Watchmen: See How They Fly
If there’s a theme at all here, I’d say it’s “No one is what they seem,” or at least damn few are. By the end of this, there are a few good guys left, and a lot of evil revealed, and a good bit of collateral damage.
If there’s a theme at all here, I’d say it’s “No one is what they seem,” or at least damn few are. By the end of this, there are a few good guys left, and a lot of evil revealed, and a good bit of collateral damage.
With the big surprise at the end of last episode, there are a lot of questions. So even though there’s only one more episode to go, they take most of this one to explain some backstory among several of the major characters.
We’ve gotten to the last third of season one of Watchmen, and things are getting stranger and stranger. There’s been an origin for Hooded Justice, which never happened in the original comics, some fleshing out of the elements in their modern world, and a lot of twists and turns.
They’ve done some good worldbuilding and storytelling in this series. They touch on some things from the original comics, less so the movie, and develop a lot of good new stuff. Now, they combine both those things, as we learn a lot about a character from the comics whose story was never really told in detail.
Wade Tillman, the masked cop Looking Glass, is one of the most interesting. I admit to some bias, as he’s apparently loosely based on the Question/Rorschach, the Question being a favorite of mine, and his southern delivery with a keen mind behind it reminds me a lot of Eugene from The Walking Dead, another show I very much enjoy.
They seem to enjoy playing with the opening title sequence on Watchmen, and they get a bit more creative with this one. The show title emerges through a gradually cracking shell, with the WATCHMEN logo much like a yellow egg yolk.
Laurie Blake, the second Silk Spectre, has gone through a lot of changes since the events of the Watchmen graphic novel (or movie if you prefer). She’s the central figure of this episode, played by Jean Smart. Smart was recently seen in Fox’s incredibly odd Legion show, so she joins the ever-growing list of actors who have played characters for both Marvel and DC.
When I heard about the HBO show, I wasn’t sure what to think about it, but I’m a hero geek, so it was foregone conclusion I was going to watch. So far, it’s been better than I hoped, and I’m really finding myself absorbed by this world and story.
“Legendary” and “iconic” are words that get tossed around a bit too easily and often these days, but sometimes they apply. In 1986, Alan Moore wrote a stunningly different comic book limited series called the Watchmen.