Summary: In a flashback, Jon (Dr. Manhattan) meets Angela in a bar and proclaims that he loves her since he can "see" the future because he experiences all of time at once. He eventually convinces her to go out with him. They are happy for a while and Angela decides to get him to take the form of the deceased man Cal in order to blend in with society. After about 6 months, they fight and Jon goes to meet Adrian. Adrian gives Jon a device to allow him to forget who he is so he can live properly with Angela. In exchange, Jon teleports Adrian to a perfect world he has created on Europa. In the present, Jon wakes up confused. Angela talks to him and it's revealed that Jon went to talk with Will shortly before forgetting everything. Angela asks him to ask Will how he knew Judd had KKK robs in his closet, creating a paradox. Jon reveals that he knows he will be teleported away by the 7K and killed but Angela refuses to accept it and fights for him. Jon saves her and fights but he ultimately gets teleported away. Elsewhere, Adrian has been imprisoned and he speaks with the game warden who leaves him a cake. The cake has a horseshoe which Adrian has been using to dig a hole out of his prison.
The Good: Another excellent episode. This show seems like it was created solely because there were ideas for these one-off episodes. There was the excellent episode about Wade, the all-time great story about Will and Hooded Justice, and now this wonderful love story between Angela and the all-powerful Jon. Each of these episodes provide unique and engaging experiences and they have been the definitive highlights of the series so far. Standalone episodes like this that get you invested in the characters and the story can make TV shows feel so special because this experience is so unlike anything else you can find. This episode finally introduced us to Dr. Manhattan who has been hyped up since the start of the series. Since I haven't read the comics, I was incredibly impressed by the idea of this character. Jon feels like an ordinary man with personality, yet the way he acts and speaks makes it evident that he has godly powers. He's a decent man, but he's one who has been gifted the ability to experience all of time at once as well as many other abilities. This is such a wonderfully creative concept for a superhero and this episode utilizes it perfectly, particularly the way he experiences time. The entire episode is spent jumping around many different time periods and it is magical to watch. The way it is structured is inherently messy, but it's stitched together by the idea that this is what Jon is experiencing. He is experiencing his whole life in this disjointed manner with time not being a straight line for him, so it engages the viewer into the experience even more by having us visualize time like he does. It's a really impressive way to tell a story, and it's a testament to how good the outstanding editing team behind this series really is. But this episode wasn't just plot explaining how Jon's powers work. It was a much more personalized experience than that. It was a simple love story between two characters who ended up having one of the most unique relationships I have ever seen. And it was simply wonderful to watch. I didn't expect that I would care this much for a relationship that was established so quickly, but the episode does a fantastic job of showing us what these characters like about each other and why they fell in love. I though it was a fantastic idea to have the episode be almost completed before we finally understand what it was that made Jon fall in love with Angela to begin with, and I thought that it was very sweet that Jon loved her simply because she was willing to stand up and fight for him despite him being a godly being. Even with all of his powers, she still decided that she had to help him. The story here is told nearly perfectly, and I really enjoyed this experience. And the ending was really well done too. We knew from the onset that the ending was going to be tragic (Jon said so himself), so the difficult part was making us care about this relationship so that this inevitable tragic ending would hit hard. And the show succeeded at this in flying colours. By the time the end of the episode came by, I was dreading the end of this relationship and it was genuinely sad at the end to see Jon get teleported away. The decision to consistently show scenes from their first meeting through the bar ended up being a fantastic choice since it really added to the emotion of this ending while also allowing us chances to reflect on how far these characters have come and how lengthy and complex of a love story we just witnessed. I also really liked how much this episode explains about the show. Almost every remaining question I had was answered in this episode. The biggest answers being for questions regarding Jon, Will's motives and just about everything regarding Adrian. While I liked getting answers for Will and Jon, the answers surrounding Adrian pleased me the most. Finally we have a full picture of what this character is and what he has been doing on Europa. I thought the scene between Jon and Adrian was great. Since I haven't read the comics, I'm not familiar with what their relationship is like, but I really enjoyed their interactions in this episode. I liked that a weapon intended to cripple Jon was used to help him, and I also liked that Adrian's current imprisonment was his own choice and that what seemed like an attractive decision ended up being a horrible choice that led to him wasting his life away. Just like in "This Extraordinary Being", the acting, directing and editing was outstanding in this episode. It was very well put together and felt surprisingly cinematic. Lastly, I'm a big fan of puns so I can comfortably say that this has to be one of my personal favourite episode titles. It makes me wonder if Angela's last name was decided specifically to make this episode title work. The Bad: This episode makes one big mistake and that's introducing a paradox into the story. I was really impressed with how Jon's powers were integrated into the story naturally with some clarity on how they work. Jon can see and experience everything but he can't change anything because of the way he perceives time. In his case it has already happened, so even though he knows what happens next, he can't change it. This was a sensible way to have time travel and it makes perfect sense. But then for whatever reason, the show went out of its way to introduce a paradox when it really didn't need one. It takes away from the brilliant way that the episode introduced time-travelling elements and I don't think that this paradox adds enough story value to be justified. In the end, it was a poor decision. The Unknown: For once I don't have much for this section. This episode had answers galore and didn't raise many questions at all. What have Will and Trieu been doing this whole time? What are they going to do in the finale? Where did the 7K take Jon? Will Angela be able to see him again? Will Adrian finally be able to escape Europa? What is his role in the story? The finale is next and he still hasn't connected up with the main story. Best Moment: Jon tragically being teleported away, while at a different point in time he finally gets Angela to agree to dinner with him. It was such a sad end to their story, a story which had been nearly perfectly executed, to build up to this tragic conclusion. It's amazing how much I care about this relationship after just this one episode, and it's a testament to how good this was. Character of the Episode: Jon. Conclusion: This was another masterful standalone episode. While not quite as good as "This Extraordinary Being", this was another creative experience, giving us a highly personalized view at the love story between Angela and Jon. I absolutely loved this. Score: 85
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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