Every episode of Watchmen just gets better and better and the sixth episode, “This Extraordinary Being” is no exception, being the best episode of the series so far.
Directed by Stephen Williams, the story follows a young Will Reeves (Jovan Adepo) as Angela experiences many of his memories due to the large amount of Nostalgia drugs she consumed in “Little Fear of Lightning.”
It is though her experiencing her grandfather’s memories that the fan theory of Will being Hooded Justice, the very first superhero in the Watchmen universe, is confirmed.
I was on the fence about this theory before it was finally revealed.
Although, I knew that it would make sense for the story thematically and that Hooded Justice’s costume could be representative of a black man surviving a lynching, I was skeptical because it would make no sense for everyone to think Hooded Justice was white if he was Will.
Thankfully, this did not turn out to be a plot hole because Will is shown to be applying makeup to make himself appear to be white, knowing that if the white public knew he was black he would be labelled a criminal.
This racist ideology of the community is proven time and time again by Will’s experiences, leading up to him becoming Hooded Justice.
We are given a front row seat at how corrupt and racially charged the police force is.
However, the truth of the matter is even darker because many of the police are revealed to be part of a secret KKK society known as the Cyclops.
This is slowly revealed through a member of the group named Fred (Glen Fleshler), who was arrested by Will for burning down a Jewish shop, being released without charge.
It is Will’s arrest of Fred that leads to the Cyclops targeting him, with him nearly being lynched by the racist cops.
Stumbling home, he then comes across a couple being attacked and, driven by his trauma both old and new, dons the hood and hangman’s noose and charges in to help, becoming Hooded Justice.
While in most stories this would be the start of an inspirational story of Will triumphing over evil, this is not how it works in Watchmen‘s world.
With the exception of his wife, June (Danielle Deadwyler), who was the baby Will rescued after the Tulsa Massacre, he is very much alone in his fight.
Even his fellow heroes will not help, with Will’s lover, and leader of the Minute Men, Captain Metropolis (Jake McDorman) caring more about publicity than actually helping people.
As the years go by, the situation with Cyclops gets worse as no one listening to Will eventually leads to the organisation carrying out an attack by brainwashing a black audience watching a movie to riot.
Metropolis once again brushes Will off about the threat the group poses and this, combined with more racist taunts from Fred, causes Will to take matters into his own hands, killing Fred and many members of the group.
He even steals one of their brainwashing devices to fight back, only to find that he has alienated June and his son, with them going back to Tulsa because of his anger.
From here, the episode cuts to many years in the future to reveal that Will really was the one who killed Judd, using his brainwashing device to have him kill himself.
This is one of the most interesting scenes of the episode because it shows a lot about both characters.
For one thing, it raises a whole lot of questions about Judd and his involvement with the Kalvary, which appears to be descendant from Cyclops.
Judd tells Will he is trying to “help you people” but the “you people” part does seem to have some kind of racist implications.
Still, I think there may be more to Judd than him just being a completely evil Kalvary member.
As for Will, I love the moment when Judd asks who he is and Will replies “justice.”
In the years since we last saw him, Will has thrown away the hood, no longer hiding, and this line perfectly portrays that.
Now, as to what happened between the time Will killed the members of Cyclops and his killing of Crawford is a complete mystery.
There is a lot of years between these two points so it will be interesting to see how he became involved with Trieu.
Speaking of her, Angela wakes up in her care but how she got there is unclear right now as well.
From the promo for next episode, I can guess we will learn more about Angela’s past in Vietnam, which could also lead to us learning more about Will and Trieu.
Back to “This Extraordinary Being” I have got to say that the direction of the episode is incredible.
The representation of the trauma Will has with the constant colored in hallucinations of the Tulsa Massacre is very disturbing, especially when Will hallucinates that the car driven by Cyclops police members is dragging dead bodies.
Along with this, the passing of time is also portrayed brilliantly, as are the transitions between Will and Angela as she experiences his memories.
Probably the best example of this comes when the memory literally freezes in place as Laurie and Cal try to get Angela out of there but fail to do so.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find just how many historical elements have been thrown into this episode, like the first black police officer of New York, Samuel J. Battle (Philly Plowden), who makes a brief appearance.
“This Extraordinary Being” is easily Watchmen‘s best episode so far.
The only issue I have with it is that it doesn’t really make sense for Will to be kidnapped by three Cyclops members so easily, only to be beating them to a pulp with relative ease not long after.
Other than this minor problem, though, “This Extraordinary Being” is a fantastic episode that manages to be dark, depressing, and full of many great character and historical moments, supported by the top notch direction.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 