'Watchmen' Episode 4 takes it up a notch with Jeremy Irons' Adrian Veidt fishing out live fetuses from crab traps
Spoilers ahead for 'Watchmen' episode 4 ...
'Watchmen' episode 4 titled 'If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own' traverses multiple plotlines in parallel and one of the most fascinating ones is that of Jeremy Irons' Adrian Veidt. In the last episode, it was confirmed that Veidt was captured and imprisoned in a manor. The expansive country manor is self-sufficient and Veidt is also allowed to have two servants - Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks. They are clones who only know loyalty and when Veidt ends up killing one or two of them in a rage, he can readily make another one. How he does is what we saw in episode 4.
In the dead of the night, by candlelight, Veidt fishes something out of crab traps. When the camera focusses on his hands, we see squirming fetuses -- almost mature babies -- that Veidt inspects closely. He is unhappy, and so he throws them back in the lake where the crab traps are. He repeats this until he finds two fetuses of different genders and brings it back to the manor. Here, he places the two babies inside a centrifuge pod, which should be named clone growing machines really. In the time that it takes Veidt to have a slice of cake, Veidt's pod helps the fetuses grow into an adult human-like form. Another Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks who are finally taken to the main manor.
Here, Veidt explains that he may be their boss, but he is not their creator. So who is behind the cloning technology? Right after, we see Veidt take Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks to the main hall where there are tons of bodies of the previous clones who possibly had to face Veidt's wrath after another failed attempt at making his own space suit and a spacecraft.
While another failed attempt does frustrate Veidt, he is deadset on escaping a prison which initially seemed like a paradise. He tells Ms. Crookshanks and Mr. Phillips, "Four years. It’s been four years since I was sent here. In the beginning, I thought it was paradise. But it’s not - it’s a prison. So...with your help, with your lives, with your broken, mangled old bodies...one way or another, I will escape this godforsaken place."
This coming from Veidt gives rise to another important question. If Veidt had arrived at the manor only four years ago and he has been missing since 2012. Which makes it a total of seven years, then does that mean that the Veidt plotline is in the past? It would seem that his dedicated attempts at finding an escape from the manor may be successful very soon, making it possible for him to arrive back on Earth in the present. This could also be why his plotline runs parallel to the present day.
He continues to investigate, decides to use the dead bodies of the clones to help him explore the velocity needed to shoot up an object into space, beyond the influence of gravity. He does that by catapulting them into space with a trebuchet launcher. Will he make it in time to see what has become of his empire?
The next episode of 'Watchmen' will air on Sunday on HBO at 9 pm ET.