Damon Lindelof's Watchmen

The comic book had a pattern where every other issue was a "plot issue", moving the main plot forward, followed by a "character issue", where they focused on the past and motivations of one of the protagonists. I thought they were doing something similar here, but then they had the Hooded Justice episode right after the Looking Class one, and then the Jon episode right after the Angela one, so I guess not.

Though obviously they did do the same as the comic by leaving the antagonist's backstory for the last, because earlier we didn't even know he/she was the antagonist.

Thinking about the supposedly open ending, I think it's pretty clear Jon did put his powers into the egg, because in the previous ep he was walking on the water of the pool, and then he said "this will mean something to you later" or something like that. Why would he have done that, if he didn't plan on Angela getting the power through the egg? And there was also the omelette hint he gave to Will, as revealed here.

So, with all that, I think a better, more proper open ending would've been to show Angela hesitating whether or not to eat the egg, then fade to black before we see if she does. Then it would've been up for the viewer to decide whether even a supposedly good and just person like her deserves the power of a god.

then a dog jumps up and eats it out of her hand

And season 2 will be all about the adventures of... Dog Manhattan!

Great y'all just wrote Son of Mask 2 congrats

Dog goes back in time to 1985, avoids tire tread on burst stomach. Rorschach's journal opens instead with banality about the previous night's episode of "Dynasty"... the entire timeline changes.

If you want to look for some silly logic about 9, it'd be 9 panels to a page.

Post-finale Lindelof interview: https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/watchmen-season-2-damon-lindelof-finale-1203441149/

Bad finale. Not lost bad but still non-good and disappointing after a mostly great season. The problem was more with the execution than the story choices - the stuff with the clock was super clumsy and cheap looking; Keene Jr was a terrible actor who had to give a really long speech with a bad accent; maybe it would’ve been more effective to have Veidt arrive on earth in an earlier episode?

The Trieu stuff felt really mean in a “that bitch got what she deserved then, huh” way. And the very end? Not sure it needed ambiguity here, if it was going for an uplifting ending, it would’ve been better to see Angela walk on the water.

must defend James Wolk's honor; he's a splendid actor. He played it broad as hell, as presumably directed, for which mileage will vary.

In a show that focussed so much on breaking stereotypes, “Asian mastermind brought to disaster by her own grandiosity” felt like a bad choice.

Xpost

He was great in mad men! And obvs he looked good in that posing pouch. But Irons was a better ham, and Irons + Wolk was too much ham by half (for me).

also very good as a con man in the cancelled-after-two-episodes Lone Star

In a show that focussed so much on breaking stereotypes, “Asian mastermind brought to disaster by her own grandiosity” felt like a bad choice.

In that interview linked above Lindelof says that we're not necessarily meant to agree on Veidt's judgment of Trieu, and that she might've actually done some good with Manhattan's powers, but I don't think that idea came across in the episode at all.

Agree. Felt like it got played for comedy, in an inappropriate way (for frozen raining squid)

The path from “I disown you” to “I acknowledge you” to “I’m murdering you” felt, um, abbreviated

It would have made for another pause in the action which is presumably why they didn't do it, but a full episode on Trieu, her relationship with mother (and/or her other mother) and how she sees the world would have helped a lot in this regard xp

I didn’t watch, but judging by y’all’s comments, sounds like they really should have done 12 eps.

Basically, when you boil it down, the contrast between the main antagonists of the comic and the series goes like this:

Comic: the antagonist is a white man who manages to pull off his masterplan by not telling anyone about it before it's done, and it's deliberately left ambiguous where he saved mankind or was merely a mass murderer.

Series: the antagonist is a non-white woman who doesn't manage to pull off his masterplan, because she has daddy issues and tells her father (and various others) about it before it's done, the plan is then thwarted by said father, and there's nothing in the story to indicate she wasn't delusional when she said she could save mankind.

Seriously, there was absolutely no need to make Trieu into Veidt's kid and thus diminish her motivations by implying she just wants to prove herself to daddy. In the comic, Moore was pretty careful in not giving Veidt any such psychological excuse for doing what he did, even though he thoroughly psychologised the actions of most of the other characters.

"That’s impulsive, but that’s Angela. And so that was some of the thinking that went into at least why she decides to eat the egg — knowing that eating raw eggs is very dangerous."

Ok, now I'm questioning any brain cells I thought he had.

You won't find a better review of last night's Watchmen than this. pic.twitter.com/PYF7Rz3aQn

— Ben Towle (@ben_towle) December 16, 2019

FUCK YOU IT'S AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE

lmao

are we going to get an explanation of this next season?

Trieu is all backed-up, though, right? It would be easy to bring her back as a clone.

first there needs to be a next season.
xpost

I'm sure whoever takes over the series will allow her to rest in peace

FUCK YOU IT'S AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE

― WHEEL! OF! FORESKIN! (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, December 17, 2019 10:02 AM bookmarkflaglink

hearing this in Zach De La Rocha voice

lol yes

those are actually the words to "Killing in the Name" in the Watchmenverse. except in the Watchmenverse the song is called "Feelin' Fine"

when rage did their onstage naked protest against pmrc in the watchment timeline they were painted blue

https://nerdbot.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/E941B098-8A38-4F3F-A1B9-E35863B1F4BA-1024x557.jpeg

some of those who work forces are the same that burn crosses

I'm still stuck on the raw egg thing. That Angela, she's so crazy, not even the slight risk of salmonella will deter her from obtaining godlike powers! Also people eat raw egg all the time, it's not a big deal.

That was a joke by Lindelof, no? Like, the idea that that's the risk she's taking, not the risk of becoming a god? Or at least that's how I read that comment, I wouldn't have thought someone would think he was being serious.

Does he make jokes? Idk. I'm new to Lindelof.

Btw I was hoping for a glimpse of Trieu-as-Manhattan, just to see what kind of god she would have been.

seems like this show was best when it was doing its own thing rather than hewing closely to the comic (the hooded justice ep was the best and was mainly doing its own thing).

the main aspect of the story that bugged me was that dr manhattan left earth because he no longer gave a fuck about humanity due to his way of perceiving existence. him coming back to earth in order to fall in love and live like a normal human doesn't make any sense

Yea i had a hard time buying Dr Manhattan's motivations.

blue balls

not caring about anything might be a thing one might want to change

alternatively I suppose one could argue that he specifically chose this outcome because it led to his death

"i cannot self-terminate"

Or it led to the transfer of his powers to someone with experiences/memories that would allow her to so easily unlatch from humanity

this hilarious clown

That’s why I think HBO is calling it an ongoing series. I didn’t say to them, “Guys, this is going to be nine episodes, and it’s going to be like ‘Chernobyl,’ and then we should just walk away.” And so it’s unfair for me now to say, I’m changing the rules.

it's unfair for Lindelof to change the rules about how much Watchmen exists in the world

dude learnt about white supremacy from writing his multi-million dollar fanfic

if I learned anything through the experience of writing the show and reading all the things that I’ve been reading, it’s the insidiousness of white supremacy. I don’t think that I ever would have even put it in the show if I felt like we were going to try to convince the audience that it could be defeated.

mfer did his entire TV show to prove he was smarter than people who found him annoying in 1987

When I read the original Watchmen, the thing that I was completely and totally obsessed with was Hooded Justice. I would talk to other people with familiarity about Watchmen, and I’d go, “I like that they never told us who Hooded Justice was,” and they’d look at me like, “Who?” And I’d be like, “You know, Hooded Justice? He’s one of the original Minutemen,” and their eyes would glaze over. I was like, “Oh, okay, nobody else cares about this thing.” But that obsession became the foundation for this season of Watchmen. And so, maybe somebody will do the same with Lube Man.

digging up the damning quotes

The amount of mental energy people spend on something they ostensibly hate never fails to amaze me.

enh as far as bad/silly/embarrassing lindelof interview quotes go those all rank pretty low

the sic bot's neural network is not that sophisticated yet guys