I know if you’re on this site you be as shocked as I am that I’ve not watched the original Watchmen movie or even read the original Watchmen comic. Sadly there was too much going on at the time and I just wasn’t able to make it happen. I really don’t have an excuse.
I do know that both (the comic book and movie) were extremely popular and did really well so I am coming to it – coming to the show – with some expectations. Actually talking about expectations as this is the replacement to Game of Thrones and to some extent the interlude between Westworld seasons my expectations are quite high.
So when the show started with black people getting shot and killed I really didn’t know anything about it. I had heard of the Tulsa race riots of course but as a Canadian, I’m not really as familiar as somebody who gets taught that in history class. I’m sure I don’t know if it was sensationalized or if that’s really how it was during the riots, but it was pretty horrible and a really jarring introduction to a new television show for me. Which I guess was the point of it.
In addition, as I was commenting on to someone else it was interesting seeing the show that didn’t seem to steer away from the question of colour or racism unlike some of HBO’s other huge hits which I’ve mentioned earlier. Now, with this show, I hope to watch every episode (unlike my sad failure with GoT) and to give you not so much a recap but more my thoughts and opinions as someone coming to it as a fan of comics and comic ‘dom but not someone that knows this universe inside and out.
There were quite a few interesting things that happened in the first episode that stood out to me. The statement that Vietnam was a new state, for example, was quite cool. The whole smiley face created out of eggs (actually as someone who likes to cook, the way the yolk was extracted was neat too!) And in some ways you could actually see the US or at least parts of it going or becoming a police state as its portrait as it’s portrayed in the show. I didn’t know coming into the show that it would be about race relations and hate crime and stuff like that – I really did think it was more just the comic show maybe something like the Boys on Amazon Prime for example so something more along the lines of anti-heroes versus something as deep as this.
Overall the action is quite good and portrayed really well there are some references to two other well-known characters from the book I think – one of them is on Mars doing something so the question is if he ever comes back? But it seems to be more of a story of regular people trying to find equality. The rationale behind cops wearing masks was quite interesting to me but at the same time extremely frightening. I can only imagine a whole police department that had no fear of their identities being seen and how some of the people in those departments would act.
Episode 1 is done and we’ve already lost someone I hoped would be with us for several episodes. There’s obviously some sort of a mystery there as there is no rationale for him to have left without taking his protection detail. In addition when you see that both of your tires are blown out you don’t have to walk down the road to find out why that’s when you call for help.I’d be very interested to see if powers do get used by anybody or if it’s only about the mask as some of the characters do seem very strange.
Coming into this as a somewhat outsider I feel comfortable giving this a 7 or even an 8 as it did keep me engaged throughout the episode and I do want to come back and see what happens next. I didn’t follow through on GoT and while I’m not one for jumping on the bandwagon that’s the show I wish I had been able to share over the water cooler with everyone else. Here’s hoping HBO has another winner with the Watchmen.
Some questions and things to ponder that I hope will be answered:
- What’s with the squid’s dropping from the sky? I’m sure there is some relevance but at this point, I don’t know what it’s all about. Hopefully, they will explain it.
- What happens to the little boy and baby? Do they become someone special or are they just introduced as a way of highlighting the racial tension?