‘Watchmen’ Season 1 Episode 8 Recap: Cal Just Blue Himself
by Nick MangioneWe’ve reached the penultimate episode of Watchmen, which means we actually get some answers. So last week’s episode ended on the biggest twist of the series. That Angela’s husband Cal is actually Doctor Manhattan, disguised even to himself so he and Angela could be together. After giving us a week to pick up our jaws, we got to see how exactly that happened. It goes back to Angela’s days as a cop in Saigon. She’s drinking in a bar to commemorate the anniversary of her parents’ death. We know this because that’s what Doctor Manhattan says she’s doing. And he knows this because she’ll tell him in about 20 minutes. As he explains, he experiences time all at once. It’s a fascinating premise, but it doesn’t make for a great pick-up line. At least not at first.
Angela doesn’t believe he is who he says he is. After all, he is wearing a Doctor Manhattan mask, which is simultaneously the dumbest and most brilliant disguise. He tells her about his life before he was Doctor Manhattan. How he and his Jewish father escaped Germany after his mother fell in love with an SS agent. How they went to a refuge in Britain where people prepared for a trip to America. While there, he spied two people having sex. They later took him aside and explained what they were doing, that they were creating life. They give him a Bible and asked him to promise that one day he’ll create something beautiful. We then see that he fulfilled that promise by creating the land on Europa where Ozymandias has been all series. He created the manor and the identical inhabitants therein. He made them in the image of the people he made a promise to.
I love the way this episode is structured. We see it from Doctor Manhattan’s point of view. He experiences all moments at once, and we see what that’s like. The episode skips forward and backward in time as he mentions all the events he’s experiencing. He tells her she comes up with a solution for him not to be blue all the time, and we’re suddenly in a morgue picking out a new appearance from a number of dead men with no family. Angela picks an attractive heart attack victim named Cal. Doctor Manhattan mentions a fight they have, and we see how it starts. Ironically, the fight happens because he keeps bringing up the fact that they’re inevitably going to have this big fight. It’s mind-bending, funny, and sad all at the same time. Which, is a pretty apt description of the arc of their relationship.
We get some answers about Ozymandias, too. After the big fight, Doctor Manhattan goes to Antarctica to ask Ozymandias for a favor. He needs to live as a human, to not let his omniscience get in the way of a relationship with a woman he really loves. He needs a device that will allow him to live as a human in more than just appearance. To block out all his memories. In a fun nod to the comics, Ozymandias reveals he built such a device 30 years ago. In the comics, when he tried to kill Doctor Manhattan, it turns out that was plan B. Plan A was to erase all memories of who he actually is. Before giving up his memories, Doctor Manhattan does one more thing: He finds Will Reeves and tells him about his granddaughter. We don’t see that scene until later. In exchange for the device, Doctor Manhattan sends Ozymandias to the paradise he created on Europa. A place where there is no shortage of people looking for someone to worship. A paradise that slowly becomes a prison.
This episode plays a lot with time, but never in a way that’s unnecessarily convoluted. By only jumping forward or backward in time when Jon mentions an event, it carefully guides us through what he experiences. We can have just as much fun with the premise as the show does. When we finally get back to the present, Jon is all over the place. He disappears and is suddenly standing on top of the water in the pool. Why? Because Angela needs to see him there. Yeah, I have no idea what that means, and I’m really hoping it’s hinting at something in the next episode. He tells Angela he is living that moment as well as the one where he met her grandfather 10 years ago. It turns out when he’s in two different moments like this, the time periods can interact with one another. Angela can ask a question of her grandfather in the past. She asks him how he knew Sheriff Crawford had a Klan robe in his closet. He doesn’t know who Crawford is. Until that moment. She’s the one who told him. This episode makes your brain do gymnastics.
The episode closes out with a big fantastic action sequence that is also the series’ most stressful. See, from their very first date at the bar, Doctor Manhattan has said that their relationship will end tragically after 10 years. At first, I thought that just meant Angela bashing the memory device out of his head at the end of the last episode. Now, with the Seventh Kavalry gathered outside, Jon says there’s no chance that Angela will save him. Just like her, we’re worried that he’s right. It makes every moment of the ensuing gunfight terrifying. Angela arms herself, which turns out the be the moment Jon falls in love with her. Only for him, that moment has always been happening. It’s sweet, funny, and heartbreaking, just like their entire relationship.
Angela shoots her way through an army of white supremacists in Rorschach masks. At this point, it becomes clear we’re not going to like how it ends. The only question is who the tragedy will befall. For a moment, it looked like it would be Angela, and I would not have been OK. She’s been through so much, she deserves way better than to be shot in a truck by some wannabe Randian icon.
I may have let out a small cheer to myself when Doctor Manhattan showed up in all his glowing blue naked glory, exploding racists’ heads left and right. Angela even takes out the guy manning the cannon capable of destroying (or capturing, it’s not clear at this point) Doctor Manhattan. It’s enough to lull us into a sense of security, which is how you know something bad’s going to happen. As Angela drops her guard, thinking they defeated the Seventh Kavalry, Jon apologizes. One remaining Kavalry member steps up to the cannon and shoots Jon. He screams and disappears. Only the episode before the season finale would leave us feeling that hopeless.
Watchmen turns in another fantastic episode, and it’s good enough to make me sad it’s ending next week. Of course, I’m excited to see where it’s all going, and how they’re going to end this. But this has been the highlight of my week since the show began. It’s not often we get shows that are this good on a weekly basis.
This week’s episode used non-linear time to tell a story about romance and family. It made us care about a relationship we only really got the full scope of this episode. It makes us believe that Jon really loved Angela, and his loss felt like a genuine tragedy as a result. He gave her everything she really wanted, a family, when that meant giving up who he was. Maybe this is partly why he could never make it work with Laurie. Even putting aside living these moments with another woman while he was with her, he never thought to give up his god-hood. He could never be a person with Laurie, but he could with Angela. Man, I hope he’s not gone forever.
The post-credits scene is also one hell of a teaser. As the credits roll, we hear Ozymandias being asked by everyone on Europa if he will stay. He says no, and one by one they smash a tomato on his face. Later, the warden brings him a cake they insisted on giving him. Inside, he finds a horseshoe and frantically starts digging a tunnel in his cell. How he expects that to work? Well, we’re not sure if he even does. At the very least, he’s been given something new to do. A task to which he can dedicate his mind. Maybe that’s all he wanted.
Watchmen airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
Previously on Watchmen: