WATCHMEN: Season 1: Episode 6 Breakdown & Ending Explained

Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show, I’m your host Deffinition and you’re now locked into the channel where we’ve been Watching The Watchmen to breakdown everything that you need to know about the new season on HBO.

Throughout this, we’ll be recapping the episode 6 and discussing where the show could be heading in the future.

There will be Heavy Spoilers here, so if you haven’t had a chance to watch the latest episode 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 6!

Watchmen Episode 6 Breakdown

Ok so Episode 6 picks up immediately after the huge cliffhanger at the end of Episode 5 that saw Angela downing her Grandfather’s pills faster than my last recap got downvoted for saying they were hers.

Thanks for sticking with me everyone, I’m sorry for being an absolute Mr. Phillips.

I guess I’ll have to be him as he nor Ozy makes an appearance this episode and instead this entry focuses heavily on the past, most notably the revelation that Will was in fact hooded justice. Though we’ve never had concrete answers before over who he really was, many speculated that the character was strongman Rolf Muller and this even carried over slightly to the show with the show within a show showing him to indeed be the fictional man.

Hooded Justice Graphic Novel History

This was always thought to be the case as in 1955 he disappeared which Hollis Mason chalked up to him not wanting to be unmasked due to changes in the law. Hollis himself thought it was Muller and a year later Mullers’ body washed up on the shore of Boston with a bullet in the back of his head.

This cemented for many that the characters were one and the same but we finally know the truth. It’s a brilliant change up and Justice has always been one of the most enigmatic characters in Watchmen so I really enjoyed learning his backstory.

Inheritance

This episode is heavily centered around the past and most notably inheritance and how one’s actions can echo throughout the family forever, being passed on from generation to generation.

I’ve always been someone who’s thought that though we may not ever know our ancestors in some way we do because they influenced people around them, most notably their children, who then went on to influence us and our personalities and in some ways, we echo their actions. Angela is definitely an example of this and the two bear quite a lot of similarities.

The sixth entry opens with Watchmen being changed to Minutemen who were the original versions of the Watchmen made up of members like the original Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Silouhette, Comedian, Dollar Bill, Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice.

American Hero Story

We open with the fictional HJ sat in an interrogation room on the American Hero Story tv show that cements that the public have a fascination with the character that still exists today. Hooded Justice unmasks in the room and it’s clear that the public or at least showrunners believe him to be a white man. It’s an awesome way to open the episode and it shows just how much the past has been whitewashed or black and whitewashed as we get into the real meat of the hour-long entry.

Angela is on a Nostalgia trip and Laurie needs her permission to have her stomach pumped. Will’s mother fatefully plays the piano and this soon, like Careless Whisper, becomes a motif of the episode with the character appearing in almost impossible places such as fields and sidewalks. I took this as meaning that no matter where we are the past still plays a big part and this episode feels like a trip down memory lane from the off.

Will’s Backstory

Angela takes the role of her grandfather Will Reeves who has just graduated as a police cadet in the New York City office. Will is the only black man in the class and systematic racism is still very much prevalent within the ceremony even though Reeves rightfully ranked with the rest of the group.

A white officer ignores him and instead, it’s real-life police officer, Sam Battle who places Will’s badge on him.

Sam Battle was New York’s first black policeman and the legendary figure warns will ‘Beware Of The Cyclops.’ In the audience watching over Will is his future wife and the mother of his child. We later learn she was the child that he carried down the road after the Tulsa massacre in the first episode.

Now the choice to set the episode in black and white is quite inspired especially with the racial undertones during the time. Life back then was very much Black and White with segregation and separation of races enforced on a lot of levels and the lack of colour backs up the dichotomy that existed in society during the time.

Will is said to be very angry and it’s clear that the past still looms large over him with the character being unable to escape the events of Tulsa much in the same way that Angela cannot escape the Nostalgia trip that she now finds herself on. Will oversees a man throwing a Molotov through a Jewish owned business and he takes the man known as Fred in for questioning.

The Cyclops

Fred is openly racist at the police department and though it seems like the white officers have his back not long after Fred is back on the streets, mocking the character for his lack of authority.

During the exchange, one of the officers loops his fingers making it into a circle which is, of course, a symbol of the cyclops that Battle warned him about.

This is a big aesthetic in the episode with Will coming to the realisation that just because you wear a badge it doesn’t mean that you have power. Corruption and prejudice are rampant throughout the force at this time and it’s is one of the main things that force him to take up the role of Hooded Justice and to become a vigilante. He ends up seeing the severity of just how bad this is first hand later on but the acorn that grows into an oak tree is definitely planted here.

Action Comics issue 1 is seen in the episode and this clearly heavily inspires the character to become a quote-unquote superhero.

Time

Now what I love about this episode is the transitions between the time periods, the sets are masterfully cut together so that things often come off as one shot and to me, it had touches of the video game The Evil Within. I doubt that Lindeloff ever played that but the transitions between locations, times and so on in that are masterful as they are here. It’s all tightly knit together and it masterfully keeps up the pace.

Will is walking home and the same group of officers asks him to come for a beer which Will turns down. As the car pulls off we see dead bodies from the Tulsa massacre being pulled behind it, showing that Will has trouble letting go of the past. For him, the past is the present as it is for Angela right now going through this journey.

Will is beaten badly and taken out to a tree, similar to the one that Judd was hanged from and the noose goes around his neck as well as a mask which as we know would come to be a big aesthetic of the vigilante Hooded Justice.

The officers let Will go with a warning but it’s clear that this has stuck with the character which is beautifully portrayed in Angela King’s raspy performance.

Too Woke?

Now I have seen people criticize Watchmen for being too woke but this kinda stuff did really happen and the Tulsa massacre was a real event so yeah, with them going this route this is probably the best way to handle it.

Will walks home, mask and noose around his neck and sees a couple being assaulted which is when he dons his costume and runs face-first into the group, badly beating them. Here Hooded Justice is born and the character has taken the symbols of oppression that have so long caused his race anger and repurposed them into a hallmark of righteousness.

Now personally I think this entire thing is a brilliant way to take the already established lore and reinvent it with a new meaning. Hooded Justice was always a kinda meh character but this gives him purpose and reason to do the things that he did whilst also allowing there to tie in with real-world events. It too comments on how Hollywood Whitewashes things with his depiction in American Hero Story…which I’ve just realized might be a play on American Horror Story.

Will’s wife asks why he wore the hood and it becomes clear that Will doesn’t believe that you can get real justice with a badge which is when June says that the only way that this will ever be legal is if the public believes that the man under the mask is white.

June paints around his eyes white which is kind of a parody to me on how typically in Batman films they paint around his eyes black. We remember that Will is heavily influenced by Bass Reeves and how that he cannot trust in the law.

A New Perspective

We see the grocery robbery store scene from another angle, the one in which it really happened and learn the true motives behind it with it no longer being just a cool action scene. Here Will has tracked down Cyclops members who are part of the KKK and he beats them bloody and he comes across a book on mesmerism.

This plays massively into the overarching story of Watchmen and hints that The Kavalry are planning to hypnotise black people into turning on one another which is showcased later in the episode.

We discover that this is Fred’s grocery store which explains why he was burning a Jewish one and also evaded the long arm of the law so easily.

It’s a nice re-classification of a scene that we’ve already witnessed and we see Laurie once more reaching out to Angela to attempt to call her home. Total Recall her home…yeah I suck still. Cal is present and he attempts to get her to remember her life rather than becoming stuck in Will’s. Cal talks her through her life and there’s lip service paid to the fact that she was born in Saigon and that they met in Vietnam.

Watchmen And Vietnam

Now for those who don’t know, in Watchmen history, America won the Vietnam war and it became a territory of the country. This is why the Watchmen American Flag differs from the one that we know and it also explains why both the characters would randomly be there.

Anyway Nelson Gardner comes to meet Will one day, believing him to be someone that is supplying Hooded Justice information. Gardner is in fact Captain Metropolis and he wishes to recruit Hooded Justice as he is the hero that inspired the group’s creation. There’s the subtext of their romantic relationship here with the talk of ‘true companionship’ a hand touch and how though he is welcome in the group other’s aren’t as tolerant as he is.

This reminds us that racism exists in all facets of society, even those seeking justice and Metropolis suggest that he keeps the mask on at all time, even though the group would be thrilled to be fighting alongside him. Will and Gardner begin a relationship and June reveals that she is pregnant.

The Minutemen

We flash forward to Hooded Justice’s joining of The Minutemen in which his true fears are silenced in favor of promoting ridiculously titled mob bosses and a racist advert for a bank. We then jump through the years, watching Will’s child grow before going to The Capital Theatre during a screening of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty in which an attack has broken out.

Here we learn that Lorna who initiated the attack saw a flicker in her head which made her attack those around her. This links back to the mesmerism book and we discover that the KKK aka Cyclops have been using projectors to cause riots. If you don’t have epilepsy then this scene will probably get you to god damn.

Will tries to get the Gardner’s help but they mock the idea that there is an conspiracy going on and it becomes clear that Gardner doesn’t value his opinion and instead just views him as an object saying that he has to sort the problem out on his own. Will is confronted by Fred who doesn’t recognise him and we then learn that it is his warehouse that is producing the mesmerism projectors. Will kills Fred and then every Cyclops member inside including his fellow officers and burns the location to the grounded.

Sins Of The Father

Will returns home and discovers his son Marcus painting his face white to become a new Hooded Justice. As said earlier he recognizes the inheritance that he is leaving his son and though he doesn’t want Marcus to pick this up, as we know, it is difficult shaking the mindset and influence of our family. June ends their marriage and takes Marcus to Tulsa and we cut to the present to see Will using the mesmerism device on Captain Judd which hypnotized him into hanging himself.

We finally have answers as to how this was done and in all honesty it’s a twist that I didn’t see coming. I always thought that Will was lying about killing Judd and this explains how he was able to carry it out. Will clearly knew about the KKK members in the police force from his youth and has likely followed these all the way to Captain Judd and The Seventh Kavalry.

Judd says that his Klan robe is his legacy and was his grandfathers and again there is this motif of inheritance and how we carry on the lineage of our ancestors.

I dunno how Will managed to get memories of this in pill form that quick but hey it’s tv and we end the episode with Angela getting bombarded by the memories that made him which wake Angela up in Lady Trieu’s vivarium.

As we know, Will is present there and Angela now knows the truth about him.

Episode 7 Predictions

Going forward it looks like we will be getting Angela’s life in Tulsa as a child and how June shaped her to become the person that she did much in the same way that she shaped Will to become Hooded Justice.

Lady Trieu divulges that she has a plan to save humanity that starts in Oaklahoma and personally I think that the Seventh Kavalry may be using the mesmerism technique to get black people to turn on one another in the area. They will be using the teleportation device to cover this up as an alien attack and Trieu plans to reverse this and as she sees it save the world, though it could be another diabolical plan in the same vein as Ozymandius.

Speaking of Ozymandius it looks like he is being put on trial and personally I believe that he will be found guilty and as punishment for breaking his agreement will be sent back to earth which is what we saw crashing in the field in the Lady Trieu centric episode.

Personally I believe that upon arriving Ozy was encased in Gold and this was the statue that we saw.

Whatever is going on I can’t wait to see it as this show just keeps getting better and better.