Watchmen review: Episode 4 has no answers, but remains jaw-dropping

Watchmen (Sky Atlantic) isn’t Lost, despite both series sharing the same showrunner in Damon Lindelof. But there are parallels, most significantly in how casually both shows depict extreme phenomena. There are countless jaw-dropping scenes in Watchmen’s fourth episode, ones that feel incredibly jarring in what they suggest, but are played so matter-of-factly that they almost seem incidental. But considering this is Lindelof, they absolutely can’t be.

Babies factor into two of them – the almost comic ease with which self-described trillionaire Lady Trieu (the wonderful Downsizing escapee Hong Chau) unveils a child for a couple possessing land she wishes to own, and the horror of Adrian Veidt (Jeremy Irons) pulling up crying newborns from the river near his mansion abode. Babies he then artificially ages, via a machine, into further duplicates of his servants Phillips and Crookshanks. Before using them to fling a number of deceased clones into the sky above his land, itself a kind of prison he’s been apparently trapped in for three years, using an enormous catapult. It is maddening.

There is also further ambiguity with Angela’s grandfather, his very working legs, his relationship with Lady Trieu, and the enormous clock she’s building. One that merely tells time, her nightmare-afflicted daughter insists. Though the episode’s cliffhanger, with its portentous repetition of “tick tock”, indicates that it will probably play a significant role in, we can assume, the coming apocalypse. Or whatever is due to happen in three days.

What is important to remember, though, is not to expect the answers to necessarily arrive. Watchmen, like Lost and Lindelof’s follow-up The Leftovers before it, appears to be more interested in pouring the puzzle pieces out of the box rather than entirely solving it. And that’s fine when everything is played as smoothly and compellingly as it is here. Let’s just promise not to instigate a backlash come the show’s finale, though.

Helping matters, to little surprise, is Regina King, who is very much the emotional lynchpin of Watchmen. Angela remains caught between the life she thought she knew and her latest panic-inducing discoveries, from her ancestry to the less glorious facets of the institutions she previously trusted.

It’s also enormously fun to watch her shifting dynamic with Laurie (Jean Smart). It’s a quasi-friendship formed on deception and distrust, which both parties are well aware of, but there’s also a unique kinship developing between them based on mutual trauma. Laurie, however, is the only one jaded enough to properly address it. Like Watchmen itself, it’s thrilling to watch unfold.