This is gonna be a spoiler-blasted free-for-all thunderdome about HBO’s The Watchmen. @anothergod and I wanted to spin it off from the main The Comic Book: The TV Show thread so we wouldn’t derail things too much.
I’m definitely not a fan, but tons of friends of mine love this show, so, might be fun to discuss.
If a mod could split some of the pots from The Comic Book: The TV Show into this thread, that’d be cool, but it’s pretty messy at this point to w/e.
Overall this show is very well-acted, looks great, well-paced, has a well-realized alternate world, and is pleasant to watch. I think if it wasn’t a sequel to the Watchmen, and was just about Tulsa and the superhero elements there, it would be a really good show. Basically, The Tick again.
What really gets me is all the stuff that relates to the original, where the writers have this very different idea of the characterization and motivation of characters than I came away from the comic with. Some of it just feels weird, like they had a very different read of character actions, or missed some other details.
My earlier ranting:
There’s essentially two very different shows going on here. One is a vaguely interesting alternate history show where the Tulsa Race Massacre led to modern-day reparations in a more liberal present, and how all that looks in Oklahoma, with white supremacist groups and militias active.
The OTHER show is a sequel to The Watchmen, which is like, holy fuck is that unnecessary. So, everything is exactly as it was at the end of the book: Dr. Mahattan is still gone, the world still believes the alien invasion thing, capes are still outlawed, only now, capes are allowed if you’re police, since all police in Tulsa got attacked by white supremacists one day, which like, so we’re to imagine none of the police are white supremacists? In a hyper-polarized present where everyone bitches about the liberal oligarch? Seems super unrealistic that the police would be seen as fully in opposition to a KKK group. But, anyways, they’ve created a reason as to why all police would have face masks on all the time and drive around in like, tinted-windowed Dukes of Hazard action cars to dole out state-sanctioned vigilante punishment, which is weird because they didn’t have to go full alternate universe for that, they could’ve just taken what we have now with the militarization of the police and tweaked it slightly. Bleh.
I dunno, the big thing that bugs me is that the huge tyrannical monolithic governmental institution this time is progressive, for some reason, so you have what feels like “liberal excess” events usually shown to be negative, like excessively long trigger warnings in front of their shows, hare-brained, poorly-implemented gun control measures that get police killed constantly, a racism detector dome that uses “do you distrust the government’s story about the alien attack” as a baseline for determining if they’re racist, and seemingly, the entire concept of reparations. In the show reparations are exclusively shown as this negative thing black people are hated for by poor whites, which, that would definitely happen, but what’s the point they’re trying to make with this? Don’t white racists hate everything that can benefit black people? I keep thinking of that interview where Lindeloff where he’s like, “a presidency that long would further divide us.” Are they trying to say that reparations would be “divisive”? Who the fuck cares if it’s “divisive” when the people on the other side are KKK-style diehard racists?
So, I’m not loving the alternative history stuff, even though that is the most potentially interesting part. The OTHER part of the show, the Watchmen side, is complete shlock, on the level of like a Snyder sequel. In the fourth episode, they stop all plot progression on the main storyline and do an entire ep about Silk Spectre, who is now basically just her dad, the Comedian, only working for the FBI.
Overall the episode is awful, but there were a few things that really stuck out to me:
Silk Spectre carries with her a gigantic cage with a cloth over it, and you’re not shown what it is until the middle, at which point she’s taken the cage with her on a plane across the country to Tulsa. At one point she’s talking to an evil senator about what became of Nite Owl, who was locked up for some reason, and then she feeds a mouse to the thing in the cage, which is revealed to be AN OWL IN A CAGE. WHOA. She just carts around this metaphor for zero reason. I’m 100% positive we will never see this owl again, now that that reveal has been made.
All the police go to a funeral for a beloved cop killed because his gun would come out of the holster because of the liberals. At the door, they are all told to give their guns to the people at the gate, and there’s this sinister music being played as Silk Spectre’s gun is put into one of those buzz holsters. At the funeral, a RORSCHACH TERRORIST WITH A SUICIDE BOMB VEST ARRIVES, sneaks up on the group, reveals himself, and says “I’M WEARING A BOMB VEST. IF MY HEART STOPS, IT WILL EXPLODE. GIVE ME THE SENATOR.” And takes the senator hostage. All are still. Suddenly, Silk Spectre pulls out a hidden gun that was on her thigh and shoots him directly in the head, with an incredible shot that just barely misses the senator’s head! The terrorist falls dead. And yet… Angela checks the body, and sees a blinking light with a beep that is getting increasingly fast! Oh right, the bomb! We have one minute! Everyone flees while Angela drags the body with the bomb slowly into a grave and dumps the coffin on it. The bomb explodes harmlessly. Thank god that Silk Spectre snuck a gun into that funeral, and shot that man who said that he would instantly explode if his heart stopped!
Silk Spectre shits on heroes nonstop the entire episode, and rightly so, but it’s presented as this negative character flaw of her’s that she needs to work through. It sucks.
Silk Spectre does this utterly moronic parables the entire ep, wherein a hero goes before god for judgement, and god always sends them to hell. Here’s one example:
God’s there to decide what their eternal fate will be - heaven, or hell? Our first hero was dressed up like a big owl. And God says “I gifted you the ability to make fantastic inventions. What did you do with this amazing talent?” And Owl Guy says “I made this really awesome flying ship and lots of cool outfits and weapons so I could bring peace to the city.” And God asks “so how many people did you kill?” Owl Guy seems offended, “zero,” he says. I didn’t take a single life." God frowned, “Sorry, Owl Guy, your heart’s in the right place, but you’re just too soft.” God snaps his fingers, and the hero goes to hell."
So in Ep 4 of the Watchmen, it ends with Silk Spectre taking out this armored case she’s been carrying around the entire ep. She then assembles a fucking gigantic blue dildo feat. magnetic balls, indicating that she’s still hyper thirsty for her ex ex.
https://twitter.com/jackallisonLOL/status/1193996137788669952
https://twitter.com/jackallisonLOL/status/1193996317074178048
I… I don’t know how they could possibly think Silk Spectre would crave that Dr. Manhattan D?? After their entire thing became that he didn’t know how to relate to anything about humanity anymore, and she got freaked out by his one-man threesome?
And Dr. Manhattan didn’t have like a foot-long dick?? What kind of neanderthal read that comic and thought that Silk Spectre would be obsessed with his dick for the following 30 years?? To the point that Nite Owl creates a dildo for just that need??
Holy shit these people have zero reading comprehension.
Doctor Manhattan does blackface and grooms a teenager and they retconned the overt white supremacist caped hero into a black man.
Very woke.
If Angela Abar asked me to put on blackface I’d consider it.
Give this man a Nebula
If that kurt dude can explain away Bruce Wayne’s “ethical capitalism” to children he can find the value in stealing the body of a black man to date Sister Night to children, ok?
Also how do I spoilers? I should probably learn that
I was thinking this thread could just be open spoilers, but if you wanted to you can [ spoiler ] around all spoiler text.
I did want to talk about what people like about this show before we fully devolve into shitting on Lindelof, because lord knows I got a lot to bitch about.
I’d stay the stuff that really works for me:
I like that they tried to tie the main story to the Tulsa Massacre, it’s definitely a piece of history the vast majority of people don’t know ever happened.
The episode with Hooded Justice’s backstory was really cool. I think without the Watchmen elements, I would’ve loved it. The way they shot it, the KKK as main antagonists, the general impossibility of finding justice as a black man on the police force at that time, it was great TV.
The world-building is honestly very well done. Much like Venture Bros, I like that there’s a ton of elements that don’t need to be directly explained, that feel real and possible given the right circumstances.
I got a million gripes about the way they positively portray viglianted police, etc etc, but if this was done in a way that was meant to be dystopian, the visual of the masked police in that huge brutalist “V” hall, staring at a massive screen of masked extremists, debating on how to work the laws to meet their revenge-lust, was really cool. It felt like something out of Brazil.
The squid rain, and the way everyone just lives with it, assuming they’re always going to be destroyed by aliens, has a ton of potential in the form of like, the way people just live with the thread of nuclear annihilation all the time, and how people can get used to the most insane shit if they feel powerless to change it.
I like the Veit subplot quite a bit. The more it goes on, less so, but a genius-level intellect trapped in a bubble created by a flawed god, trying to escape, is super entertaining.
Regina King is of course great as always. I do enjoy her cruising around in her battlecar and doing superhero shit. In a goofier Arrow-type show, that could be very enjoyable.
I like the modern KKK cult with the Anonymous elements, all obsessed with a Q-like conspiracy. The show’s decision to make that conspiracy actually real and valid is like… incredibly bad, but the concept and look is great.
I think the 7th Kavalry is kind of genius?
Essentially any kind of alternate movement can use a handful of truths to promote falsehoods that can range from mundane to dangerous. This can range from something mundane like Vice to something absurd like Gamergate. I’m pretty sure this is how something like the KKK manages to convince “normal” people to join their ranks.
A lot of the inversions in the show are needlessly complex, but I think that’s the whole point? It’s pretty uncomfortable to hear, but it reminds me a lot like conservatives in CA or IL. I think I need to rewatch this show to really take this all in, though.
I find it very disconcerting that the criticisms of the show wrt racism overwhelmingly come from white people.
Yeah I’m not going to take any of the mockery of black Dr. Manhattan seriously until it comes from a black person.
Re: The Seventh Calvary: So, I agree that white supremacist and conspiracy groups get people in the door by convincing them with some smaller, more innocuous point, then slowly radicalize them. One of the worst things about flat earthers or Q anon people is that it’s good to question to status quo and it’s good to question those in power. It goes wrong when that rejection of the status quo leads directly to an equally mindless acceptance of an insane conspiracy.
In Watchmen, though, they aren’t doing that. The conspiracy the Seventh Calvary uses to get people in the door is real, and they can prove it with a tape of an extremely famous superhero telling the president it’s real. If I was shown a tape intended for the president by the CEO of some megacorporation, I’d believe the conspiracy was real. Now, it’s insane that anyone would then further go on to align themselves with the KKK, but, whatever I guess.
It says nothing about Q Anon or similar conspiracies when in their universe, this white supremacist group is completely justified in their belief of vast government conspiracy. It’s like if some widely-respected scientific group made a tape for president Trump, utterly proving that Obama was secretly a muslim bad actor trying to take down western civilization, and it was leaked to youtube.
just want to recommend against continuing to go to where this conversation appears to be going
I’m not really following your logic. I think you explained it perfectly.
The 7K supposedly operates in Nixonville where poor people get their teeth kicked in just by being around shitty people. We know of only one person associated with Nixonville that is also associated with 7K, but the entire ‘town’ got threatened and most of them beat up.
So, there’s an entire set of poor people that are overwhelmingly white and they also hate the government. Their vulnerability to 7K is pretty obvious. The conspiracy isn’t necessarily going to get them in the door, but it definitely will help strengthen their resolve. They get in with the group because they’re poor and angry at the government and just happen to be around 7K.
And then when they’re angry enough, the conspiracy is brought out, and it just strengthens their resolve against the government. The thing that I wasn’t sure about was how they’d convince redneck thugs to fight Dr. I Won The Vietnam War, but when the plan is to make the 7K as powerful as a God… I thought it was pretty genius.
I think it’s more than fair to treat a TV show with a plot point about Doctor Manhatten’s dick being rendered as an atomic age dildo with a white showrunner, that puts Heroic cops front and center in it’s depictions of American racism, with a bit of skepticism about it’s handling of racism.
I do really like the 7K preying on poor whites and using their anger to champion white supremacy. That shit speaks directly to what we see in the real world. The racial politics part of this show has tons of potential and I wish the show was just focused on that.
My issue is that the “secret truth” in this world is an actual no-quotes secret truth, that is real and valid, which is a lot different than what real-world groups do, where their “secret truth” is something insane and untrue.
I’m pretty sure that one of the major plot points of the show is that not even cops can trust cops
Isn’t the “secret truth” always true? Like, you promote racism by telling a “secret story” about one “PoC who got away with rape”. In this case, they’re promoting racism by telling a “secret story” about the “liberal government who spreads lies”.
So I’d say that’s the difference between actual truth and “secret truth,” which is to say, the secret truth used by radical groups are always these outlandish conspiracies driven by bad guys with the intent to destroy specifically you, the indoctrinee - For example, a common one during the last liberal presidency was about Obama being a secret muslim extremist hell-bent on genociding whites.
None of that is true in the least - it’s an outlandish racist lie- but extremist groups present false or vastly misleading evidence to get you into the cult zone and mindlessly accept it.
In The Watchmen, the Seventh Kalvary are entirely correct to spread the truth about Veidt (and the liberal president)'s conspiracy. They did an entire episode about how Mirror was horribly traumatized by the squidfall, and how him learning the truth set him free. Anyone who got access to the tape (which, I cannot imagine would not have been leaked to youtube by now btw) would have a moral duty to spread it and expose everyone they could to what’s really going on.
So, I see the situation with the 7K and the one we see with Q Anon as so different as to be meaningless, were they trying to do a message about how radicalization happens. The way it happens in Watchmen isn’t how it actually happens - white supremacy groups don’t use real truths, they mislead and lie to enrage.
