If it were my choice, I’d stop watching Watchmen: The HBO Event Series with this episode. Unfortunately I’m watching it as a social thing so I can’t get out of it. I suppose I could sleep through the rest, but then I wouldn’t be able to shit on it in a post. Because this episode is where Watchmen earns a real “shit on it” response. The show finally gets around to revealing more information from the first episode—we find out about Don Johnson too, and Lou Gossett Jr., even though the way Regina King finds out about Gossett is by taking the memory pills he had made in Strange Days, which means he had some more made after the first episode and after she held him captive because he’s got a really weird selection of memories to share with her.
The scene where Gossett sits around and picks the memories is far more interesting than anything in the episode.
So this episode recons the original comic and makes Hooded Justice, who never got unmasked in the comic and was the sullen top in a relationship with Captain Metropolis (played here by Jake McDorman), is actually a Black man (Jovan Adepo, who’d be better if he weren’t always turning into Regina King for what they must think is effect) and wearing white makeup around his eyes, fooling the world (but not McDorman) as he fights crime. He’s fighting crime because he’s got a lot of anger built up from surviving the bombing of Black Wall Street in Tulsa. His wife Danielle Deadwyler, who starts as Lois Lane and ends up emotionally abused housewife #2, is the baby girl he rescued. So… lots to unpack and the episode doesn’t do any of it. Instead, it’s all about how McDorman doesn’t care about Adepo fighting the Klan, who use mind control to incite race riots in New York City, instead wanting to fight made up villains like Moloch the Mystic and fool around with Adepo. Though they’ve got zero chemistry with each other. Another opportunity dashed. Because it’s a bullshit show. There’s even a thing where Adepo realizes he’s basically Superman as Hooded Justice (dying world—Black Wall Street—loving parents, one survivor). Only he’s Superman if Superman then married Supergirl. Knowing she’s his cousin. Though Deadwyler’s not his blood relation. But it seems close. He like, found her again after whatever happened to them after Tulsa. There’s a significant age difference and if they reunite later… why not show it instead of turn them into caricatures.
I can deal with Watchmen being craven. The whole venture’s craven and obvious. But it at least needs to be committed to its own bullshit. It needs to be high on its own supply.
It’s another shitty Watchmen sequel, though it’s really fallen apart. It’s gotten worse. It’s disappointed. It’s wasted its cast and whatnot. The first couple episodes were solid, intriguing even. Especially the first one. But this one? With the flashbacks all done in black and white… it doesn’t just not know how to make a comic book adaptation of Watchmen, it doesn’t even seem to know how to make a TV show. It doesn’t even have overconfident enthusiasm. It’s like it just drags.
But I don’t think there’s a Jeremy Irons appearance, which really helps things just from an acting standpoint. It’s embarrassing watching Irons hack it at this point.
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