Watchmen: Nostalgia is a helluva drug. (spoilers)

[Paxter]

4 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Pardon my ignorance having not really read the comic at all, but isn't the Veidt character supposed to be American?  

Irons seems to be playing him at times like a by jove kind of Englishman but other times seems like he's toning it down like maybe he's just a super-proper American a la Frasier.  Not that this detail really matters, but it's confusing.  

Maybe hanging around Philips and Crookshanks too much has subtly changed his accent? :p

I think Irons is going for Frasier but it’s not always working.

[RumHam]

10 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Pardon my ignorance having not really read the comic at all, but isn't the Veidt character supposed to be American?  

Irons seems to be playing him at times like a by jove kind of Englishman but other times seems like he's toning it down like maybe he's just a super-proper American a la Frasier.  Not that this detail really matters, but it's confusing.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent

is probably the closest thing you'll get to an explanation. Other than that Irons isn't really bothering, god bless him.. 

2 minutes ago, Paxter said:

I think Irons is going for Frasier but it’s not always working.

Yes, exactly. 

[Raja]

There seems to be *a lot* of buzz about the next episode - I'm quite excited.

Edit: Also, I think it's been a pretty solid season so far, I felt it was spinning it's wheels a little bit in the second/ third episode, but I think given all the pressure the show has had, it's been very good so far.

[dbunting]

For me this series isn't exactly doing it...if it was gone this week I don't think I would care. Maybe my opinion will change after the next episode but I doubt it.

[RumHam]

Wow that was great. Alternate reality Fred Trump getting shot in the face years before Donald was conceived was just icing on the cake.

Peteypedia has memos revealing Blake and Petey's reactions to the Hooded Justice reveal. Apparently Angela was talking the whole time. The third file confirms Trieu was a victim of the My Lai massacre. Though it seems the official story is there was no massacre and the American  troops (including Edward Blake) were super nice.

Edit: sorry it was her mother who supposedly met the comedian when his unit passed through My Lai.

On another note I love how this show keeps trotting out HBO actors for (so far) one episode roles. Robert Wisdom (the Wire), Jim Beaver, Paula Malcomson (Deadwood), Micheal Imperioli (The Sopranos), and now Jovan Adepo (The Leftovers) and Glenn Fleshler (True Detective, Barry, Boardwalk Empire and Bored to Death)

[Raja]

Seeing Jovan Adepo play Regina King's grandfather after seeing him play her son in the Leftovers was kinda neat!

I've also been seeking out reviews by black film & tv critics on Watchmen - they make for really good reading especially if like me you're not super familiar with the history of the US

 

[red snow]

The hooded justice reveal was excellent. What better way to conceal your identity than have everyone think you are white. It also makes the costume really organic. Lindelof wasn't joking when he said this show would be a remix! 

It makes the "tv show" about the minutemen more fun as they still have no idea who hooded justice really was. Although does it mean that HJ left a white man's body at some point as a cover for his death?

Hopefully an extra dose of weidt to make up for his absence next week

[RumHam]

17 minutes ago, red snow said:

Although does it mean that HJ left a white man's body at some point as a cover for his death?

Not necessarily. American Hero Story suggests the real Hooded Justice did that. But that dead guy (Rolf Muller) could have just been a random murder victim. The only reason anyone thinks he was Hooded Justice is cause of the first Night Owls speculation in his book.

[Zorral]

In this country, as in so many, white is the default, the norm, what is assumed.  Different from that means legitimate target for exploitation and violence with impunity / immunity for the perpetrators.

So ya, perfect disguise.

[Mexal]

Really liked this episode and where this story is going. Good stuff.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

Not necessarily. American Hero Story suggests the real Hooded Justice did that. But that dead guy (Rolf Muller) could have just been a random murder victim. The only reason anyone thinks he was Hooded Justice is cause of the first Night Owls speculation in his book.

So the inshow show is creating a story based on night owl's speculation? That makes sense. It's been a decade since i reread Watchmen so i was having trouble remembering whether hooded justice was ever identified. I'm tempted to reread to see how well this revelation on his alter ego adds up. To me it feels inspired as i recall HJ always being very secretive and while it originally seemed to be his homosexuality it now turns out to be the colour of his skin. I know alan moore has no interest in the show but i bet dave gibbons appreciates it.

It also seems like mesmero/moloch will have a big role at some point beyond what we got in the book. Hypnotism seems to play an important role in the tv plot.

[Zorral]

Caught up -- just finished watching #5 and #6 back-to-back.

So, hands down, Watchmen wins all cinematography and photography awards, right?

Ep 5 -- good grief -- there was Trixie!  I think I enjoy the night time summer scene locations in "Oklahoma" more than almost anything in some ways.  Those magical midwestern summer nights -- if one can avoid mosquitoes anyway -- nothing like them.

Ep 6 is one frack of an episode.  Holy Cow!  Turning history inside out, yet staying with history (black face becomes white face, just for starters).  Loved Reeve's wife -- a journalist no less! -- while rather disparaging FDR as a anyone to put faith in as a person of color, maybe a person of color could have some faith in Eleanor.

My one confusion is: if HJ is so capable of taking out multiple antagonists why were only 3 NYC cops able to take him out in the first place?  He didn't acquire superpowers, which is made more than clear, so then, how?

 

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, RumHam said:

Not necessarily. American Hero Story suggests the real Hooded Justice did that. But that dead guy (Rolf Muller) could have just been a random murder victim. The only reason anyone thinks he was Hooded Justice is cause of the first Night Owls speculation in his book.

Alternately, Rolf Mueller was supposed to be some kind of Nazi asshole, and HJ could have just killed his ass as his cover for getting out. 

[DMC]

21 hours ago, Triskele said:

I guess we know what happened with Crawford now but I'm not sure that we know why Will did it, do we?  They talk about the cloak, but it felt like an obfuscation, and maybe there's a larger reason. 

Yeah if the only reason Will killed Crawford is because he's an Oklahoman white man with a Klan cloak hid in his closet, that's...pretty fucking lame.

[Mexal]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah if the only reason Will killed Crawford is because he's an Oklahoman white man with a Klan cloak hid in his closet, that's...pretty fucking lame.

Given they skipped most of Reaves history and skipped right to the hanging, I’m going to assume there is more to it than just a Klan robe.

[DMC]

Just now, Mexal said:

Given they skipped most of Reaves history and skipped right to the hanging, I’m going to assume there is more to it than just a Klan robe.

Indeed.  They still got a good, oh, 75-80 years of the history of his life uncovered.

[Kalbear]

15 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah if the only reason Will killed Crawford is because he's an Oklahoman white man with a Klan cloak hid in his closet, that's...pretty fucking lame.

We know that 7K is part of Cyclops. We saw their symbol on their hideout when LG checked it out. And we know (or at least think, given Keene and Judd's relationship) that Judd was part of that conspiracy as well. 

You're right that we don't know why he's doing it now. What specifically is coming up now that's so important. But it seems linked to Trieu's goals, and Trieu appears to share a similar need to do justice, with a similar horrifying background of trauma. 

My wife thinks that Trieu is planning on killing Dr. Manhattan - getting justice for what he did to Vietnam. I still don't know what plan 7K has though. 

[DMC]

Well, if we're gonna take stock of what "we know" at this point, I'd say in the Rumsfeldian sense we know a little bit about what we know, and we now know a lot about what we don't know, but there's still a significant amount we don't know that we don't know.  Ya know?

16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

My wife thinks that Trieu is planning on killing Dr. Manhattan - getting justice for what he did to Vietnam.

That's interesting.  Makes sense.  But it seems she's...more ambitious than that.  Or at least still interested in Earth.

[Zorral]

You all know, right, the in the Reconstruction era of the KKK, it was organized into dens, whose head was the Grand Cyclops, who appointed two Nighthawks -- the KKK was insane with titles and appointments of college boyz secret society, college drinking societies, etc. going back to the pre-Revolutionary, colonial eras, modeled on English ones.

[Raja]

Love that