We Are All Dr. Manhattan Now (Watchmen, Episode 8)
Not to be all fourth-dimensional about it, but let’s start near the end: it’s entirely appropriate that Dr. Manhattan looks as though he has been disintegrated in his last scene in the episode (though we know from his own words that he has actually been “involuntarily teleported"). Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons used comics as the means for infecting readers with Jon Osterman’s consciousness. The HBO series is transmitted over cable and the Internet after being broken down into tiny packets of data and reassembled on the other end.
Dr. Manhattan was always a memetic infection. Now he is airborne.
It’s December 1, 2019, and I’m congratulating myself on figuring out who Dr. Manhattan is a few minutes before the revelation. It’s December 8, 2019, and I’m congratulating myself on realizing a minute in advance that Angela inadvertently set everything in motion by means of Jon’s unique experience of time.
It’s 5 minutes since Episode 8 has ended, and my wife, who has yet to read the original graphic novel, says she’s going to have to watch the episode again to follow everything that happened. I realize that I don’t need to do this, because I’ve read the comic. But I'm not congratulating myself.
ARE YOU GONNA DRINK THAT BEER, ANGELA? BECAUSE I COULD SURE USE ONE AFTER THIS EPISODE
One of the reasons Moore’s and Gibbons’ Watchmen works so well is that it is continually teaching its readers how to read it. By the time we’ve read the Mars chapter for the first time, we already understand something about how Jon experiences time. But the circular structure of the plot, not to mention the sheer density of the book, encourages re-reading. I probably read it several times before I realized that Dr. Manhattan sees time and space the same way a reader can jump back and forth through a comic.
I don’t know how many times I read Watchmen before I started to teach it, but a quick search of my files tells me that I have taught it on at least 37 occasions. Somewhere along the way I stopped rereading it.
Actually, it wasn’t simply that I stopped rereading it. I found that I simply couldn’t read it any more. Every time I tried to read it, it was too familiar, with all my past readings of it mixed up with the present, and my foreknowledge of the rest of the book both enhancing and interfering with my ability to read the beginning. But can I call it foreknowledge, if I already know it because I’ve already read it?
When I read Watchmen, I read like Dr. Manhattan. It makes sense that there is so much less pleasure in it, since Jon himself doesn’t appear to be taking a great deal of joy in his always-already lived life on Watchmen’s pages.
Now that we have only one episode of HBO’s Watchmen left, I find that, as excited as I am to watch the final episode, what I really can’t wait for is the chance to watch the whole thing again from the very beginning. Because I expect to discover what I already know, but wasn’t in a position to perceive or articulate while the episode were first unfolding before me: everything about the series will prove exquisitely constructed upon a second viewing.
We Have to Go Back
Lindelof’s first big hit, Lost, was a puzzle show. We may not all agree on how successful a puzzle it was [1], but I think we can agree on one of the reasons for the disagreement: Lost was more improvisational than planned. The freedom this accorded the creators is invaluable, but it also means that we should not be surprised when everything doesn’t fit together perfectly.
His last show, The Leftovers, was a near-perfect piece of television, in part because, even though it was predicated on a mystery, the showrunners categorically refused to make it a puzzle show. Hell, the theme song of the second and third seasons told us to “let the mystery be,” If we didn’t understand that the show wasn’t about learning the answers, then we weren’t worthy of a puzzle show. If you can’t even take a hint, what’s the point in looking for a clue?
Tonight’s episode of Watchmen was Lindelof’s equivalent of the Mars chapter, proving that all those years of flashbacks and flashforwards on Lost and The Leftovers really had paid off: Lindelof has figured out how to do fourth-dimensional television over an hour’s worth of linear time.
How fitting that Jon’s first meeting with Angela takes place on a day when everyone is dressed up as Dr. Manhattan. This, too, is a glimpse of the future, but that future is ours: if we pay careful enough attention, we’ll find that we’re all putting on Dr. Manhattan masks.
MOVE OVER, COMEDY AND TRAGEDY! THERE’S A NEW MASK, AND IT’S CALLED “IRONY”
This episode not only infects its viewers with Jon’s vision; it thematizes the very idea of Dr. Manhattan as a communicable disease. We learn that Dr. Manhattan can infuse his essence into an organic substance, and anyone who eats it will gain some of his power.
Reader, we’re eating it now.
And what we’re eating is much more powerful than what we thought was on offer. A televised sequel to Watchmen promised to be, at best, the equivalent of the Nostalgia pill, allowing us to relive a few fond memories over the course of a few hours. Instead, we’re mainlining the past, present, and future.
Previously, on the Next Episode of Watchmen...
I said I was excited to see the last episode, but I feel as if I have almost seen it. I’m so immersed in Dr. Manhattan’s temporal perspective that I feel as though I know the future. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is the feeling.
But what the hell. Here’s what I think will happen:
We’ll have a touching and amusing reunion scene between Jon and Laurie. If Jon is Zeus, then I suppose Laurie is Hera.
The 7th Kavalry and Keane really will kill Dr. Manhattan.
Adrian will somehow end up in Tulsa, and Looking Glass will kill him, providing him a long-needed sense of closure (even if nothing ever ends).
Keane will try to become God not by eating Dr. Manhattan, but by duplicating the experiment. He’ll fail.
Before Jon dies, he’l infuse something organic (an egg? a tomato? a Nostalgia pill) with his essence. Someone will eat it. Maybe Angela, or maybe her son.
Postscript,
or,
Tales of the Black Freighter…in Spaaaace!
The comic-within-the-comic, Tales of the Black Freighter, was about a man shipwrecked on an island, desperate to get back home before the evil pirates of the Black Freighter destroyed his home. He makes a raft from the bloated corpses of his fallen comrades, goes insane, arrives at his home, and kills everyone there, thinking that they are the enemy, before finally joining the pirates on the Freighter. We are led to understand that the main character’s journey parallels that of Veidt, who is building his utopia on 3 million corpses.
Why didn’t I see that he has been doing basically the same thing on Europa, hatching an escape plan that depends on the countless dead bodies of his servants? If he really does escape, this can’t end well.
Note
[1] Hi, Jason!