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Watchmen: Nostalgia is a helluva drug. (spoilers)


RumHam

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11 hours ago, Guy Kilmore said:

I don't think Trieu wants to kill Dr. M for revenge.  There is a scene where she is giving a speech about the failure of Nostalgia.  She basically states it fails because people keep going back to relive and focus on their traumas, instead of using the past to heal and move forward.  One of the themes of this show is how major traumas define us, and the world of the Watchmen is rife with trauma, be it racial or "extra-terrestrial."  I think Trieu's plan is to do something about that.  It is interesting that she is recording all the prayers in her Millennial Clock.  I wonder if it isn't about killing Dr. Manhatten but trapping what he is in there and doing something with that power, not sure what.  So she may want Keene to succeed in "destroying" him, but wants to then harness that energy for her purpose.  One that Will agrees with. 

I think that's probably more accurate, though I also think that she wants to end Dr M. If she didn't - why would she provoke Angela into revealing Dr M? The only reasons that he's in danger is because, well, she reveals him. If Trieu keeps quiet, he isn't killed within the hour. 

Also, this implies that she has some pretty interesting predictive abilities, similar to Dr M. If he is her father, that might explain some of it. 

And yes, I am thinking more and more that she wants everyone to have everyone else's memories and thus defeat racism entirely. The PoV of Vietnam being entirely like what Will went through is too similar; the broad Big Issue to solve this time is the constant cycle of oppression of the Other in humanity, and the gordian knot to cut through is therefore simple: make everyone the same. Put everyone on the same footing. I'm not sure if that means give every single person amnesia or mind control them or give them the memories of  everyone else, but I think it's about those lines. 

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

One thing I don't get, in the first episode Judd puts himself at risk to take down that 7K plane. Pirate Girl tells him they should just let it escape and he pushes their owlship too far resulting in the crash. 

One possibility is that if they do escape, they're out of the control of Judd and Keene and potentially would attract others looking for the plane. But the other possibility is more simple: every thing they've been trying to do is to get Angela in danger so that they'll draw out Dr M. That has been their entire goal. Once they figured out (or think they figured out) how to kill Dr M and get his power, they want to get Angela in more danger. That's why they've been laying low, and that's why they're striking now. 

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Plus just before he dies he tells Will "I'm trying to help you people" and while that's condescending as hell, it's also a weird thing to say if he was still fully on board with the cyclops/7K plan. So maybe he was still a racist but thought making Keene Doctor Manhattan was too far and was working against it protecting Cal? 

I think that it's simply self-delusion. He wants to think of himself as a good man, and he is basically protecting Angela. He thinks that Keene's plan is going to put things right, and he probably thinks that this is actually a good thing for black people (white supremacists often say things like 'black people were better off as slaves'). 

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2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

But the other possibility is more simple: every thing they've been trying to do is to get Angela in danger so that they'll draw out Dr M. That has been their entire goal. Once they figured out (or think they figured out) how to kill Dr M and get his power, they want to get Angela in more danger. That's why they've been laying low, and that's why they're striking now. 

That may be true generally, but the owlship flying too high didn't put Angela in danger. And you'd think they'd only want to put her in danger when Cal is around. Unless they don't realize he's no longer aware of his powers or who he is. 

 

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that it's simply self-delusion. He wants to think of himself as a good man, and he is basically protecting Angela. He thinks that Keene's plan is going to put things right, and he probably thinks that this is actually a good thing for black people (white supremacists often say things like 'black people were better off as slaves'). 

Yeah, I'd certainly buy that if it was the explanation.  But the above plus that Keene say's he came down to take control of the group to prevent things like the white night makes me suspect a Cyclops/7K power struggle between the two. Or Keene is just full of shit, but he was talking to the human lie detector. 

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15 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Yeah, I'd certainly buy that if it was the explanation.  But the above plus that Keene say's he came down to take control of the group to prevent things like the white night makes me suspect a Cyclops/7K power struggle between the two. Or Keene is just full of shit, but he was talking to the human lie detector. 

But that's the thing - Keene was saying he put Judd in charge of the police to make sure that White night didn't happen again and things didn't go crazy too fast. And Judd's wife clearly was in on things and knew about Keeen'es plan to become blue man group - it seems pretty implausible that Judd didn't know about it either, with the KKK cloak and his painting that was a KKK relic in his house.

I really don't get the apologia for Judd. He's a fucking racist and Will saw right through him. He was literally a member of a group that descended from Cyclops and is trying to foment white power. He's also charming, as so many racist asshats are. Fuck that guy, and kill him again. 

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

I really don't get the apologia for Judd. He's a fucking racist and Will saw right through him. He was literally a member of a group that descended from Cyclops and is trying to foment white power. He's also charming, as so many racist asshats are. Fuck that guy, and kill him again. 

I think most of us just can't picture Don Johnson as a racist.

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17 hours ago, RumHam said:

So if Doctor Manhattan was Cal since 2009 that means he's not Veidt's jailer right?

His last public appearance occurred in 2007

17 hours ago, RumHam said:

If we're right about Cal saving Angela on the white night I wonder how/why he doesn't seem to remember it.

He doesn't want to remember - he wants the authentic human experience.

5 hours ago, RumHam said:

One thing I don't get, in the first episode Judd puts himself at risk to take down that 7K plane. Pirate Girl tells him they should just let it escape and he pushes their owlship too far resulting in the crash.

Perhaps he wanted the owlship out of commission, because it was too much of a threat to the 7K?

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12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I think that's probably more accurate, though I also think that she wants to end Dr M. If she didn't - why would she provoke Angela into revealing Dr M? The only reasons that he's in danger is because, well, she reveals him. If Trieu keeps quiet, he isn't killed within the hour. 

Also, this implies that she has some pretty interesting predictive abilities, similar to Dr M. If he is her father, that might explain some of it. 

And yes, I am thinking more and more that she wants everyone to have everyone else's memories and thus defeat racism entirely. The PoV of Vietnam being entirely like what Will went through is too similar; the broad Big Issue to solve this time is the constant cycle of oppression of the Other in humanity, and the gordian knot to cut through is therefore simple: make everyone the same. Put everyone on the same footing. I'm not sure if that means give every single person amnesia or mind control them or give them the memories of  everyone else, but I think it's about those lines. 

One possibility is that if they do escape, they're out of the control of Judd and Keene and potentially would attract others looking for the plane. But the other possibility is more simple: every thing they've been trying to do is to get Angela in danger so that they'll draw out Dr M. That has been their entire goal. Once they figured out (or think they figured out) how to kill Dr M and get his power, they want to get Angela in more danger. That's why they've been laying low, and that's why they're striking now. 

I think that it's simply self-delusion. He wants to think of himself as a good man, and he is basically protecting Angela. He thinks that Keene's plan is going to put things right, and he probably thinks that this is actually a good thing for black people (white supremacists often say things like 'black people were better off as slaves'). 

I was more disagreeing with the revenge part.  I think she is perfectly fine with destroying Dr. M if it meets her end goal.  I just think she wouldn't have been doing it for vengeance.

I like the merged consciousness idea.

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15 hours ago, felice said:

Ah, that makes sense. So he probably came back to earth in like 2014 when Trieu bought his crash site and then ...maybe turned him into a statue?

I realized I missed two HBO stars popping up for bit roles in my list. Kerry Condon from Rome was one of the farm owners who Trieu bought off with a baby. Lee Tergesen from Oz was Mr. Shadow, the batman knockoff Laurie arrests at the bank. 

13 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’m surprised no one has asked this: Angela smashing Cal’s head in took me by total surprise, and just what the hell did she pull out of his head?

Oh I think that took everyone by surprise. It seems like what she took out was some kinda inhibitor that kept Dr. Manhattan in his non-omniscient Cal form. 

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4 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Does it seem a forgone conclusion that we'll see Dr. M in the (blue) flesh before the season is through?  What about Owl Guy?

We will see Dr M, and we will not see Dreiberg. 

On Ozy's jailer not being Dr M - the first episode has a shot of Dr M on Mars in the current period, blowing up his martian castle. That was in 2019, with Cal. I don't think that Cal is the 'only' Dr M. 

4 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Per the comment on rewatches when Trieu's daughter (mother) is at the newspaper stand and Bunny from the Wire says that the squid storms are being done by Redford it's presented at the time as if he's just paranoid dude (Oh, I read it.  I just don' believe it.).  Bu now it seems quite plausible to me that the Redford government is doing that stuff.  

Keene's video says this directly, so...yes? 

4 minutes ago, Triskele said:

WTF on that last scene with Veidt's trial.  That thread already felt like it was another show entirely in tone, feel, whatnot but much moreso this time around.  It gave me the feeling that whoever is jailing him might be watching and laughing all the way.

One thing that this might show is that Dr M's experiments to make some humans (as he said in the comic) might have resulted in the pondbabies and them being, well, kind of shit. They can ape humanity somewhat, but they're incredibly simple and entirely uncreative. Dr M might have therefore wanted to convert himself to a human in order to record more of what it is to be human, and therefore be able to create humanity again in a better way. 

Veidt's reaction in that scene is basically 'these fucking idiots' and they all think they're clever, and they all think they're doing something so incredible by this trial, and...it's just like watching a 4 year old pronounce his broccoli a terrorist. And he's had to sit through two years of this bullshit. That must be the most excruciating thing ever - someone so smart, surrounded by people who are simply too dumb to use or manipulate or plan against. 

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18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

On Ozy's jailer not being Dr M - the first episode has a shot of Dr M on Mars in the current period, blowing up his martian castle.

I believe that's most likely footage provided by Trieu, who knows Manhattan isn't on Mars, and the "live" feed is some combination of fakes and reruns.

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1 hour ago, felice said:

I believe that's most likely footage provided by Trieu, who knows Manhattan isn't on Mars, and the "live" feed is some combination of fakes and reruns.

Maybe, but it seems more likely that Dr M is just splitting himself, because we've seen him do that many times in the comic without issue. 

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3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Maybe, but it seems more likely that Dr M is just splitting himself, because we've seen him do that many times in the comic without issue. 

As Dr M he can split his attention between multiple locations simultaneously, but can he do that at the same time as he's deliberately blocking off his own powers and memories?

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2 minutes ago, felice said:

As Dr M he can split his attention between multiple locations simultaneously, but can he do that at the same time as he's deliberately blocking off his own powers and memories?

Probably? I mean, he can teleport, manipulate atoms, and can see the future. The idea that he couldn't do one of his powers that he's already manifested and we have actual visible evidence in the show of seems a bit much.

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I am doing a rewatch of Ep 1 and 2, and boy, everything looks different now.

One thing I still don’t understand is who Angela’s kids are. I thought they were the children of her partner, who was killed together with his wife on the White Night. But then who was the man on the porch who had visitation rights?

Cal’s question about ‘Is it safe?’ takes on new meaning.

Why is Dr. Manhattan in Ozy’s play? 
 

When Angela gets the phone call about the dna sample, the voice says two ancestors and two descendants have been identified, and then the voice asks if she (or ‘Will’) can name them, and she identifies herself as one of them. Who is the other? 
Oh wait, the second must be her father?

Presumably the 2 ancestors were Will’s parents.

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39 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I am doing a rewatch of Ep 1 and 2, and boy, everything looks different now.

One thing I still don’t understand is who Angela’s kids are. I thought they were the children of her partner, who was killed together with his wife on the White Night. But then who was the man on the porch who had visitation rights?

Cal’s question about ‘Is it safe?’ takes on new meaning.

Why is Dr. Manhattan in Ozy’s play? 
 

When Angela gets the phone call about the dna sample, the voice says two ancestors and two descendants have been identified, and then the voice asks if she (or ‘Will’) can name them, and she identifies herself as one of them. Who is the other? 
Oh wait, the second must be her father?

Presumably the 2 ancestors were Will’s parents.

Wasn’t it the grandfather?

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I am doing a rewatch of Ep 1 and 2, and boy, everything looks different now.

One thing I still don’t understand is who Angela’s kids are. I thought they were the children of her partner, who was killed together with his wife on the White Night. But then who was the man on the porch who had visitation rights?

They were the kids of Doyle, her partner. I'm pretty sure Andy (the guy she paid off) is their grandfather or something like that. (aside: he was played by Jim Beaver, who is totally a "hey its that guy" and who had appeared on Deadwood and on Supernatural quite a bit)

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Why is Dr. Manhattan in Ozy’s play? 

Because he's presumably the creator of all the clones and the place on Europa and all that bullshit? I mean, he's literally god in this show.

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

When Angela gets the phone call about the dna sample, the voice says two ancestors and two descendants have been identified, and then the voice asks if she (or ‘Will’) can name them, and she identifies herself as one of them. Who is the other? 
Oh wait, the second must be her father?

Right. Her lineage is Will -> Will's son (Marcus) -> her. What's kind of interesting to me on rewatch is that she guessed it. Why would she have guessed that this random dude is related to her? Was it hope? It's not like she has a whole lot of blood relatives in her life. 

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Presumably the 2 ancestors were Will’s parents.

This was shown in ep 4, where we see the acorn that shows Will's parents and what happened to them. 

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