Hey guys, Pete here. this is my watchman season 1 episode 2 recap and review the
episode is titled "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship"which is the name
of a painting we see later in chief Crawford's house. It was directed by Nicole
Kassell who helmed the pilot episode as well and written by Damon Lindelof and
Nick Cuse. it asks a lot more questions than it answers which is alright by me at
this point. the recap portion will contain spoilers for everything that's
happened in the Watchmen universe through episode 2 of the HBO series
after that I'll dig into speculation about where things might be headed I'll
talk about trailers and different things that we've seen so consider yourself
warned. the episode opens with a series of
flashbacks. we see the German propaganda pamphlet that Will Reeves ends up
holding under chief Crawford's hanging body and how it came to be there. if you
missed this Easter egg from episode one it's a real pamphlet that the Germans
dropped to lower the morale of troops during World War I and it was the
piece of paper that Will's father wrote the watch over this boy note on before
getting him out of the massacre in Tulsa. here with a nifty shift of narration
from character to character we see it travel from real history into the
alternate reality that is Watchmen. the importance of the paper itself isn't
exactly clear but Will is essentially verified to be the young boy we saw from
the opening of the series. we learned that Angela took him away from the scene
of the hanging rather than calling it in it's a strange move considering the
situation and I guess we're supposed to interpret it as her not knowing what to
think and wanting to investigate without distraction. she brings him to her bakery
and after letting her emotion show briefly in the back room she dons her
costume before she asks him any questions. the exchange here is a good
one. I particularly liked how they debated what Dr. Manhattan could or
couldn't do as Will mentions things directly shown in the comic book panels.
this is echoed again later between Cal and Angela and I thought that that was a
lot of fun for those of us who read the original story. he tells of the vast and
insidious conspiracy at play and that Crawford has skeletons in his closet.
Angela takes this literally and she bags up his coffee cup for the DNA evidence
before heading to the crime scene. there's this easter egg filled transition of a
newsstand as she leaves. we see a mural on the wall of two lovers kissing, a shot
of the new frontiersman, a mention of the Nova Express which was owned by Veidt
enterprises, and we hear of the Libstappo running false flags to keep everyone
distracted while they take away people's rights. the newsstand is a callback to
the comics complete with this new character, who I recognized as Bunny from
the Wire but he's been in a ton of things, we see that he's wearing the same type a
hat as his comic counterpart another new character arrives to pick up some papers
for a mystery woman based on their conversation if you've been watching the
trailers or anything really it's obvious who this character is connected to but
I'll leave it as a mystery if you're trying to remain spoiler free. at the
crime scene Angela gets filled in on some of the details from Looking Glass.
he's very matter-of-fact in his description and that stands out and we
learned that Judd did indeed suffer as his life came to an end. the conversation
is cut short by a paparazzi falling from the sky the guys wearing a moth setup
which is pretty hilarious. Red Scare is present the underline the idea that
tensions are running high and the police force won't be taking kindly to the
murder of their boss. I found all of this intriguing and we get a couple of
emotional moments where Angela says that Looking Glass is a cold motherfucker
only for him to reveal that he's crying under his mask and Angela embracing the
body of her friend as they cut him down from the tree. that transitions us to
another flashback where we see the events of the White Night unfold at the
Abar house on Christmas the 7th Kavalry burst in shot guns blazing. Angela is
able to stab her first attacker only to pass out after being shot as the second
gunman hovers over her. she wakes up three days later in the hospital with
then captain Judd sitting by her bedside. he fills her in on the details
of what happened including the fact that her partner was killed. we understand
that this is where her adopted children come from and we see how Judd and Angela
formed their friendship and this bond starts between them. Red Scare lays out
the plan to head over to Nixonville to beat some answers out of its inhabitants
and that's exactly what the police do. Angela thinks that maybe they should stop and
think, she's even reluctant to join in until one of them takes a swing at her
with the bat and then she unloads on him mercilessly which lets us know that
she's dealing with this but also that she's a very capable fighter. after that
she takes the coffee mug over to the Greenwood Center for cultural heritage
and this is so she can test for Will's DNA. it was a little bit hokey I thought
the way that this was set up but the signs of the protesters outside almost
make up for it. they read you got a sorry and now you want a handout and equal
rights equals equal taxes. I mean this is the kind of thing I would imagine would
be going on outside of a place like this if it really existed in our world. back
at her place a lot of stuff happens in a short amount of time we see the adopted
kids grandfather sitting on the porch. apparently he's there for a visit that
isn't happening. he complains about Redfordations a bit before taking a hand
out from her to go away. Cal asks about the old man who's still at the bakery.
he's wondering why Angelo didn't arrest him which we're kind of wondering the
same thing. she tells Topher about uncle Judd's death
with the monologue we've heard in a couple of trailers at this point about
the world being black and white. speaking of monologues American Crime
Story Minutemen makes its debut and everyone seems to be watching it. Cal and
Topher, Looking Glass is at his place with the TV dinner sitting down to watch it,
and the 7th Kalvary who are hard at work at a suicide vest are also tuning in.
this has been highly anticipated and it doesn't disappoint.
after a comically long-winded advisory we learned some important information.
the show inside the show opens with the body of Rolf Mueller being discovered in
Boston Harbor in 1955. this was who Hollis Mason speculated that Hooded
Justice might be in this book Under the Hood turns out that isn't the case if we
believe this TV show which if you haven't read the source material this is
all probably getting pretty confusing. to say it as simply as it can be the
implication here is that everything people think they know about the rise of
costume adventuring and the Watchmen universe could be wrong. it's an
interesting thing to tuck in the back of our minds at this point as is the long
monologue that Hooded Justice gives about his backstory and wearing masks
in the show itself. we hear that continue as Angela drives over to the Crawford
house and it seems to fit with her sense of identity as well. at the Chief's place
after meeting Senator Keene she pretends to faint so that she can get access to
the upstairs and the Chief's closet. she ends up finding a Klan robe with a
sheriff's badge hidden there with the help of some nite owl looking x-ray
specs. this twist isn't terribly surprising after the first episode but
this thing is just hanging there like a display in a museum which was sort of
like okay, what? either way though Angela grabs it and takes off. she takes it with
her we transition from a shot of the painting that the episode gets its name
from over to the English manor. things are still weird here and I find it
delightful. where it is and why things are the way
they are isn't any clearer than it was in the pilot but the fact that his
servants are clones seems to be confirmed. we watched the play about the
creation of Dr. Manhattan which is put together really well for the
circumstances and we're left to wonder what this will all turn out to mean. back
at the bakery Angela finds that Will has escaped the handcuffs, he went across the
street to the grocery store, and now he's there cooking some eggs.
oh yeah he's also her grandfather which she finds out and he's there to show her
where she came from. she suspects that he has something to do
with the robe that she found because it's difficult to think of her friend
being a closeted Klansmen. he believably says that he doesn't know what she's
talking about. he didn't mean literally that he had skeletons in his closet but
she decides to arrest him. when she takes him outside to load him into the car and
an airship swoops in to rescue him. as the cars taken away be a giant magnet
the pamphlet from the beginning of the episode drops from the sky he makes a
clean getaway and she's left there wondering just like we are what the hell
just happened. the episode ends there with an outro of the Beastie Boys Eggman
which is a fantastic way to end as far as I'm concerned. the Klan robe
seems like a big reveal in the sense that it confirms there's more to
Crawford's character. more than anything it makes you wonder if he has a
connection to the seventh Cavalry. he was shot during the white night though, we
saw that there was dressing on his wounds at the hospital and he had
noticeable gunshot scars when we saw him getting dressed in the first episode. at
the same time he was listening to right-wing
radio and he has clear ties to the clan even if he wasn't a member himself. the
fact that Angela survived the White Night is also weird considering that
she passed out with an armed 7k guy standing over her. there's definitely
more going on here than what we've seen but at this point it's hard to pin down
what that is. then we have Will who we learned a lot about in some ways but
maybe not the things that we were hoping to find out. a lot of people like the
theory that he could be hooded justice and it does seem a little bit more
likely after this episode. I like the idea where maybe he was the inspiration
for Hooded justice or that there was more than one of them or something along
those lines but but either way American hero story revealing that Hooded
Justice wasn't Rolf Mueller could be big. I'm guessing that Will was saved at
the end by LadyTrieus people but that's not exactly a slam dunk.
I think some people will wonder if maybe Nite Owl II was involved in this but that
seems pretty far-fetched. the question of whether he killed the chief or not is
still out there and if he did then why? him being Angela's grandfather could be
important but we also know that she grew up in Vietnam where something probably
happened to her parents. so does any of what we saw today move us closer to
solving the mystery that he represents? I don't think so.
and of course the same goes for the old lord of the manor.
he seems trapped or imprisoned or something. he's got quite a few clones at
his disposal and he really enjoys the play that he authored about Dr.
Manhattan. fans are probably thrilled that they got a blue dong finally here
in this episode but I'm not sure it explains much about what's going on
there in that part of the world. and, I'm not complaining I like building out the
stories of the characters and like having the mystery stew simmering over
there on the stovetop. the Easter eggs are everywhere and yet they don't seem
obnoxious in a way that they're being presented. there's a ton of good theories
popping up that you can ponder and I'm not sure I'm married to any of them yet.
it's a good place to be. review wise I think this is a good follow up to a
solid pilot episode. in my mind it could be difficult to transition from that and
I think they did a really good job. the world-building is still really
impressive, the directing again was really fantastic in this episode,
there were a couple of scenes that were goofy like I mentioned the DNA test and
when she first discovered the Klan robe, but I liked how they sort of looped back
on those and they pointed out sort of how like 1) it was crazy that Angela
took him literally in that there being something in his closet and 2) how easy
she found it and so on you get the idea. I think it's really cool how they
sort of loop back on that whenever her and Cal were talking. visually
everything looked consistent and good. it's hard to find things to complain
about here. The music, the actors performances, the look of everything, it seems to be
firing on all cylinders. as far as speculation for what's to come
Laurie Blake should arrive in the next episode based on the trailers and I've got
to wonder if Angela taking Will away from the crime scene is gonna come back to
bite her. him leaving the way he did makes me wonder if we're gonna see him
at all for a couple of episodes. since not much time has passed we should be
getting the funeral with some backstory on Laurie and a better idea of what the
Kalvary are planning. My thought about that is that they're probably using
those batteries they're gonna stage something that will prove that the
batteries themselves aren't dangerous, that it was all hysteria. from the Petey
Files we learned that there was a big backlash against Dr. Manhattan related
technologies after the squid attack which is why the batteries aren't used
anymore. the Kalvary rightly believed that the attack was staged by Ozymandias
so I think undermining the idea that the batteries are toxic would go
hand-in-hand with the attack being a hoax. on top of that I think will learn
about Lady Trieu the mysterious Vietnamese trillionaire
who has taken over most of what was left of Veidt industries. we'll learn about
what her plan to save the world is all about which means that we have a lot to
look forward. to let me know what you guys think in the comments and let me
know what kind of bonus watchmen videos you might want to see what series do you
have which ones that are out there do you like where is this thing going
what's going on with Ozymandias what's going on with wil is he hooded justice
or is it something else make sure you like this video if you
enjoyed it make sure you subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and
that's it for today thanks for watching I will talk to you soon