Watchmen Season 1 Episode 9: ‘See How They Fly’ Recap and Review

One final recap and review for Episode 9. Its time for the finale for what has become the best show on television.

Ozy is taping a message to President Redford. He is taping a message from the past. He is the architect of the future and in 1985 Ozy must create fear. A weapon more powerful than the atomic bomb. A cleaning lady breaks into Ozy’s computer and takes out a number of samples. Including a sample (#2346) which she puts lotion in and then returns to the fridge with the other samples. SHe takes out a large needle and and prepares it all while saying she no longer wants to be a slave. She wants to ride the wind. Looks like she is impregnating herself. Wowza. She says fuck you Ozymandias and inseminates herself.

In 2008, Lady Trieu knocks on Ozy’s arctic door. She tells him she knows he killed all those people. He tells her she is preposterous but she sweet talks him into letting her in by telling him he is the smartest man but she is the smartest women and that he needed to be thanked for what he did.

Inside, he shows her the transporter beam that is responsible for the raining squids. Doc asks Ozy what would happen if she could make all of the nuclear weapons disappear via Dr. Manhattan. She knows his clone on Mars is a fake. She has tracked him to Jupiter. She tells him she launched a probe and that in five years she will have visual proof that he is on Jupiter. She explains once she has that she can steal his power (AKA kill him) and have it for himself. She then explains she needs money to make it all happen. She expects Ozy to give her seed money because she is his daughter. The cleaning women was her mother.

The Origin of Trieu

He is not happy with her. He calls her mother a thief. He offers ‘sample 2346’ nothing. He will never call her daughter. He is very angry about these turns of events.

However in this timeline he glances at his watch in his cold prison cell and prepares to blow out the candles that are not lit. The ground shakes and as he looks out his prison cell he sees a ship start to land. He escapes out the hole he has dug and prepares to meet the ship. The door of the ship opens and Ozy walks towards it. The Game Warden threatens to shoot him and Ozy makes him. It’s the ole bullet catching bit which is a great nod to the original comic series. They then fight with Ozy finishing the skirmish by stabbing him with the horseshoe. Ozy created him, and gave him a mask to be cruel (He is just another clone). Ozy is a dick. Always was and always will be. The clones all tell him goodbye. The final one places a crown upon his head.

Once on the ship, it launches. We learn he wrote in bodies “save me daughter”. He steps into a chamber and is covered in some sort of gold preserving fluid.

He looks like a bronze statue as he arrives back on earth in our current time. Lady Trieu lets daughter/mother know that she is actually her mother as they wake Ozy up. Ozy tells her that Manhattan sent him there. She explains that she brought him back to witness her glory. He meets daughter/mother and comments that she actually cloned her mother. He is one smart cookie.

Saving Ozy

It’s time to head out and all of the crew begin setting up in the town center. They make their way to the town square. There is a newspaper stand and the owner. The newspaper guy gives Lady Trieu a bunch of papers and has a conversation with Ozy. Ozy and the newspaper guy exchange stories on what they think actually happened to Ozy as the paper stand guy thinks he looks a little like him but not really. The machine that Trieu built starts to come alive and Ozy says the “end is nigh”.

The seventh cavalry is starting to greet all of their special guests including a senator. We hear them respond to the gunfight at Angela’s. Looking Glass is in disguise and he is talking to Agent Blake. Manhattan shows up in the cage the seventh cavalry have built for him. Looking Glass is on the side of the good guys. Lets see how this plays out.

Angela is slowly torturing one of the cavalry to find where Manhattan is. He says some really shitty stuff about having power and being lazy. It is REALLY SIGNIFICANT that Manhattan is black. It is starting to feel a bit like an allegory for 2008. I mean Obama is great and all but Dr. Manhattan seems a stretch. It is important to ground this series in real racism and politics and the cavalry do a pretty good job of that.

Senator Keene explains that it was the fact that someone got teleported that clued them all in to Manhattan being around. Manhattan teleported one of the seventh cavalry who was trying to kill Angela. So the cavalry started to worm their way into Manhattan’s life. It was all part of the plan to get close to Angela. This is all very bond villainy talky talky. He wanted agent Blake there to witness.

Dr. Manhattan and the End

Angela stops this whole ridiculous charade. She explains that Lady Trieu knows everything already. She explains the stolen Trieu batteries are the lynchpin. Our big bad calls her a black bitch and prepares to destroy Manhattan. He steps into the chamber and they push the button.

Everything goes bright and then everything starts to ring. Lady Trieu’s is suddenly present as is her invention. Or more like everyone has been teleported to the town square. The villain within a villain within a villain is a hallmark of the comic and it’s cool to see them use the trope. Ozy greets agent Blake. Trieu mentions it’s time to let Senator Keene out of the chamber. He is nothing but a bloody goo. She explains you have to filter atomic energy or it pops you like a water balloon.

Cyclops wants to know what she wants. She explains they have all been teleported to the site of the greenwood massacre. She runs through all of their crimes and informs them all that she is going to kill all of them. She then kills them all. Manhattan then touches the goo and teleports Looking Glass, Agent X and Ozy to Ozy’s office. Lady Trieu is pissed but says she doesn’t need an audience to do what’s next. He tells Angela that he sent them away to help. She asks why he didn’t send her. Manhattan tells her he didn’t want to be alone when he dies. Treu starts the machine and Manhattan starts to get ripped apart.

The three amigos (Looking Glass, Blake, Ozy) have a brief discussion at Ozy’s lair about interdimensional incursions. Ozy presses some buttons and says he is locked and loaded.

The End is Nigh

John is almost kaput. He tells her she needs to move away. She asks where he is at. He says he is everywhere and in every moment with her and then he explodes, but not before he tells her he loves her.

Ozy says John is absolutely dead but they have a moment to try and stop Lady Trieu. She cannot be allowed to take all of that power because she is a raging narcissist. He tells the rest of the gang “it takes one to know one” but in Latin which is REALLY ON BRAND for Ozy.

Treu’s mom wakes up Angela and then answers a phone in the Manhattan booth. It’s the crew from Ozy’s house. They tell her to seek cover. That they are coming any second. Frozen squids start to rain down.

Running for her life Angela makes her way to the theatre where her grandad sits with her kids. It’s a touching tableau. He explains when they got zapped to the theatre they got the wind knocked out of them. Grandad asks if Manhattan and Trieu are gone. He asks her if she took his pills and she admits to it. He explains she knows everything….she knows his origin story. It’s the origin of Hooded Justice. This score…is just incredible. Granddad explained John knew he was going to die but that he had to die to make things right. That you have to crack some eggs if you want to make an omelet. She says what they hell does that mean. He explained John told her she would know what it means when the time is right. If she doesn’t know then the time is not right.

Meanwhile in the Arctic Ozy shows the other two, Archie, the spaceship as a means to get back to civilization. Looking Glass and Agent X want to arrest Ozy. He laughs at them and says he saved humankind. Looking Glass hits him over the head with a wrench and they load him up to bring him to justice.

As Angela’s family exits the theatre they see the aftermath of the frozen squids. Lots of death and destruction. With the Oklahoma score over the top it’s pretty awesome. Trieu’s mom/daughter survived. Angela takes her family into her secret lair and shows them all of her stuff, including her costume. Her oldest is quite interested in it. We get a full drone shot of how bad the destruction is.

Angela puts her kids to bed and walks into the kitchen where she sees a broken cartoon of eggs on the ground and the device she took out of Manhattan. Grandpa says he was a good man, but with all his power he could have done more. She starts to clean up the broken eggs when she sees the cartoon has one complete egg left. She remembers the conversation she had with John about consuming his powers and inheriting them as a result. She walks outside and eats the egg. She pulls up her pant sleeves and steps onto the pool…..THE END.

Season two is very much in doubt so we will have to see what happens in the days and weeks to come.