Watchmen

A month or so ago, I started following the new HBO series, Watchmen.  I liked it then and I like it more even now.

I don't disagree with Martin Scorsese's criticism of the superhero genre in movies.  Generally, I don't go for Marvel blockbusters and I find the typical superhero movie to be puerile and boring.  But this show had some complexity and depth, and the "superheroes" were merely masked marauders - mortals without superpowers but driven by unusual circumstances to avenge crime and bring justice while concealing their identity.  But the story was deeper than that, and the plot involved a frank examination of the history of racism in America and the damage that it has wrought.

At the beginning, I was just hoping that they'd maintain the quality of the first couple episodes. "Please don't blow it," I wished.  There was so much promise and potential at the start of the series and I so didn't want to see if collapse into cliche superhero violence or self parody. Also, I didn't want to see it become preachy and self-righteous, either.

Last night, Episode Six, This Extraordinary Being, aired.  It was a work of art, and I don't mean that facetiously or ironically.  Like many recent episodes, on one level it was just the back-story of one of the heroes, Hooded Justice (far right, above), but on another level it was the frankest depiction of America's legacy of racism in the series yet.  It finally answered many of the mysteries of the previous episodes, right back to the very opening sequence of the first episode, which had seemed like a totally forgettable non sequitur up to that point.   It was all done with incredible story-telling, juggling several different time lines without getting confusing, and photography that changed from color to black-and-white, and sometimes even combined the two in a single frame.  It was so well-paced and so compelling to watch, that I re-watched the episode when it aired a second time an hour later.

I'm not going to give anything away and I won't spoil your future watching (if you're not doing so already).  My point here is that not only did they not blow it as I was fearing, but they elevated it from a mere t.v. series, to bona fide art.

If this show, this episode, doesn't sweep the Emmys, the problem is with the awards, not the program.