‘Watchmen’ Season 1, Episode 4 ‘If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own’ Review

Last week’s chapter of Watchmen mainly focused on one of the former members of the Minutemen. The future of characters such as hers set in a time where vigilanteism is illegal plays out quite correctly in the previous episode. Now, however, that story arc smoothly connects to the main plot— despite how messed up this one is once again.

On Sunday’s episode of Watchmen, Agent Laurie Blake (Jean Smart), Agent Dale Petey (Dustin Ingram), and Angela Abar/Sister Knight (Regina King) follow a lead linked to Angela’s stolen car. Meanwhile, Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons) makes extensive use of his servants following a rough night. After this, trillionaire Lady Trieu (Hong Chau)prepares her strange facility for a mysterious plan.

Ancestry

HBO

Much of the decipherable plot comes from Angela’s story. Here, Angela finds out the truth about her heritage. The show takes liberties on the relationship between her and Will Reeves (Louis Gossett Jr.) as it slowly shows the importance of both Angela and Will. Discovering her relationship with Will maintains its effect on Angela, making her make hasty decisions and dull her cop instincts.

In what seems to be a dramatic sequence, Angela expresses her frustration over her current situation. One would think that her dialogue led to her concluding how happy she is in finding a new relative, but she hated such a proposition. Angela’s life has fewer problems, knowing that the only generation to worry about is hers and her adopted children. Also, she has not quite answered the riddle Will left for her to solve. It looks like it will take more than her sneaking to find the elusive Will.

Owners of Flying Machines

HBO

Lady Trieu’s introduction begins with a show of her wealth, typical to her type of character. Once she buys land from an unsuspecting couple, Trieu’s investment bears fruit as a mysterious flying object falls within the boundaries of the property she just acquired. Perhaps months later, the property is now home to a massive clock on top of the large building. Buying Veidt’s company after his disappearance makes Trieu one of the most influential people in the country, if not the world.

Trieu has a vibe that implies that he is not one of the good guys. Other than her evident admiration for Ozymandias, Trieu’s words and actions suggest something sinister she has in mind along with Will. Much of her involvement in the episode remains unexplained. For example, the ship that crash lands in the Klark couple’s estate. Also, Trieu seems to be experimenting with her child, Bian (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport). Bian mentions having vivid dreams about suffering that was not hers but instead channeled through her. Who knows what Trieu and Will have in mind for Tulsa.

Baby Harvester

HBO

Veidt’s suiting up in the previous episode implies that he went off to battle the Game Warden, but this is not the case. His opening sequence is as grotesque as it can be: Veidt harvests babies from a lake and bakes them into a couple of full-grown male and female persons. These people turn out to be Mr. Phillips (Tom Mison) and Ms. Crookshanks (Sara Vickers). On top of that, Veidt has these half-baked clones clean up an entire dinner table full of dead copies of themselves and load their remains on a catapult.

Most of Veidt’s actions do not seem to make sense, but slowly, we get to understand why he does such ridiculous things. Veidt mentions that he remains in the estate for quite some time and is bored with his life in prison. The play about Dr. Manhattan’s origin story likely was for his amusement, but everything that follows after that is for a plan. Veidt attempted to craft a suit capable of withstanding the effects of reaching high altitudes (which it did not initially). Now, he made a catapult that could throw him out of the estate as far as he wishes, and it works. Sooner or later, Veidt could land somewhere the same way Angela’s car dropped out of nowhere.

Too Many Burns was Given That Day

Despite how dangerous the situation is, Angela and Agent Blake continuously bicker. The episode never runs out of instances where these two alike women try to intimidate each other. Regardless of their behavior, the pair (since Agent Petey became a mere decorative ornament among them) achieved results in the case of Angela’s car. Angela and Agent Blake end up confronting Lady Trieu, who is suspiciously polite. Now, they knew that Trieu has something to do with Will and the car. However, that was not enough reason to have the FBI torch Trieu’s suspicious-looking tower in the middle of Tulsa.

The show indeed has a lot of blurry lines between good and evil, but we are sure of Angela and Agent Blake’s characters. Angela is the vengeful hero out for justice, while Agent Blake is the anti-hero who says a lot of crazy things but ultimately ends up doing the right thing. Also, both of them are practically ‘legal superheroes’ since they work for the government. One can tell that the duo will soon have a unique friendship despite how they seem to despise each other at the moment.

‘Watchmen’ Season 1, Episode 4 ‘If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own’ Final Verdict

Watchmen creates yet another episode full of mind-boggling plots paired with smart, witty humor. Stimulating the mind while entertaining audiences is something the show is good at by far and seems to be doing impeccably well at this point. There are so many things to anticipate in the coming episodes (easter eggs, continued plot development), and the show gives the right mix of everything needed to keep viewers invested.

Watchmen continues Sunday, November 17th with ‘Little Fear of Lightning’ at 9/8c on HBO.