Watchmen - Episode 5: Little Fear of Lightning
WATCHMEN - HBO
'Little Fear of Lightning', the fifth episode, signals the half-way point in Damon Lindelof's Watchmen series and while the show still doesn't do a great deal to impress, it undoubtedly switches the pace to a more appealing and engaging story to what the viewer has seen so far.
It is becoming slightly annoying that with each proceeding episode there is nothing much else to state aside from exact same complaints in the previous episodes. However, with Watchmen very rarely showcasing anything new than the same thin plot with a mass amount of baiting, there is nothing much new to devour. Episode five is a little different in that regard, as it centres itself as an origin story of sorts looking at the character of Looking Glass, played by Tim Blake Nelson.
The depth afforded to Nelson to provide a thematically strong and emotionally compelling performance is one that has only been provided to that of Regina King in the season’s pilot episode. With the material given sole credit to Nelson, he dives deep into a fractured but captivating psyche of a troubled-but-profound character in this universe. The result is a floundering episode that has depth and stellar engaging pacing with gifts and reveals, here, there and everywhere throughout.
Jeremy Irons as Adrian Veidt is afforded a little more material this time around and while not substantial, finds a perfect balance of answers and questions with a deviously wonderful reveal that has been alluded to since the beginning of this season.
Nevertheless, Watchmen is at the half-way point of its lifecycle and to say it has been a significant disappointment would be an understatement. It would seem that the season’s main target is to slowly allude small amounts of reveals in each episode and stitch them all together in one massive scoop towards the climactic final event to save face. It's as predictable as they come in regards to direction.
The genesis of adapting this material into a tv season was to extinguish a whole host of problems that other filmmakers, such as Terry Gilliam and Zach Snyder, have faced having either not enough running time or money to cover the expansive source material truly. Lindelof, remixing a sequel of sorts, has had all the opportunities in the world to rectify and conquer said problems that have otherwise prevailed. Half-way through his creation, Lindelof has already failed to justify or make use of the five of the nine hours afforded to him with blank, uneventful plot beats in a series that had no restraints of any kind provided to the writer or material at hand. What does that make for the next four hours? As predicted as these reviews and the show have become, it’s more of the same.
Watchmen is released Sunday and Monday nights exclusively on HBO and SKY ONE.
