

There was talk around the internet about Jon maybe putting his atomic essence into the pool, or the eggs, of even the waffles. Having it be the egg made sense (if that's what happened) given what we saw in the bar scene with Angela. I just knew we wouldn't see her walk on water, though. That seemed a bit cheesey to me. So I wasn't surprised that the episode ended with her foot over the water.

Maybe there was some moral ambiguity in the end tied up with Angela's decision to eat the egg. We had been told by Veidt and Jon as well, I think, that seeking his power was a pretty good indication that you shouldn't have it.

I hope we get a second season. I;d like to see more of the world Lindeloff created. But if it does happen, I don't think there is any way we'll get all of Regina King, Louis Gossett, and Jeremy Irons back. That's just too much star power to hope for again.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I think what we were being told was that Veidt so thought he was home free that what happened in the past wouldn't matter and in fact, he would be hailed as a hero.

On the contrary, his plan in the comic relied on secrecy. Veidt was very careful to cover his trail. If the world knew the true nature of the threat, nuclear tension would be back on.

I also think there'd have been a sizable outcry from fans about allowing him to walk after killing 3 million people would have been pretty significant.

And yet that was a major story point of the comic that was so successful as to have this sequel based on it...a distinctive attribute that helped to define it. It wasn't up to this sequel to bring Veidt to justice. Seeking to do so misses the point of the comic entirely.

Jeremy Irons delivered a very enjoyable portrayal of a narcissistic, scenery-chewing villain, but I don't think the writers hit the mark with Veidt.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I also liked the scene where she killed the white supremacists. Even in death they arrogantly looked down on their killer.

 

[Skipper]

Comics' Veidt killed all the people involved in the plot and he was very carefully to eliminate any evidence of his guilt. Evidently in the tv show, at the narrative level, they needed something that demonstrated incontrovertibly that the giant squid was a hoax so they invented the confession tape. Because, even if the comic ends with the cliffhanger whether the Rorsach journals will be published, they are the ravings of a lunatic and in any case there was nothing inside like "Veidt has sent a squid to New York". They needed something that was visual and clear to the viewers, so the tape.

I really think it was out of character, but I can accept it for the sake of the story.

Jeremy Irons delivered a very enjoyable portrayal of a narcissistic, scenery-chewing villain, but I don't think the writers hit the mark with Veidt.

You are absolutely right. Comics' Veidt was a very reserved person, a calculator and little sad. The only time he opened himself was in front of his dead servants. With all its faults, I believe the movie did a better job at representing this character.

 

[Relayer1]

I hope we get a second season. I;d like to see more of the world Lindeloff created. But if it does happen, I don't think there is any way we'll get all of Regina King, Louis Gossett, and Jeremy Irons back. That's just too much star power to hope for again.

I hope the second season, if we get one, is focussed around Dreiburg and Laurie. There could be some small reveals or cameos about Veidt and Co., but it could be very different.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Season 2 is about getting Robert Redford out of Power.

Imagine if Robert played himself?

 

[jaime]

I don’t think it stuck the landing. Shame.
It wasn’t supe bad, and it wrapped up it’s story but...it also seemed a bit contradictory with its themes. It didn’t follow through with them, and it always, even in its last episode, looked like it was going somewhere withe eight and then didn’t really. (Not to mention little things that felt rushed in this ep...how did everyone else in the squid storm not get machine gunned by seafood? What was looking glass even really there for? The slight cgi hint on the water under Angela’s foot suggests they chopped that scene...what makes Angela a better ‘new god’ than Trieu?)
The political messaging goes a bit scatty and ultimately no-where also. No where is this more apparent than in the figure of Manhattan (Jewish refugee from the Nazi’s changes into an African American...that feels like something that’s meant to be saying something, but then ultimately says nothing. The nice bits, ‘it was fear’ being very interesting, just gets more confusing when sat next to ‘masks make people cruel’ and it all gets a bit...well. It should have been a little more complex, and felt a bit rushed in the finale.

 

[RPOW0614]

Never read the comics.
Saw the movie and had mixed feelings, some good, some bad.

But this version of the Watchman has been really good.
Regina has been riveting to watch during this.
The convoluted timelines, the reveals and just the ride in general has been great.

I thought it was a satisfactory ending and if they don't make a second season featuring upgraded "Sister Night" I'm okay with that.

 

[jaime]

Never read the comics.
Saw the movie and had mixed feelings, some good, some bad.

But this version of the Watchman has been really good.
Regina has been riveting to watch during this.
The convoluted timelines, the reveals and just the ride in general has been great.

I thought it was a satisfactory ending and if they don't make a second season featuring upgraded "Sister Night" I'm okay with that.

The point that ‘heroes are a bad thing, a symptom of a broken system’ has been very lost by the end.

 

[RPOW0614]

Were there any real heros?
I saw a bunch of very flawed and broken people just trying to live another day.
Some did good things, some did bad things, some did both.
No one struck me as a hero.

 

[Saul]

Great series. It's unlike anything else I've seen, felt very fresh and very different. It's not my favorite show of the year but it certainly is the best one.

 

[jaime]

Were there any real heros?
I saw a bunch of very flawed and broken people just trying to live another day.
Some did good things, some did bad things, some did both.
No one struck me as a hero.

That’s par for the course with all heroes post marvel and particularly post marvel.
But in the final episode, that is starting to be forgotten. Justice having to hide its identity in an unjust world is still there, but there’s very much still a ‘looking up’ to the heroes, which is kind of the opposite to everything else. Veidt actually kills a basic supervillain this time (except we are told this, never shown) and we are shown we still need ‘gods’ even though it’s quite apparent ‘gods’ are a massive part of the problem.
We are invited to see fear as motivating acts of violence by people hidden underneath masks, but it sits oddly...the Klan stuff really needed dealing with better, especially because of Judd. Ironically, the legacy characters began to overshadow the interesting things to do with the new.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Never read the comics.

Change that.