# Watchmen - S01E03 "She Was Killed By Space Junk" 11/03/2019 *spoilers*



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Lots of interesting stuff in this episode. But a lot of it hinges on knowing at least some of the backstory from the graphic novel. As with previous threads, spoilers about the graphic novel and movie are fair game.

- Laurie Blake was Silk Spectre in the graphic novel. She once dated Dr. Manhattan and then later dated Dan Drieberg (Nite Owl). So apparently at some point after the end of the book, she stopped working as a masked vigilante and now works for the FBI on the anti-vigilante task force. When Senator Keene talked to her and said he needed her help investigating what's going on in Tulsa, he said that if he could get elected President, he could let her owl out of its cage, a reference to him being able to pardon Nite Owl. But if the Tulsa stuff goes badly, his shot at being POTUS is ruined and Nite Owl stays in jail.

- The "joke" she told throughout the episode clearly referenced three of the main male characters from the book. The first one who got judged was Nite Owl (Drieberg), the second was Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt), and the third was Dr. Manhattan.

- Adrian Veidt clearly identified himself so even though we previously suspected that's who that character was, it wasn't confirmed until now. We still don't know what is going on with him, but it seems that he's in some kind of captivity, something he agreed to, and he seems to be doing experiments (using his clones as expendable crash-test dummies) to find a way out.

- Wow! So Laurie carries that "reminder" of Dr. Manhattan with her, even on road trips. But apparently even that wasn't enough, as she decided to show up at the door of her colleague, Petey.

- The additional material on HBO's website is called the "Peteypedia" and now we know who it is named after and presumably who has been compiling that information.

Where did the car at the end come from? We know it was Angela's car that got lifted away at the end of last episode, but there didn't appear to be anything in the sky that could have dropped it. Very strange.

Laurie Blake admitted they were going to exhume Judd's body to do a toxicology screen. I wonder what she thinks that would show? Either way, there's no way to test him now, because he's in about a million pieces all over the cemetery.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Where did the car at the end come from? We know it was Angela's car that got lifted away at the end of last episode, but there didn't appear to be anything in the sky that could have dropped it. Very strange.


Considering when she looked up at the sky, they very prominently showed Mars, we can maybe guess what in the sky could have dropped it (maybe somebody who she says has no sense of humor, about whom she has just told a fairly unflattering joke)...


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

This is the second piece of pop culture I can think of that involves Channel 8 in Tulsa. (The first is the "Weird Al" Yankovic movie 'UHF.")


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## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

I'll be happy if it begins to feel more like the Watchmen universe. This week was good progress towards that.


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## cbrrider (Feb 2, 2005)

So, Senator Joe Keene, Jr. is involved with a conspiracy secretly supporting the Seventh Kavalry, so he looks like a hero and becomes POTUS. Hooded Justice, with a possible assist from Dr. Manhattan, is trying to out the conspiracy. 

Or is Damon Lindelof just leading us down the garden path just to take a detour?

I'll stay tuned at the same time next week on the same Bat channel.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

I don't think the car was Dr Manhattan. When it went up, it was clearly attached to a giant electromagnet on a cable - more like the sort of thing you'd dangle from the bottom of a flying owlship. Coming down, I have no idea where it came from, but I'm fairly sure it was terrestrial in origin. Of course I do think Specter thinks Dr Manhattan just threw a car at her for giggles.


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## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

I’m glad I read the comic a few weeks ago ($6 Amazon Kindle version) i’ve read that you could enjoy the show without knowing the background of the comic but to be honest with you there’s so much in this episode that I don’t think you could enjoy it otherwise (for example how can anybody know what that big blue “reminder “ was )

Really enjoying the show. It does remind me a bit of Legion, especially now that Jean Smart showed up.

I’m also enjoying the newspaper headlines. This week we find out that (John) Grisham is retiring from Supreme Court


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

As someone who hasn't read the comic, but knew the very high level gist of it I'm enjoying the show on a few levels
Watch the episode and catch maybe 75% of everything
Listen to a few podcasts and enjoy it some more
Then read the Peteypedia and enjoy it even more
Then read some articles throughout the week 

Rinse and repeat next week


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

cbrrider said:


> So, Senator Joe Keene, Jr. is involved with a conspiracy secretly supporting the Seventh Kavalry, so he looks like a hero and becomes POTUS. Hooded Justice, with a possible assist from Dr. Manhattan, is trying to out the conspiracy.


Unless I'm missing something, Hooded Justice isn't a real character in the universe of this show. He is a fictional character on a TV show, "American Hero Story," that plays in the universe of this show.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Unless I'm missing something, Hooded Justice isn't a real character in the universe of this show. He is a fictional character on a TV show, "American Hero Story," that plays in the universe of this show.


In the comics, he was the OG superhero...the masked vigilante who inspired all the rest.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

I liked the Memo this week on Peteypedia written by Dale Petey himself


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

This has probably been mentioned 10 times. There is an "Official Watchmen Podcast" out. It is hosted by the creator of Chernobyl, Craig Mazin. Damon Lindelof is the other person on the podcast. They are releasing one episode of the podcast after every 3 episodes of the TV show. First episode is just under an hour.


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## caslu (Jun 24, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> Unless I'm missing something, Hooded Justice isn't a real character in the universe of this show. He is a fictional character on a TV show, "American Hero Story," that plays in the universe of this show.


Hooded Justice was a 'real' character and one of the original Minutemen back in the 1940's. "American Hero Story" is presenting a somewhat fictionalized version of his 'real life' (from the graphic novel) exploits.


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## caslu (Jun 24, 2003)

MikeMar said:


> As someone who hasn't read the comic, but knew the very high level gist of it I'm enjoying the show on a few levels


Just curious as to why you wouldn't read the comic... don't like the medium? Not enough time? Just plain not interested? While not required, it really does provide a wealth of background for the show and is considered a seminal work in the comic book genre. BTW, as noted elsewhere, there is a motion comic version of the graphic novel available on Amazon Prime and I found it to be a good refresher since it's been quite some time since I read the comic. Heck, even Zach Snyder's movie is a good refresher (although I know a lot of people don't share that opinion).


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

caslu said:


> Just curious as to why you wouldn't read the comic... don't like the medium? Not enough time? Just plain not interested? While not required, it really does provide a wealth of background for the show and is considered a seminal work in the comic book genre. BTW, as noted elsewhere, there is a motion comic version of the graphic novel available on Amazon Prime and I found it to be a good refresher since it's been quite some time since I read the comic. Heck, even Zach Snyder's movie is a good refresher (although I know a lot of people don't share that opinion).


Oh it's on my short list of what to read next. I literally never read a graphic novel or really many comics (just some basic Batman type stuff 30 years ago) 
I'm 3/4 way through Paper Girls and then reading Watchmen next, really looking forward to it!

That's why I listen to 3 different podcasts (3rd being the official 3 ep recap one) and read the Peteypedia and other articles. Gets anything I miss


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

I ordered a copy of Watchmen paperback off Amazon for like $15. I've seen the movie a couple times, but I'm not much of a reader. I'm enjoying this TV show so much, I want to go back and read the graphic novel.


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## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

MikeMar said:


> Oh it's on my short list of what to read next. I literally never read a graphic novel or really many comics (just some basic Batman type stuff 30 years ago)


Watchmen is literally the only "graphic novel" aka long comic book that I've ever read. I bought it because I liked the movie. The comic is good, the movie is better.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

heySkippy said:


> The comic is good, the movie is better.


You are dead to me.


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## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

I'm enjoying the show but still don't what the hell is going on. 

FYI, /Filmcast has also started a podcast.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> In the comics, he was the OG superhero...the masked vigilante who inspired all the rest.





caslu said:


> Hooded Justice was a 'real' character and one of the original Minutemen back in the 1940's. "American Hero Story" is presenting a somewhat fictionalized version of his 'real life' (from the graphic novel) exploits.


Point taken, but that doesn't address the post I was responding to, which said that Hooded Justice, with an assist from Dr. Manhattan, is trying to expose a conspiracy involving Senator Keene and the Seventh Kavalry. While there may be a conspiracy, Hooded Justice is not trying to expose it.


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## realityboy (Jun 13, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> Point taken, but that doesn't address the post I was responding to, which said that Hooded Justice, with an assist from Dr. Manhattan, is trying to expose a conspiracy involving Senator Keene and the Seventh Kavalry. While there may be a conspiracy, Hooded Justice is not trying to expose it.


Unless Will Reeves is Hooded Justice.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

realityboy said:


> Unless Will Reeves is Hooded Justice.


Ah, good point. I hadn't considered that the old guy might have been a masked vigilante back when he was younger.


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## logic88 (Jun 7, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> Lots of interesting stuff in this episode. But a lot of it hinges on knowing at least some of the backstory from the graphic novel. As with previous threads, spoilers about the graphic novel and movie are fair game.


Nice recap. I did like Blake's line about checking closets since that's how Rorschach discovered The Comedian's identity.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

Did Angela put the funeral attendees in more danger by pushing the coffin on top of dead bomb guy in the grave? Seems to me that the bomb blast would have just been vertically propelled air and dirt without the casket on top of him. The casket added a ton of dangerous shrapnel to the blast. It fit the story's plot line to eliminate any chance of an autopsy but it was also dumb. And who designs are heartbeat triggered bomb that takes that long to go off? I guess it could be argued that he wasn't dead dead yet but it seemed odd to me. Normally, when a tv character is shot like that, he either dies immediately or has 30 seconds to give an impassioned farewell speech.

I'm beginning to be tempted to hit the fast forward button during the Adrian Veidt scenes.


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## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

Not any more so than Blake shooting the guy.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Who was the guy who shot at Veidt? Does anyone have a still shot of that? At first I thought it was a clone of Veidt himself because that was a pretty good shot. But now I have a theory it's a genetic clone of Rorschach. Did he have a Rorschach mask on? We could also look at the handwriting of the journal and letter, but it seems like a reasonable assumption to me. I think the theory that Veidt is on Mars being held captive is looking more reasonable based on the frozen clone test that happened. Rorschach would be a pretty good guard since he'd have zero tolerance.

But there's still something strange going on in there, with the daily cakes and strange behavior of his palace clones. Perhaps Manhattan is rebuilding the palace and clones each day? Is Veidt in a groundhog-day-esque situation?

They definitely want us to think Keane was in on the 7K hostage situation. We already know something sneaky is going on with the 7K because they didn't kill Angela way back when and some of the shots / hints about Judd.

The Manhattan penis jokes are really becoming funnier and funnier.



DevdogAZ said:


> Ah, good point. I hadn't considered that the old guy might have been a masked vigilante back when he was younger.


I posted that theory in prior threads. I think there's a strong possibility - or it's an intentional red herring. I like the idea that they whitewashed his character for the movie/tv show about Hooded Justice.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

Hoffer said:


> I ordered a copy of Watchmen paperback off Amazon for like $15.


Got this yesterday. I guess I didn't notice it when I ordered it. In the top left corner of the cover, it says "Now an HBO Series". I find that kinda lame, but I'll somehow survive.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Hoffer said:


> Got this yesterday. I guess I didn't notice it when I ordered it. In the top left corner of the cover, it says "Now an HBO Series". I find that kinda lame, but I'll somehow survive.


It's good that you could dig deep inside yourself and find the strength to go on.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> But there's still something strange going on in there, with the daily cakes and strange behavior of his palace clones. Perhaps Manhattan is rebuilding the palace and clones each day? Is Veidt in a groundhog-day-esque situation?


I believe it's YEARLY cakes
The first ep we see he is going to write a play
The next ep he has finished the play and run through it a lot
The 3rd ep he is onto something new with testing the spacesuits


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

MikeMar said:


> I believe it's YEARLY cakes
> The first ep we see he is going to write a play
> The next ep he has finished the play and run through it a lot
> The 3rd ep he is onto something new with testing the spacesuits


Hm... so you think we are just seeing the same day of the year with a year apart each episode? Could be...


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> Hm... so you think we are just seeing the same day of the year with a year apart each episode? Could be...


Yeah makes the most sense, I bet we'll see in the 8th or 9th episode the time line up with the current timeline


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## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

TAsunder said:


> Who was the guy who shot at Veidt? Does anyone have a still shot of that?


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Tony_T said:


> View attachment 44303


Thanks. That doesn't look very Rorschachy. I am concerned my entire theory is nonsense now.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

I thought this was at least a more entertaining episode than the last one, but, if it's a requirement (which it seems to be based on earlier posts) that I go back and read the comics to understand what's going on, then, yeah, maybe this isn't for me. The whole joke I didn't get (and as explained it had to do with the comics I suppose). 

I don't also want to spend a lot of time having to research everything going on, listen to podcasts, read background on everything. I ain't got time for that! This is about all the time I have to discuss shows, coming here. So I guess my choice is to either watch with no clue what is happening, or spend hours reading and listening to research it all. Not being a comic book nerd, I guess I'm going to give up.


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## dimented (May 21, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> I thought this was at least a more entertaining episode than the last one, but, if it's a requirement (which it seems to be based on earlier posts) that I go back and read the comics to understand what's going on, then, yeah, maybe this isn't for me. The whole joke I didn't get (and as explained it had to do with the comics I suppose).
> 
> I don't also want to spend a lot of time having to research everything going on, listen to podcasts, read background on everything. I ain't got time for that! This is about all the time I have to discuss shows, coming here. So I guess my choice is to either watch with no clue what is happening, or spend hours reading and listening to research it all. Not being a comic book nerd, I guess I'm going to give up.


If you just watch the movie it will get you mostly there along with these threads. I have only seen the movie. Haven't read the comic or listened to any podcasts. But between the movie and these threads I seem to know what is going on.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> I thought this was at least a more entertaining episode than the last one, but, if it's a requirement (which it seems to be based on earlier posts) that I go back and read the comics to understand what's going on, then, yeah, maybe this isn't for me. The whole joke I didn't get (and as explained it had to do with the comics I suppose).
> 
> I don't also want to spend a lot of time having to research everything going on, listen to podcasts, read background on everything. I ain't got time for that! This is about all the time I have to discuss shows, coming here. So I guess my choice is to either watch with no clue what is happening, or spend hours reading and listening to research it all. Not being a comic book nerd, I guess I'm going to give up.


Frankly, if you just spend a few minutes and read the plot summary of the book on Wikipedia, that will give you a pretty good idea of who the characters are and what happened.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> Frankly, if you just spend a few minutes and read the plot summary of the book on Wikipedia, that will give you a pretty good idea of who the characters are and what happened.


A well written show shouldn't require you to do this. Especially one where I've heard the writers say you wouldn't need to know the background of any of it. Who knew you'd have to research a TV show? Anyway, I'll stop complaining and let you all enjoy it.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

dimented said:


> If you just watch the movie it will get you mostly there along with these threads. I have only seen the movie. Haven't read the comic or listened to any podcasts. But between the movie and these threads I seem to know what is going on.


Everyone here seems to think the movie was terrible, so I really didn't want to spend the time doing that.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

Steveknj said:


> A well written show shouldn't require you to do this. Especially one where I've heard the writers say you wouldn't need to know the background of any of it. Who knew you'd have to research a TV show? Anyway, I'll stop complaining and let you all enjoy it.


The season isn't over, you have no idea if any background is needed for the plot of this season/show
They could answer any and all questions that are pertinent


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> A well written show shouldn't require you to do this. Especially one where I've heard the writers say you wouldn't need to know the background of any of it. Who knew you'd have to research a TV show? Anyway, I'll stop complaining and let you all enjoy it.


A well-written show that is a standalone - sure. But a well-written show that is a "sequel" to an existing story, of course there will be references to the original story. You could watch Empire Strikes Back without having first seen A New Hope and you'd be able to understand everything that was going on just fine. But you'd definitely get more out of it if you see Episode IV before watching Episode V.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> A well-written show that is a standalone - sure. But a well-written show that is a "sequel" to an existing story, of course there will be references to the original story. You could watch Empire Strikes Back without having first seen A New Hope and you'd be able to understand everything that was going on just fine. But you'd definitely get more out of it if you see Episode IV before watching Episode V.


And as Mike says, at this point it's hard to tell how much of the confusion is due to not knowing what happened before, and how much is built into their storytelling method (although since I'm not terribly confused and I'm very aware of the original story, I suspect it's probably more the former, although maybe I'm just strange enough to fit into their storytelling style)...

Look at Mr Robot Season 1, which became more and more confusing until you figured out what was going on, which had nothing to do with any earlier story.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

I don't think this show would be enjoyable for me without familiarity with the original comic but obviously others even in this thread disagree.


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## dimented (May 21, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> Everyone here seems to think the movie was terrible, so I really didn't want to spend the time doing that.


Understood. But I disagree about it being terrible. I quite enjoyed it.


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## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

Steveknj said:


> Everyone here seems to think the movie was terrible, so I really didn't want to spend the time doing that.


Uh, hello?


heySkippy said:


> Watchmen is literally the only "graphic novel" aka long comic book that I've ever read. I bought it because I liked the movie. The comic is good, the movie is better.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

A lot of people really like the movie. The people who didn't might be more vocal about it. I might be guilty of that.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> I thought this was at least a more entertaining episode than the last one, but, if it's a requirement (which it seems to be based on earlier posts) that I go back and read the comics to understand what's going on, then, yeah, maybe this isn't for me. The whole joke I didn't get (and as explained it had to do with the comics I suppose).
> 
> I don't also want to spend a lot of time having to research everything going on, listen to podcasts, read background on everything. I ain't got time for that! This is about all the time I have to discuss shows, coming here. So I guess my choice is to either watch with no clue what is happening, or spend hours reading and listening to research it all. Not being a comic book nerd, I guess I'm going to give up.


Watchmen is coming from Damon Lindelof of Lost fame, trust me, it's going to be full of (and IME already has been) easter eggs, trivia, buried clues, sure you can just casually view it, get the gist, and probably enjoy it, but he's made a career of deep insightful shows that you can really dig into, for me this really feels a lot like Lost 2.0 and I'm very happy about that.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

dianebrat said:


> Watchmen is coming from Damon Lindelof of Lost fame, trust me, it's going to be full of (and IME already has been) easter eggs, trivia, buried clues, sure you can just casually view it, get the gist, and probably enjoy it, but he's made a career of deep insightful shows that you can really dig into, for me this really feels a lot like Lost 2.0 and I'm very happy about that.


Exactly, you can enjoy the show on the face, but half the fun is week to week going online and fan theories and all that jazz


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

I liked the first episode, but didn't get it. A podcast I've already listened to for over a year happened to give background on it the next day. That helped me a lot, and helped me enjoy the show more as well. I understand the show a lot more three episodes in, but I still enjoy listening to the podcasts talk about things. I've never listened to a podcast about a TV show that I can think of. I'm enjoying the whole thing I've got going with this show.


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## Saturn_V (Jun 2, 2007)

MikeMar said:


> Exactly, you can enjoy the show on the face, but half the fun is week to week going online and fan theories and all that jazz


Man, I thought that's what killed Westworld. You couldn't watch *without* the YT commentary and theories- and a lot of em' were batsh!t bananas.

Emergency Awesome! is a good compromise- mostly walk through of the episode easter eggs without wild-arsed speculation.


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## logic88 (Jun 7, 2001)

Tony_T said:


> I'm also enjoying the newspaper headlines. This week we find out that (John) Grisham is retiring from Supreme Court


The supplemental material from Peteypedia has more info on that. 

https://www.hbo.com/content/dam/hbodata/series/watchmen/peteypedia/03/new-frontiersman.pdf

And while the supplemental materials does add to the new Watchmen world, I'm not sure how I feel about the need to do outside reading. They really should have found some more ways to incorporate the supplemental materials into the script.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

logic88 said:


> The supplemental material from Peteypedia has more info on that.
> 
> https://www.hbo.com/content/dam/hbodata/series/watchmen/peteypedia/03/new-frontiersman.pdf
> 
> And while the supplemental materials does add to the new Watchmen world, I'm not sure how I feel about the need to do outside reading. They really should have found some more ways to incorporate the supplemental materials into the script.


Does knowing that John Grisham REALLY have anything to do with the show you are watching? Not really


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## logic88 (Jun 7, 2001)

MikeMar said:


> Does knowing that John Grisham REALLY have anything to do with the show you are watching? Not really


Yeah, that one PDF wasn't much.

But this one added a lot of backstory.

https://www.hbo.com/content/dam/hbodata/series/watchmen/peteypedia/01/rorschachs-journal-memo.pdf


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

I was ready to give up after the first episode until I watched a podcast. The series has been getting more and more interesting from there. I still watch the podcast afterward, but on episodes 2 and 3, I pretty much "got it" on most of what was going on. This is one of those shows that you actually have to pay attention to; part of my issue with the first episode was having it playing passively in the background while I was actively working. There's too much going on for that to work. 

My memory of the movie is pretty poor. I'm rewatching it now and enjoying it. Never read the comic. Don't plan to.


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## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

dimented said:


> If you just watch the movie it will get you mostly there along with these threads. I have only seen the movie. Haven't read the comic or listened to any podcasts. But between the movie and these threads I seem to know what is going on.


I recently read the comic, and just watched the movie (last time I saw it when it first came out), and the movie pretty much tracks the comic


Spoiler



except for the plan that Veidt used, and to a smaller degree having Ronald Reagan running for president at the end, not Robert Redford


 so if you want to get the background, as you said, you could just watch the movie


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