Watchmen Episode 2 Review

DIRECTOR: NICOLE KASSELL
STARRING: REGINA KING, DON JOHNSON, TIM BLAKE NELSON, YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II, ANDREW HOWARD, JACOB MING-TRENT, TOM MISON, SARA VICKERS, DYLAN SCHOMBING, LOUIS GOSSETT JR. AND JEREMY IRONS

SPOILERS: There are SPOILERS for Watchmen Episode 2 in this review.

Watchmen Episode 1 had us intrigued. Now Watchmen Episode 2 has us thoroughly hooked.

Damon Lindeloff really knows how to write a good TV show. He knows how to hook us in and eagerly anticipate what’s going to come next. He’s always been good at that, ever since Lost.

Over the years, he’s only got better at it with the likes of The Leftovers and now Watchmen. He understands how to write plots full of mystery and intrigue with big ideas and themes thrown in for good measure.

The very first episode of Watchmen introduced us to the characters of Angela Abar (Regina King), Judd Crawford (Don Johnson) and some members of the police force such as Wade, a.k.a Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson) and Red Scare (Andrew Howard).

Watchmen just keeps on getting better and better

Watchmen is the best show on TV right now (Credit: HBO)

Read more: Watchmen Episode 1 Review

What Episode 2 is doing here is letting us know a bit more about the characters. It’s like being on a drip-feed of information. It’s not done via information overload, but a trickle of knowledge about each and every one of these characters.

Lindelof and his writers are being very clever with this show and these characters. They’re showing, not telling. Just by characters’ actions, we’re starting to learn a little more about what makes them tick.

We’re also learning more about Judd’s past, which is starting to look very suspicious, and we’re getting to find out a little more about Angela’s past as her grandfather turns up and is claiming that he’s the one who strung up the Chief of Police, despite being a cripple, over 100 years old and seemingly not capable of pulling off such a feat.

The more I watch this show, the better I think it is. I loved the original graphic novel. I just couldn’t put it down when I was reading it, and I’m getting that exact same feeling with Watchmen.

Watchmen Episode 2 builds on the good work of the first episode

Regina King is back as Angela in Watchmen Episode 2 (Credit: HBO)

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As soon as the episode finishes, I feel upset because I know I’m going to have to wait until next week to watch the next episode.

Sometimes I do wish HBO would just follow the Netflix model and just release everything at once, but then it makes it more of an event every week when a new episode airs.

So perhaps it’s for the best. Perhaps Watchmen on HBO is making me rediscover my love of weekly television. It’s getting very rare nowadays thanks to Netflix which jsut forces us to binge-watch everything.

Instead, HBO is still championing releasing their shows on a weekly basis, which fuels debate, and makes the pleasure of watching a show like Watchmen last longer, as opposed to watching it all in one weekend.

After the huge disappointment that was Game of Thrones season 8, it really does seem as if HBO has found a new show to lean on, and one which could turn out to be better than their ‘dragon-y and fire-y’ TV show.

HBO has a new winner on its hands with Watchmen

Watchmen Episode 2 is introducing new characters (Credit: HBO)

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Regina King is excellent, yet again, in Episode 2, which is called Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship, and this week’s episode saw more from Jeremy Irons’ character, Adrian Veidt, who’s credited as ‘Lord of a Country Manor’.

He’s a very strange individual, but I particularly loved the scene where he recreated the beginnings of Doctor Manhattan as he got his strange clone servants to act it all out in front of him.

It’s both an amusing and horrific scene as one of the clones ends up getting burnt alive. I’m getting some pretty big evil villain vibes from Irons’ character, which is to be expected since he is playing Ozymandias after all, but that hasn’t been revealed just yet in the series.

I cannot wait to see what’s to come from this series of Watchmen, and Episode 2 just adds yet again to the mysteries put forward in Episode 1. I get the feeling it’s all gearing up towards a great denouement towards the end of season 1.

Watchmen season 1 is being aired on HBO in the US and new episodes are available to UK viewers on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV every Monday.

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