'Watchmen' Episode 8: Dr Manhattan recalls key detail about White Night that explains why 7K members are looking for him
In Episode 8 of 'Watchmen', we saw Angela Abar (Regina King) remove the ring from Cal Abar's (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) forehead to wake Dr Manhattan up from his slumber. The ring helped Dr Manhattan remain as Cal without any interference from his powers, but with Seventh Kavalry members looking to capture Dr Manhattan and harvest his power for their purposes, Angela had no choice but to wake Dr Manhattan up.
Once Dr Manhattan is awake, he is frazzled as everything in the past, present and future seem jumbled up in his head. In an attempt to remind him of his identity, Angela recalls a few things and one of them happens to be the reason why a clock in their living room has stopped working. This is one of the first things Dr Manhattan notices when he comes to, and Angela asks him if he remembers what happened the day the clock stopped working. He recalls it being Christmas Eve, the night when Seventh Kavalry members had planned a synchronized attack on cops and their family. Now referred to as White Night, Angela is one of the two survivors of the incident. For a while, fans had speculated that Chief Judd Crawford (Don Johnson), who is also speculated to have been a part of the 7K helped her escape. Turns out, it was indeed Dr Manhattan who saved Angela.
When Adrian Veidt (Jeremy Irons), who had created the ring, handed the tiny creation to Dr Manhattan, he had pointed out that Dr Manhattan will not remember how to use his powers, except at times when it is more of a reflex reaction than a thought-out action. This is exactly what seems to have happened on White Night as well, and this could be exactly how the 7K members found the truth about Cal being Dr Manhattan.
Very few people knew about Cal's identity. Will Reeves (Louis Gossett Jr), Angela, Adrian, and Lady Trieu (Hong Chau) to be exact. Despite being hung up on Dr Manhattan herself, agent Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) may not be aware of the truth behind Cal either. Of course, now that she has been captured by 7K and with Cal headed there as well, she will learn the truth. So there is no valid source of the leak and that is exactly why we think 7K found out about Dr Manhattan the night of their grim plan.
The reason they went underground was not influenced by fear, but 7K seems to have been preparing itself for the day they can take Dr Manhattan's power over. The gate that the 7K was researching on when Looking Glass was lured into their hiding place is something that the group must have been preparing for a long time. The fact that Angela reset her grandfather's obsession with Cyclops by using Dr Manhattan to question him in the past also explains how Reeves knew the truth about the Ku Klux Klan robe secretly stashed in Crawford's wardrobe. Meaning, there may not be any connection between Crawford and the Klan or 7K after all.
The finale of 'Watchmen' will bring further clarity when it airs on Sunday at 9 pm ET on HBO.