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Watchmen (HBO), Part 1
144 Plays5 years ago
In the first part of this three-part series, we cover episodes 1-3 of HBO’s Watchmen. We discuss how Damon Lindelof has done the impossible, praise the talents of Regina King and Jean Smart, and barely scratch the surface of everything that’s packed into the beginning of this excellent TV series.
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Transcript
Skepticism and Suspicion in Murder Mysteries
00:00:41
Speaker
How about that coffee now? Where's it go? Just outside the fence. Gotta be 300 meters long. Must have used some kind of drill to get it done that fast. Well, don't rule out extremists to gofers. How are your children? Safe.
00:01:10
Speaker
I thought he was bluffing. Those fuckers always say the device is rigged to their hearts, and none of them actually take the time to do it. You saved us. Thanks. Crawford jumped on the grenade. I just gave him a little push. Yeah, well, I sure as shit can't exhume him now. That's not funny.
00:01:34
Speaker
Sorry, I wasn't joking. You guys just scheduled this funeral so fast, kinda weird, considering it's an active murder investigation, by the way, but we were literally gonna dig him up tomorrow. Discreetly, of course. Why? Your chief was murdered by the 7th Cavalry. I get it, it was a history. But you still have to consider other possibilities, right?
00:02:03
Speaker
For instance, I was at the crime scene earlier, and you know what I saw? Tire tracks right at the base of the tree. What kind of vehicle? I'm sorry, did I say vehicle? No, no, no. No, um, it was a wheelchair. And I get how you guys missed it. You know, he was your chief, he was your friend. It's hard to do your job well when you're that close to someone. That's why I'm here. Hey, did you know that he had a secret compartment in his closet?
00:02:34
Speaker
What? Yeah, I was over there talking to his wife. And while I was there, I found this secret fucking compartment. Isn't that insane? Why were you looking in his closet? Oh, well, when my dad was murdered, they found a secret compartment in his closet. So, you know, I always check. Once in a while, pants out. What was in it?
00:03:03
Speaker
You tell me. What wasn't it? How the fuck should I know? Well, his wife told me that you were the only person in that bedroom since he died. And, frankly, you just don't strike me as the fainting type.
00:03:27
Speaker
Okay, I'll tell you. It was a bust, just a big naked bust. That's it. However, I think there was something on that bust. I don't know, maybe your pal Judd asked you to get rid of it if something ever happened, or maybe the two of you were having an affair, which makes no sense, because your husband's fucking hot. But whatever it is, this much, I know.
00:03:53
Speaker
Men who end up hanging from trees with secret compartments in their closets tend to think of themselves as good guys. And those who protect them think they're good guys, too. But here's the thing about me, Sister Knight. I hate good guys for breakfast.
Podcast Technical Glitches and Introductions
00:04:22
Speaker
Oh.
00:04:50
Speaker
Welcome to Superhero Cinephiles, I'm Perry Constantine. I'm about to get to the discussion that Derek and I had about the first three parts of the Watchmen TV show, but first I just wanted to give you guys a bit of a disclaimer. During the call, we had some connection problems, a few little hiccups here and there, so there are some parts in this interview where Derek gets caught off maybe, or
00:05:14
Speaker
where there's some overlap in our audio. So I've done my best to try to clean it up as much as I can, but there may have been some parts that I couldn't clean up or that I just, or some parts that I just frankly missed. So apologies for any problems you have while listening to this episode. Hopefully we won't have these problems going forward. And thanks for understanding and enjoy the show.
00:05:41
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I am half of your host, Perry Constantine, coming to you from the, so far, not quarantine Kagoshima, but we'll see how that goes. And I am the other half, Derek Ferguson, coming to you from beautiful downtown Brooklyn, where I am
00:06:02
Speaker
safely ensconced and sequestered in my house as you we all know right now we're going through a semi sort of lockdown here in New York where you know most everything everybody is encouraged to stay home where we're at right now. How are you doing Derek? I'm doing fine so far I've been you know staying in the house
00:06:28
Speaker
Getting stuff done, writing, reading, catching up on my TV watching.
TV Shows: Binge-Watching and Style Discussions
00:06:36
Speaker
I binge watched the last couple of seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. How is that? I've only seen like a handful of episodes of it.
00:06:54
Speaker
Oh, you know what? I like it. But it's that type of humor that I like that's very mean-spirited and very cruel and very, like, uh, like, uh, Seinfeld cranked up to 11, where people are very, you know, they do mean things to each other. And a lot of people say, oh, well, I, well, why do they have to be mean to each other? Well, that's kind of the humor of the show is right. No, I was saying, and I'm planning on finally catching up because I've been hearing
00:07:24
Speaker
for years and I've never watched it. So finally, I said, you know what? I'm going to sit down and I'm going to watch Westworld. I plan on doing that this weekend, you know, Westworld because everybody keeps telling me how terrific it is, how fantastic it is, how great. Finally, I said, you know what? I'm going to bite the bullet and watch it.
00:07:42
Speaker
I watched the first season and I really enjoyed it, but I haven't... I've got the second season, I just haven't sat down and watched it yet. Though I did start watching Legion, if you ever saw that show, based on the X-Men character that was on FX. I think it ran for three seasons, and that's been an interesting show to watch because it's...
00:08:02
Speaker
it's not what you'd expect from a show based on the X-Men. It deals a lot with the way they handle the psychic powers and everything in it. It's a really unique take on it. I finished the first season, I just started part of the second season, and it's very much like
00:08:25
Speaker
Like the main villain is pretty much just the shadow king and just like the it's very trippy It's very interesting to watch and and it's also got you know an actress who's in what we're gonna be talking about today And that gene smarts in that too. Oh, really? Okay. I I think I watched Like the first two episodes and I liked it and I watched it man because Aubrey Plaza was in it. Yeah, I
00:08:51
Speaker
And I love all the Plaza. So I have no idea why I didn't continue watching it. I probably just got distracted with something else, which is easier to do now. But what is happening since FX.
00:09:05
Speaker
is on Hulu now. I've been catching up on like you know like shows I said okay be like uh I'll be able to catch up on shows that I missed and Legion is one of those shows I want to watch because everybody was telling me how great it was and how trippy it is and you always think it's not like a traditional superhero show so I've been wanting to get back into watching it for a while so I'm definitely gonna put that on my list to also watch after
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm gonna watch that. Yeah, it's really it's really interesting and and one and you know I'll say this too don't fall asleep to it because you'll get some trippy dreams cuz that happened to me one time Really?
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, I was I was laying on the couch and it was late at night and I kind of dozed off watching it and just like I can't even describe like the kind of trippy dreams I ended up having after that. Yeah, I know. Sometimes that'll happen to me like there's a movie that I'll be watching and I'll sleep and the movie will get integrated into, you know, my dreams and stuff like that. And I think I'm still watching the movie, but I'm actually dreaming. Yeah, that that's exactly what happened to me.
00:10:07
Speaker
And with Legion, you feel like you're going insane when that happens. I've heard that visually, it's very, very good. Oh, yeah. They do some really unique things. It's very stylistic.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, I'm not sure if it came to a logical conclusion or if it ended up ending because of the Disney merger, but whatever the case, I hope they get that guy, Noah Hawley, I can't remember his name, the showrunner, but he at one point was talking to Fox, I think about doing a Dr. Doom movie.
00:10:51
Speaker
Oh, OK. Yeah, so hopefully he'll still get something, you know, he'll still be able to do something after when when Disney starts utilizing the Fox properties more. What? Legion only lasted what, like three seasons? Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah, so it only lasted two seasons. So I guess that
00:11:11
Speaker
a dog that show kind of got cut off connoisseur okay that's too bad and i'm maybe they'll be able to do something with it there uh... but what we'll see how it works on four but i also picked up uh...
Early Movie Releases: Pricing and Viewing Experiences
00:11:23
Speaker
birds of prey because that's now uh... it's not what they ended up releasing it early on itunes though i haven't actually had a chance to watch it yet because i can't i bought it on release day so i bought on tuesday and
00:11:36
Speaker
uh Tuesday night my girlfriend really wanted to see it too so I wanted to watch it with her but Tuesday night she didn't feel like watching a movie and then last night uh I worked at night and then when I came when I came home she was already asleep so hopefully we'll be able to watch it tonight but we'll see okay well I hope I hope you enjoyed as much as I did yeah I was gonna watch because now they've got uh that new Vin Diesel movie Bloodshot yeah yeah that's when you know
00:12:06
Speaker
So I went on Amazon. I said, oh, well, maybe I'll watch it. Cause you know, I really don't know too much about bloodshot, but I like Vin Diesel. So I said, let me watch it.
00:12:14
Speaker
Now, they want you to buy the movie. You can't even rent it. You gotta buy it. And they're like charging something like $22 to watch it. I said, bump that. I don't like Vin Diesel that much. You know, not to, you know. Yeah, Birds of Prey was also 20 bucks, but I didn't mind paying that for buying it without seeing it because we were gonna see it in the theater anywhere. We were talking about going to see it like last weekend. But, you know, movie tickets in Japan cost 20 bucks anyway.
00:12:43
Speaker
So we're paying half price to watch it here at home. And now we don't have to worry about going to the theater, don't have to worry about parking or dealing with traffic or any of that stuff. And then we can watch it again and again and again. Yeah, exactly. Because my wife, she wanted to watch The Invisible Man, the new one. But again,
00:13:04
Speaker
You going in, it's like $19 just to rent it. Yeah, I thought that was a little bit weird. Like they have all these, I mean, I understand why they're doing it, but if it's just you by yourself, like you're not going to want to spend 20 bucks to rent a movie at home. But if I understand if it's like, you know, you get a bunch of people over or something like that or you're watching with your family or that kind of stuff. But right. OK, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like if I was going to have like a bunch of people over to watch it,
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, okay, well I'd spring for it. I'd say, yeah, okay, yeah, no problem. But it was just me and my wife. Nah, you know, cause we used to like rent movies for like, you know, from Amazon for like $5 or something like that. Right, right. So we're not, no, we didn't wanna, let me put it this way, the bottom line is we didn't wanna see that bad.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, I had read a few of the Bloodshot comics, the relaunch stuff, when Valiant did their big reboot a few years back. I read some of the Bloodshot stuff that came out then. And yeah, it was pretty interesting. Like the first trailer I saw for Bloodshot, I'm like, well, okay, it just looks like a Vin Diesel movie. It doesn't look like anything like the Bloodshot comic books. But then...
00:14:17
Speaker
other trailers that came out, I guess they were just trying to capitalize on the Vin Diesel stuff in that first trailer, but in other trailers that came out, it looked like it was close to the comics than the original trailer made it seem. My thing is, Vin Diesel,
Vin Diesel: Franchise Roles and Character Annoyances
00:14:31
Speaker
if I was talking to Vin Diesel, man, listen, just go back to doing XXX and Riddick. Stop trying to, you know, create franchises that keep bombing one after another, because he did what, like the last Witch Hunter?
00:14:45
Speaker
That didn't go anywhere. There was something else. And he did go back to doing XXX. He did the XXX movie that came out a couple of years when they had to explain how he came back to life because he pulled off his character. But the movie actually was really more like a Fast and Furious movie than, you know, it was like Fast and Furious Light. The thing about Vin Diesel is like I've
00:15:09
Speaker
I've never seen him as really leading man material. He's good and more of a supporter. I think that's why I like the later Fast and Furious movies, because it's more of an ensemble cast, so it's not all on his shoulders to carry it. Yeah. Well, it's the 18, basically. I call it the blue-collar version.
00:15:32
Speaker
It's like a cross between Mission Impossible and The Eighteen. Yeah. And although I'm not sure how interested I'm going to be in the series going forward, because one of the reasons I stuck with and when I came back into it with Five was because of Dwayne Johnson being in it. And now he and Jason Statham are off doing Hobbs and Shaw instead, which I just watched the other day. And it's fantastically over the top.
00:15:59
Speaker
Isn't that thing great? It's so fun. It's so much fun. Like just watching the two of them riff back and forth. And then you got Ryan Reynolds in there, like being this awestruck CIA agent who's in love with the rockets. It's hilarious. It is, you know, and and apparently, you know, make
00:16:19
Speaker
you know, two or three more of these things, you know, as long as I keep making money. So that mean and then there was that whole thing where Dwayne Johnson had been don't get along anymore for whatever reason. Yeah, I have no idea what that's all about. So because I don't because I because I don't think Dwayne Johnson is in this one.
00:16:36
Speaker
So he's not in it. Paul Walker's gone. Gal Gadot's gone. What's his name? The guy who played Han. He was my favorite character in Fast Five. He's gone too. So it's just like, yeah, I'm not really interested in watching. They're bringing him back. Oh, they are bringing him back. OK. Yeah, they're bringing him back. Well, of course, they
00:16:58
Speaker
Now, you know, movies, they spoil everything that's in the trailer. So if you've seen the latest trailer, you've seen that, yeah, that they show that, yeah, that Han is... Okay, so that might bring me back because I'm not interested in, um, watching, uh...
00:17:14
Speaker
Oh, what's his name? The guy who plays Roman. Oh, Tyreese. Tyreese, yeah. Yeah, I hate him. He's so, so annoying. Well, he's supposed to be annoying. He doesn't wait to, he does it too well. Like he's just, his character, I remember a friend of mine dragged me to the theater to see Too Fast, Too Furious, and I hated it then, and I hated his character most of all. And just like in every single one of these movies, he's still there. And I'm just like, just kill this guy off already. He's such a pain in the ass. Okay, you mentioned Han.
00:17:43
Speaker
The other day about two weeks ago, I'm sitting at home and I'm watching, you know, I'm flipping through the channels. I'm trying to find something to watch, everything like that. And I see that there's this movie called Better Luck Tomorrow, which directed by Justin Lin. Oh, yeah. And the guy that plays Han. He's he's OK. So you've seen it. Yeah. Because apparently this movie is the origin. It's the same character that goes to the Fast and Furious.
00:18:07
Speaker
Oh, no way. I never even picked up on that. I'm gonna have to rewatch that movie. I haven't seen that movie since, uh, since, like, I was in college. Well, what I did was that I watched the movie and I really liked it. It was a good movie. Yeah. I mean, and I recommend it to all you guys that are listening. Better luck tomorrow, directed by Justin Lin. Yeah. Great crime movie with, uh, an Asian cast. Yeah. It's about a bunch of, uh, high school kids who become criminals. Right. You know, they kind of like,
00:18:37
Speaker
You know, like, full ass backwards. They don't mean to become criminals, but they kind of like get caught up in that life. But what is the most interesting thing besides, you know, everything else is that I tell Han, who we see in The Fast and Furious, this is his origin story. Yeah, that's it. I never even realized that I'm going to I haven't watched that movie in so long. I'm going to have to break it out and watch it again.
00:19:01
Speaker
But yeah, that was a good movie. It was this small little independent film and it just got like complete, and I found it, it was like back in the blockbuster days. Like it was on sale for like two bucks or something. So I bought it and yeah, I really ended up liking it. And now Justin Lin, of course, he went on, he did, I think he did Fast Five, didn't he? I think he did like two or three of the Fast and Furious movies if I'm not mistaken. He did those and then he did Aquaman. Yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I believe he, and he also did the, uh, the first two insidious movies. So, you know, he's, um, was it him that did that? Double check, make sure. Oh, I know. He didn't do insidious. Who did insidious then? I don't know. I've never been into the insidious, uh, things. So I have no doubt, but I do know he, he, he did, uh, what, uh, you know, the Star Trek movie. Yeah. I'm getting them, I'm, I'm mixing them up. So James Wan, who also did, he did furious seven.
00:19:59
Speaker
And he, James Wan is the one who did Aquaman and Insidious. And then Justin Lin, he did Fast Five and Fast and Furious 6 and Star Trek Beyond. Yeah. Right, yeah. So I mean like the guy has got...
00:20:13
Speaker
You know, some range as a director. He does. You know, he does a lot of different things. Yeah. Oh, it looks like he also did. He's not just one trick pony. Yeah. It looks like he also directed F9. So that makes sense why they had where they brought back on in that one. Mm hmm. Because I was surprised it first showed up in Tokyo Drift. Right. Yeah. That was the third one. Yeah. That was set in Tokyo. So he showed up in that one. And then I think, yeah, he comes back in.
00:20:38
Speaker
The one that's in Rio de Janeiro, that's Fast Five. That's Fast Five, yeah. So he comes back in that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then he dies, because Jason Statham's character kills him, I think in, what was it, six or seven? Seven. Yeah. He kills on the seven. I think it was like the end of six. It was like a post-credits scene in six, and then seven was when Jason Statham's character was the villain. Right. Yeah, he was the villain. What kind of
00:21:07
Speaker
was weird to me how now they like kind of pretended that never happened, that, you know, like Jason Statham tried to kill all of them, and one of the movies is like, yeah, well, we're just gonna ignore that, that ever happened. And then in F8, they bring him in to just remember the team, and they do that where they bring it, because they did the same, like the Rock, though, you know, his character didn't kill anyone at least, but, you know, they did that too, where he started off as a villain, but he was so popular, they brought, they made him a regular cast member.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. They had to, like, kind of make a part of the team and everything like that. So it's, yeah, I mean, it's really weird how they do that. They introduce these characters as villains or, you know, the antagonist and then they become so popular, you know, then they say, OK, well, now we got to figure out a way that they'll become part of the team, which is why they had that whole thing where Jason Statham has to rescue
00:22:01
Speaker
Uh, Vin Diesel's son. Yeah. And that was his way of, I guess, you know, redeeming himself. And that's how he got accepted into the team. You know, so it's good, but you know what?
00:22:13
Speaker
I enjoy them. I love the Fast and Furious movies. People say a lot of terrible movies have that. No, they're not. They're entertaining as hell. They're very entertaining. The main point to
Watchmen TV Series: Unique Approach and Critiques
00:22:23
Speaker
me. Yeah, very entertaining. I love that they've got this attitude where they're just like, we're just going to go completely over the top. They don't care. And like I've been telling people, I said, you know what?
00:22:35
Speaker
The Fast and Furious movies, the last two or three of them have been better James Bond movies than the actual James Bond movies, as far as I'm concerned. You know. Yeah. You know. Yeah. All right. So today we're talking. So we're going to be doing our
00:22:50
Speaker
first actual TV show we're covering on this, and that is Watchmen, the all nine episodes. And so this is gonna be unique because we're, you and I made a decision when we started this show that we were gonna kind of avoid TV shows for the most part, unless it's something really special. And this qualifies as something really special, I think. Well, yeah, I mean, the first one we did, we did the, you know, The Crisis.
00:23:18
Speaker
You know, that was the first one we did. But again, that was a unique case. And I think that we're justified in doing this because, of course, it's connected to one of the most popular superhero and controversial superhero movies ever made. You know, Watchmen, which we covered. And since this is an extension of that movie, yeah, you know, it's justified. And also it had such it has such an impact.
00:23:44
Speaker
on fans of the movie and people who even didn't like the movie.
00:23:52
Speaker
ended up liking the TV show. I talked to a lot of people that said they loved the TV show. Well, yeah. And I'm one of those. Because we talked about this. We talked about the Watchmen movie. I didn't like it that much because I thought it was a good movie. It's good. But as a Watchmen adaptation, I thought it fell flat. Right. Now, this TV show, contrary to what some people believe, is they didn't do it as a sequel to the movie. But it's actually a sequel to the comic book. Right.
00:24:22
Speaker
Yeah, so they I mean they actually do something in this TV show That they didn't do in the movie is that they actually show you the squid that fate dropped on New York Yeah, we see the squid
00:24:36
Speaker
And we didn't even see it in the comic book. Like, we only saw hints of the squid. We didn't see it full on. So, I mean, they take it further than even Dave Givens took it. And, um, okay, uh, now I remember when they announced that they were doing a Watchmen TV show. My first thought was, oh, good, good, they're gonna do, um, they're gonna do a new adaptation and, you know, doing Watchmen...
00:24:56
Speaker
Adapting Watchmen as a TV show is really the only way you can adapt that story because as we saw with the movie There's so much stuff to cram in there and a lot of stuff gets left out even in the three-hour directors cut, right? Yeah, that was the same thing. I thought to but I when I first heard it I said, oh, okay. Well, they're gonna do
00:25:17
Speaker
Oh, and they're going to have the room to do the whole story. Finally, I said, okay, cool. Right. But then they, they switched it up because then they said, um, Damon Lindelof's going to do it, which I was a little bit nervous about because he did lost. And after the first few seasons, lost just kind of.
00:25:33
Speaker
They were trying to just keep it going without having any real idea of what they were doing anymore. And they were just kind of like throwing a whole bunch of stuff against the wall. And then, so that was like a red flag for me. And then the second red flag was when they said, well, we're not going to be doing an adaptation of the comic book. We're going to be doing a sequel to the comic book. And I thought, okay, that's...
00:25:53
Speaker
I thought it was weird because I'm like, well, if you're going to do a sequel, wouldn't it make more sense to do it to the movie that everybody had seen as opposed to the comic book that only like a quarter of your audience has probably read? And that was my attitude going into this. So I was kind of skeptical of this going in and I'm just like, well, you know, I'll probably get around to it someday. But I hadn't planned to.
00:26:14
Speaker
And then people started watching it and they're saying, oh, this is amazing. So I started catching up on it. And now that the whole thing's out, I, you know, I ended up buying the whole series on iTunes for to get for this episode. Oh, so you didn't start watching it from the beginning. You didn't start it from the beginning. You caught up to it later on. Yeah, I started with like episode four and I binge like all four episodes at once. Oh, that's when I started getting into it.
00:26:39
Speaker
All right. I didn't know that. No, me. I watched it, you know, from I watched it from the first of all, because I once I found Regina King was going to be starring in it. And I've been in love with Regina King. She's a fantastic actress.
00:26:55
Speaker
I mean, I remember she was a child actor on the 227 and I've been following her career ever since then. I think I've just seen about everything that she's done. And she's like one of those actresses that I always you know what, even if what she's in is crap, she's going to be good. You know, she was in the season of she was in one season of twenty
00:27:19
Speaker
You know, she was in one season of American Crime Story. You know, she's been, you know, she's just been in like a ton of stuff and like everything that she's in. I always find myself saying, damn, she is so good at whatever she does. So I was in it right from the start. And, you know, even my wife, as I said before, she doesn't care for superhero movies. She, you know, we watch Watchmen before we watch this.
00:27:49
Speaker
when the first episode came on, I said to, okay, well, you never seen Watchmen, so.
00:27:55
Speaker
You want to watch the movie? She said, oh, she said, oh, yeah. Well, you know, I was. I said, OK, so this way you will have an idea of what the background of everything is. And she said, yeah, yeah, yeah. She'll put it on. So, you know, I threw it on and I've got to just cut, you know, she threw it on and, you know, she watched it and she said, oh, OK. She said, I didn't get it. She said, but I said, that's all right. But he does, you know, so. Yeah.
00:28:23
Speaker
I said, nobody really does. But we watched a TV show, and by the third episode, she was hooked. She said, oh, she said, this is nothing like the movie. And I said, oh, yeah. I said, yeah, well, you got to pull. It is nothing like the movie. And a big part of that is because when we talked about this in our Watchmen movie episode, but Zack Snyder, you get the sense that he didn't really
00:28:50
Speaker
understand what Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were trying to do with the movie with the comic book and so when he made the movie he had like the wrong take on a lot of stuff so Rorschach becomes more of a heroic figure the comedian is more of a
00:29:05
Speaker
is a bit more sympathetic in some ways. It's much more focused on the action and the fight scenes and all that. And all the deep character stuff, all the flaws that these characters have, which is really what it was about, was about a bunch of broken people.
00:29:21
Speaker
that kind of falls the wayside in the movie the tv show like little off shows that he understands what morn gibbons were doing and he brings that to the tv show uh... so let's just jump into will start with uh... we're doing the first three episodes in this episode and so the first episode it's summer running out of ice and this is when we're introduced to uh...
00:29:43
Speaker
Well, first off, Regina King plays Angela Abar, which is another allusion to black superheroes because Abar, which we covered in our last episode, the first black Superman. Yeah, right. Exactly. And it was something that you pointed out while you were doing that. And I said, holy shit, I never even made that connection. And, um,
00:30:05
Speaker
while I was watching this episode and you know what I love about I love it that I was watching the first episode and there was still things in there that I was picking up on that I hadn't seen the first time like I never noticed until I watched it this time that
00:30:21
Speaker
They get the original Watchman smiley face in there when she's doing the thing with the eggs. Yeah. And it's the cool thing about it is it's reversed, too, because in the comic book, you know, the face is white or the face is yellow and, you know, it's just like a standard smiley face. But this one, it's the eyes and the mouth that are that are yellow instead. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it's stuff that, you know, I didn't catch the first time. I didn't catch the first time around that.
00:30:49
Speaker
the actual title was from the musical Oklahoma, which we see is being formed by an all black cast. Right. Yeah. And there's also a line. There's the one of the songs is poor Judd is dead. And that's that's where that that's where that line comes from. It's summer running out of ice. And you know, in this movie, the movie adds with the sheriff, Judge Crawford dead.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, so it's all these little tie-ins and illusions they make, so yeah, it's amazingly well done. It's all, he throws in, just like Morin Gibbons did with the comic book, they throw all this stuff into it and into the background that you don't notice the first time around or even the second time around.
00:31:34
Speaker
and um and just like in the the comic book it ends with the bloody smiley face right the uh the comedian's badge with the blood on it right this time it's judge badge which has the blood on it so it's a it's a little twist on it but they're still doing so it's it first it kind of starts off in a way that
00:31:56
Speaker
kind of reminded me of Superman Returns and The Force Awakens where it's like, okay, we're doing sort of a remake, sort of an original thing. And so that's kind of the feel you get when you get to the end of the first episode, but then it does veer in completely different directions after that. Yeah, because I mean, first of all, let me just say right off the bat that Damon Lindelof,
00:32:24
Speaker
There's a surety that he has with this series that he didn't have it lost. Maybe it's because he put more thought into it and he took more time writing the overall story. But like you said, it's things that are thrown in there that they're not just thrown off the cuff. It's things that are callbacks to the comic book and even some callbacks to the movie. And it's little things that are thrown in that letting me know that there's a sure hand
00:32:54
Speaker
that wrote this script that knew exactly where he was going with it and what he wanted to do. Yeah and just like the the movie did is there's some fantastic world building in this because the comic book you know this is something that's often overlooked in the comic book with people who've only read it maybe once or twice you don't really realize it until you read it uh you know a few times that the entire world
00:33:16
Speaker
has been completely changed by the introduction of superheroes so you've got things like electric cars you've got four-legged chickens being served in a restaurant you know all sorts of things like that you know nixon was able to abolish term limits and he was president of the eighties vietnam is an american state now because doctor manhattan easily won the war and all these little things are are changes in the background that you don't really notice the first time you read the book and they continue that trend in this one so
00:33:45
Speaker
One thing you'll notice, they never use computers or really like cell phones or anything like that in this show. And there's a reason for that because
00:33:55
Speaker
after and they find out about this and um so just like the comic book they had um all this supplemental material with excerpts from Hollis Mason's books um you get one of um an article that night owl wrote um uh police i think they had like Rorschach's um the psychiatrist like his report i think was in there as well yeah uh an interview with adrian fight all all sorts of like supplemental material is in the background and it really helps
00:34:23
Speaker
and you know most people i think are probably like me they they skip the supplemental material when they read the book but the last time i read it before we talked about the the movie is i went through for the first time and read all the supplemental material and it really gives you a much deeper understanding of the world and the tv show did something similar they had what's called uh pd pdia
00:34:45
Speaker
which is on hbo.com slash pdpedia and it is um basically like reports compiled by um uh agent pd who is partnered up with um the former suspector
00:35:02
Speaker
you know laurie blake yet and so he's and he he mentioned in that episode that you know he's got a phd in history he did his thesis on um... the police riots and all this kind of stuff so he's he'd know he's really not about this so that it has all these documents in there and one of the documents like the like one of the introductory documents that talks about
00:35:22
Speaker
the use of technology. And after the squid, because everyone still believes that it was an actual interdimensional invasion, which is what Adrian Veidt, Ozymandias disguised it as and wanted people to think. Whereas in the movie, they changed it to him trying to mimic the powers of Dr. Manhattan. But this show, it goes full on with the squid. Which I actually like. I know we went back and forth about that, about them changing the ending.
00:35:52
Speaker
for the movie but for the purposes of this TV show because they do have the room to explore it more and you know I'm glad they went with the squid because I'm because I'm not sure I'm not sure but I do believe the character looking glass
00:36:10
Speaker
I they never come out and state it, but I get the impression that he does have actual suit was from the fact that he was traumatized by being close to the squid when it landed in Manhattan. He was in New Jersey. Yeah, definitely. And that's we'll talk about that more when we get to the fourth episode in our next segment. But but yeah, yeah, he get there some sort of like because one of the things that one of the after effects of the squid was it was also there was a lot of psychic feedback that happened.
00:36:39
Speaker
Right. And a lot of people died as a result of the psychic feedback. And I got to give Lindelof credit because the whole reason Snyder didn't use the squid is because he thought it would be too difficult for audiences to understand. And Lindelof says, we don't care if you haven't read the book. We're putting the damn squid in this thing. And he just goes right in and does it.
00:37:01
Speaker
Well, there's a whole lot of that all throughout the three episodes. Like you said, there's a lot of world. There's a lot of things he throws. And one thing that I appreciate that he doesn't stop to explain every little thing. He just goes ahead and does it and just trust that. Okay. You're going to stick with it long enough for him to explain.
00:37:21
Speaker
what it is that you're seeing, like, I like the fact that there's a part where there's a rate of little baby squid from the sky. And nobody, and everybody just treats it like, okay, yeah, okay, baby squids are falling from the sky. And they treat it very matter of factly. And yeah, now we explanation later on, but at the time it just happens and we just say, okay, we'll just go with it and just trust that, okay, he's going to tell us
00:37:49
Speaker
You know what's happening later on right? Yeah, and um And uh, well, one of the things they do is they said in the pdpedia files that they had kind of halted technological developments because they were worried that technology had somehow
00:38:09
Speaker
triggered something that caused the dimensional incursion. So a lot of technological development kind of came to a halt. So they don't have like the internet. They don't really rely on computers as much. So that's why you don't see any of that stuff really in this show. Yeah, you don't see a lot of that. I think really the only time you know that don't, if I remember, is scenes in the police station.
00:38:30
Speaker
I seem to remember that you do see like little computer terminals sitting on the desk of the police. Yeah, but you're right. People don't have computers in there. You don't see people, you know, with their laptops. You know, you don't see that, you know, here, which which, again, is something that you don't pick up on at first. But when you watch again, you say, wait a minute, there's something missing here that that, you know, they say, oh, wait a minute, there's no computers, there's no cell phones.
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah, and also going on with the world building is this is, so the end of the Watchmen comic book, there are these background things that Robert Redford was thinking about running for president. And so in this series, they say, okay, he did run for president, and because there are no term limits, he's like in his fourth term now as president.
00:39:19
Speaker
One of the things he's done is he instituted reparations for slavery and which are dismissively called Redfordations by racists and stuff like that. But that's actually a whole little subplot in itself in this thing about the fact that Robert Redford gave reparations to black people because it's continually referred to. And there's a scene in a classroom
00:39:50
Speaker
You know, we're one of the children, you know.
00:39:52
Speaker
asks the Regina King character, you know, well, how did you open up your business? Did you do it with your red forations? Yeah. You know, so it's kind of like a little subplot of its own that runs through the whole show. Yeah. Because apparently Robert Redford is not a popular president in this world. There's some interesting things they do with this. And like Angela was born in Vietnam. She was born and raised in Vietnam, which is an American state. And so
00:40:21
Speaker
Right. And, you know, the teacher mentions, you know, were you born in Vietnam before it became a state or after? Right. And she's like, oh, wow, it's a state in this movie. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's a scene, there's a funeral scene. And we see that the American flag has been changed, that the stars are in the circle now.
00:40:39
Speaker
And there's 51 of them instead of 50. Yeah. And there's a whole lot more of them than, you know, yeah. So presumably Puerto Rico is now. Oh, so is I was going to say I was going to mention that, like, you know, because they make Vietnam a state, but they still haven't acknowledged Puerto Rico is one.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I said, well, you know, I'm saying, you know, well, presumably Puerto Rico said, but they never come out and say they never say, you know, and I said, well, you know, well, how did you make Vietnam a state before? But then again, it goes back to the whole movie and movie and the comic book where, you know, the United States won the war.
00:41:16
Speaker
because of Dr. Manhattan. Right. And, you know, apparently they just went, you know, he just went over there and he just conquered the country. Yeah. Apparently. Because as we see later, later on, I'm not trying to jump ahead, folks, but in later episodes, we see that
00:41:31
Speaker
There's all kinds, like apparently they have a whole day dedicated to Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam. They have a holiday. And there's a lot of that like kind of resentment slash, you know, there are mixed feelings about it. Kind of like if you go to Hawaii, there's also kind of mixed feelings about being an American state among Hawaiians because there are some people who feel like, you know, we were an independent nation and then America took us over, basically. So there's a lot of mixed feelings about that kind of stuff.
00:41:57
Speaker
The way this show opens is it opens in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1920s during the Oklahoma race riots, which was this assault, basically, full-on assault by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists against what was at the time called Black Wall Street. Well, it was a massacre, plain and simple. Yeah.
00:42:27
Speaker
One of the remarkable things about this episode is that this is something that a lot of people, black and white, did not know about because I had a lot of friends of mine, black and white, you know, they were contacting me and they said, wait a minute, did this really happen? Or was this something that they just, I said, no, this actually happened. And the reason why I know
00:42:50
Speaker
that actually happened is because, um, what was it back in the late nineties? There was a movie called Rosewood directed by John Singleton starring Bing Reims and John Voight. And it was about a town in, uh, Florida called Rosewood where the same thing happened. The same thing happened. This, this was going on quite a lot, believe it or not, that there was all of these, um,
00:43:17
Speaker
black settlements and towns and small cities where black people were doing very well. And, you know, everybody from the mayor down to the wino that was on the corner, everybody was black. And these towns were wiped out and people were massacred by the Klan and white supremacists. So, yeah, this actually happened. And for the for this TV show to start off with that,
00:43:44
Speaker
I mean, first of all, Little Office put right up front in your face what this show is going to be about. It's not going to be just about people in costumes. It's going to be about race and how not only superheroes, well, not really superheroes, they're people in costumes for the most part.
00:44:07
Speaker
This is going to be about race, unabashedly about race and that whole thing carries through the entire series. But it's a powerful way to start off. I mean, you know, the series and I was reading something about. Some people had seen this episode and they saw echoes of how Superman was sent to another planet.
00:44:32
Speaker
that the little boy is sent away from, you know, this town that's being destroyed. It's kind of like the same kind of analogy. Oh, yeah, very much so. Like I picked up on that once we get into the once the when they did the hooded justice episode focus on Will, that that really came through to me like, oh, my God, it's basically the story of Superman. And and just like, you know, the superhero comics started with
00:44:58
Speaker
this uh with this um this refugee from a from a dying world being sent to earth the same thing happens with they basically made it the same thing here and watched me because superman was the first superhero and will as we later find out is the first superhero in this universe because he's he becomes hooded justice who in the comic books was also the the first costume adventurer who appeared on the streets
00:45:23
Speaker
So they do a really good job of making that illusion. And yeah, you're right. Like, Lindelof made a conscious effort to make this story about race, which also sets it apart from the original, because the original was all about Cold War politics. But this takes it in a different direction, because you can't do, it doesn't make sense to do a series set in 2019 that's about the Cold War.
Watchmen's Focus on Race and Power Dynamics
00:45:49
Speaker
And you know what?
00:45:51
Speaker
This points out something also that you and I have talked about, and it's a real bugaboo to me about, you know, cause we hear it all the time. We keep talking about, oh, how come they don't do anything different? How come they don't do anything new? Why they do the same thing all over again? This is definitely not the same thing as the movie or comic book. No, this is a brand new story with brand new characters for the most part, but set in this verse.
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, and it's the way it expands that story and takes it to a different level. For years, people were saying, you can't do a sequel to Watchmen. What would you do? There's no way you can take that story. There's no next logical step in that story. That story is completely self-contained.
00:46:35
Speaker
And that was one of my, and I was one of the people who believed that too. So that was one of my red flags when they announced this series. But Lindelof, God bless him, he found a way to make it work. And he showed that, no, you can do a sequel to this story. Yeah. I mean, you just don't do a direct sequel. You take this world and you say, okay, well, let me go 25 years road and see where this world has developed and how it's developed.
00:47:03
Speaker
in that time which is you know which is but but at the same time is directly linked to the past and I would be highly remiss if I didn't point out that the first okay the first thing we see is this little boy he's sitting in a movie theater and he's watching a black and white solid movie and it's a movie about
00:47:26
Speaker
Bass Reeves, the famous Oklahoma man. Yeah, and the movie's called Trust in the Law. Right, and that's the first heroic, which again, is a callback to what we got later on, because this is the first heroic image that we see in the movie, a black law man. And watching it again, I said, oh, OK, that has got Bass Reeves in it. And again, Bass Reeves, just like the massacre that took place in Tulsa, Bass Reeves
00:47:56
Speaker
or the longest time was a heroic figure that nobody knew about it's only been a recent years that he's been rediscovered and people have been saying oh wow we never heard about this guy and and usually he was actually just one of many because one thing we talked about before is that the old west wasn't as lily white as hollywood has made people believe like there was a lot of diversity there because you had
00:48:22
Speaker
black people, you had Asian people, you had Native Americans who, you know, they weren't welcome in the big city. So they moved out to the frontier. Yeah. Yeah. And as I was telling Pete, you know, cause we were at, Oh, well, all of these towns were set up by black people. I said, yeah, because after the civil war, they went West. They went, went there with the white people. Yeah. They said, okay, well, you know what? We're going to go West. Whereas all of these, if you, um, uh, one of my favorite movies, buck in the preacher,
00:48:52
Speaker
It's about that because Sidney Portier as Buck, he's taking this black wagon train west. They're going as far west as they can, you know, to find someone where they can settle and they won't be bothered with white people. It's just that simple. So yeah, I said there was all kinds of different settlements that you had that was
00:49:14
Speaker
You know, it was nothing but immigrants. Right. Yeah. You know, they just went out there because it was all this land. Nobody else was using it. They made the deal with it. OK, OK. Well, if you go over there and you don't slaughter too many buffalo, you can live over. And, you know, everybody was getting along until, of course, until your people came along. White people, we just mess everything up, man.
00:49:44
Speaker
Oh, my God. Yeah. I don't know what we're going to do with your guys. Yeah. I don't know. We're going to. Y'all just can't. Y'all just can't leave shit alone. I apologize.
00:50:02
Speaker
No, no, listen, you're right. And folks, listen, I'm going to tell you right now. You know what, since the watchman is dealing with race, it's probably going to be a lot of things that I'm going to say I'm not going to like. So I'm telling you right now in advance because I'm not going to bite my tongue when it comes to this subject. I'm not. I mean, I'm sorry, but hey, it is what it is.
00:50:24
Speaker
which is one of the reasons I really wanted to do this because I knew that you would not be holding your tongue with this kind of stuff. So I'm really glad that we're going to have that happen. Oh, no, you know, if I would be a disservice. Exactly. Yeah. The Damon Lindigoff was.
00:50:39
Speaker
if he had the ball on about it because i respect that man to the highest for you know putting this out there you know really yet he didn't have to do it buddy he could have played a safe but he didn't and that's what's that's what's so remarkable about this because i mean this story about the Tulsa riots it's being brought to the screen by a white guy who's uh... and and all these issues of race and everything so this also
00:51:08
Speaker
It's it shows that you know, there's kind of this idea a lot when it comes to modern fiction that if your
00:51:16
Speaker
If you're white, if you're a straight white male, you should not be writing about issues that affect black people. You should not be writing about issues that affect women or anything like that, right? There's that kind of idea that, and there's some truth to that, right? There are plenty of black authors who can tell their own stories, but Lindelof proves that
00:51:40
Speaker
You can still be a white guy and still tell stories like this. You just have to make sure you treat it with respect and reverence and you do your research on it. My position is always that if you're a human being with any kind of empathy at all, you can write about other people. Right. I'm a black guy, right? White characters, I don't write them as white characters unless I'm actually trying to make a point.
00:52:10
Speaker
but you know i just write them just as characters you know i've written you know female characters i just write them as people if you just write people as people and like you said it's obvious that he didn't search into this and he has respect for the characters and he has respect for their point of view and really that's all you need to write a world engaging story which is what we have here exactly yeah and um
00:52:39
Speaker
One of the really interesting things they do is when they bring it to the modern day, you have a guy getting pulled over by a cop.
00:52:49
Speaker
And it's like a flip of what we see in the modern day, right? It's a black cop going to a white guy. Well, actually, first of all, it's funny because you see the guy and he looks like your typical southern redneck, right? Right. But he's listening to hardcore rap music. Yeah, I caught that too. Yeah. And then he gets pulled over by the cop and it's a black cop wearing a mask.
00:53:11
Speaker
And, you know, he's all nervous and scared. And like you said, yeah, it's a fool on what we used to see. And, you know, and the white guy is nervous. You know, he's obviously nervous. And, you know, he said, oh, my God, I got pulled over by the cop. And he says so often. Then, you know, we see sheer terror on his face as a cop said, would you say? Yeah. You know, and now now as a black man who has been I automatically, you know, I feel sorry for him because I've been in
00:53:41
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I've been pulled over by the cops, you know, and I don't know. So my God, am I going to go home tonight? Oh, right. Yeah. So if you've got good writing and if you.
00:53:51
Speaker
just right with some empathy and respect for what you're writing about you can make viewers go anywhere you want and he got me with that scene because i'm saying well the cop is black i'm supposed to be feeling for the cop no i'm feeling for the poor white guy because i've been in that position right and it shows like how the the balance of power in america has kind of shifted as a result of uh... reparations because now you've got the black guy in a position of power and the white guy who's
00:54:18
Speaker
the one who's fearing for his life kind of thing and but they also have another interesting thing when the cop goes back to his car he has to get permission to get his his gun unlocked right they have to unlock it at the station he can't yeah they just draw on people like that which
00:54:35
Speaker
which was an interesting way of doing that because there's been all this, you know, all the talk about, you know, traffic stops going wrong and police using excessive force. Whereas this kind of, it shows that the measures taken to prevent that can kind of go too far sometimes. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, because at first you said to yourself, oh yeah, well that's,
00:55:05
Speaker
idea until the cop gets machine gunned. And then you say, oh, well, you know, damn, he should be. And then you say, damn, he should have been able to protect himself, you know. And so again, we see where the writing it makes you look at.
00:55:20
Speaker
this situation and you know like kind of weigh it and say yeah well you know something okay on the one hand i thought it was a good idea but maybe it isn't such a good idea it makes you think and you know something you know is you know me and you know
00:55:36
Speaker
And I'm good with entertainment for entertainment's sake, but it's a bonus when you have entertainment that entertains you and also makes you think and weighs your own values and how you see society and the laws of our society, which is what a lot, which is what goes on a lot in this series as we go on through it. You think about the laws of the society and how you feel about it and what works and what doesn't work and why this works and why this doesn't work.
00:56:03
Speaker
And should this work? And why would this work that way? It's a lot. You remember earlier on when we were going on and on about, you know, politics in our superhero movies, and we were railing against people and saying, oh, this is super heroics. Well, you know what? This is very much political. Very much political. And societal. And it makes you think. It makes you think. It's not just people in costumes running around beating up on each other. Right.
00:56:32
Speaker
But you did mention that the mask thing, the cop wears a mask. Now that's something else that's happened in the years since the comic book. So the keen act in the comic book outlawed costume vigilantes. The only people who were allowed to operate were ones who were working for the government, like the comedian and Dr. Manhattan. But all other superheroes were outlawed.
00:56:54
Speaker
keen son in in this series he's because there's a few years ago there was uh... an event called the white knight where
00:57:04
Speaker
The Seventh Cavalry, who wear Rorschach masks, and they're inspired by Rorschach because Rorschach's journal, if you remember the end of the comic book, he left it with the New Frontiersman, the kind of like fringe right-wing publication. And the New Frontiersman ended up publishing excerpts from the journal, which ended up creating a whole new conspiracy culture with people, you know,
00:57:28
Speaker
being suspicious about about the squid and and basically kind of like and Rorschach has become kind of like a folk hero to these people and so the seventh cavalry who are white supremacist group they have co-opted Rorschach's mask for kind of like their symbol so they found the names of
00:57:49
Speaker
and the addresses of police officers a few years ago, and they went after them. They attacked them and killed a lot of people. And one of those people who was attacked was Angela Abar. So when we see her in the beginning, she says, I used to be a police officer, but after the white knight, I retired. And now she's opening a bakery.
00:58:09
Speaker
And then we find out what Keene did in this state was he said, we're going to allow police officers to wear masks and to have had costumed identities because they're doing it for the laws to protect themselves and their families. And it's become a really popular initiative that other states are now thinking to adopt. So Angela is still a police officer, but she's one in secret and her superior identity is Sister Knight.
00:58:34
Speaker
where she dresses as kind of like a nun, she has this black face paint smeared over her, and damn, she kicks all sorts of ass as Sister Knight. I love when we first see her, you know, because when she gets the call, kind of like the bat signal, she gets like a special code on her pager. And when I saw that, that really took me back. I said, oh my god, I haven't seen the pager in.
00:58:59
Speaker
30 years and she gets it and she goes to the bakery and she's got like her own bat cave up under the bakery and the way that she and the way that she just suited up didn't that remind you of the Batman movies? Oh so much so much. The way she gets suited up and she takes the hood through you know and then she jumps in this car that looks a lot like
00:59:23
Speaker
It could have been the Batmobile and she's like tearing ass into the streets. Yeah, yeah, it's so, they do it so well. And then, you know, she goes straight to what's called Nixonville, which is where like the, where it's like the poor white people neighborhood. So you've got, and then she goes there and, you know, she takes this guy and she freaking throws him in the trunk.
00:59:43
Speaker
Yeah. Zero bullshit. She doesn't deploy. She just kicks down his door and just snatches him up, knocks him out and throws him in the trunk. Oh, it's, Oh my God. Yeah. Okay. Once again, establishing her character with, with, you know, okay. We already know this is nobody to be, you know, she doesn't play around. Plain and simple.
01:00:06
Speaker
But apparently there are some police officers that once they attain a certain rank, they're allowed to wear costumes and have superhero names. Yeah, exactly. Most of the street level officers, they were a police uniform and they've just got a yellow mask covering the bottom half of their face. But you've got these other officers who are
01:00:29
Speaker
obviously some sort of have some sort of rank like you've got Angela as Sister Knight. You've got Wade Tillman who's known as Looking Glass. You've got pirate Jenny and Red Scare and all and Panda and all these other ones. And Panda, yeah. The guy that wears the giant panda.
01:00:51
Speaker
Which, you know, all throughout this, up until we find out who Dr. Manhattan is, there was a lot of speculation that Panda might be Dr. Manhattan. Really? Yeah, there was a lot of that going on on the internet I remember seeing.
01:01:03
Speaker
Um, but, uh, that's a new one on me. I never heard, I never heard that one. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of that. So then, um, but one of the interesting ones is they, so she brings this guy in and then he gets interrogated by looking glass who's played by Tim Blake Nelson. And I did not recognize it as Tim Blake Nelson in that role. He's so good as this character. Tim Blake Nelson again.
01:01:28
Speaker
Just like Regina King, he's one of them people that as soon as I see him, okay, I know I'm in good hands, because I don't believe I've ever seen him in anything I didn't like. Yeah, and he's so good in this. And one of the really cool things, because he is kind of like...
01:01:43
Speaker
So a lot of these characters are kind of analogous to characters in the original. So Sister Knight is kind of more of the night owl type in some ways. And then you got Looking Glass, he's more of like kind of a Rorschach type. You got a very Rorschach vibe for him. Like the first time we see him, he's got, so he wears a faux face mask and he's got it rolled up just to the nose and he's eating something just like Rorschach did when,
01:02:11
Speaker
He goes to Dan Drieberg's place in the comic book. Dan comes home and finds Rorschach. And he's eating a can of baked beans. Exactly, yeah. So there are a lot of little references like that and callbacks. But the cool thing about Looking Glass is he's got this full face mask, very much like Rorschach's, except it's reflective, right?
01:02:33
Speaker
So it's kind of like a twist on Rorschach. So if you're looking into it, basically you're looking back at yourself. Right, right. And it's kind of a nice twist on Rorschach, because when you look at Rorschach's face, the ink is always moving on his mask. So you're seeing.
01:02:50
Speaker
what you believe, right? It's more of a reflection of what you feel. Whereas Looking Glass Mask, he reflects what you actually are. What you actually are, yeah, yeah. I knew you'd pick up on that. Yeah. And he does this, and this is the first hints we have of his psychic powers, right? Because he brings them into this orb type thing.
01:03:13
Speaker
And Don Johnson, who we should, who we haven't mentioned yet, who plays the chief of police, he says, put them in the pod. Right. They go in the pod and I got a very like blade runner kind of vibe when they were in the pod.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, and the images are flashing all around and Looking Glass is asking them a series of questions. Some of them connected the case, some of them completely not. And he's kind of like gauging their reactions while these images are flashing in the background. And it's like all sorts of different images. And the cool thing is when they...
01:03:49
Speaker
the cinematography, and this is amazing, because when those images are flashing, you look at Looking Glass's face, and it is kind of like the ink shifting on Rorschach's mask. Yeah, exactly. And just the way they did it, it was just so masterful. Again, we see that there was thought put into these characters. And as you say, it's a nice little callback, you know, and
01:04:15
Speaker
OK, you don't have to know anything about no character to appreciate what's going on in the scene right then and there at that moment, because it's just a guy that's interrogating another guy. But if you know the background of the original character from Watchmen, everything like you said, like you just pointed out, it's an interesting little callback. And so they find out that the seventh cavalry, they're they're gearing up for something and
01:04:45
Speaker
Oh, wait a minute. Hold on one second because I had a thought early on. I forgot it and now came back to me. This is something that I wanted to ask you something. OK. The seventh Calvary. Do you know that seventh Calvary because I know myself that I've talked to quite a few people who felt that Rorschach was the real hero of Watchmen. I said that you thought he was a hero. Did you miss the whole point? Yeah. Now with.
01:05:14
Speaker
OK, now with the 7th Cavalry being a bunch of rare white supremacists, do you think that the TV show is making a commentary on the people who thought that Rorschach was a hero? I don't. I'm not sure if I go that far. I think they are. I think they're just trying to show like they're trying to really they're trying to portray Rorschach in a very honest light in this. And because like Rorschach
01:05:44
Speaker
was not necessarily full-on racist, but he was a right-wing sociopathic nut. And I think that's kind of what they're more leaning towards. And it's just, but that kind of thinking, it can easily lead you down that path to being a white supremacist, right? Because we've seen that with a lot of, now that, you see that now in American Sighted Day, where a lot of these
01:06:10
Speaker
disaffected white guys who, you know, come out of school, they're young, they can't get work, they have trouble dating, all this kind of stuff, they end up turning to these fringe elements and they end up becoming very easy prey and very easy recruits for the white supremacist movement. I think it's more of a commentary on that as opposed to a commentary on people who misinterpreted what Rorschach was all about. Oh, okay, fair enough.
01:06:37
Speaker
I was just, it was just something that occurred to me and I just wanted to get your take on it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, it's a good take though. Um, but yeah, that's, that's an interesting take, but, but it is because a lot, I remember there was a lot of people who were pissed off about that when the show came out because they're like, well, Rorschach's not a white supremacist. And it's like, well, it kind of is.
01:07:01
Speaker
But you know what? A lot of people thought that he was a hero because he was beating up the quote unquote, right people. Right. Which is which going back to we talked about this when we talked about the movie is that was one of the what I felt was one of the failings of the movie is that it misinterpreted what Rorschach really was. And it's
01:07:23
Speaker
And it's kind of like, you know, the Archie Bunker thing. Right. When when they did Archie Bunker and they the whole idea was he was supposed to be a mockery of like this kind of like right wing extremism type of thing. And these these beliefs when what happened is a lot of people agreed with him. So he ended up becoming kind of a folk hero. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They completely missed the point of what
01:07:49
Speaker
They were trying to say with the carriage and they said, oh, well, this guy, he represents us. He's speaking for us. Well, you remember when when Stephen Colbert was doing the Colbert report and it was and he was doing a spoof of right wing commentators like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. But a lot of there were a lot of conservatives who thought he was legitimately a conservative commentator. Yeah.
01:08:12
Speaker
And that's why he got invited to do the White House Correspondents Dinner. I remember, yeah. You have a lot of people that completely missed the point because they're so, you know what? That's one reason why, okay, people in our society don't recognize satire anymore. Right.
01:08:31
Speaker
Satire is something that people in this country don't understand anymore. So it goes over their head when they see it, I think, a lot of times. That's why we don't have satires anymore. We don't have movies at it. That's like a dead thing that's in this country. People don't recognize it for whatever reason. I have no idea why, but that's just me.
01:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, so the show ends basically this first episode with Judd being killed. She comes and she finds him hanging from a tree, which also ties back to the beginning because
01:09:10
Speaker
the in the bass Reeves movie they're talking about hang them up hang them up and and bass Reeves says no we're not gonna do that and and then so it ends with another sheriff being hung being lynched basically and we should know that and we should point out that she has been summoned
01:09:28
Speaker
to the tree where he's hanging from by this old man, this weird old man that she's been seeing all throughout the episode. And he's been asking her weird questions and stuff like that. Well, do you think I can, you know, carry 200 pounds and, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff. Old man in a wheelchair played by Lou Gossett Jr. Right. And he calls her on the phone and tells her, listen,
01:09:52
Speaker
come to the tree is located on whatever road it is and whatever. And he said, and don't wear the mask because I know who you are, which of course naturally freaks her out because nobody's supposed to know who she is except for Don Johnson. He's the only one that knows, you know, the real identity of his mask cops. You know, the ones, you know, sister night and, you know, looking glass and those guys, he's the only one that's supposed to know their identity. But she gets there and, um,
01:10:20
Speaker
He holds up a paper, and it's a paper that was given to him when he was a little boy. They said, watch out for this boy.
01:10:28
Speaker
Watch over this white rabbit. Right, right, right. And we also get a scene with Jeremy Irons playing Adrian Veidt, although he's not identified as Adrian Veidt, but it's this weird kind of like disconnected scene from the rest of the thing. Because he's like in this manner, he's got these two servants, they're celebrating an anniversary or something. But I just want to mention that because he's going to become a bigger part. And let's, I guess now let's transition into the second episode here, which is Marshall Feats of Comanche Horsemanship.
01:10:57
Speaker
I love the titles of these episodes. It's so cool how they bring stuff into this. Now, it opens up with Will, the little boy in the first episode, and then he becomes the old man played by Lugasa Jr. It opens up with his father in World War I, and a German plane flies overhead and it's dropping propaganda
01:11:21
Speaker
on
01:11:42
Speaker
They were encouraged by the Germans. They said, oh, well, why are you fighting for these people? You can't even go eat in the same restaurants that they do. You ought to come and fight for us, or go back home, or whatever. Yeah, so this is something that actually happened. They didn't make it up for the TV show. Again, people tell you, oh, did they really do that? And I said, didn't you people study history in school? Yeah. Don't you people read? Yeah. Does that actually happen? Well, see, this is the thing.
01:12:11
Speaker
You know, history is written by the winner. So a lot of like the history, a lot of America's bad history is stuff that the history books don't like to talk about. So we don't find out about a lot of this stuff unless we do our own independent research. Yeah. And that's, and you know what, you know, I hate to come off snobbish like that, but since I'm a person that has been interested in the stuff that people didn't want me to know. So I, you know, even when I was a little kid, when I was, you know, 10, 11, 12, whatever,
01:12:41
Speaker
own independent reading, if there was something that was interested in me, I pursued it, you know, so I guess, you know, a lot of people don't for one reason or another, but because a lot of times I get that people say, well, how did you know about this? How'd you know about that? And I said, well, I've known it forever, you know, because I read it, you know, back when Asia. But as you say, a lot of this stuff, unless and even stuff that, you know, like, for instance, I did not know about the
01:13:11
Speaker
until I saw the movie about the other thing that happened in Florida. And then that's how I found out about it. You know, these are things that are just submerged and buried and hidden in culture. And it's almost horrific to think of how much his actual history is suppressed about that's just coming to light now. Yeah. You know, 50, 60, 70, 100 years later, things that we're just discovering now.
01:13:41
Speaker
It's horrific when you realize, which makes you think, how much else has been suppressed that we don't know about? So this actually reminds me of, during one of the Democratic debates, Andrew Yang said he was asked a question about Russia's meddling in elections. And they asked, what would you do about his president? He's like, well, I'd go to Putin. I'd say, look, you've meddled in elections. We've meddled in elections. But it's time to stop. We've got to find a different way to do this. And A.B. Klobuchar
01:14:10
Speaker
took offense to that, and she's like, oh, how dare you say that the US meddled in elections. We've never done that. I'm like, bitch, do you not know what the CIA did throughout most of the Cold War? You go to South America and ask them how they feel about that. Yeah. Yeah, go to half the countries in South America.
01:14:28
Speaker
Go to go to Southeast Asia. Jesus. I mean, come on. I mean, yeah, America's done tons of reprehensible shit all across the world. But it's stuff that, you know, like you like we said, that's stuff that doesn't get talked about. Like, I did not know about the Tulsa riots until I saw this up, until I saw the show. If and also if and nothing else that this show made made millions of people aware of the Tulsa riot, you know, this me is worth watching.
01:14:58
Speaker
And I'm glad that it got made it for nothing else that that it made people aware of it. Yeah. Well, because there was such a huge response to the Tulsa scene, HBO is now partnering with I believe it's I could be wrong. I think it's Dark Horse Comics and they're going to be doing a graphic novel about the Tulsa race riot. So so it is it's a really which, you know, I'm pretty sure HBO has already got the rights for that. So that will probably be coming down the pike in the in the in the future.
01:15:29
Speaker
But so in the present day, we find out that Angela and Judd have become friends ever since the White Knight. And then she takes Will to the bakery to interrogate him. And he does a lot of misdirection here, right? He says that I'm your grandfather, but he also says I'm Dr. Manhattan.
01:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, you get a lot of that early episodes where it's teased that different characters could be Dr. Manhattan. Like at one point, like I thought that Jeremy Irons was Dr. Manhattan, you know, misdirection like, OK, well, and and.
01:16:10
Speaker
I'm saying, well, wait a minute. Well, he could be Dr. Manhattan. No, no, no. I think maybe she's Dr. Manhattan. And yeah, there's a lot of that that goes on in these early episodes. Yeah. And she flat out tells him, he says, you can't be Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan doesn't have that power. And he's like, well, he can do all this other stuff. Who says he can't change his skin color? Yeah, which stands the reason. Yeah, but then when she goes home and she talks to her husband, Cal, played
01:16:40
Speaker
expertly by Yaya Abdul-Mateen II, who was also Black Manta in Aquaman. He's such a background character throughout so much of this series that, which, you know what?
01:16:51
Speaker
Let's just go ahead and spoil it. We're gonna be talking about it in another episode anyway, but he is actually dr. Manhattan and there are all and when you're going back and you're watching it with that knowledge there are sort of those little hints like you know He says without missing a beat old dr. Manhattan can't do that right and he says it in the exact same way. Yeah that that she said it almost like
01:17:14
Speaker
He's been programmed to say it that way. Right. Yeah. But and also, and let me say this, that I did not see that coming. I honestly did not. We finally find out who Dr. Manhattan actually is. I out loud. Holy shit. Yeah, I didn't. No. Yes, it was him. I had a suspicion in the back of my head, but I wasn't. I figured like I didn't think it.
01:17:42
Speaker
Okay, here's what it was. I thought that Cal would be too much of an obvious choice. So I figured, if there's any hints of him being Dr. Manhattan, it's gonna be misdirection, because it's too obvious a route to go down. But for some reason, the way they handled that revelation, the way they handled his story, even though it does seem obvious
01:18:05
Speaker
when the thought first occurs to you, when you watch it actually happen, it's still like, holy crap, that's amazing. Yeah, you say, oh man, okay, well, why didn't I say, and you're saying something, well, why didn't I say that? And yeah, and then, you know, like later on, like you said, we get that whole revelation and we get the whole episode where it's laid out for us, how Dr. Manhattan comes in, you know, ends up being a black man. You said, oh, all right, you know, which is one thing about,
01:18:36
Speaker
this whole thing. And I know there's a lot of people that didn't like Watchmen because they felt it violated too much of what had been established. But I think that's all it's asking you to do is just saying, well, you know, so if you keep an open mind and look at it this way, you'll say, OK, well, you know what? Yeah, it could have happened like that. Yeah, it could be like it really doesn't violate anything that we've seen before.
01:19:02
Speaker
No, it doesn't. It actually fits together very nicely because the whole thing about, we find out that Will was hooded justice, everyone's like, oh, that's not possible. I'm 100% confident that Alan Moore did not intend for hooded justice to be a black guy. I'm 100% confident on that, but it works.
01:19:23
Speaker
Right? Because the whole thing about hooded justice identity is it was never revealed in the book. Hollis Mason suspected it was this guy, but he had no proof. There was nothing rying him to that at all. Right. And it also would explain because I believe in the comic book that they had said that they, uh,
01:19:42
Speaker
They speculated that the reason why, because him and Silk, he was very good friends with the original Silk Spectre, but they never had a romantic relationship. And it was speculated that it was because he was gay. That's why they never had a romantic relationship, which is picked up on here.
Character Dynamics in Watchmen: Laurie and Angela
01:20:01
Speaker
And when you look at it, you say, okay.
01:20:03
Speaker
Now, in light of what I see in this series, I go back to the comic book and the movie and look, okay, it could have been that way. Yeah, they do a really good job of integrating these new ideas into the lore. And so, one of the things she does is, because Will has said, I'm your grandfather, she takes some of his DNA to the Heritage Center and she finds out that, yeah, he really is her grandfather.
01:20:34
Speaker
And then, and he had mentioned that, you know, Judd had skeletons in his closet. So she goes into, she sneaks up into his place at the wake and she finds out that he had a KKK outfit with the sheriff's badge on it. She does that whole thing where she fakes that, you know, she faints. Yeah. And she pretends to be sick. And then, uh, Judd's wife takes her up to the bedroom, you know, so I, which is actually kind of smart. So she doesn't have to sneak in. Right.
01:21:04
Speaker
And then she has that meeting with King. She's talking to him.
01:21:10
Speaker
It's in that scene where I think he, to me, he let slip that he knows that, you know, her costume identity as Sister Knight. Right. Because, you know, he's not supposed to know it, but he kind of like lets it slip that he does know. Mm-hmm. And so she finds the Ku Klux Klan outfit, and she goes back to Will to take him to arrest him, because Will said that he killed the sheriff, which, you know, he's in a wheelchair, and you don't think that's possible.
01:21:36
Speaker
So it really creates this, and that's why he says in the interrogation scene, well, I'm Dr. Manhattan and all that kind of stuff. But then, when she's about to take him in, the car just, you know, something clamps down in the car and just pulls it up into the sky and it's gone.
01:21:58
Speaker
And she just standing there with like, what just happened? Look on her face, you know? It's like a magnetic clamp just comes and just pulls the car up. And it's like, holy shit, what happened? And then we go back to the episode ends, going back to V8 in the strange manner. And this is one of the hints that, well, is he V8? Is he Dr. Manhattan? Because he wrote this play called The Watchmaker's Son, performed by Phillips and Crookshanks, his two servants.
01:22:27
Speaker
And it's all about John Osterman's transformation into Dr. Manhattan. So that's what made me think that he was Dr. Manhattan. Because why else would he be putting on a plate about Dr. Manhattan? Unless the Manhattan. Yeah, that was one of the things that tripped me up to him. Like, well, is he really Adrian Veidt? Or is he Veidt that? Is this just misdirection? Like, I wasn't sure what to think of it. But you know what? I just got to say, Jeremy Irons is so amazing in these scenes. Like, they're so disconnected from everything else that's happening in the show.
01:22:56
Speaker
But he is just incredible to watch in these scenes. He is just so much fun. Jeremy Irons is so integrated into this. It's like he's been part of the thing all along. That is how good, but then again, he's Jeremy Irons. I mean, a large part of, we've spoken about this before, we'll be saying that a large part of the success of superhero movies and now TV shows, I suppose.
01:23:24
Speaker
is the casting and the casting in this movie is, you know, it's a macula. I mean, well, I mean, Jean Smart.
01:23:34
Speaker
Oh, I have nothing, you know, this is a woman that started out, you know, she was doing like the light comedies and everything like that. You know, who would have suspected she was this good a dramatic act? Oh, my God. And that's actually a perfect transition into the last episode we're going to talk about today. She was killed by Space Junk, which I love that title. I love I love all the titles.
01:23:56
Speaker
yeah i do too but that is one of my favorites although i think my favorite title is a god walks into a bar because i love to play on it but this one is all this is a really good one too you had to play on words a bar yeah yeah now this one is great because this is the
01:24:13
Speaker
Because we've seen Adrienne Vite through all this. But this episode, the third episode, brings in Jean Smart as Laurie Blake. And this is a full integration of one of the characters from the comic into the show. And I like that they waited to do that. That they gave...
01:24:32
Speaker
some time for people to kind of get to know Angela and Judd and Looking Glass and Cal and all these other characters. And then they bring in the veteran characters from the comic. We have time to get integrated into, as you say, this new world that we've been putting characters in. If we had just started out with Laurie Blake, I would have said, OK, well, I would have thrown up my hand and said, OK, well, I see what they're doing. You know, they're just playing on.
01:25:01
Speaker
old characters everything like that but they waited and took their time yeah before they brought her in and they use her in such a great way like she is more well done in this series than she was in the comic book because in the comic i always felt like she was kind of underwritten she didn't get the same amount of
01:25:21
Speaker
character development that the male characters got. But in this, that's one of the things too. That's a nice little twist on it, right? So the original, it was all focused on these middle-aged white men. This show, the focus is on a middle-aged black woman and an old white woman who had no development. So in this show, the women are taking the lead. True.
01:25:45
Speaker
And I really like the way they did that. And they did some, there's some really cool things with, so the first time we see Lori, she's, it seems like she's robbing a bank. And then this guy breaks in, a costume vigilante, who's very much like the Chris Nolan Batman, right?
01:26:04
Speaker
even down to the raspy voice and everything. And then she tells him like, yeah, um, yeah, well, you know, we're not actually robbing this bank. This is a sting operation. And so you find out that she's now like kind of like a vigilante hunter for the FBI. Apparently there are still costume vigilantes that are running around, but it's her
01:26:30
Speaker
since since she knows how they think presumably because she once was one herself and her mother was one and she used to hang out with them you know this is what she does she goes out and she and she uh rounds up costume vigilantes yeah and
01:26:47
Speaker
They do such a good job with her. One of the things is that she's now called Lori Blake, not Lori Jupiter, but Lori Blake, which was the comedian's last name. Also, in the PDF files, they mentioned that she had also been
01:27:09
Speaker
She had changed her costume identity after the events of the movie, because her and Night Owl, they still operated as costume vigilantes. But they end up getting arrested, and there's more about that in the next episode.
01:27:25
Speaker
they get arrested and when they get arrested, she was calling herself the comedian. Right. Yeah. Right. Just different spelling of that. So she had changed her, she had changed her name. So she had kind of come to this, she had kind of come to terms with the fact that, uh, Edward Blake was her father. Cause apparently Dan Greenberg, he's still in jail. Yeah. You know, they never come out stated, but there's enough hints. Like she has an owl as a pet.
01:27:50
Speaker
And as we saw in the first episode, the police department is using Dan's owlship technology that they've appropriated, apparently, to make their own airships. Yeah, and in fact, there's that line when Keen comes to visit her, and she's got a pet owl in a cage.
01:28:12
Speaker
Yeah. He says, well, if you help me out, maybe I can help you get your owl out of the cage, meaning Dan Drieberg, who's still in prison. Right, exactly. They decide to send the FBI anti-vigilante task force to Tulsa to investigate what's happening there.
01:28:33
Speaker
Um, Lori refuses the idea of like a whole team going down there and she says, no, it should just be me. So they don't want her going alone. So they send agent PD with her who's, um, who's this really interesting, like background character who he's, you know, he says like, you know, I'm not some sort of, I'm not some sort of fan. I, you know, I, I studied this stuff academically, but you find out that he also is kind of a fan too. Yeah. Because you know why? Because the,
01:28:59
Speaker
You know, because they're riding down there, you know, they're flying down there. And he says to her that he brought a mask. A little off of him. And she goes like, you stupid sack of shit. What do you mean you brought a mask? You know? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. He is a little bit more than a fan. So she goes into Tulsa, and she starts talking with the cops there.
01:29:24
Speaker
And there's another reference here to Cal being Dr. Manhattan, because when she talks to Angela, she says, you know, I thought maybe you were sleeping with Judd, but then I realized it wouldn't be because I saw your husband who's really hot. So that's another kind of like little subtle reference to the fact that he is Dr. Manhattan, because she used to be married to Dr. Manhattan. Right. And apparently, as we find out, she still has a thing for him, because later on, we see she opens up that suitcase. Remember?
01:29:54
Speaker
And what does she have right now? Yeah. And it's got, there's a, it's a giant blue vibrator. Oh, okay. And Patricia said, well, why, so why does she have that? I said, don't you remember the movie? And then she said, Oh,
01:30:15
Speaker
She said, oh, OK. She said, but it didn't look that big in the movie. I said, yeah, honey, I know. Well, you know what? The man can't change his size. Remember, temperature's down. Oh, OK. You know, later on, when Abdul Matin plays Dr. Manhattan, and there's that shot of him naked,
01:30:42
Speaker
Kevin Smith was watching, he said that he was watching the show with his wife. And his wife was like, is that his real dick? Or is that just like, see, is that fake? Cause that is, he's like, Kevin's just like, no, it's completely fake. It's completely fake.
01:30:58
Speaker
And know what? Women talk about men. Patricia said, I wonder, is that special effect? Patricia said the same thing, too. She said, is that CGI? Is that special? I said, yeah. I said, yeah, honey, it's all CGI. Everything is CGI. It's all CGI. Well, in the movie, it actually in the movie, it actually was CGI. So, yeah, that's not actually Billy Crud up swinging pipe up there.
01:31:22
Speaker
Which you know what, I feel sorry for the guy who had to animate Dr. Manhattan's giant dick in that movie. Yeah, going to work every day must have been like, damn. What are you going to do today in work, honey? Don't ask. Now, apparently, the
01:31:46
Speaker
But this is something in the background. So the vibrator was actually made for her by Dan Drieberg. And it was actually kind of like a fuck you party gift. It was like him being petty and kind of saying, well, you still can't get over Dr. Manhattan. So that was kind of like how they ended terms with him giving this kind of like fuck you gift. OK.
01:32:07
Speaker
Which is an interesting twist, because at first I was wondering where that came from, but apparently in the PDF files, you find out that it was actually his final fuck you to her, because he still felt she was comparing him to Dr. Manhattan. And she also does this thing where her scenes are intercut with...
01:32:31
Speaker
her at the Dr. Manhattan booths. Because one of the things they do is they have these booths that Lady True, you later find out is set up, where people can leave messages for Dr. Manhattan, who everybody thinks is on Mars.
01:32:45
Speaker
And so she goes and she tells him these jokes. And she tells him these jokes about these three heroes who meet God. And the first one is Adrian Veidt. He says, you know, he's like, I'm the smartest man in the world. And God says to him, well, what did you do with all this intelligence? And he says, oh, well, I...
01:33:05
Speaker
You know, I saved humanity. And he's like, how'd you do that? He's like, I killed, you know, X number of people. And he's horrified. And he says, you've got all this blood on your hands. And he sends him to hell.
01:33:17
Speaker
And then he asked Naidow, you know, I gave you this great intellect, what have you done with it? And he's like, oh, well, you know, I became a superhero and I, I defended people. And he's like, okay, how many people would you kill? He's like, well, I didn't kill anyone. And then he said, he's like, you didn't do enough. And he sent him to hell. And then Dr. Manhattan comes in and says, um, he was basically a god himself.
01:33:39
Speaker
And he says, well, how many people did you kill? And he's like, well, it doesn't matter because a living person and a dead person have the same number of particles. There's no difference between them, which is Dr. Manhattan's line from the comic book. Right. And then God says, and then God sends him to hell. And then, because she first starts with another joke about a bricklayer.
01:34:01
Speaker
And there's this extra brick after he teaches his daughter how to make something. And then she says, oh, wait. And then she throws the brick in the air. And then she stops that joke. It's like, oh, wait, no, no. That's a stupid joke. And then she tells this other joke about the three heroes. And then she ends the joke by saying, and then this girl comes. And God asks, who are you? And she says, I'm the one who threw the brick.
01:34:23
Speaker
And then the brick from the previous joke crashes down and kills God. So I just like, I'm not really sure what the meaning of that joke is. Like, I didn't quite fully get. What were your thoughts on that? The fact that her father called himself the comedian was very ironic because he wasn't funny. He wasn't a funny guy. No, not at all. That's the whole thing. And she, you know, she's the daughter of the comedian who tells jokes that are not funny.
01:34:51
Speaker
They're just like these ironic little parables that are more about her thoughts on life than anything. They're really not meant to be funny. They're just the way that she sees life now. At this point when we see her, she's become very hard. She's become very cynical.
01:35:13
Speaker
She's become, she doesn't believe in anything anymore. Quite frankly, she doesn't believe in anything. And we have to wonder why she does what she does. Because this is a woman that has been let down by life and all she's left with is going to these booths. Something that they really don't expand upon, but I was like thinking like maybe there's like this whole cult of religion that sprung up around
01:35:42
Speaker
people who actually worship Dr. Manhattan, but he's a god that they know will actually hear them and that's why they go in these booths to talk to him. Yeah, that was the impression I got as well. Yeah, that is a whole religion, a cult that sprung up around the notion of Dr. Manhattan because these people in this universe, they know he's there.
01:36:05
Speaker
Yeah, they know he's there and they believe that she did. And I and I believe that Laurie, that that's the one thing that she's holding on to in her life, that Dr. Manhattan is actually listening to her.
01:36:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's both kind of sad and sweet at the same time, right? Because there's that part where she says, you know, I don't know why people use these booths. You know, you never gave a shit anyway. You never could take a joke. And then and she's like, I know everybody thinks you're listening, but I know you're really not. And then she hangs up and she walks out and then the car crashes down in front of her and she starts laughing because she thinks, you know, there's this and you get this sense. Was that Dr. Manhattan? Like, is that his way of saying like, fuck you? Yes, I am listening.
01:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. That's why she starts laughing because she said, oh, shit, the joke for real. You know, you know, maybe he is listening. You know, he is listening to me, which is when I think that she has a turning point and she actually starts giving a shit again.
01:37:08
Speaker
Yeah. Because literally, this is the sign from God. Right, right. Also, there's, I gotta talk about the chemistry between her and Regina King, because that scene when they're together in the tomb, and- Oh my God.
01:37:23
Speaker
I mean and then that scene when Laurie's being really badass and really convincingly badass too when she says you know I eat heroes for breakfast right like you you believe her when she says that line and Then it cuts to Regina King who's just kind of like stoic and then she's like who am I supposed to be scared? It's the point where I get scared now
01:37:51
Speaker
I mean, yeah, just watching the two of them. You know what? I could have watched a whole hour of them just in that scene, back and forth. That's how good they are. Oh, man. It's just marvelous acting all around.
01:38:06
Speaker
If there is any failing about this show, it's that they do not have more scenes together. Yeah, yeah. I thought after this episode, we would be seeing more of them interacting. But we really don't. They don't have a whole lot of interactions. Their stories kind of diverge from this point in a little bit. And you know, you watch them, and even though this is a superhero show, we're not watching Sister Night and
01:38:36
Speaker
the exil specter. We're watching Lori and Angela. Exactly. Yeah. You know, that's who it is. Well, you know, we're watching these two women who both wear costumes and what, you know, I mean, you know, they're both more costumes and they've called superheroes and everything like that at different points in their lives for different reasons. The similarities between them are just as much as the differences. Yeah.
01:39:02
Speaker
You know, even though that even though they've done the same thing, you know, they both put on costumes and they went out for whatever reason, because even though this doesn't get into the psychology of people putting on costumes the way that the comic book and the movie did. I think that it does. Tried to underline the whole thing, the whole notion of putting on a mask frees you.
01:39:30
Speaker
to be who you really are. And when you don't wear that costume, when you don't wear that mask, then who are you? Yeah. And you definitely feel that with Lori, because especially, even though she's part of this anti-vigilante task force, like she's got all these things that's, and even though in the comic, you know, she
01:39:51
Speaker
Resented having been a superhero at one point like you see that she's kind of got a bit of nostalgia for that time in her life because She does have the like The painting in in her apartment which is of the Yeah, Dr. Manhattan as Amanda's night owl and silk specter and she's got that hanging up in the background and you know, she's got the
01:40:17
Speaker
dr manhattan vibrator so there is this kind of longing in a way for that kind of for that past and yet there is this kind of sense that you know she changed her identities in more ways than once each week she went from being the silk specter the comedian she uh... change her name from
01:40:36
Speaker
And it's funny because in the comic book, the whole reason she goes by Jespekowitz is because her mom took on the name Jupiter because she was trying to hide the fact that she was Polish. Jupiter, yeah. Right, exactly. And she resented that. Matter of fact, Laurie has spent a lot of her life resenting one thing or another. And this seems like a way of, and this seems like her trying to come to terms with that because
01:41:04
Speaker
That's why she takes on her father's name, both when she becomes the comedian in the background of this, of this show. And also when she starts going by, takes his last name, right? So there's these interesting little ways to work with her character in very subtle ways too, but that says so much about what they're doing with her. Yeah. The characterization of Lori in this show is very subtle.
01:41:29
Speaker
which i appreciate because in the movie and in the comic she was a subtle character like you said this tv show brings her to the forefront in a way she never enjoyed before but
01:41:42
Speaker
It's still subtle. There were things that I mean, you know, you pick up on and she just drives the story forward in ways that I didn't think that she would because I because all along I was wondering, well, at some point or another, is she going to put the costume back
Authenticity and Collectibility in Watchmen
01:41:58
Speaker
on? And I was glad she didn't. Yeah, same here because that that would have been such a step back for what they were doing with her. And yeah, because that's not right. Exactly. That that would have been a step back because that's not who she is now.
01:42:10
Speaker
So and then we also this is also the episode when they fully reveal that fight that Jeremy Irons is playing Adrian Veidt because he's which you know, everybody kind of knew going into it, but this was when it first is made obvious and
01:42:26
Speaker
He even wears the costume, right? He wears the Ozymandias costume, which I was not expecting them to do that. He looked pretty good in the costume. I think this is probably the moment when, if people didn't quite get the hint with the squids falling, I think this is probably the moment when people would realize, okay, this is definitely a sequel to the comic.
01:42:48
Speaker
and not the movie because in the movie, you remember his costume was completely different. It was very much like a Joel Schumacher-esque Batman and Robin style rubber suit. Whereas this, it's full on the Dave Gibbons costume from the comic. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, this is faithful. Like you said, the one that's in the movie was more superhero-y. You know, it was something you would see that was in a superhero movie. No, this is, yeah.
01:43:15
Speaker
actually the costume from the, you know, from the comic book. Yeah, definitely. And it is amazing how well there would make it look while still being extremely faithful. Like, I was not expecting, if you told me that Adrian Vite, Jeremy Irons is gonna put on the Ozymandias costume and it's gonna look exactly like it did in the comics, I would have said that's gonna look ridiculous, but it does totally work in this scene. As a matter of fact, he looks more like the Ozymandias from the comic book than the...
01:43:58
Speaker
We did.
01:44:00
Speaker
as effeminate as possible in that movie. But here, I mean, Jeremy Irons, you know, he's a, he's a strapping guy, even at his age, and he's, yeah, yeah, and he fills out that costume very well. And you can easily believe that, if, in fact, if you use that CGI technology where they DH someone, and, and I'm not sure if Jeremy Irons had blonde hair or not, but you give him blonde hair, he would look just like Ozymandias in the comic books.
01:44:26
Speaker
I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. As a matter of fact, you know, so that's something that I was waiting for them to do, do the same thing and maybe have a like a flashback scene.
01:44:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm of him and do the de-aging thing. I was waiting on that actually. Yeah Yeah, I think they did it to a small extent when they played that the video message that fight gave Robert Redford Because that's you know, it's like in 94 or something like that. So that's a little bit there but not but not as much as if like it was made in the 80s or something like that and
01:45:01
Speaker
Well, you know what? I don't know to look for that when I get up because all I did since we were going to be discussing the first three episodes, that's all I watched yesterday. And I was, you know, I said, okay, well, I want to, you know what? I was tempted to keep on watching because you know what? I got caught up in the thing to the point where I think I was like, I think I was at like an episode.
01:45:22
Speaker
And I was beginning to take notes because I then got caught up in the story all over gas. Oh shit. I'm slowly watching this critically. You know, it's like a job. But no, I was, you know. Yeah, I was the same way, too, because this, you know, OK, so most TV shows I don't buy. I don't usually buy TV shows as a rule. Like I wait for them to come to Netflix or but but there are very few TV shows that I feel like I have to own just because it's a
01:45:52
Speaker
It's like so many of them are available on streaming. I could just easily watch them through Netflix or Hulu or whatnot. This is a show that I felt like I should buy. So I did. I went and I bought it on iTunes. So I bought the whole series on iTunes and HD. And because this is a show that I can see myself rewatching like every year or something like that. I could name TU on the fingers of one handed TV shows that I have bought. I have
01:46:20
Speaker
have no will travel because that's my favorite Western. I have Nash bridges because that's my favorite TV cop show. I've got a secret agent man. I'm like you. I don't be buying big sets of TV series, but I'm going to buy this one because as far as we know,
01:46:41
Speaker
Right now, even though there are little hints and everything like that, right now, this is going to be the only series of watchmen that we get. I want to get all the extras and everything like that. You know, along with it. So yeah, so I can see myself buying this one.
01:46:58
Speaker
Yeah. And they're only a handful I own. Like, I've got Cowboy Bebop, I've got... Yeah, I got that one too. Yeah, I got Cowboy Bebop. The short-lived Clerks TV show, I've got Firefly, and that's about it. Everything else. And now Watchmen. But most TV shows, I did at one point, I had...
01:47:21
Speaker
Uh, oh, what was it? Uh, the whole, I had all the seasons of Buffy and Angel, but I don't know what happened to my discs with that. So, but that was also back when it was still like DVD stuff. Oh, okay. But yeah, other than that, like if I were, if I was going to go back now, I would probably not buy those shows again. Cause I could just watch them on Hulu now. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, like,
01:47:44
Speaker
TV shows are so available now to watch. There's so many platforms. I don't really see the need. And the reason, the only reason I bought like, you know, I said, I have, you know, I have gone with travel, you know, I bought that for the nostalgia value more than anything else. And, uh,
01:48:02
Speaker
I got Nash bridges. Like I said, that's my favorite cop show. And I'm supposed to be doing a project with another podcast. And we're supposed to be doing that series. But yeah, but I'm not big into buying. I'm not big into buying TV series. I buy movies that drop a bag, but not TV series. But yeah, Watchman, I think I'm going to buy this one too.
01:48:26
Speaker
because it makes a nice, you know what, because it makes a nice companion piece. I mean, with the movie, it does. Yeah, yeah. OK, is there anything else we want to talk about for these three episodes? Anything else you want to touch on?
01:48:45
Speaker
There was some, there was something that came to my mind, but now it's escaped me. I'll make a note of it. Cause I probably think about it at two o'clock in the morning. And when we come back for the second part, I'm going to open with that. Cause it was something about Don Johnson. I think I wondered, Oh, I wanted it. Yeah.
Watchmen's Dense Storytelling and Pandemic Impact
01:49:04
Speaker
The whole thing with him doing the cocaine that was in the bathroom, you think that was because cocaine is legal in this universe? It was a strange little part where he just goes and he does it so nonchalantly. Like he doesn't try to hide it or anything like that? Yeah. Well, you know what? I think that makes sense because
01:49:31
Speaker
The whole War on Drugs thing was really a Reagan-era policy, right? So, yeah, it makes sense that if you get President Robert Redford, that you're gonna have a change in the way some of the things, and it seems like there were a lot of
01:49:50
Speaker
Society evolved in different ways here. Like they, you know, they didn't have as much technology, but they're more, they're a more progressive society, like with the reparation. So it does make sense that there probably would have been some degree of drug decriminalization as well. Cause when, cause he also says, you know, like he did a little cocaine, but that was it as if it's nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? That caught my attention. Cause like you said,
01:50:19
Speaker
As far as the world building goes, it's so many little things that are thrown in there. And even like I said, when I was watching it, yes, there was all these little subtle things that I was picking up that I hadn't caught before when I watched it before. And I was just wondering, well, why did they throw it in? Were they trying to make a statement or was it just something that or what are they trying to say? And just like you said, she said it's so nonchalantly like I'm saying, well, damn, you know, he's a cop, you know, you know, OK.
01:50:48
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. I think that about covers everything for these first three episodes. This show, it's just flat out amazing. Watching it again, watching these first three episodes again after scene, I still felt like as invested in it and as on the edge of my seat as I was when I watched them the first time.
01:51:16
Speaker
The only reason why we don't, because you know something? We could come back next week and we could still do another two hours just on these three episodes alone, really. That's how much is in it. Yeah, absolutely, definitely. Believe me folks, we didn't even cover half.
01:51:33
Speaker
as much as we covered in these two hours, still didn't cover half of what's in these episodes, the meat and potatoes of everything that's in these episodes. You have to watch it for yourself if you haven't seen it already. And I'm sorry for the spoilers because I know there's going to be somebody out there that's going to be saying, well, I don't have HBO in there. Well, you know, listen.
01:51:57
Speaker
Don't get me started. It's on iTunes, so you can go to iTunes, you can buy the whole series right now. And it was like 20 bucks when I bought it, I think. So yeah, you can go to iTunes, you can buy it, and it's well worth the price because it's such a good series.
01:52:14
Speaker
But you just know that there's going to be somebody that's going to listen to this and they're going to say, well, I just want to hear what you guys thought about it. Yeah, but you haven't seen it yet. So how would you know what we're talking about anyway? Well, you know, I mean, a show like Watchmen, you cannot.
01:52:30
Speaker
You cannot do a spoiler-free review of these episodes. You just can't. There's no way we could cover it. We could do a general overview. When we talked about the Watchmen movie, we did some general comments about the TV show then as it was still in progress. But you know what? There's so much that happens in each episode. You think of a normal TV show
01:52:55
Speaker
you know, 22 episodes or even like a streaming show that's like 10 to 13 episodes. Like there's padding in those shows. Like we talked about with the Marvel Netflix shows, the middle episodes feel very soggy. Cause there's just like a lot of navel gazing in those episodes. Like a lot of padding out. But Watchmen, so much happens in these nine episodes. And this actually reminds me a lot of, believe it or not,
01:53:24
Speaker
Twin Peaks. Yeah, I didn't yeah, I that thought and never occurred to me, but you are absolutely right It is very it's got a very Twin Peaks feel to it and not only that but Twin Peaks was what that was what like How many episodes was that that was like 10 or 12? Yeah, the first season was only like 10 or 12 episodes and then the second season I think was like 22 Oh the last three, oh, I didn't see the new one. Okay, that's what I'm talking about the new one. Okay, because the last one is
01:53:53
Speaker
was what like, OK, let's say for the purposes of this argument that it was 12 parts, it was 12 parts, but it actually. The 12 single episodes, it was actually a 12 hour movie shown in individual segments. The feeling that I got from watching this TV series, that it was more like a nine hour movie. Told in one hour minutes, if that makes any sense.
01:54:23
Speaker
Oh, so look, it's like, it was actually like 18 episodes. Oh, 18, okay, well, okay, well then, 18 hour movie. Yeah. Told an hour long save us. That's what it felt like to me. Felt like I was watching a nine hour movie told in one hour segments. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay, so we've also got a little bit of an announcement about the show. So because of the,
01:54:51
Speaker
We do? Yeah, well, we talked about this at the beginning. You know what I'm talking about when I get to it. So well, first off, two things. Oh! Well, two things. First off, I have been doing these news segments about superhero movie and TV news. And I've been doing those every week.
01:55:07
Speaker
15, 20 minutes, however long it takes to get through all the superhero related news for that week. But, you know, this coronavirus, it's been shutting down production of so much stuff, like Black Widow's release is- Left and right, man. Left and right, yeah. The Arrowverse shows have stopped production. The Batman has stopped production. Shang-Chi has stopped production. All these movies that were currently being made, they've stopped filming.
01:55:33
Speaker
So there's not really a lot of news to talk about. So I'm actually going to be going to be putting a stop to those segments for the time being. And then when everything goes back to normal or whatever the new normal ends up being, we'll see.
01:55:48
Speaker
works out then maybe I'll go back to them but but instead what we are gonna be doing is you know Derek and I talked and because I'm not really working that much right now and he works from home anyway weird and plus he's in New York where they've got everything locked down anyway we've been talking that for the time being we're gonna be doing weekly episodes of the show
01:56:11
Speaker
So we're going to be doing it weekly. Hopefully for everybody that's stuck at home, if you've been enjoying this, you're going to be getting even more of what we do best. So hopefully enjoy it and we will all get through this
01:56:32
Speaker
whatever it is and like perry said you know when we get back to the new normal we're gonna be doing our part to try to help you. Help us as well cuz you know this is just as much as much therapy for us.
01:56:49
Speaker
to help get us through this for us as it is for you. You know, because this is a tough time and God only where we're going to be. You know, me and Perry were talking about this earlier on. God only knows where this country is going to be in a couple of months from now. Me, I'm optimistic. I always believe in faith over fear. So I'm just going to pray that, you know, we'll all be OK and we're going to come out of it. And in the meantime, you know, we're just going to keep doing what we do.
01:57:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it sounds good. Okay, so head on over to SuperheroCinephiles.com. Go to SuperheroCinephiles Facebook group, join in the discussion there, talk about the show. I actually just posted a link to the PD-PD stuff so you can read some of the background and supplemental material for the series. And then, yeah, next week, we're gonna be back talking about the next three episodes. So we're gonna be talking about episodes four to six, which
01:57:47
Speaker
in that batch has one of my favorite episodes, which is the background of Will as Hooded Justice. Spectacular episode. Yeah. I can't wait to get to that one. See, that's why I had to stop watching it. Yes, because if I kept on, yeah, I would have watched the whole thing all over again. No problem at all. Because episode four is the Looking Glass episode. But if episode four had been the Will episode, I probably would have just kept on watching.
01:58:18
Speaker
And it's not because I didn't like the Looking Glass episode, but I said, OK, well, I can stop here now. And we're going to see. But I like the Looking Glass episode, because you were talking earlier on about the parallels between him and Rorschach. And I was glad to see that his origin, that Looking Glass origin, wasn't what I thought it was going to be, because I thought it was going to be similar.
01:58:48
Speaker
you know, the Rorschach's origin, and I'm delighted that it didn't turn out that way. Yeah, same. And, you know, I like the Looking Glass episode. Don't get me wrong, but there's not as much of a need to watch it as there would have been if the next episode had been the Will episode. Well, the Hooded Justice episode, to me, that's like the pivotal, you know, that's the one that really stands everything on its head. Yeah. So, yeah, these next three episodes are going to be really interesting.
01:59:20
Speaker
Go ahead. No, no, no, I was going to say that everything that you thought that you knew, and you always hear that. You always hear that. Well, this episode is going to change everything that you know, or this issue changes everything forever. Well, that episode truly does change everything forever, which is why I love it so much. Yeah. Yeah, that episode is just,
01:59:49
Speaker
And these next three episodes in general, they go very deep into the lore of the comic book. So like they really, they did such a good job of setting this up, right? Because they did these first three episodes where it introduces the character and it kind of light in light ways, it connects it to the original. The next three episodes dive really deep into the connections with the original. And then the last three episodes are like the big finale.
02:00:17
Speaker
Right. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, not to say, yeah, that's a good structure. It's like the first three episodes are the beginning, the second three episodes are the middle and the final three episodes are the end. It is. Yeah, it is really like a trilogy, like a movie trilogy when you think of it that way. Yeah. Wow. Cool. Yeah.
02:00:45
Speaker
No, something new. Every time I talk to you, I learn something new. So head on over to SuperheroCinephiles.com, join the Facebook group, join in with discussion, talk about the series. And if you haven't seen it yet, then go to iTunes right now and buy it. Because if you are a fan of Watchmen, especially if you are a fan who was disappointed in the movie like I was, then you owe it to yourself to buy this series.
02:01:14
Speaker
It is such an amazing follow up to the book. Absolutely. No argument here. All right. So that does it for us. And we will be back next week with episodes four to six of Watchmen. OK. Looking forward to it. This is Derek Ferguson in Brooklyn. And I'm Perry Constantine in Kagoshima. And we will talk to you guys next week.
02:01:50
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superherocinephiles at gmail.com. Or you can also visit us on the web at superherocinephiles.com. If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners.
02:02:06
Speaker
Goodnight and God bless.
02:02:17
Speaker
You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of Pheasantlionstudios.com.