Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show, I’m your host Deffinition and this is the channel where we’ve been Watching The Watchmen to break down everything that you need to know about the new show on HBO.
Episode 7 just dropped yesterday and the ending of it has a lot to unpack from it, most notably that one of the main characters in the season has been Doctor Manhattan this entire time.
There’s actually been a lot of clues and hints dropped during the season so far and throughout this, we’re gonna be breaking down all indicators that teased what was really going on.
There’s gonna be heavy heavy spoilers here, so if you haven’t had a chance to watch Episode 7 of Watchmen yet and don’t want to know what happens then I highly suggest that you turn off now.
With that out the way I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into our breakdown of all the hints and clues for the Doctor Manhattan twist.
Episode 7 Ending Explained
Ok so episode 7 of Watchmen finishes with Angela rushing home to her husband after hearing from Lady Trieu that The Seventh Kavalry are planning to abduct Doctor Manhattan and kill him, replacing him with Senator Joe Keene.
Angela tells Cal that she loves him, who we learn through the episode that he has complete amnesia after a car accident. Angela plays whack-a-mole with his forehead and pulls out the symbol for Hydrogen which is also the symbol that the Doc uses on his forehead as some branding. Shoutouts the guys in the Marketing Department.
We begin to see a blue glow in Angela’s eyes and it turns out that her husband Cal has been the character the entire time. Now there’s actually been a lot of indicators for this laced throughout the series and even as far back as episode one, there were some strong highlights that Cal was the Doc.
It’s definitely a case of What If God Was One Of Us and it seems like the Doc has been lying low for some time in the body of Cal.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen
Firstly, you don’t cast a guy who’s been in Black Mirror, Us and Aquaman as a house husband and that should have initially been enough to give the game away though there are some slightly more obvious indicators that come early on.
The first time we see Doctor Manhattan is in episode one in which he is building a castle on Mars. This is later revealed to be the same castle that Ozymandias inhabits on the Jupiter Moon of Europa, however, we also see Angela and Cal’s adoptive son building one that is very similar to it. Cal could have possibly helped to build this and guide his son at one point.
It was something that I, at first didn’t really understand but in retrospect it makes sense why the two are building similar structures.
Will Tells Angela
In episode two, Will flat out tells Angela that Doctor Manhattan exists on Earth and that he is hiding as a person. As we learn throughout the series, Will is telling the truth and thus everything he says here is to be believed.
Angela later brings this up to Cal who says ‘that’s impossible’ and she may have been testing the character to see if he actually remembers it or if whatever was placed in his head was truly working.
Personally I believe the Hydrogen Symbol that Angela pulls out is made of Tachyons which as we know from the Watchmen graphic novel are capable of limiting Doctor Manhattan’s ability to view every moment of his life simultaneously. This would explain why Cal has strict Amnesia which as Lady Trieu says is almost unheard of.
This explains why Cal has no backstory and why before the White Night, they hadn’t had any children. Now I’m not a biologist and every couple can struggle with bearing children but it is possible that Angela and Cal are unable to have them. However, Doc knew that they eventually would and all they had to do was wait.
We do see someone sitting on Angela’s porch attempting to see their Grandchildren who she threatens and this highlights that all of Angela’s children are adopted. She writes him a cheque and sends him away which to me shows that she adopted the children in none conventional ways as Cal has no past and thus he would be unable to provide proper documentation to the body that would deal with the handing over of the children.
Watchmen And Colors
Colors also play a huge role in Watchmen with a lot of characters having their own color schemes and so on.
For example, Veidts are Purple and Yellow and this is pretty much his brand across the book…again..shoutouts The Marketing Department.
Mirroring this, Cal often wears different shades of Blue which is of course Doctor Manhattan’s colour.
We see it in his t-shirt, jeans and so on and we also in Laurie’s Doctor Manhattan Dildo which just so happens to be named Excalibre.
Slow it down and you get probably the best easter egg in a show ever, Ex-Cal-Abar as in Cal Abar is her Ex Doctor Manhattan and yep, great work guys, I absolutely loved that, like, comment and subscribe to the Marketing Department.
Those who’ve looked ahead to the episode titles will also have noticed that Episode 8 is also called ‘God Walked Into A Bar’ which again…God Walked Into Abar aka next week is about Angela meeting Jon for the first time in a bar.
Laurie
Anyway, Laurie is aware of how they met and when talking to Angela about Cal she’s pretty straight up about enjoying the time she spent meeting him. Laurie talks about Doctor Manhattan and says ‘yeah, well he’s no Cal, Cal your husband, I saw him today. We had a nice chat. You guys met in Vietnam right?’
Who knows, maybe he was flirting a bit with his old flame and she saw the similarities with him even though she probably doesn’t know that it’s him as she was still praying to Doc at the end of the episode.
As we know from the Graphic novel, Laurie and Jon’s relationship was strained massively because of his detachment from humanity and it is possible that she also said ‘he’s no Cal’ because she recognizes the things that were missing in her relationship within theirs.
The White Night
Angela had a very close call in her past in which members of The Seventh Kavalry attacked her in her home during the white night in which they wiped out the majority of Tulsa’s police department.
During the leadup to the moment that we see the Kavalry enter, Cal is constantly looking at the clock and then he disappears not long after, potentially to transform and save her life.
A Kavalry member is about to shoot Angela at point-blank range when she blanks out and wakes up in the hospital, now how she survived this we don’t know…well we didn’t know but it’s obvious now that Kal wiped out the home invaders saving Angela from a huge brush with death.
The Discussion Over Death
Speaking of Death, when discussing what happens when you die with his daughter at the breakfast table. Cal says that before life you are nothing, then you live, and then you become nothing again.
This sounds eerily similar to something Doctor Manhattan would say, namely that “A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there’s no discernible difference.”
It definitely sounds inline with the character and again adds more evidence that they are one and the same.
Fingers
Reddit user Ksendor also compared Doctor Manhattan and Cal’s fingers side by side and showed that they were indeed the same actor, which yeah…that’s nuts to me someone got that far into it but hey, great job, they definitely solved the mystery before a lot of us even considered it.
Episode 8 Predictions
Now, going forward, it makes sense that the Doc would want to go into hiding as he would no doubt be aware ahead of time that the Seventh Kavalry plan on kidnapping and killing him so that Joe Keene can take his place. The best way to cover this up would be to completely wipe his own memory and start up a new life in a small town where very few would ever suspect that the character would go.
Doc made a grand statement upon his exit in Watchmen and the fact that he had been spotted on Mars several times would also draw attention away from where he truly is.
Before carrying this out I can see him informing Angela of all the things that would be coming ahead so she at least had some prior knowledge of it. Angela did say that they knew this day would come so it’s safe to assume that he did at least brief her in advance of exactly what was going to happen.
This would at least prepare her for what was going to happen and it would also allow the two to understand when it was time to lose the facade in cases such as The White Night in which he was needed.
Doc also told Angela that she would die protecting him and it looks like their time together may be coming to an end with the latter potentially dying during the Seventh Kavalry attack. I’m guessing that Jon will be weak which is why he can’t intervene and that also explains how the Kavalry may have the opportunity to kill him as he will be at his most vulnerable.
Either way, this is a clear indication that hindsight is 20/20 and I loved going back and seeing these clues in the early episodes that let us know that the two characters were one and the same the entire time.
Your Thoughts
Now obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on the reveal and if there’s any other hints and clues that I missed. Make sure you leave them in the comments section below!
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