Disclaimer! Watchmen episode five spoilers ahead.
Every new episode of HBO’s Watchmen leaves fans with more questions than answers. And the fifth episode, entitled “Little Fear of Lightning” is puzzling to say the least. The episode unveiled dark, twisted origin story to the aloof Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson).
However the real question is what in the world is going on with Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons)? Fans were quick to guess that he’s being held prisoner in space and they’re right. After seeing him catapult himself to send an S.O.S. signal to an Earth satellite, we know he’s not on Mars.
In an interview with Collider, director Damon Lindelof confirmed that he isn’t on Mars. Instead, he’s on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. According to Lindelof, any prison on Earth was just not fitting for a man of Veidt’s genius and cunning.
“I think that if Adrian Veidt is trying to escape from prison, that’s not a good challenge for him,” said Lindelof. “He’s going to do that very easily — there’s no prison that’s going to hold Adrian Veidt, unless that prison is on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Then it might be a little more challenging. I kind of felt like, if we’re going to lock this guy up somewhere—and by Episode 5 we still don’t know who locked him up and why—it’s gonna have to be quite an overwhelming challenge for him to escape, so that felt like this was a good place to put him and throw away the key.”
There are a couple of theories circulating the internet about who exactly is Veidt’s captor, the general consensus is that it is either Dr Manhattan or Lady Trieu. But if it were Dr Manhattan, would he really need Game Warden there to do his dirty work? Or is Game Warden a clone playing a role like the rest of them?
While the bulk of the story progression in each episode is focused on whatever is happening on Earth, fans always get a little Ozymandias tidbit thrown their way. However, Lindelof also revealed during the interview that every time we see Veidt in each episode, another year has gone by for him.
“What we’re learning about Adrian Veidt is that every installment that we get of the nine episodes, there’s only one episode where you don’t get a Veidt installment — the storytelling, he didn’t fit in there — but every other one you get [one]. And a year lapses in between each episode. It’s a story told on a very, very large canvas, each installment taking place on another anniversary of another year that he has spent wherever the hell he’s spending [it].”
Did you hear the click in your head too? That would explain the jump from him living it up in the first episode to the clear disdain in this latest one. We’ll have to wait till next week to see where Veidt’s S.O.S. signal or his building hatred for Game Warden takes him.
Chelsea started playing video games at a young age and has since sunk deeper into the hole of geekdom. She dreams of one day studying pop culture for a living so she can watch Netflix all day in her pyjamas.
Natalie
