Watchmen - Season 1, Episode 06: This Extraordinary Being
Trailer
The series deals with the life of a group of masked vigilantes as outlaws. The series reveals the nostalgia of the pioneering graphic novel of the same name. In a short time, the chain was able to try to break its own new ground away from the past.
That's the thing about this country's racism: it's evolved, and many ways its virulence has lessened. But it's not going anywhere -- so Will Reeves can't stop fighting.
Directed by Stephen Williams and co-written by Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson, this episode is so absurdly good that it's hard to imagine Watchman outdoing itself after this.
In creating a new persona, it exposes a brilliant episode of shining a light on a dark history that needs more attention, while also telling the story of Angela Abar, and how, like her grandfather, she dons a mask to hide who she really is.
The first five episodes of Watchmen have felt a bit like watching Damon Lindelof build a precarious Jenga tower. This is the episode that makes everything snap into place. There was a plan.
It's an episode filled with brave narrative choices and universe-enriching origins -- and once again proves that Watchmen is the most capable show on television at dancing to the beat of its own drum.
Tonight's astonishing episode directly engages with the most foundational element of the book: the identity of Hooded Justice, the first "masked adventurer" and perhaps the most eternally mysterious.
Even for a series that is already a huge departure from the source material, "This Exceptional Being" is an enormous gamble. But it's a gamble that pays off spectacularly, in one of the best hours of television that Damon Lindelof's ever been involved in.
Using long, unbroken takes, the show reveals the secret history of Hooded Justice as seen through the eyes of Angela Abar, whose drug-induced memory trip makes for an alluring musical journey through both past and present.
"This Extraordinary Being" puts viewers behind Will's mask and takes them on a visceral journey through the heart of the American divide. It's an episode of television as affecting as it is awe-inspiring.