The Good Guys and Bad Guys in ‘Watchmen’ Are Finally Becoming Clear
Spoiler alert: this story contains spoilers for Watchmen's seventh episode.
Watchmen has been a tangled story, but it looks like our heroes and our villains are finally starting to take shape.
Episode 7 has many pieces finally looking like they fit into a certain piece of the puzzle.
One major mystery remains, but we should have you covered for the rest here.
Watchmen, by nature, has been a confusing show. A common refrain for people tends to be 'I don't know what's going on,' and as long as you're paying proper attention, that's by design. Damon Lindelof, like his mentor and former LOST colleague J.J. Abrams, subscribes to the 'Mystery Box' ideology of storytelling; you need to dangle something, and want your audience to want to figure it out. Watchmen, in essence, has done just that—and now that we've seen seven of the show's nine chapters (at least in its first season; a second season hasn't yet been announced, but Lindelof has also made clear that this first season will be self-contained), where things fit into the larger picture are really starting to become clear. And with a certain character—cough, Dr. Manhattan, cough—finally making his return at the end of the episode, we're finally getting the return of the comic's most powerful hero.
But still, you might need just a bit of brushing up. There have been quite a few moving pieces and details to remember. So, for now, let's re-examine our primary characters in Watchmen, and figure out where everything, and everyone stands.
The Biggest Mystery Remaining By Far:
Lady Trieu
First of all, let's just give a quick shoutout to Hong Chau. What an absolutely compelling character she's crafted here in only a handful of appearances; she is stunning every time she comes on screen, demanding the viewer's attention. That being said, we still have... basically no idea what her plan is. She's probably a hero, considering her relationship with Will Reeves, but she could also just be doing her own thing; she sort of has that sinister air around her when interacting with Angela. We'll find out in the next two weeks, but it's hard to plant a flag too firmly in either direction as of now.
Heroes:
Angela Abar/Sister Night
Come on. You don't need this one explained.
Wade Tillman/Looking Glass
We were worried for a second there after episode five, when LG had his third eye opened after his encounter with the Seventh Kavalry, and learning the truth about Adrian Veidt and the Squid attack. Even though he turned Angela in to Laurie Blake, that's still consistent with his absolute moral code, and with Petey discovering his bunker filled with... uh...slaughtered white supremacists, we can feel pretty confident that Looking Glass is still going to side with the good guys when it's all said and done.
Laurie Blake
We didn't ever really need to question this one (she's one of the original Watchmen, after all), but she did come on strong playing something of an antagonistic role to Angela in the early going. Still, we saw in the last two weeks as she used Angela's overdose on Nostalgia to eventually figure out the larger evil plan; Now, we just have to wait and see how she gets out of it.
Will Reeves
Here's a major change-up. When we first met Will, what with his claiming responsibility for the death of a seemingly-good police chief, well, he seemed like bad news. But it's funny what a few weeks and a lot of backstory can change. Will isn't just Will—he's Hooded Justice—and as he said both as a young and old man, he's uncovered a vast, and insidous conspiracy in Tulsa. There's still a lot of time in this man's life that's uncharted—like, 71 years worth—but we think this has, in a way, become his story.
Agent Petey
Petey is a good guy. Come on. Still think he might be Lube Man, though.
Red Scare and Pirate Jenny
This pair of wonderfully-named masked cops have mostly fallen into comic relief roles in the last few episodes, but it's hard to imagine them as anything other than well-meaning police. Red Scare was eating Cheetos with a fork in Episode 7, though, which should be a little suspicious to anyone.
Cal/Dr. Manhattan? We think?
From the get-go, Cal—Angela's husband—has seemed a little bit too good to be true. Outside of an ice-cold explanation of death to the couple's three kids, he's been nothing but a model, caring husband, with the occasional mention of "his accident." Well, we don't know what that accident was, but when Angela called him "Jon" at the end of the episode, and then, well, hit the crap out of his head with a hammer...that seemed like something. Even if we didn't have an eyebrow raised to this super-violent act, the blue shine should tell us all we need to know. A certain Doctor? Yeah, he's back.
Villains:
Senator Joe Keene
We had this one figured out a few weeks ago when he confronted Looking Glass with his Kavalry mask on, but Keene put his evil plan on full display in Episode 7, complete with a requisite "It's a hard time to be a white man in America" monologue (a bit on-the-nose, but point taken). Keene is shaping up to be the season's big bad, and in a lot of ways, his plan seems to mirror Adrian Veidt's original one from the novel—create chaos, and leave himself as the logical leader and choice. We knew he had presidential aspirations, but this latest episode has us thinking that it could go even further
Judd Crawford
It seemed like an early tragedy when Judd was killed in Watchmen's first episode, but now we've found out that he was pulling a trick on just about everyone. Judd wasn't the open-minded, sweet policeman that Don Johnson portrayed him as; in fact, he had a much darker side just beneath the surface. It started with the Klan robe in his closet, and continued with him telling Will Reeves "I'm trying to help you people." Judd tricked Angela, and others, into thinking he was someone he's not.
Jane Crawford
This one was a twist, huh? But we really should've seen it coming—think about how OK she was with everything we saw Judd doing back in the first episode; telling, that she would be OK and along for the larger, eviler, plan at hand. Plus, her lack of shock at his death made it sort of seem (in retrospect) like part of her saw it coming; she knew the risks involved with planning some wild stuff. In Episode 7, Jane basically goes full mustache-twirling villain, saying that Keene becoming President seemed like "small potatoes," before pressing a button and dropping Laurie into a trap door. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks.
Adrian Veidt (Come on...)
OK. So. This one might be a little tough to decipher, because it can be so difficult to separate the character himself, and the specific portrayal of the character. Jeremy Irons is turning in such a fun and undeniable version of Adrian Veidt, that it can be hard to remember the character's background—he killed three million people by dropping a giant squid on them. Not good. Not good at all. As funny as it might be when he's launching a clone into space, or farting in a courtroom filled with clones, it's always going to come down on the side of villain. Adrian Veidt is a villain. Bold call, I know. That being said, he's clearly got some plan, and Damon Lindelof has alluded that his series will find Veidt re-converging with the show's main storyline at some point. Once he makes his return from wherever he is, could he flip to the other side? Probably not, but with Watchmen, we can't really rule anything out.
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