Like Lost And The Leftovers Before It Watchmen Was Really A Love Story And A Great One

Like ‘Lost’ And ‘The Leftovers’ Before It, ‘Watchmen’ Was Really A Love Story (And A Great One)

By Rafael Motamayor/Dec. 17, 2019 11:00 am EST

Watchmen is a show that does many things right. What could have easily turned into a disaster became instead a fantastic show that reconciles the past with the present, as it tells a story of generational trauma through the lens of a superhero story. What few if any of us predicted at the beginning of the season is that Watchmen would turn into a love story.Then again, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. As Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson pointed out on Twitter, Damon Lindelof’s TV work often starts by setting up very complex genre puzzle box mysteries, only to reveal that at their core, they’re wounded love stories about people trying to connect with others, just as they’re fighting to put themselves together.The best episodes of a Damon Lindelof show are usually those that take a step back from the mystery, and instead tell weird yet very personal stories about love and interpersonal relationships. So, now that the first (and only?) season of Watchmen is done, we’re going to look at how Lindelof’s entire TV work has prepared the audience for Watchmen’s story of finding community and love, even as baby squids rain down from the sky.

This article contains spoilers for Lost, The Leftovers, and Watchmen.

We Have to Go Back

As I’ve written here before, since its early days, Lost used its mystery to tell a very human story of having to build a community and learning about yourself through others. No matter how crazy the show got (and boy did it go crazy at times), the heart of the show always laid with the castaways and their relationships towards one another. This became especially true in the later seasons of the show, but no episode showcases this better than “The Constant.“The fifth episode of the fourth season of Lost, “The Constant” follows Desmond, Sayid and Lapidus as they finally set foot on the mysterious freighter that looms near the island and was definitely not sent by Penny. After going through turbulence, Desmond’s consciousness starts traveling through time between 1996 and 2004. The episode then deals with Desmond’s attempts at stabilizing his mind before he dies of a brain aneurysm, while we explore more of his relationship with Penny Widmore. The episode is the culmination of a love story that was teased for several episodes across two seasons, as we first saw a picture of Penny all the way back in the third episode of season two, and here we finally get a reunion between Desmond and Penny – albeit via a phone call. The non-linear structure of “The Constant” instantly brings to mind the non-linear structure of “A God Walks Into Abar,” the eighth episode of Watchmen. We knew that Doctor Manhattan experienced time in a different way than humans, and maybe you have already read the source material, but to see that brought to life on the screen is an entirely different thing. The beauty of the episode is how it manages not only to portray the time-travel aspect of Doctor Manhattan’s powers, but how it uses it to show how Manhattan was able to see his entire relationship with Angela from even before he meets her. Because of Manhattan’s powers, he experiences the entirety of is life simultaneously. He is both falling in love with his wife Jane as he flees for Mars, at the same time as he meets Laurie for the first time, as he is being trapped by the 7th Kavalry, and also asking Angela for dinner. This could have easily backfired, but the acting, writing, and the hauntingly beautiful score make this story of a Zeus coming down from Olympus to settle down one of the best love stories on TV in years. 

Nothing Ever Ends

The last two episodes of Watchmen felt like a continuation of that same sentiment. If the graphic novel was a noir mystery that evolved into a commentary of politics and superhero stories, the HBO adaptation was a superhero story that evolved into an exploration of trauma, love and faith. Our main characters by the last episode, Angela, Laurie, Wade, Adrian, Lady Trieu, and Will, all suffered trauma when they were young, and that trauma evolved into a crisis of faith that informed the rest of their lives. They became cops, evil geniuses with a god complex, and superheroes because they all had their faith in a higher power – God, the law – turn to ashes by the cruelty of the real world.But by the series finale, it seems like they have at least started to acknowledge this trauma and how much it prevented them from actually living a life. Laurie finally decided to expose Adrian Veidt and together with Wade, they arrest him. Angela realized the generational aspect of her own trauma, and decided to at least invite her grandfather to stay with her for a few days. Doctor Manhattan may not have descended from the heavens to answer everyone’s prayers and fix all the world’s problems, but he inadvertently made each of our main characters find a way to heal and eventually to get better.Watchmen, like Lost and even The Leftovers before it, is a show that will continue to be written about and dissected for years. This is a show that uses mystery and crazy genre storylines to get at the hart of what makes us human, and how we can be better people and also heal from past trauma through love and community. Leave it to good old Jack Shephard to best summarize it: “If we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.”

Like ‘Lost’ And ‘The Leftovers’ Before It, ‘Watchmen’ Was Really A Love Story (And A Great One)

By Rafael Motamayor/Dec. 17, 2019 11:00 am EST

Watchmen is a show that does many things right. What could have easily turned into a disaster became instead a fantastic show that reconciles the past with the present, as it tells a story of generational trauma through the lens of a superhero story. What few if any of us predicted at the beginning of the season is that Watchmen would turn into a love story.Then again, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. As Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson pointed out on Twitter, Damon Lindelof’s TV work often starts by setting up very complex genre puzzle box mysteries, only to reveal that at their core, they’re wounded love stories about people trying to connect with others, just as they’re fighting to put themselves together.The best episodes of a Damon Lindelof show are usually those that take a step back from the mystery, and instead tell weird yet very personal stories about love and interpersonal relationships. So, now that the first (and only?) season of Watchmen is done, we’re going to look at how Lindelof’s entire TV work has prepared the audience for Watchmen’s story of finding community and love, even as baby squids rain down from the sky.

This article contains spoilers for Lost, The Leftovers, and Watchmen.

This article contains spoilers for Lost, The Leftovers, and Watchmen.

We Have to Go Back

As I’ve written here before, since its early days, Lost used its mystery to tell a very human story of having to build a community and learning about yourself through others. No matter how crazy the show got (and boy did it go crazy at times), the heart of the show always laid with the castaways and their relationships towards one another. This became especially true in the later seasons of the show, but no episode showcases this better than “The Constant.“The fifth episode of the fourth season of Lost, “The Constant” follows Desmond, Sayid and Lapidus as they finally set foot on the mysterious freighter that looms near the island and was definitely not sent by Penny. After going through turbulence, Desmond’s consciousness starts traveling through time between 1996 and 2004. The episode then deals with Desmond’s attempts at stabilizing his mind before he dies of a brain aneurysm, while we explore more of his relationship with Penny Widmore. The episode is the culmination of a love story that was teased for several episodes across two seasons, as we first saw a picture of Penny all the way back in the third episode of season two, and here we finally get a reunion between Desmond and Penny – albeit via a phone call. The non-linear structure of “The Constant” instantly brings to mind the non-linear structure of “A God Walks Into Abar,” the eighth episode of Watchmen. We knew that Doctor Manhattan experienced time in a different way than humans, and maybe you have already read the source material, but to see that brought to life on the screen is an entirely different thing. The beauty of the episode is how it manages not only to portray the time-travel aspect of Doctor Manhattan’s powers, but how it uses it to show how Manhattan was able to see his entire relationship with Angela from even before he meets her. Because of Manhattan’s powers, he experiences the entirety of is life simultaneously. He is both falling in love with his wife Jane as he flees for Mars, at the same time as he meets Laurie for the first time, as he is being trapped by the 7th Kavalry, and also asking Angela for dinner. This could have easily backfired, but the acting, writing, and the hauntingly beautiful score make this story of a Zeus coming down from Olympus to settle down one of the best love stories on TV in years. 

Let the Mystery Be

Nothing Ever Ends

The last two episodes of Watchmen felt like a continuation of that same sentiment. If the graphic novel was a noir mystery that evolved into a commentary of politics and superhero stories, the HBO adaptation was a superhero story that evolved into an exploration of trauma, love and faith. Our main characters by the last episode, Angela, Laurie, Wade, Adrian, Lady Trieu, and Will, all suffered trauma when they were young, and that trauma evolved into a crisis of faith that informed the rest of their lives. They became cops, evil geniuses with a god complex, and superheroes because they all had their faith in a higher power – God, the law – turn to ashes by the cruelty of the real world.But by the series finale, it seems like they have at least started to acknowledge this trauma and how much it prevented them from actually living a life. Laurie finally decided to expose Adrian Veidt and together with Wade, they arrest him. Angela realized the generational aspect of her own trauma, and decided to at least invite her grandfather to stay with her for a few days. Doctor Manhattan may not have descended from the heavens to answer everyone’s prayers and fix all the world’s problems, but he inadvertently made each of our main characters find a way to heal and eventually to get better.Watchmen, like Lost and even The Leftovers before it, is a show that will continue to be written about and dissected for years. This is a show that uses mystery and crazy genre storylines to get at the hart of what makes us human, and how we can be better people and also heal from past trauma through love and community. Leave it to good old Jack Shephard to best summarize it: “If we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.”