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The framing of one scene really made me roll my eyes. When Treiu was standing in her machine getting ready to receive Dr. Manhattan's powers, she was on the right side of the screen and a crucifix was on the left side. Symbolism! Ham handed, film-school student obvious symbolism. It reminded me of a scene from Man of Steel where Clark is in a church trying to decide if he should turn himself in to save humanity. He shares the frame with a stained-glass window of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Blunt and unsubtle symbolism, so I guess the director of episode 9 was doing an homage to Zach Snyder.

Pretty predictable ending, and wow were there way too many villainous monologues (Keane, Trieu, Veidt) but at least the last two got cut short, but I enjoyed it. They actually wrapped everything up besides the possibility of Dr. Angelahattan. I was kind of hoping she'd fall in the pool after she ate the raw egg. Congratulations, Angela, you didn't get omnipotence, just salmonella.

I think Angela might have inadvertently saved the world (or whatever) by feeding info to her grandfather. Senator Keene's plot to capture / kill / become Dr. Manhattan was already in motion, so all Angela accomplished was getting Judd killed, which brought Laurie to Tulsa, and (maybe) got Lady Trieu in an alliance with her grandfather.

That was so good! 1. Dr. Manhattan POV episode, so naturally we experience it non-linearly 2, Yahya Abdul-Mateen full frontal. 3. Open with Rhapsody in Blue, followed by the Blue Danube Waltz. I'm pretty sure some of the other songs featured "blue" in the title 4. Veidt isn't in prison, other than the prison of paradise. He went voluntarily then realized what a nightmare it actually is. Only seven candles, so I assume he's still got a lot more shenanigans until he catches up to our current events. 5. Nice ontological paradox with Judd and the Klan robe. Some of the camera work was weird, like off-centered characters, and focusing on Dr. M's hands or necktie. I guess it's in keeping with the "he sees the world differently" theme but it was jarring. Some of the FX were shockingly bad too, like Calhattan walking on the pool.

One of his attackers was missing the Rorschach mask -- can we assume Looking Glass is wearing it to infiltrate the 7K?

My concern is that the "end" is ill defined. I assume they are writing this under the assumption that it will get multiple seasons, and therefore a lot of the stuff they're setting up now won't be resolved this season, and (likely given Lindelhof's track record) doesn't actually have a planned resolution. So it'll either be unceremoniously dropped, or the solution they pull out of their asses in season 5 will be nonsense. I like that they answered the question "how did Angela survive the White Night" without actually spelling it out for us. I agree that we're supposed to infer that she survived because Dr. Calhattan saved her.

That was interesting. I appreciate it when know-it-all-smug characters get thrown off their game, like Laurie, Lady Trieu, and Angela all did. I rolled my eyes at the elephant. They have good memories, get it? Also rolled my eyes at the Veidt scene. What the hell was that? So surreal. It took me until today to realize that Angela's eye makeup is a negative image of Hooded Justices's. Symbolic of ...umm... symbolism. She's his mirror image? Antithesis? Something metaphorical.

I was pretty bored by this episode. Not a lot of new information. Will using that silly mesmerizing technology to hang Don Johnson was dumb. I realize this is a universe with interdimensional fake giant squids and blue god living on Mars, but the flashing-lights-mind-control is a bridge too far. It also didn't explain how Johnson wound up dangling 10 feet in the air, unless Will's wheelchair had a winch on it. Whoever directed this should be slapped. I understood that Angela was experiencing her grandfather's memories, because Laurie explained that pretty clearly. I did NOT need to see multiple shots where it was Young!Will in the scene then a moment later it was Angela in the same scene wearing the same clothes. And the camera work for that wasn't nearly as clever as they think it was: start on Will, pan left off of Will, then pan right onto ANGELA! Dun dun DUN! Yeah, you had the actors change places when they were off camera. This isn't rocket surgery.

To be fair to the show, they are portraying her attitude as a flaw, because I couple of times she's stepped in it. She assumed Petey was fanboying at her ("do you want my autograph?") which he called her on. And in the mausoleum / tunnel interest, she got all superior and Angela just mocked her. I had the exact same reaction, until she did it again after Wade corrected her. I thought it was another example of her superiority-complex being a flaw. She doesn't just dislike the masks - she actively hates them and gets a little unprofessional as a result.

Add that to my list of areas where the show runners thought the audience was stupid. They could have cut right after Veidt stated that he was responsible for the squid, and leave the rest implied. I mean, they did do that, in that we didn't have to watch several hours of Veidt explaining the minutiae of his plans to President Redford, but I think it would have been better if they cut immediately after the reveal. But no, they think we're too dumb to fill in the blanks on our own.

I really enjoyed this episode! Great character piece. However the director must of thought the audience were idiots: 1. When Wade's ex-wife said "I spent seven years trying to convince you that I wasn't going to run away with your clothes" they just HAD to cut back to the opening scene. Yeah, I got the reference since only 20 minutes of screen time had passed. I'm not a goldfish 2. When Wade ratted out Angela, multiple camera angles were used, most of which made sure to frame the cactus front and center. Again, I can remember its importance without having it thrust in my face repeatedly. Because so far Angela has been kind of dumb. I mean, she's a good detective, but she's also been led around by the nose for the entire plot with her grandfather.

Extremely good radar tracking of interplanetary objects, because she didn't want to be Killed by Space Junk.

I laughed out loud at that scene, because throughout the chase they remained equidistant like two people never have in real life.

I really hope they're not doing the tired "clone with genetic memories" trope because it's so hacky science fiction. Clones don't have genetic memories because genes don't work that way. Did the show indicate when the opening scene took place? I'm just wondering if the object that fell from the sky happened a few years ago or recently.

The editing and camera work on this episode were both interesting and distracting. I really liked some of the scene transitions, like Sister Night walking from one scene to the next, her background jump cutting to the new location. On the flip side, her conversation with Agent Blake while driving to the clock tower was a rack-focus nightmare. I take it we're supposed to assume Veidt is trapped on the moon. Fishing up fetuses for his servants was just weird. I liked that he's doing ballistic studies with his catapult, adjusting the tension and repeatedly flinging Dead!Crookshankses. It sort of justifies his slaughter the previous evening, since he needed test subjects that all weigh the same. Of course, he could have used rocks, but that wouldn't have been as weird. Lady Trieu's kid was creepy. I'm not sure if it was the glasses, the haircut, or the IV she slept with. Otherwise, I don't think this episode moved much forward.

I agree that it's probably not Dr. M. The letter exchanged reminded me of a scripted response to a computer game, but that might be because I'm still hoping he's stuck in a simulation rather than an actual physical prison. The steam-punk tech escape plans are a metaphor for his consciousness escaping the Matrix or whatever. If I'm right about this, I will quote this post incessantly. If not, I'll completely pretend I never said it.

Honestly, when she first pulled it out I thought it was a bong.

Also wanted to mention, who in their right mind would name a cemetery Tartarus Acres, let alone buy a plot there? I guess it's in keeping with the theme of the Laurie's joke: "Tartarus is the place where souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment."

I'm glad I waited for Jean Smart. I loved this episode. The introduction to her character was fantastic. I really liked how she dropped lower in the frame, revealing her portrait was part of the Andy Worhol-esque painting in her apartment. I assume the Senator's reference to getting her "owl" out of his cage refers to Night Owl being in prison. I also assume that the Senator was actually behind his own kidnapping plot, because "the good politician is actually evil" is a predictable twist. Loved her subordinate sassing her back, though given current events it's kind of unfortunate she slept with him. Looks like Veidt is in some sort of prison and is trying to steam-punk tech his way out of it. The joke Laurie told Dr. Manhattan's call line included the detail that the murderous giant squid was actually a ploy. Is this common knowledge? I'm guessing that it isn't, since they still have miniature squid-falls and they blame them on transdimensional beings.

Jim Beaver, Bobby from Supernatural. Since the kids are her former partner's children, I assume he's an uncle.

Thanks, that makes much more sense

Well, that certainly... was an episode of a TV program. I found myself checking my phone occasionally, or staring off into the middle distance with a blank expression on my face, like most of the actors on the show. I was having a difficult time mustering any enthusiasm. Veidt's servants are robots, or clones, or robot-clones. I think we all guessed that last week. Are we to assume that another year has passed for him, since he had two candles on the dessert? If I understood the WWII flashback correctly, Louis Gosset Jr was the younger boy, not the soldier, so I think that would make him the baby that got rescued from the massacre, not the young boy. Frankly the whole flashback timelines are confusing, because Louis Gosset had that "Protect This Boy" note that was written in 1921, but the front of the note was the Nazi pamphlet from WWII. I would attribute that to something clever coming up in the future, but this is Damon Lindelhof we're talking about. He and clever writing have never shared a meal. I'm holding on until Jean Smart gets there and I hope she can salvage this. When the camera unartfully zoomed in on the painting, I yelled "Metaphor!" at the TV. Then I wondered what exactly it was metaphoring. Symbolism for symbolism sake, another Lindelhof special.

I'm really looking forward to Jean Smart. From the previews her character seems just perfect.

Counterpoint to the theory that Bass Reeves inspired the Lone Ranger: Burton's exact quote is "Bass Reeves is the closest real person to resemble the Lone Ranger." That's an analogy. Burton has since claimed that he was only theorizing and not stating a fact.

When I saw Jeremy Irons roll up on a horse at a castle, I wondered if they filmed it at his real life actual castle, but it doesn't look like the pictures here. Could have saved on production costs. There was a blink-and-you-miss-it newspaper headline saying Veidt Officially Declared Dead (or something similar). His servants said he was celebrating his anniversary of being wherever he is. That stuff plus their really weird behavior (making an apparently inedible dessert with honeycomb) made me wonder if he's in suspended animation or something, and either lucid dreaming or in a virtual reality. Maybe his intellect is being kept occupied while his body is being repaired.