Watchmen season 1, episode 1 review: It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice

HBO’s version of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ masterpiece is part Watchmen sequel, part examination of race in America, and all parts bizarre.

If you’re going to make an adaptation of Watchmen, turning it into a television series on HBO is the logical way to do it. After all, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ influential graphic novel isn’t an ordinary comic book. It has a complex narrative which plays with time and structure, filled with multifaceted characters, subtle visual foreshadowing, biting social commentary, and deeply ingrained themes about power and authority. Even Zack Synder’s 2009 film version, while visually faithful to the point of replicating Gibbons’ panels to a tee, still amounts to being just “style over substance.”

Damon Lindelof didn’t even bother. Instead of adapting the graphic novel, the co-creator of Lost  (2004-2010) and The Leftovers (2014-2017) has opted to make his new television series a direct sequel. This despite Lindelof’s insistence that it wouldn’t be a sequel but a “remix.” Unlike DC Comics’ Doomsday Clock, however, Lindoff’s Watchmen does stay within the confines of Watchmen‘s universe. It even assumes you’ve already read the graphic novel beforehand.

So just as Watchmen the graphic novel took place in an alternate 1985, Watchmen the TV series takes place in an alternate 2019. Here, actor Robert Redford is in his record 7th term as President of the United States. Electric cars and airships are commonplace, but the internet doesn’t exist. Vietnam is now the 51st State. Richard Nixon’s face is on Mount Rushmore. Firearms are restricted, even for law enforcement. Tiny “alien” squids periodically rain down like hailstones. But just like our world, America is still struggling with issues involving race.

A black-and-white world

The pilot episode, entitled “It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice,” opens with a little African-American boy watching a silent movie about real-life U.S. Marshall, Bass Reeves. The movie is cut short, however, when the boys parents, armed with shotguns, must take him out of town for safety. That’s because this opening scene also takes place during the Tulsa race riot of 1921, also known as the “Greenwood Massacre.”

Flash-forward almost a century later, and racial tensions are about to explode in Tulsa, Oklahoma yet again. On the evening of a production of the musical Oklahoma! featuring a predominately African-American cast, a white man shoots a black police officer during a routine traffic stop. Curiously, the cop wears a yellow half-mask. The shooter wears a mask, too, one which resembles that of Rorschach from the original graphic novel.

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Confused yet? You see, three years earlier, President Redford granted African-Americans tax-exempt status as a form of reparations (derogatorily called “Redfordations”). A group of Rorschach-inspired, white supremacist terrorists called the Seventh Cavalry targeted police officers and their families in response.

As a result, cops, like comic book superheroes, now have secret identities to protect themselves from reprisals, with senior detectives dressed in full costume.

One of these detectives is Angela Abba (Regina King). To the people of Tulsa, Angela retired from the force to open her own bakery, settling down with her husband Carl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and their three adopted children. In reality, she’s still on active duty as Sister Night, dressed in a costume that’s a cross between a ninja and a Catholic nun, and brandishing a large rosary as her weapon of choice.

Other high-ranking officers include the Red Scare (Andrew Howard), Panda (Jacob Ming-Trent), and Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson), an expert interrogator who wears a full-face mask that turns his head into a creepy, featureless mirror. The only one who doesn’t hide his identity is the chief of police, Judd Crawford (Don Johnson).

It’s a weird scenario to say the least. It’s clear Lindelof and director Nicole Kassell are playing around with racial role reversals. At the same time, they also deliberately blur the line between the police and criminals. Racists organizations like the KKK hide their crimes behind anonymity. Yet this episode also shows that giving law enforcement similar anonymity results in greater abuses of power regardless of race. One scene, in particular, involves a suspect hauled in for questioning without reading him his rights, denied a lawyer, then severely beaten afterwards. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, indeed.

“The Future is Bright”

Lest you forget the name of the series is called Watchmen, the episode does include more than a few nods to the graphic novel. A live broadcast shows Doctor Manhattan on Mars building a giant sandcastle. There’s commercials for an upcoming docudrama series called American Hero Story about the Minutemen. During the climatic raid on a Seventh Cavalry hideout, the Tulsa PD pursue a prop plane in what looks very much like Nite Owl’s airship, Archie. Even the Seventh Cavalry release a statement that’s a bastardized version of the opening lines of Rorschach’s journal.

But of course, the most direct Watchman callback comes in the form of Jeremy Irons, who is very obviously playing an aged Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias. Living in seclusion on a vast country estate and celebrating his “anniversary,” the episode gives no clues about how and why Veidt becomes mixed-up in with the season’s overall story. What we can tell is there’s something pretty off about his service staff. And it’s not just because they massage Veidt while he types out a play while naked. Or that they give him a horseshoe to cut his “honeycomb cake.” No doubt things will get even weirder as the season progresses.

There’s one another mysterious figure, an elderly man in a wheelchair played by Louis Gossett Jr. Angela first encounters him outside her “bakery,” which is where she keeps her Sister Night gear. Clearly, he’s someone who knows a lot more than he lets on. Little do we realize just how much he does know until the end.

“Tick Tock, Tick Tock”

Despite being a sequel, Lindoff does incorporate two key aspects from the original graphic novel. For starters, there are hints of a vast conspiracy at work. For some reason, the Seventh Cavalry are collecting old, outdated watch batteries. And in light of the shoot-out, someone has supplied them with heavy firepower. And why, after three-years, have they resurfaced? Chances are those who read Watchmen may have leg up on those viewers who have not.

But the other aspect is a murder of one of the main characters. In the midst of having sex with her husband, Angela receives a phone call from the mysterious old man in the wheelchair. Somehow, he knows that she’s also Sister Night. As she drives out to meet him, she finds Gossett’s Jr.’s character under a tree… from which hangs the dead body of Chief Crawford. That’s right, despite having top billing, the series kills off Don Johnson’s character in the first episode. What’s more, it looks like the wheelchair man – who may also be the same boy from the beginning – may have somehow done the deed.

Like I said, weird. Even though the performances are solid across the board, Watchmen’s first episode may prove too bizarre for causal viewers. But it’s that same strangeness which also makes it compelling, certainly enough to see where the series might be going. Still, those who read the graphic novel will definitely have a leg up on those who have not.