After Watchmen‘s biggest twist yet in Episode Seven, Episode Eight “A God Walks Into Abar” sets about explaining that twist, starting off with the great pun of a title.
This pun comes from the beginning of the episode when Dr Manhattan both walks into a bar and walks into Abar with the intention of starting a relationship with her, which he already knows will happen because of his ability to see the past, present and future simultaneously.
Nicole Kassel returns to direct “A God Walks Into Abar”, which is almost entirely from Dr Manhattan’s point of view across time.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II does a fantastic job as the character, portraying a perfect mixture of uncaring and caring that creates that enigma that is Dr Manhattan.
Although, I will say the effects and makeup do make him look a little cheesy, which did draw me out of the scene on a few occasions.
These moments are relatively minor, though, and the scenes with Dr Manhattan’ first meeting with Angela are amazingly shot through how it avoids showing his face.
Mateen II and Regina King have great chemistry throughout the episode and it was very investing to watch Angela go from skeptical but interested in Dr Manhattan to in love with him as time passed.
Dr Manhattan’s love for Angela is also brilliantly portrayed through how he experiences time.
The moment he falls in love with her is when she tries to save him from the Seventh Kalvary many years after the get together.
However, because Dr Manhattan experiences time simultaneously, he was already in love with Angela when he met her because he knew of this moment.
Sadly, Dr Manhattan also seems to know of his imminent capture, which he allows to happen, either because he is a victim to time or because he has some other plan.
I guess we will just have to wait and see which one it is.
He did say that Angela had to remember he could walk on water so that has to be important.
“A God Walks Into Abar” also goes about explaining many of the mysteries surrounding both Dr Manhattan and Ozymandias and Will.
We see how Angela chose Cal’s body for Dr Manhattan to impersonate, hence why he appears as he does, and Will learns of Crawford’s involvement with Cyclops and the Klan robe in his closet because of Dr Manhattan conveying a question to him from Angela in the present.
This creates a time loop that raises the interesting question of if Crawford was as bad as he seemed?
Will’s information about Crawford was not gained first hand and Crawford did later tell him he was trying to help.
Although, again, this did come with some racist undertones when he said it so maybe I am looking too deep into it.
As for Ozymandias, we finally got an answer to why he is on Europa and who created the clones that served and arrested him.
They were made by Dr Manhattan, who he based off a couple he met as a child that asked him to build something beautiful when he grew up.
And, when Dr Manhattan obtained a Tachyon device from Ozymandias that allowed him to live as Cal by losing his memories, he rewarded Ozymandias by sending him to Europa to be served by the clones.
The reason the clones served Ozymandias to the point of death is because they were created to always put others before themselves, which is why Manhattan left and why Ozymandias now wants to.
Initially happy in this paradise, he grew bored of it all and now wants to return to his millions of children on earth like the delusional maniac he is.
However, because the clones’ one rule is that no one is allowed to leave, he is imprisoned.
This is when Ozymandias is confronted in a post credits scene by the Game Warden who reveals he was the first to be created by Dr Manhattan, essentially making him the Adam of Europa.
But this raises the question that if he is Adam then what happened to Eve?
Perhaps we will find out next episode?
In any case, the episode then ends with Ozymandias discovering a clone has mistakenly put a horse shoe in his cake, which allows him to initiate a plan to begin his escape back to earth.
Considering that next episode is the last one, I am not sure how this will happen.
In fact, I would say that I am slightly concerned about how all the different plot points like Ozymandias, Dr Manhattan’s capture, Trieu and Will’s plan, Laurie, Looking Glass, and of course Lube Man, are going to come together for the final episode.
Still, Watchmen has been fantastic so far so I have to put faith in that they can pull it off.
“A God Walks Into Abar” is another fantastic episode of the series and it will be interesting to see how it all ends in the finale.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 