'Watchmen' Episode 8 takes us back to when Angela Abar fell in love with Dr Manhattan, their relationship is frustrating but comically so
Spoiler alert for 'Watchmen' Episode 8
First, let's get one thing right. The title of the episode is 'A God Walks into Abar' not 'A God Walks into A Bar'. The hint to Calvin Abar (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) being Dr Manhattan was right there! In this episode, we see how Dr Manhattan, who experiences the past, present and future at the same time, approaches Angela Abar (Regina King) in Vietnam in 2009 to ask her out for dinner. He does so by telling her a story — about how Angela and Dr Manhattan manage to stay together for 10 years before a tragedy strikes.
Initially, of course, Angela doesn't believe anything that Dr Manhattan says. The episode proceeds as if it is time being experienced by Dr Manhattan. It flits between the past, present and the future as we hear the blue man with Godly powers tell Abar about where he was all this while. Her disbelief is natural, obviously, considering how Dr Manhattan is believed to be on Mars after the Dimensional Incursion Event in 1985.
It is then that Dr Manhattan reveals that he was never in Mars, but that it was a plot that was specifically designed to distract people from the truth. In the meanwhile, Dr Manhattan was busy creating a world where there was no strife. She doesn't take him seriously and entertains his overactive imagination. As she continues to do so, the conversation develops into a world of its own as we see Angela fall in love with Manhattan in just two weeks and give him the perfect solution to hide his identity by taking the form of Calvin Jhelani who died under mysterious circumstances.
In the course of the conversation, we see Angela and Dr Manhattan's relationship progress beyond love. In six months, Dr Manhattan explains to Angela, that she would tell him to leave. He explains how the argument is spurned off by Dr Manhattan's ability to experience the future while he is in the present, and when Angela and he are having sex, she asks him "Where are you now?" That leads to Dr Manhattan claiming that Angela will tell him to leave in a few minutes and this puts her off completely and the conversation leads to Angela getting frustrated at Dr Manhattan's ability. This moment is equal parts funny and frustration just as the episode itself.
Angela who is in the bar with Dr Manhattan in 2009 is confused because he had just claimed how the two would stay together for a decade. Now, he tells her that she would tell him to leave and the contradiction is something that Angela is unable to explain logically. This is also true for the conversation that is taking place right then. Yet, she lets him continue, just to see where it all goes.
And it goes to a place that we did not expect to see, to be honest. After Angela tells Dr Manhattan to leave, he arrives at Adrian Veidt's (Jeremy Irons) aka Ozymandias' place. Despite being framed of causing cancer to people who come in contact with Dr Manhattan by Veidt, it is Ozymandias himself, who helps Dr Manhattan with an instrument that would help him forget who he is and restrict him using his ability to live through time. This would help him stay off-radar as people continue to believe that Dr Manhattan is on Mars. It would also help his relationship with Angela, no doubt, and so the two decide to start afresh in Tulsa, which is where Angela's parents are from. Of course, Angela in 2009 is surprised that he knows about Tulsa at all and that is when there is a spark of interest in her.
She doesn't let it show and continues to claim that she is not going to say yes to going out for dinner with him. Dr Manhattan then continues, he tells her about how the two will live in Tulsa, and how they will be a family with three kids that they adopt. A boy, and two girls. The one thing that Dr Manhattan is unclear about is when they adopt the kids, and that also hints at the restrictions that Dr Manhattan would face in the future when he lives without his memories intact. His experiences in Tulsa is fragmented because when Dr Manhattan is woken up by Angela in the future, he has very little time to understand how he lived the past few years. You see, Dr Manhattan knows what the Seventh Kavalry is up to, and he has no way of stopping them.
Despite knowing what will occur in the future, all that Dr Manhattan can do is live through it, and not change a thing. The tragedy strikes, Jon is taken away by Seventh Kavalry, and all that Regina is left with is to wonder if this is the end of her relationship with Jon as he had claimed or if she can, in any way change Jon's fate.
The next episode of 'Watchmen' will air on Sunday at 9 pm.
