'Watchmen' Episode 2 connects the Hooded Justice, Rorschach and Sister Night through a shared history of anger, violence and hatred
Spoilers ahead for 'Watchmen' Episode 2
Do you ever stop to wonder why we glorify people who dress up in Halloween costumes and beat up criminals? Most comics, movies and TV shows featuring vigilantes tend to show them as righteous defenders of peace, justice, and the American Way but 'Watchmen' is the big blue glaring exception.
Right from the start, you know that any show based on Alan Moore's classic graphic novel would have morally gray characters and HBO's adaptation/sequel to that seminal work does not disappoint. In the show's second episode we get a short introduction into the history of one of the more minor characters from the comics, a vigilante who is driven by a deep hatred. No, we're not talking about Rorschach, though we'll get to him in a moment, but his predecessor the Hooded Justice.
'Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship' gives us a quick glimpse into the mind of Hooded Justice with a surreal sequence that shows him brutally beating a bunch of robbers to death. "Who am I?" Hooded Justice monologues in the scene. "When I was little, every time I looked in a mirror I saw a stranger staring back at me. And he was very, very angry. What could I do with all this anger? Hot, vibrating electricity with no place to ground it. He couldn't release his rage. Maybe I could help him hide it. I never felt comfortable in my own skin so I made a new one. And when I slipped it on, he and I became one. His anger became mine, as did his thirst for justice. So who am I? Finding the answer to that, I wouldn't be wearing a f****ing mask."
Anger drove the Hooded Justice to become more (or less) than a man and anger is what ultimately drove Rorschach in the original comics and in Zack Snyder's film adaptation. He did not want to save the world, Rorschach wanted to watch the world burn.
Now in the world of the show, we have the 7th Kavalry who see themselves as Rorschach's spiritual successors but though they may follow a warped version of his teachings, they are not the rightful successors to Rorschach and the Hooded Justice's legacy of hate. No, that "honor" goes to the show's lead character, Regina King's Angela Abar aka Sister Night.
Her anger towards the Kavalry is what pushed Angela to become Sister Night, putting on a mask to fight the enemies her badge couldn't touch. Try as she might to deny it, to suppress it, Angela's hatred keeps bubbling to the surface and it's only a matter of time before it explodes out of her.
Angela doesn't seem to be fully aware of the path she's on yet but we're sure that by the end of this story, she will be a changed woman. Right now, she's already a believer in Rorschach's worldview, his philosophy that the world is evenly divided into black and white, sinners and saints, the Kavalry and the Police.
That worldview is clearly a product of the circumstances of Angela's life, especially the attack on her family during the infamous 'White Night'. However, Angela's story is much bigger than the circumstances of her own life, she's just another iteration in a repeating cycle of individuals driven by anger and hatred to seek out their own brand of justice.
There are implications that Angela might be a descendant of the Hooded Justice, who is believed to be dead but might actually be alive and masquerading as the old man Will Reeves (Louis Gossett Jr). Even if it were to turn out that Will isn't the Hooded Justice, the show still draws a clear lineage from Hooded Justice to Rorschach to Sister Night.
Angela may not have degenerated to the point where she has lost herself completely to the mask but we can see the beginnings of that descent in the second episode. She finds herself compelled to put on her full Sister Night outfit before she can interrogate Will — as if the mask allows her to become someone capable of dealing with the sort of trauma she has been going through.
Nevertheless, Angela still seems to see herself as a hero, or at the very least a good person but we know that can't last forever. As much as she would like to hold on to her humanity, Angela became part of the lineage of the Hooded Justice and Rorschach the second she put on that mask and as we all know, there are no heroes in this story and it's only a matter of time before she too is consumed by her anger and transformed fully into Sister Night.
'Watchmen' Episode 3 'She Was Killed by Space Junk' will air on HBO on November 3.
