Mike and Meg are back to break down the penultimate episode of HBO's Watchmen, "A God Walks Into Abar," and it's somehow even more dense and complicated than Episode 7. Though maybe that shouldn't be a surprise since it covers the life and times of one of the Watchmen comic's most iconic characters: Doctor Manhattan.
With Jon now "awake" after Angela learned about the 7th Kavalry's scheme to murder him and become him last week, we're left to start filling in the blanks. How did Jon and Angela meet? In Saigon, just like Angela originally said, but it wasn't your typical meet-cute. Jon's ability to perceive his timeline all at once means that he believes he's always been in love with Angela, even though she has no idea who he is. How did he forget he was Doctor Manhattan and become Cal? He was trying to make Angela, who justifiably doesn't want to be seen with someone like Manhattan, happy and so he turned to Adrian Veidt for help. Why do people think he's been on Mars? Because he set up a decoy.
All told, some of the biggest questions of the show have some of the simplest answers--but they're all leading up to the biggest reveal of the series so far: The mystery of why Will Reeves knew to kill Judd Crawford. It all comes down to one massive, mind-bending paradox that Angela herself rests at the heart of. All that and more in this week's breakdown as we anxiously await the finale.
We may have come out of the tunnel, but the story is anything but over.
Watchmen airs on HBO at 9PM.