Round Two: Watchmen

Watchmen: Season 1, Episode 2 “Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship” (B+)

This was a solid follow-up to a very strong and intriguing opening hour, providing some answers but still leaving a lot of questions unanswered. The real-life Tulsa race massacre of 1921 is now getting a deserved historical spotlight with viewers of this show like myself googling to find out if it actually happened, which it did, and in this dark universe, one of the only positives is that lifetime President Redford has made an effort to try to atone for the longstanding racist practices and institutions of the United States. How we got from then to the now-105-year-old Will, with his apparent relation to Angela, claiming to have killed and then telepathically strung Judd up remains a mystery, and I’m very interested in seeing where it goes. The flashbacks to the White Night and other events are informative and helpful, and it’s good to be able to see more of Don Johnson as Judd since just having him die in the pilot would have been a waste since I still remember just how much of a standout he was in the underrated dark thriller “Cold in July.” We also got to meet Senator Keene, played by the always reliable James Wolk from “Mad Men” and “Lone Star.” The TV version of the American hero story is unsettling and very violent, and evidently it’s a chronicle of what has recently happened that can appeal to a wide range of audiences. I like the uncontrollable dynamic of Sister Night, Looking Glass, and Red Scare, and I have no idea what’s going on with Jeremy Irons’ mad scientist Adrian Veldt and his army of killable clones or whatever they are.