Watchmen 1.08.
Dec. 9th, 2019 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAka the Life and Times of Jon Osterman, after.
That was a neat example of storytelling in different time lines, a tv equivalent to the Watchmen chapter that gives the readers Jon's backstory, and again paid homage to the book without repeating it, instead moving the plot and characterisation of the tv show forward. (The image of Jon's hand bringing the two beers to his date, for example.) (I am now convinced the sole reason why Angela's last name is Abar is so Lindelof could make a pun in this title, though. :) )
"That is the moment" when Angela goes out to fight was actually poignant and reminded me a bit of the Charlie Kaufman film that tells a love story through all the memories that are steadily getting wiped out, backwards. I'm now existentially curious about Cal, though. Given that he was Jon sans memories, not a persona created by Jon beforehand, does that mean Cal is also what Jon would have been like if Dr. Manhattan never had happened? Or does the relationship with Angela and being a black man in stead of a white scientist in the 1950s too much of a difference? Incidentally, kudos to the actor, who sells the difference between Jon!Cal and Cal!Cal superbly by body language and intonation alone, never mind the blue make up.
Also: go, HBO, for trademark frontal male nudity in the fine tradition of the original. :)
Just as Jon's love life is a chicken/egg thing - he's in love with Angela in the past because he'll fall in love with Angela in the future, in a situation that would never have arisen if he hadn't loved her in the past - it turns out the big mystery driving Angela this season is such a conundrum - because she asks her grandfather through Jon about Judd Crawford and the Klan in her present, she creates a situation where Will knows about this in the past and thus comes to Tulsa to kill Judd Crawford; otherwise Will would not have known.
The episode - and the final scene set after the credits - also finally tie the Adrian Veidt subplot in for good, as it turns out that Jon's desire to create life as voiced at the end of Watchmen the comic book is responsible for the clones and the idyllic landscape in which good old Oyzmandias has been trapped since the start of the show, and that Adrian isn't there because Jon wanted belatedly to punish him but because he was actually trying to do him a favour. That is karmic storytelling at its best, as is the reveal that what's been driving Adrian from the frustrated yet rational (well, for Adrian Veidt) state he's in during the 2009 flashback to the clone slaughtering experimentor from the start of the show is that, courtesy of Jon, he's in the very utopia he thought he wanted to achieve, the utopia that was to be his grand justification for the three million dead people, the idyllic life with people who really did not strive to kill each other but lived in peace and harmony. And he couldn't stand it. Instead, he ended up bringing murder into this paradise.
(Am reminded of the story-within-a-story subplot of Watchmen the comicbook, to wit, the pirate tale, in which the stranded on an island hero finally escapes his island but only by using the dead bodies of his former fellow crewmen to create a raft. And then, when he reaches the home he's longed for, it turns out he's become insane and kills the peaceful villagers.)
We also get an explanation for the English countryhouse with 30s clothing via young Jon's "garden of Eden" moment as a refuge child en route to the US. Which by itself is a neat reversal of such accidentally observed sex scenes being traumatic to the child observer - here, because the adults are kind and try to give the child context afterwards, it works out (initially) well for Jon - but it does end up contributing to his god complex even before he's one.
Lastly: instead of being 100% a bastard, the late Nelson Gardner turns out to have been only 90% a bastard by virtue of having left his worldy goods to Will Reeves. BTW, if Will only learns about Angela's existence through Jon on that occasion in 2009, does that mean he never tried to find out what had become of June and his son once she left him?
That was a neat example of storytelling in different time lines, a tv equivalent to the Watchmen chapter that gives the readers Jon's backstory, and again paid homage to the book without repeating it, instead moving the plot and characterisation of the tv show forward. (The image of Jon's hand bringing the two beers to his date, for example.) (I am now convinced the sole reason why Angela's last name is Abar is so Lindelof could make a pun in this title, though. :) )
"That is the moment" when Angela goes out to fight was actually poignant and reminded me a bit of the Charlie Kaufman film that tells a love story through all the memories that are steadily getting wiped out, backwards. I'm now existentially curious about Cal, though. Given that he was Jon sans memories, not a persona created by Jon beforehand, does that mean Cal is also what Jon would have been like if Dr. Manhattan never had happened? Or does the relationship with Angela and being a black man in stead of a white scientist in the 1950s too much of a difference? Incidentally, kudos to the actor, who sells the difference between Jon!Cal and Cal!Cal superbly by body language and intonation alone, never mind the blue make up.
Also: go, HBO, for trademark frontal male nudity in the fine tradition of the original. :)
Just as Jon's love life is a chicken/egg thing - he's in love with Angela in the past because he'll fall in love with Angela in the future, in a situation that would never have arisen if he hadn't loved her in the past - it turns out the big mystery driving Angela this season is such a conundrum - because she asks her grandfather through Jon about Judd Crawford and the Klan in her present, she creates a situation where Will knows about this in the past and thus comes to Tulsa to kill Judd Crawford; otherwise Will would not have known.
The episode - and the final scene set after the credits - also finally tie the Adrian Veidt subplot in for good, as it turns out that Jon's desire to create life as voiced at the end of Watchmen the comic book is responsible for the clones and the idyllic landscape in which good old Oyzmandias has been trapped since the start of the show, and that Adrian isn't there because Jon wanted belatedly to punish him but because he was actually trying to do him a favour. That is karmic storytelling at its best, as is the reveal that what's been driving Adrian from the frustrated yet rational (well, for Adrian Veidt) state he's in during the 2009 flashback to the clone slaughtering experimentor from the start of the show is that, courtesy of Jon, he's in the very utopia he thought he wanted to achieve, the utopia that was to be his grand justification for the three million dead people, the idyllic life with people who really did not strive to kill each other but lived in peace and harmony. And he couldn't stand it. Instead, he ended up bringing murder into this paradise.
(Am reminded of the story-within-a-story subplot of Watchmen the comicbook, to wit, the pirate tale, in which the stranded on an island hero finally escapes his island but only by using the dead bodies of his former fellow crewmen to create a raft. And then, when he reaches the home he's longed for, it turns out he's become insane and kills the peaceful villagers.)
We also get an explanation for the English countryhouse with 30s clothing via young Jon's "garden of Eden" moment as a refuge child en route to the US. Which by itself is a neat reversal of such accidentally observed sex scenes being traumatic to the child observer - here, because the adults are kind and try to give the child context afterwards, it works out (initially) well for Jon - but it does end up contributing to his god complex even before he's one.
Lastly: instead of being 100% a bastard, the late Nelson Gardner turns out to have been only 90% a bastard by virtue of having left his worldy goods to Will Reeves. BTW, if Will only learns about Angela's existence through Jon on that occasion in 2009, does that mean he never tried to find out what had become of June and his son once she left him?
no subject
Date: 2019-12-09 01:05 pm (UTC)I am
a. confused -- can Dr. Manhattan even BE killed? Or did something else happen.
b. in awe of the Cal & Jon actor because yes, he does such an amazing job differentiating, and also because he is, as Laurie noticed, totally hot.
c. not wanting next episode to be the last one; this is so absorbing and well done that I'm not very interested in anything else I'm watching, in comparison.
Also, yes, I think Nelson Gardner was a jerk but that he was actually in love with Will.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-09 01:53 pm (UTC)Definitely. Yes, Adrian, nothing ever ends. I'm also intrigued by Adam, aka the first male clone. Who, of course, has been wearing a mask this entire time. Did he become autonomous as a natural evolution after Jon left? Did it happen in response to Adrian's presence once Adrian started to turn the clones into his personal lab experiments?
Re: Nelson Gardner and Will: I've just discovered HBO has put up the Last Will as additional material, here, and yes, definitely love and repentance involved.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-09 01:40 pm (UTC)Okay, now I'm interested....