Watchmen Episode 6, ‘This Extraordinary Being’ had me worried as the opening credits rolled. This episode promised to take us, via Angela Abar overdosing on her grandfather’s nostalgia pills, into the past to look at the life of Will Reeves.
My worries came because I’ve been down this road before with HBO, in particular Westworld. Season One of Westworld, much like Watchmen, was started unexpectedly great, but somewhere in the middle of that freshman season, things went awry. The showed doused itself in technobabble, heavy-handed dramatic monologues, violence for the sake of violence, and vague metaphors that left us scratching our heads instead of picking our jaws off the ground.
I feared the same fate for Watchmen. The season has been so outstanding, and hot off the heels of last week’s excellent Episode 5, I figured it was only a matter of a few tick tocks (see what I did there) before that other shoe would drop on the series.
Luckily, I was dead wrong. Utterly, and completely dead wrong.
‘This Extraordinary Being’ reminds us that Watchmen isn’t driven by spectacle, it’s driven by both its story, and the social themes of race and racism, trauma, and justice (amongst others). No matter fantastical or ridiculous the show can get (e.g. anything relating to Adrian Veidt), its feet are firmly planted on the ground, because the show isn’t about any of that. It’s about something so relevant, important, and immediate. All the bells and whistles of the source material is merely the vehicle to bring that message to the masses.
‘This Extraordinary Being’ pulls back the mask of systematic, institutional racism that was perpetrated on Will Reeves, and the African American community in New York City to both Angela (who’s reliving this through the nostalgia pill) and for the viewer themselves. This racism and his anger towards it fuels Will’s entire life — leading him to become a police officer, and then ultimately Hooded Justice.
Throughout the episode we see every purported “good guy” rear their ugly head of racism towards Will — whether it’s his fellow offices who work with “the cyclops,” his supposed friends in The Minutemen, and even Hollywood who (whether intentional or not) cast a white man (Cheyenne Jackson) to play his role in “American Hero Story.” The police, Minutemen, Hollywood, and singularly Captain Metropolis (Jake McDorman) use Will as a token form of public good will, a figurehead for a false movement, television ratings, and in Metropolis’ case, his own sexual desire.
While every betrayal is impactful, none hits harder than when The Minutemen (via Captain Metropolis), the supposed heroes inspired by Will, turn their back on him because helping black people doesn’t “fit” their (literal) business model due to their own inherent racism. Watching Metropolis break Will’s heart twice in one phone call is absolutely devastating. Jovan Adepo, who was terrific in When They See Us, is just so damn good in this scene. He’s able to harness heartbreak and rage in one scene, and this scene should be one of the tentpole scenes in this series. Adepo carries this episode, and it’s a bold move to focus so much on him, especially since we’re likely never to see him again.
From a technical perspective this episode is shot in absolutely gorgeous black and white photography. It might seem like an odd criticism, but had this episode been filmed completely in color, it would not have had the same dramatic effect. The color palette makes everything starker, grittier, more intense. The scenes where Hooded Justice is thrust into action come off so much better than the brightly colored Hollywood fictionalization (and bastardization) portrayed earlier in the season. The color palette also gives the episode a feeling of simplicity — there’s no sci-fi gadgetry to distract you from the matter at hand — it’s all about the message and the acting.
To be fair, my review cannot do Watchmen Episode 6 justice. It’s a masterwork of acting, writing, and directing. It takes risks in changing the essence of a character so intrinsic to the show’s material. It stands firm in making its story, and most importantly the issues its tackling, the straw that stirs the drink not the spectacle that comes with comic book related material. With three episode left, the show has built up enough good will with the audience (or at least me) that I believe they’ll stick the landing (something HBO spectacles don’t always do), and leave us with some unforgettable.
In the mean time, run, don’t walk to watch, or at least re-watch Watchmen Episode 6.
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