Watchmen Season 1 Episode 4: “If you Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own”
Director: Andrij Parekh
Starring: Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart, and Hong Chau
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 52 minutes
HBO’s latest Watchmen takes a step back and slows things down to reposition its many dispirit plot elements. This episode is far from the series’ best, but it stokes intriguing mysteries and lays the foundation for some truly interesting ideas to come.
Moving the Pieces (Spoilers)
Episode four is not interested in big reveals, or even moving the plot along in any meaningful way. It is interested in raising questions. Who is the trillionaire, Lady Trieu? What is her connection to Doctor Manhattan? Who is Lube Man? (Yes, you read that correctly, Lube Man). Who is William Reeves? And, how did Angela Abar’s car fall out of the sky? However, regardless of its extreme commitment to remaining as enigmatic as possible, it is a solid episode that continues to raise the tension in the series.
We pick up with Angela Abar’s continued quest to find the elderly William Reeves to solve the murder of Chief Judd Crawford. The added pressure of FBI Agent Laurie Blake has forced Abar to involve Detective Looking Glass for help with her secret investigation. While Abar destroys evidence of Reeves wheelchair from his brief captivity, she realizes she is being watched by an unknown vigilante wearing skin-tight chrome spandex and a utility belt full of lube. As she pursues him, he douses himself with lube and slides into a storm drain. It is one of the oddest moments in the show thus far – which, for this reduxed Watchmen, is really saying something.
The most interesting part of the episode comes with the introduction of a new character, Lady Trieu. Trieu is a complete mystery. The only explicit information about her is that she acquired the Veidt corporate empire shortly after his disappearance some time ago. And, that she has some type of connection with Doctor Manhattan through his Martian telephone booths introduced the last episode. Hong Chau’s performance of Trieu is fantastic. She effortlessly conveys the character’s unprecedented influence and eccentric authority. Trieu fits snuggly as the connective tissue between all of the major plot elements introduced thus far. But, how that will play out is still a mystery.
What’s on the Horizon?
As for Adrian Veidt, things have grown so exceedingly bizarre that it’s hard to discuss in any literal sense. His vignette begins with him plucking pale infants from lobster traps, growing them into a new Mr. Philips and Ms. Crookshanks, and using them to clean up a massacred room of their unfortunate predecessors. Vedit is seeking to escape his captivity of four years via catapult, through what appears to be a trans-dimensional wall. It seems likely that Doctor Manhattan has imposed this captivity, but, perhaps that is too simple a twist for this progressively stranger and stranger show.
Say what you will about this Watchmen adaptation, it has certainly not been predictable. Lindelof and crew have laid out a tense and promising series. Even in it’s less exciting episodes, Watchmen always feels to be moving purposefully towards some spectacular end.
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Watchmen Season 1 Episode 4
HBO's latest Watchmen takes a step back and slows things down to reposition its many dispirit plot elements. And, though this episode is far from the series' most exciting, it stokes intriguing mysteries and lays the foundation for some truly interesting ideas to come.
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