HBO’s Watchmen was audacious, imperfect, astounding and way better than the movie

HBO

A decade ago, when the Zack Snyder directed version of Watchmen was released, I read an interview with him that he felt a responsibility to direct the movie because other people would’ve crumbled to studio pressure and made it worse. Now, even then I had different hopes for such an adaptation, like Darren Aronofsky, who was attached at one point. That would’ve been the best at the time, I think. Were there worse choices too? Sure, the director potential list includes people like Michael Bay, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, and Paul Greengrass.

There was no way, I thought, to turn the sprawling, comics-oriented graphic novel into a movie that was great without significant compromises. Even Aronofsky likely would’ve gone weird in ways audience might not have found palatable. But although there are many potential readings of Watchmen, not all of which Alan Moore agrees with, enough time has passed that I would say Zack Snyder’s version was completely wrong.

I could write pages on every scene and every character, but basically other than the opening credits, nothing worked in retrospect about Watchmen the movie, and I was a mild defender for a while. But I think that was because I still had in my mind that mythical theoretical ‘even worse version’. There are nihilistic themes expressed in the novel, but it’s primarily a satirical, deconstructionist take on superheroes up until that point, and the political context of the time. Alan Moore expressed his position that it was meant as ‘anti-Reaganism, but not anti-Americanism’, and was similarly anti-Thatcher in his work V for Vendetta.

But people put a lot of their own biases on the characters, and so you get people cheering for Rorschach, a psychological broken morality crusader with a moral code that cannot be broken, even when perhaps it should, and bigoted and sexist thoughts expressed in his journal. But he dies because he thinks that the murder of millions cannot be simply accepted, even if it might lead to world peace and the prevention of nuclear war. It’s a question that is not really answered definitively.

But the ‘heroes’ in the comic are all broken people, in different ways, and the ending leaves a question intentionally ambiguous: ‘I leave it in your hands.’ So you could foresee many possible futures, but one that does at least feel right is HBO’s version of Watchmen by Damon Lindelof, of Lost and redeemed by The Leftovers.

HBO

The show considers that deconstruction and moves it into the modern era, but cleverly continues in a world as if the novel (and definitively not the movie) had happened. One of the very clever changes was the mystery of Hooded Justice, an identity never fully resolved in the books, here subverted to be Will Reeves, a black policeman in the early part of the 20th century victimized and disillusioned by the systemic and targeted racism of the era. To resolve possible conflicts, since Hooded Justice was only visible by his eyes in the comic, which appeared white, Will paints his eyes a white shade.

This is itself a reversal of the darkened eyes of many heroes like Batman, which was itself satirized in the highly problematic if enjoyable film Kick-Ass. Here we get the excellent episode ‘This Extraordinary Being’ that stands as one of the better television outings in years, playing with memory and the story to build on the foundation of the graphic novel and recontextualize in a way that feels completely honest to the modern era.

Will Reeves (Louis Gosset Jr.) is a new character and old, but his granddaughter Angela Abar is the primary protagonist of the show, pulled off perfectly by Regina King. The show starts in medias res, refusing to explain anything, but slowly everything (for the most part) is explained in satisfying ways. Where is Adrian Veidt (a hilarious Jeremy Irons) and what is he doing? He’s trying to escape a prison that he asked to go to. Who is Lube Man? According to online supplementary materials, he’s Laurie Blake’s (Jean Smart, always great) sidekick Petey.

The second huge reveal was that Dr. Manhattan was secretly Cal (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), Angela’s husband the whole time. This backstory was elegantly shown in the episode cheekily titled ‘A God Walks Into Abar’, which while it couldn’t match the overlaid nature of the graphic novel to express the confusing nature of Jon’s perception, was still a very well done take on the weirdness of how Jon exists in all times at once. As per usual, the dude is all heart, no head.

Some of the last minute reveals, like Lady Trieu (Hong Chau) being Veidt’s daughter or that the Warden on Europa was just another Mr. Philips clone, played also by Tom Mison, were more of the ‘Yeah, that makes sense but it doesn’t change that much’ variety. He and Sara Vickers, who played the female clone Ms. Crookshanks, had some of the most difficult and yet most successful acting performances in the show, simply because they had to play so many copies differently all at once. Not as showy as Jeremy Irons or ethereal as Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, but effective nonetheless.

Sometimes the show could be a bit cheesy, even as it poked fun at itself, often with Joe Keene Jr’s (James Wolk) speechifying to his audiences. The show began very unusually, with a bunch of cops secretly dressed as heroes, including a Russian ‘Red Scare’ and a panda. That stuff didn’t really factor into the final half of the season, which became more about the meta-narrative and Angela’s journey.

HBO

One of the things Damon Lindelof said in interviews was that he wished he had more time to get into Lady Trieu’s backstory and her rise to wealth and success as the smartest woman in the world, but for the most part things were paced very well. The final moments, set up earlier in painstaking fashion, of whether or not Angela might have Jon’s superpowers, almost didn’t need the flashback to explain it. I mean, as someone who’s pored over the show, I didn’t need it, but it was elegantly done enough not to annoy someone who didn’t need the help.

So Angela Abar might have superpowers, and a lifetime of hardship and complication to build off of. We have potential other hanging threads, like Veidt’s potential arrest and the reveal of his secret to the world, or what happened to Panda or the Red Scare, or even what might happen with the remainder of the Seventh Kavalry. But even if there isn’t a second season, this feels self-contained and complete enough that we don’t need it.

Lindelof has said that he doesn’t have any ideas for a second season, but he’d be delighted if someone else tried and after all, he’d be a hypocrite to get annoyed at the attempt. I don’t know if Alan Moore really cursed Lindelof, but if he did, maybe it was that classic curse to get one thing right and know you can never improve. Or maybe not, you never know.

I can’t really recommend this show to everyone, but if you at least read a Wikipedia summary of the novel (or if you must, see the movie and ignore the ending), that’s probably enough to understand what’s happening. One of the best shows of the year.

What did you think of Watchmen? Sound off in the comments below!