Watchmen - Episode 3: She Was Killed by Space Junk
WATCHMEN - HBO
Progressing in expositional infancy, the third episode — directed by Stephen Williams — continues in what is becoming a snail's pace of revealing fragments with little to piece together in whatever plan creator Damon Lindelof has up his sleeve in the remix of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen.
The old is the new in this third episodic tale, with not only the inclusion of Silk Spectre II herself — Laurie Blake — played by Jean Smart, but also the undeniable confirmation of who Jeremy Irons’s character truly is after months of speculation. Forget about the plot; this has none. Ninety per cent of 'She Was Killed by Space Junk' is thematic character development. However, this episode is a central navigation of just one character, forming the basis as solely an examination of Smart's Laurie Blake, with only sprinkles of Regina King and Jeremy Irons’s characters shown for face rather than any narrative progression.
It's an episode that offers both a positive and negative for the audience. On the positive side, it introduces new layers and therefore engagement to refresh the story with the small reveals covered. On the flip side, there is nowhere near enough progression on show here. The show is now one third throughout its tenure and it has remarkably little to show for it. With the single highlight of Laurie Blake, the show negates to offer a resolution or even touch upon the cliffhanger of the previous episode with this entry more or less convicted in the exact same manner.
The editing here is a true cause for concern. It is in constant stress of dull, unimaginative stretches of indecision and/or direction. It is clear that the parallel stories of the characters in Tulsa and the mystery role of Jeremy Irons will collide, narratively speaking, if it’s not already implied that one of the story lines has taken place before the other. The episode cuts back in the most random and underwhelming places with little information of depth afforded. It begs the question of why this series needs nine hours of footage provided when the three hours already showcased has done so little to set the scale and scope of the story intended to tell?
Lindelof has set up the exact same baiting technique found in a chunk of his filmography: breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs after breadcrumbs only to reveal a stale loaf. If this technique is kept up, Watchmen is going to be another victim to drastic self-indulgence with ego over the material.
Watchmen is released Sunday and Monday nights exclusively on HBO and SKY ONE.
