Take Three: Watchmen

Watchmen: Season 1, Episode 3 “She Was Killed by Space Junk” (B+)

I thought I had seen Jean Smart’s name in the list of cast members for this show, and her first appearance delivered extraordinarily. The three-time Emmy winner has a similar role here to the one she had on “Legion,” communicating with a distant former lover whose messages she wasn’t entirely sure he could hear and aware of far more than the young generation can understand. The extended joke she was recording for Dr. Manhattan was unsettling, and she kicked into high gear immediately when she staged a bank robbery surrounded entirely by FBI agents to set a trap for a vigilante. Asking about the man’s civil rights having been violated before expressing that she didn’t care was an unexpected moment, and she demonstrated her no-nonsense attitude when she shot the bomber in the head just as Senator Keane was about to go with him. She’s a proper partner for Sister Night, just as committed to figuring out what happened, but neither of them seem eager to work with anyone else. I’m trying to let this show speak for itself but also doing a bit of research on who these characters are, namely that Laurie, also known as Silk Spectre, was played by Malin Akerman in the 2009 movie, and Jeremy Irons’ Adrian Veidt is the former Ozymandias, portrayed by Matthew Goode in the film. I like that, with the exception of Adrian, most of the characters are gathered together in Tulsa trying to assess the threats against them, sure to offer some very intriguing developments in the near future.