Ben Watches Television : Watchmen, Season One (2019)

There is a before and after Game of Thrones in the television business. It’s a show that beat the odds, changed the game and forced people to experience entertainment in the same, egalitarian way every week. No binge-watching. No online spoilers. None of that shit. But Game of Thrones ended in 2019 and television didn’t. Broadcaster HBO is still banking on the traditional model to get us discussing and coming back for more every week. Their latest high-profile series Watchmen showed us life is full of beginning and endings, but never out of surprises.

What is Watchmen? It’s the same thing than Alan Moore’s 1987 graphic novel and Zack Snyder’s movie adaptation from a decade ago. It is and it’s not. Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen is the Pokemon evolution of the original material. It’s also the show you need to watch if you’re fucking sick of superhero culture. The finale aired last night on HBO and the show’s first season is now available for you in its entirety. Drop whatever you’re doing now, sit down in front of your television, iPad or whatever and check out Watchmen. It’s worth your time and then some.

Here’s everything you need to know to enjoy it.

What is Watchmen?

Shit, it’s complicated.

Originally, it’s a story taking place during the Cold War. Costumed crusaders (and not superheroes, the distinction is important) are investigating the murder of one of their own. A man named The Comedian. Costumed independent law enforcers have been used by the U.S government during the Vietnam war, but are gradually being phased out because of their violent methods. One of their leaders Rorschach believes it’s a conspiracy meant to outlaw their practices. He gets thrown in jail. The only Watchman with superpowers Dr. Manhattan is exiled to Mars….

It looks like Rorschach might be right.

Turned out that he was and he wasn’t. He correctly sniffed out the conspiracy, but it wasn’t a conspiracy meant to outlaw costumed crusaders. That was just a tiny afterthought. What’s going on is far more alarming than an attempt to regulate law enforcement through shady practice. It’s the proverbial “humanity is getting fucked if we don’t do anything”, except these guys don’t fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes,. The only one capable of preventing a catastrophe is sitting on a Martian rock and pining over lost time like goddamn Marcel Proust.

What does it have to do with the TV show?

Everything and nothing.

The show is set 34 years after the events of Alan Moore’s graphic novel, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Taking inspiration from real life events, it sets up a race war opposing a Rorschach-inspired white supremacist group called The 7th Kavalry and the local police. Costumed crusaders have been outlaw in the US, but they’re tolerated in Tulsa because of a massacre perpetrated by the Kavalry four years prior. They killed forty of the forty-two members of local law enforcement, leaving for only survivors chief Judd Crawford (Don Johnson) and Angela Abar (Regina King).

For security purposes, members of Tulsa law enforcement are able to conceal their identity, which enables the presence of costumed crusaders if they consent to work with the police. It’s how Angela’s became Sister Night, modeled after a blaxploitation movie heroine from her childhood. The forces at stake are in a stalemate until the day chief Crawford is found hanged to a tree, next to a mysterious wheelchair-bound old man. Then, shit hits the fan, conflict with the Kavalry is reignited and old friends start showing up one by one. That’s the gist of it.

But is it good?

Yes.

I would say it’s excellent, granted you can tolerate showrunner’s Damon Lindelof’s eccentricities. My dude is WEIRD. He’s the guy that co-created Lost and The Leftovers, two of the most awesomely weird show to ever grace a television set. There’s squid raining from the sky, a weird Asian lady that lives in an ever weirder floating city near Tulsa, nostalgia pills, a creepy dude who slides into a rain gutter after dousing himself with lube, stuff like that. Not everything makes sense right away in a Damon Lindelof story. Patience and an open mind are required.

But Watchmen is a smart show that implements socially relevant issues to its storytelling without calling to much attention to it. For example, the protagonist is a black woman and she’s neither portrayed as a persecuted saint or a racial stereotype. Angela’s just a full-fledged person with the merits and flaws that come with normal-but-pretty-cool human beings. It’s refreshing that someone wrote a POC protagonist without making her just the living embodiment of the issues they face. Watchmen embraces diversity, it’s not trying to sell it to you.

Another thing Watchmen has for itself is that it’s fucking funny. I mean, it’s not look-at-this-guy-drive-his-bicycle-in-a-ravine funny. But it has an awkward, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that grows on you over time. There’s this guy named Red Scare, who never really does anything. He’s in full costume and walks around like a bad ass in every episode, but never does anything. He just felt like wearing a costume and acting all bad ass. It’s not funny AT FIRST, but his upfront ineptitude grown on your with every episode until you’re clamoring for him.

Is it really cut from a different cloth?

Tough to say.

This season was more fun and original than most things (shows and movies) I’ve watched in 2019, but a television series stands out by its capacity of remaining equally (or more) engaging with each passing season. The jury is still out, but Watchmen is a vivid reimagining of Alan Moore’s superhero lore with a handful of bold additions (i.e. the U.S colonizing Vietnam). Watchmen is an oddly realistic and energetic take on superhero fiction that’s worth time and attention. Damon Lindelof was probably the best guy to handle such a strange legacy.

8.4/10