WATCHMEN: Episode 9 Breakdown & Ending Exp...

WATCHMEN: Episode 9 Breakdown & Ending Explained | All Easter Eggs, Season 2 Predictions & Theories

watchmen episode 9 predictions and best fan theories


The season finale is finally here and there’s a hell of a lot to unpack from it. This has been one of the best shows on TV this year and the last episode definitely doesn’t disappoint.

Throughout this, we’ll be going over the entire episode’s plot, discussing all the twists and turns in it and pointing out all of the Easter eggs that you may have missed. There were some fan theories we got right, some completely left field and the show ended on a huge cliffhanger that you’re gonna need Doctor Manhattan’s foresight to predict…but hey…we’re gonna try.

There will be Heavy Spoilers here, so if you haven’t had a chance to watch the latest entry 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 Watchmen: Episode 9!

Watchmen Episode 9 Plot Breakdown


Watchmen Episode 9 opens on the other side of the camera to the Ozymandias message to Robert Redford. As we know from the recording, this was the villain admitting to staging the alien invasion in order to unite the world in peace and he pretty much got the actor elected as president due to his power.

As we know, this was never achieved and it’s sad seeing what it turned into.

We also see Ozy being filmed and monitored by a Vietnamese crew and this is a callback to the graphic novel even down to the universe which was worn by all of his servants.

As we know from the graphic novel, Ozy murdered all of his staff by poisoning them so this is taking place before the Squid attack. The Squid can be seen in a huge tank behind Ozy so we know that this message was recorded before it all went down.

We see a Vietnamese cleaner breaking into his office, and going through his things. On the desk is an Ozymandias action figure from the graphic novel and his computer which is unlocked by the password Ramses The Second which was how Dan and Rorschach broke into his computer in the New York office in the source material.

The Gordian Knot


The password hint is also ‘Untie Knot’ which is a reference to The Gordian Knot which was a Knot that nobody could untie. Alexander The Great managed to separate it just by cutting it with his sword and the Knot is a metaphor for intractable problem solving by coming up with a bold move that no one would actually think to do, much like Veidt’s plan to stage an alien attack.

This unlocks a fridge full of sperm samples and on the test tube that the woman picks out is the numbers 2346.

This may potentially be a nod to The Number 23, not the terrible Jim Carrey movie but the belief that 23 is a significant number that is seen throughout history at several important moments.

23 is well 23 and 46 is 23 times two so I definitely think there is some weight to it here.

The woman inseminates herself and that’s the first fan theory of the episode confirmed, Trieu is the child of Ozymandias and Adrian Veidt so congratulations to everyone who got that right.

However, we learn that Ozy never had sex with a woman. Rorschach states in the book that he is possibly homosexual but the character has always come across as A-Sexual to me, Fascinated with historical figures such as Alexander The Great who we see hanging up in a painting in his office.

The Apples


There are also red apples beside the image and you might remember from last time that when Jon was young at the castle that he picked one up. Upon exploring the castle, he then hid in a cupboard and saw the original Mr. Philips and Ms. Crookshanks having sex and this caused him to drop the apple. Not long after he was given a bible and shown a picture of Adam and Eve, who famously took forbidden fruit, often portrayed as an apple from the tree of knowledge and lost their innocence in doing so.

Jon dropping the apple also was a loss of his innocence and the fact that the apples appear once more here makes me think that Ozy too similar to Jon now views the world in a new light.

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Lady Trieu And Ozymandias Meet


We then jump to 2008 and see Lady Trieu in what reminded me of the cover of John Carpenter’s movie, The Thing approaching Karnac. All of Ozy’s servants are dead at this point as we know he murdered them and Trieu refers to him as the smartest man in the world which was a nickname that he went by in the comics.

Trieu has inherited the position as the smartest woman in the world and once more Watchmen tips it’s cap to the idea of passing things on. This was a huge aesthetic with both the Original Nite Owl, Silk Spectre 1, Angela’s Grandfather and here it emerges once more.

Redford hasn’t returned Ozy’s calls and as we saw last time he has been running the Squidfall. We see here that it’s automatic which explains how it kept running after he went to Europa. Trieu wants to get rid of all Nuclear weapons and she explains she’s picked up Doctor Manhattan on Europa.

Trieu wants to take The Docs powers in order to accomplish this and she needs $42 billion to do it. She divulges that she’s his daughter but Ozy still turns her down. Anyway, this wanting to save the world by killing someone kinda plays into Trieu’s plans throughout the entire season and it also reflects Ozy’s original plan.

‘Save Me Daughter’


When talking to Ozy, Trieu discusses her probe which is traveling to Europa and gives the exact time of it. Later it’s confirmed that the message that Ozy wrote on the surface of the moon was ‘Save Me Daughter’ and not ‘Save Me Doctor Manhattan.’ He says that he will never call her Daughter but clearly in his moment of need he did.

Ozy goes over his origin story saying that he started from nothing which is present in the graphic novel.

We then jump once more to Ozy on Europa wearing his suit and an Earthquake begins as a craft lands outside. We see that using The Horseshoe he has Shawshanked his way out of it and he runs to the Trieu ship to get on board. Ozy is shot at by the Game Warden but he manages to catch the bullet, a famous trick that he did in the original graphic novel. He kills The Game Warden, revealing that he planned out the entire thing, even his imprisonment for his own sanity.

Hilariously The Warden asks if he was worthy and Veidt says ‘no, but you put on a hell of a show’ and as we learned from Episode 2 and his overall plan, Ozy loves putting on a show.

The Golden Statue


He ascends into space and then is preserved by being sprayed in gold from head to toe. So yeah, another fan theory confirmed, Ozy is actually encased in the Golden Statue in Trieu’s Vivarium. Trieu purchased the Clark’s farm in Episode 4 because this would be the landing zone of the ship and yeah, as we guessed it he’s been on the planet since then.

Before he’s thawed out I wanna say, thawed out, Trieu goes to tell Bian that she is a clone of her mother which it turns out she already knew, probably because of the nostalgia she’s been pumped with.

As Trieu stated, she wanted both her father and mother there to witness her greatest achievement, the absorbtion of Doctor Manhattan’s powers. The Millenium Clock is activated and later Veidt says ‘The End Is Nigh’ which is a reference to the sign that Rorschach used to carry around in the graphic novel.

Trieu wears a hat that looks like a halo, perhaps indicating that she is an angel or rather the Angel of Death.

Trieu has sort of been a villain this entire time, well, sort of, similar to Ozy she is a villain but she wants to do well I suppose. We also pass the newsstand and a headline can be seen that pays lip service to the fact that there is still civil unrest in Vietnam.

The vendor says that no one cares about what happens to Ozy and as we know from the first episode he was declared dead.

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The 7th Kavalry


We then cut to Kavalry HQ and see Senator Joe Keene Sr for the first time. For those who don’t know, in the graphic novel he outlawed Vigilantes with The Keene act and this is why The Watchmen had to give up their lives as superheroes. He is a Cylcops member and we hear the other side of the Angela Abar battle with the Kavalry.

Looking Glass walks over to her and yeah, theory confirmed, he took a mask off someone and snuck into the Headquarters.

Doc is transported to the cage and yep, another theory confirmed, he’s not dead…well yet. The cage is made of Lithium which is able to contain him. Laurie says Jon which of course pays lip service to their relationship. It turns out that Keene and co are angered about Redford taking the guns and for making them bear white guilt.

He also says that during The White Night they learned that Doc didn’t actually kill the attacker that went after Angela and instead Doctor Manhattan transported him to New Mexico most notably Gila Flats which is actually the location that Jon became trapped in the science experiment that turned him into a God.

Man Becomes God


They realised Angela and Cal were hiding this secret and sent in Judd to play the long game in order to get close to them. Joe even wears similar underwear to Doc which Laurie just laughs at.

Angela shows up and says that Trieu is actually planning something bigger and as she’s smarter than they are they don’t really stand a chance. She says that all of the equipment and materials that they have all come from Trieu and thus she’s in all their systems. Keene still gets in the cage and yep, I have a bad feeling about this.

The machine is set off which sends out a blast causing ear ringing and people to vomit. There’s also a cover of the original appearance of Batman in comic books which can be seen against the Doctor Manhattan Prayer Booth which sort of hints as to what happened. Batman often refers to the death of his parents as the night his world ended and Will too gives a nod to this later in the episode when discussing his own origin story in Tulsa.

It turns out that Trieu actually transported the cage and those around it and we can see that they are now in the square where the newsstand was. Using her forces she disarms the Kavalry soldiers and the machine is started up which sucks all of the powers out of the doc.

Adrian also refers to Laurie as Mr. Juspeczyk which was her original name that she changed because it was polish sounding. At the end of the graphic novel, Laurie went into hiding and changed her identity again but it’s nice that Ozy still refers to her how he originally knew the character.

The Big Blue Cheese


Joe was liquified during the transference and Doc looks at the blood which snaps him out of apathy and reminds him he needs to actually do something which we’ll get into just a bit.

Trieu reveals that she chose to transfer them to this area because it’s where the Greenwood race massacre took place and that it’s time for them to die, wiping out all of The Kavalry not long after.

She also refers to Doc as The Big Blue Cheese which is also a reference to Shazam who gets called ‘The Big Red Cheese.’

Doc ‘awake’, transports Laurie, Looking Glass and Ozy to Karnac and Looking Glass vomits again. This is a call back to the graphic novel in which Laurie used to always vomit after teleporting.

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Why Doc Didn’t Leave


Angela asks why he didn’t take her out of there too and he says it’s because he didn’t’ want to be alone when he died. Now last time there was a lot of people wondering why Doc didn’t get out of the way of the gun if he knew it was coming but you have to understand that the character can only see what is going to happen, he can’t change it because then all that he sees before and after it wouldn’t happen.

It is difficult to get your head around the whole Doc thing but he is just a passenger that is forced to go through the motions and this is why he doesn’t move here. He has no free will.

He also says to Trieu he can raise the temperature and this may be a reference to the graphic novel in which Janey Slater gets a chill from how inhumane that he is and he thinks it’s caused by the temperature and not because she was scared.

The Millenium Clock


Trieu activates the clock and this sucks out all of his powers and life force and Angela begs him to stay. She asks where he is and in a heartbreaking scene, he says that he’s in every moment that they’re together all at once. He transforms into the form she fell in love with before it ends thrusting Angela back. It’s really sad watching what could be the character’s death and his power goes into the Clock, being transformed into something Trieu can absorb.

We know that this is what caused the death of Keene as he didn’t process the power properly so Trieu is taking these steps.

In Karnac Ozy launches Squidfall now frozen to destroy the machine as he knows that Trieu won’t save the world because he sees too much of himself in her and realises his own failings though he never confirms it.

Using the phone booth they contact Angela and tells her to get in the booth as the machine and Trieu are destroyed. There’s a crucifix seen as she is about to become a god and yeah, it’s just awesome seeing the character killed at the last second, murdering all in a five-mile radius and possibly inadvertently causing humanity once more to believe that Aliens are still attacking.

Angela flees the area using a shield and runs to the dreamland theatre where Will is waiting. This mirrors the first episode in which he watched a film as a child and he has Angela’s children.

Will And Angela


They talk about how you can’t heal under a mask and it’s a brilliant exchange that feels like a satisfying conclusion that sort of brings everything full circle, showing why Will took the path in life that he did. Will then says that you can’t make an omelet without breaking and couple of eggs and says that Doctor Manhattan would know what she meant.

This plays back to the last episode in which Laurie grabbed a box of eggs and smashed them, if you watched our What Happens Next prediction video then you’ll know that we drew some attention to these and upon returning home Angela finds an unbroken egg. Now you will remember that Ozy said last time that he was able to transfer his powers.

I’ll get into this in just a bit but at Karnac Laurie and Looking Glass come across Archie in the hanger which was the ship that The Watchmen used in the graphic novel. Ozy says it was buried in the ice and this is because Nite Owl and Rorschach crashed it before making their walk to Ozy.

Watchmen Ending Explained


Laurie and Looking Glass arrest Ozy for the genocide he committed, saying that the world won’t end, it will carry on and this kinda leads me to believe that Laurie didn’t tell the truth at the end of the comic out of fear that it would destroy the world. We know that fear also united the world and it’s time to break this and move forward with the world knowing the truth.

Anyway back at the home, Angela discovers the egg and goes to the pool that the Doc told her that she needed to see as it would be important later.

Angela eats the egg raw and walks out to the pool to see if she can walk on water and we cut to black, ending the season on a massive massive cliffhanger.

So, does she have the powers of a god, well I personally believe that she does. Doc doesn’t joke around and isn’t misleading for the sake of it so personally I don’t think that he would have 1) told her that she needs to see him on the pool and 2) tell Will about the eggs if this wasn’t purposely put here to let her know that she can do this.

Secondly, I don’t think that Doc is dead.

In episode 8 he did say on Mars that there was a duplicate of him just going through the motions almost robotically and Doc in this episode appears very similar to that.

Doc can also only see the past and future of his own life and thus in order to let Angela know that the pool and eggs were important, he would need to know the outcome of this which would mean that he would have to be alive in the future.

I personally believe that Angela will get the powers and Doc will re-emerge once more. His energy was also never transferred, it was just stored in the machine and thus he could still be out there.

He told Angela exactly what she needed to hear in order to go out onto the pool and thus this death that he went through has a causality to it.

There’s a lot to think about and I’m praying for a second season as that cliffhanger was amazing.

Your Thoughts

Obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on this finale and what you thought of the season as a whole. Comment below and let me know!

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