Watchmen and Watchmen, Pt. 5
Alternate-Universe Schindler's List? I need this show to settle down a bit
I too am tired, Wade.
Looking Glass has been my favorite character of the series since the first episode, so I was excited that this episode focused on him, especially because I think the show is stronger when it is forging its own path. But this episode, unfortunately, also continued the pattern of the show’s odd writing choices about the parts it’s trying to directly “continue” from the graphic novel, and, distressingly, it has made choices of a similar nature in some of the “new”/“remixed” material, meaning the way the show treats the parts of the graphic novel it is (ostensibly) “faithfully” adapting (i.e., Laurie Blake and Adrian Veidt) is beginning to, it seems, affect the parts of it I think are strongest. I apologize for all the quotation marks in this paragraph.
I’m going to give a brief overview of my thoughts on the episode before concentrating on more specific details.
I mentioned in my previous post that I was looking forward to this episode, in part because of all the opportunity for symbolism (or, at the very least, neat shots), but the beginning of the episode kept piling it on to the point where it felt unbearably concentrated—as if it had suddenly shifted to a “Top Ten Mirror Symbols in Watchmen” video. I strongly believe that subtlety in narrative is not always a virtue, but here it seemed sloppy. We get it, and, once we get it, the show keeps repeating it. The graphic novel is remarkably unsubtle when it wants to be, but, save one sequence (which the panel below is from), it’s not really the eye-rolling kind of bluntness.
The way the show deals with the psychic bombing is… well, I’ll talk about that later. The decision to refer to it as “11/2” sure does have some implications, though.
I really empathized with Looking Glass’s anxiety and fondness for rules and regulations, although his “day job” does not make much sense. I am also growing increasingly disappointed in how the show seems to have dropped the ball on the history of masks in racist violence and anti-fascist activism, and it only just now occurred to me that this may explain some of the bizarre choices they made with Laurie’s character, which may need to be another post.
Okay, I think I’m ready to talk about it in more detail now.
An Exhaustive? Exhausting? Breakdown
The Funfair Illustrates Everything Frustrating About the Show in One Sequence
The episode begins with a younger Wade disembarking from a bus as part of an evangelical mission for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and this is kind of clever: a brief insert shows us that they are handing out copies of The Watchtower, a real JW publication.
But then it’s immediately followed up with the group leader saying to Wade, “A minute before midnight. Tick-tock, Wade,” and it’s like, yeah, we get it. I think every episode has had a character say “tick-tock,” and this is another instance of what I discussed above: the syrupy concentration of symbols and references to the point that they become distasteful.
One other kind of fun bit that the show’s done in this scene: the song playing over Wade approaching the Knot Tops is “Things Can Only Get Better.”
This is another instance of the show’s one-two punch of “nice detail” and “too much of it”: this Knot Top is using a mirror (a circular one, no less) to observe Wade. But then she takes him into a house of mirrors, and I think I’d actually be fine with that, but the directing of the episode keeps emphasizing the mirrors over and over again in this sequence to the point that it becomes a bit insulting (the tipping point, I think, is when Wade talks to himself in one of the mirrors).
Also insulting are the two posters on the wall here:
The lower poster is advertising the Pale Horse/Krystalnacht concert that took place on the night of the psychic bombing, and similar posters/graffiti show up in the graphic novel. The top poster is for a Gay Women Against Rape benefit concert, and a similar (though not identical) poster makes a few appearances in the graphic novel, most notably here, near the newsstand:
All of this just makes the world seem so small, and beholden to the graphic novel in an almost servile way. What happened to the Watchmen of the first episode, with the racist poster touting Dollar Bill’s effectiveness at keeping black people out of banks?
In the graphic novel, this seems like a deliberate choice (although I’m not quite sure what the reason is: it’s a little murky, and it would take too long to discuss at this point). I’m not sure there’s a reason for the show to display it here other than “it’s in the graphic novel,” which is not a sufficient story reason. The more cynical idea here is that these now-asymbolic “symbols” are used solely to generate discussion points for hardcore fans and fuel internet clickbait articles about the Top Fourteen Easter Eggs You Missed in Watchmen Episode Five (and, therefore, increase the show’s presence in the pop culture landscape of the moment). I hope that’s not the case. Many of the story decisions in this episode do not strike me as the most considered, and it is possible that this is another instance of that, instead of anything so crass.
There are two possible reasons to place this poster here: the first is that the Knot Top who leads Wade to the house of mirrors sexually assaults him by disrobing him despite his objections and leaving him to exit without his clothes. The second is to compare the stated morality of this “sinful” GWAR group with that of the JWs. But it’s not clear that this is intentional on the part of the people who made the show, and while that would be all right if this were a rare occurrence of recycling (as opposed to “remixing”) things from the graphic novel, it isn’t. So I worry.
I especially worry because of the SECOND poster, which this episode later underlines by having a character just talk about the concert. Both of these posters are shown after a tracking shot of a boy sitting down to read a comic (like the boy by the newsstand in the graphic novel) and a couple kissing (like the silhouette by the newsstand in the graphic novel).
Cleverly?, these symbols are… kind of mirrored? Question mark.
Oh, and there’s even a fallout shelter sign across the way, just like was by the newsstand in the original graphic novel!
We absolutely get it: you guys have read the graphic novel. But is that ever going to mean anything for the show?
As a side note, I am not a New Yorker, and so I spent a bit of time trying to figure out if this was supposed to be Palisades Amusement Park, the amusement park in the graphic novel, but it isn’t (unless it is, and they really messed up their geography).
A quick question before we move on from this sequence: what’s up with Sinatra/records being in this episode so much? The funfair is located on Sinatra Drive North, and a Sinatra song plays immediately after the street sign that tells us that, and there’s another Sinatra song in the episode (which also happens to be a Rodgers & Hammerstein song). The opening sequence shows us two different record stores. Does this mean anything? Probably not!
And there’s also this shot showing a display advertising Zenith, and—
God. Dammit. They literally put a newsstand here, in the middle of the funfair. Guys, I promise that I believe you have read the graphic novel.
Oh, and one more thing: the cars in the graphic novel look much different from the cars of 1985 in our universe, and I was willing to let the 2019 cars in the show pass, but here, in this flashback, in this show which supposedly treats all of the graphic novel as canon, the cars and buses look… nothing like the automotive vehicles in the graphic novel.
More Windsor
Damon Lindelof, explain this, you coward. Is this show trying to gaslight me in some way?
The First Focus Group Scene
I actually think this is a good scene, aside from the… obvious post-WTC-attack overtones. Looking Glass is behind one-way glass, and he’s reflected in it, and the title of the episode (which is a neat, playful lift from another famous work of squid-featuring media) is displayed in reverse (this episode is obviously meant to remind viewers familiar with the source material of “Fearful Symmetry,” the fifth issue of Watchmen, in many respects): his job is an extension of his mask, and he also clings to his mask inside it—he does not reveal that he, too, remains traumatized.
Laurie Blake
Laurie continues to be unrecognizable as the character from the graphic novel that she’s supposed to be. I’d rather we got a bit more detail on why that is than, say, have a character tell people watching the show who haven’t read the graphic novel what happens in it. This piece of supplemental material may indicate how the show is plausibly(?) justifying this extrapolation, but I’m not sure I buy the transformation at the moment.
Looking Glass’s Bunker
I don’t have much to say about this at the moment, but I did watch a behind-the-scenes featurette with Tim Blake Nelson about the bunker set where he talked about how the bathroom has no mirror, because Looking Glass only likes being a mirror, and not looking into one. That would have been a neat thing to see in this episode, and an interesting use of an absence instead of a presence to show something about a character. But you don’t see it in this episode. Oh, well.
Cynthia’s Workplace
More DNA/cloning stuff. Along with the later mention of trauma and epigenetics, I have an idea about what the show might be planning, or at least the direction in which it’s going. This is a really interesting thread, and the kind of thing that makes me hope that my doubts about the show will be assuaged by later episodes.
One thing I don’t like is that Cynthia says that Wade was always scared she’d take his clothes and run off. It just seems a little ungainly, although maybe it’s meant to hint that he lied to her about the extent of the trauma affecting his intimacy. Surely the larger trauma is… you know, walking out into a field of dead bodies after being forcibly stripped.
Another thing I don’t like is that this is the point in the episode where we start seeing brief flashbacks illustrating information that we already know. When Cynthia mentions running off with his clothes, we see a snippet of the funfair scene. I don’t think these are always bad: these might be meant as PTSD flashbacks, which would be emotionally justified. But as the episode continues, they seem to use the flashbacks more to make sure the audience is on the same page, and that’s not really a very elegant use of the device.
A further thing I don’t like is that the magic memory medicine is named “Nostalgia.” Presumably it is a Trieu Industries product. (Note: I wrote most of this post before checking the supplemental material for the episode on HBO’s website. That material confirms that “Nostalgia” is a Trieu product.)
Also, I’m not sure why the people with two identical dogs appear to be waiting at the lab, since I’d assume they already got what they wanted, although maybe there’s some sort of follow-up appointment.
Just one more thing: I don’t know why Wade would choose to line a snapback baseball cap with the reflective material. I think he would have tried to find a hat with more coverage.
The Support Group
This is another scene with both the highs and lows of this show occupying roughly the same space.
The show opens with a reference to the theory of epigenetic trauma (not “genetic trauma”), and I have a feeling this will play a part in Lady Trieu’s plan (remember that her daughter had a memory of men invading a village) in a pseudo-scientific way. (This isn’t really a criticism on its own: the original Watchmen involves a blue god-like being and psychic powers). I do not have the time at the moment to devote to writing about the history of this idea in our world (or a [related?] discussion of how the show… seems to be using the cops to comment on Antifa?), but I will note that this actually has shades of a different Alan Moore work: his run on Saga of the Swamp Thing, particularly the issue in which he retcons the nature of the title character. Real ones know what I’m talking about. I’m going to have to truncate some of my discussions of the latter half of the episode because writing up this first half took longer than I anticipated. I should start writing these earlier. (Also, I think this will be used to explain why Angela Abar doesn’t go insane from viewing the memories of her ancestor).
Renee’s Story; Schindler’s Squid
Okay, look. I don’t have the time to discuss how questionable it is to dramatically interpret the squid as equivalent to the attack on the World Trade Center (I would like to sleep tonight), making the racist murderers right (ALIENS CAN’T MELT HUMAN BEINGS), but I do have the time to discuss how absolutely bananas infuriating it is that in this alternate universe, Spielberg never made Schindler’s List and instead used the same famous technique in a different film about the psychic bombing which is meant to be an AU Schindler’s List equivalent.
For starters, the idea that the Holocaust would become an unimportant dramatic subject to Spielberg as he sprung for something more fresh and trendy is… borderline insulting. (Prepare yourselves for this next sentence, because it’s going to seem to be a bit of a curveball.) Let’s just take a look at the instructions included with the LEGO Studios Steven Spielberg MovieMaker Set, released in 2000 (scan courtesy of Peeron):
From his introduction:
Now, if one were to type “www.LEGO.com/studios” into one’s World Wide Web Browser, as the set instructs you to do in many places, one might have even stumbled across this page.
Unfortunately, www.vhf.org is now a horrifically tasteless spam site, and, regrettably, there’s no possible way to view previous versions of web pages.
But I’m confident we can figure this out. We just need to think.
Hm. I wonder what “Shoah Foundation” refers to. Could it be, perhaps… USC Shoah Foundation, which Spielberg started in 1994, after completing Schindler’s List? An organization which works to preserve the history of genocides around the world? Is it thus maybe, hm… likely that Spielberg wouldn’t have lost interest in the Holocaust as a subject because of the psychic bombing? Is it totally irresponsible to suggest that the two events are even interchangeable?
And further, is it possible that, if one were to go to his Wikipedia page, one might discover a movie in his filmography which fits the way the show is handling this subject in an absurdly better fashion? A film which already draws on World Trade Center imagery?
Now just to take a big sip of Nostalgia perfume and look at a screenshot from the second episode of this TV show—
Come on. This is what is so frustrating about the show: it is clearly capable of making clever choices, but it often seems content with The Lazy Choice. The girl in the red coat is far more recognizable to people than any image from War of the Worlds, and if they don’t recognize that you’re actually making an AU version of a real Spielberg movie, how will they know how clever you are? (Even though, again, they use this symbol without considering its function in the source material.) I’m likely being uncharitable, here: War of the Worlds isn’t Spielberg’s most well-known film. But the man has made quite a few movies about aliens, and it’s not hard to just postulate that Stephen Spielberg, in this alternate universe, might have simply… made another one! One that doesn’t take the place of Schindler’s List, even!
Wade Learns a Truth
I’m going to skip over how bizarre it is that the Kavalry rigs a head of lettuce to fall from the back of the truck. It’s the kind of thing that we know would work to pull Wade in, but it’s not the kind of thing I’m sure I believe a Senator who visits the police department occasionally would know, and it reads more like needing to justify the lead-up to a twist. I’m also going to only briefly mention that I feel this would have worked just as well if Senator Keene had just handed Wade the DVD at the police station.
The film Get Out has a scene in which a white man who has paid for something horrible to be done to a black man explains that he isn’t a racist. The scene works because you know that the movie knows that he’s talking bullshit. In fact, it’s part of the overall point of the film. Senator Keene says that he’s not a racist—he’s just using the racists—but I’m not 100% sure this show realizes that.
Also, blanks don’t weigh the same as regular bullets, and they are not “safe.” Then again, while Wade is an Oklahoma boy, he was also a Jehovah’s Witness, and he joined the police force after the “White Night,” so maybe he missed out on acquiring this knowledge.
There’s another “meta” line in this episode, when Senator Keene says that he’s going to something “new,” and not “unoriginal.” Actions speak louder than words, Senator.
Adrian Veidt’s Not Adrian Veidt
The Adrian Veidt of the novel had a banality to him that is absolutely nowhere in this very hammy (and entertaining!) character that Jeremy Irons is playing. Veidt was camp in the original to a degree, but there was a practiced serenity to him that makes his horrifying actions strike harder.
So he’s imprisoned on Europa. Cool. Did this story have to have him in it?
The Third Focus Group
If you’re wondering if I’m worried about this perfume bottle that looks like the Nostalgia perfume bottle, the answer is yes! Considering what “Mercy” might mean if they substitute it for “Nostalgia,” given the role the perfume plays in the graphic novel.
Well, that’s about it for this episode, I think. There are more things I want to say about it, but I should have gone to bed… a little bit ago.
Honestly, if you read this whole thing: thanks! Please comment and validate me.
Also, I think the premise of the next episode has promise! Let’s see where it goes.
Edit log:
1. Changed a "who" to a "which."
I may go back and add some more screenshots to break up the text sections.