If you don't like my story, write your own.
This was the title of Watchmen Episode 4 - a reference to Chinua Achebe's famous quote: 'If you don't like a story, write your own," - which Damon Lindelof has totally embodied in this great series thus far.
Let's dig in to episode 4:
One of the great things about the episode is that it gave us some answers... yes, answers that lead to more questions but answers nonetheless.
We were given the reveal of Lady Trieu, who's been hinted at in previous episodes through her daughter (buying newspapers) and her technology (the phone Laurie uses to call Dr. Manhattan).
Lady Trieu hints that she is the new Ozymandias of the story. Like Ozy in the original movie/comic book, she's big on gene manipulation and it's hinted that her daughter is a clone.
She re-creates her own artificial environment of Vietnam in the US, just like Ozy did in the original series in the North Pole. Then there's the fact she's bought Ozy's company... so she's in the same position as Ozy in the source material.
Lady Trieu is more intriguing for the fact that she is the "high up" person that Will referred to. Will has clearly grown younger being around Trieu and is able to walk. It would appear that either the pills that he takes or Trieu are behind his de-aging
Yet, most importantly there's a big set up for a big event coming up in 3 days which will change everthing... so the clock is ticking plot wise, tick-tock-tick.
Whatever the scheme is, it involves Will, Lady Trieu and her millennium clock... and I can't wait to see what the event will be and why Will says it will be a betrayal of Angela.
Aside from Lady Trieu's connection to Angela... in that they were both born and raised in Vietnam... I foresee some showdown between Lady Trieu and Angela.
Ah Angela... she came back into the driving seat of the plot after the Laurie pit stop from last week. The show cleverly linked Laurie's story with Angela's through the crashing car that ended last week's episode.
They've set up a buddy cop scenario between Laurie and Angela where they hate each other's guts but are mirror opposites of each other, forced to work together.
The parallels between Laurie and Angela are intriguing: they both have problematic father figures, one was raised to be a superhero whilst the other took the mantle only as an adult. One took on her mother's name whilst the other took on her rapist father's name.
They have opposing views on costume heroes and the rationale of why folks wear them. These two are going to butt heads and it's already started.
We were also given more answers around Veidt - that he's probably in space or on the moon, the poor servants are actually clones whom he did not create... I suspect Lady Trieu is the creator but Veidt is determined to escape his prison.
His need to escape gave us one of the most harrowing images of 2019 of Veidt tossing baby clone foetuses into a river as if they are nothing. Ja, at least we know how the clones come about.
I have a feeling that it's Veidt who crash landed back on earth in the crash on Trieu's farm ...only time will tell.
It felt like: when Dorothy finally arrives in Oz and starts getting some answers but we are still to look behind the curtain to see who the real Wizard of Oz is.
Rating
****
A cool vid. for Episode 2:
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Ratings:
*Trash
**you are own your own
***Not bad
****Almost Perfect
*****Classic