Watchmen Recap With Spoilers: Doctor Manhattan Connects the Dots in “A God Walks Into Abar”

Last week on Watchmen, the HBO series revealed that Angela’s husband Cal was, in fact, Doctor Manhattan and the episode left off with a big cliffhanger. Angela bashed in Cal’s head to retrieve a ring-like device, awakening the blue god and telling him that they are in serious trouble. This week, we find out how Doctor Manhattan became Cal – and some surprising other truths about everything we’ve seen to this point.

Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Watchmen ,”A God Walks into Abar,” below.

The episode opens with a blue-skinned man dressed in a suit walking down the center of the street in Saigon, pausing to pick up a discarded Doctor Manhattan mask. The man is Doctor Manhattan and he finds then-police officer Angela Abar. He asks her to have dinner with him the next night. She tries to get him to leave, but he correctly identifies why she’s drinking alone, and he sits down, and they begin to talk. With him revealing he’s not on Mars. He’s been on Europa instead. He explains how he experiences time.

We see how Doctor Manhattan created life on Europa and we learn that he created the living people there, the “clones” we’ve seen. They are his version of Adam and Eve, created in the images of the English couple who were instrumental in saving young Jon Osterman and his father from Nazi Germany. His creation of his paradise on Europa is his fulfillment of his promise to them to create something beautiful.

He then tells Angela that he left this paradise to meet her because he loves her. Angela says that she’s having the opposite of feeling love for him and he takes off his mask for her. She continues to question him. He continues to try to get her to agree to dinner with him and she explains that she hates Doctor Manhattan because of the deaths of her parents. He tells her he regrets his actions in Vietnam.

He also then tells her about the “elegant solution” Angela comes up with about his blue appearance and we then see how Doctor Manhattan becomes Cal Abar, two weeks after they met. Angela takes Manhattan to a morgue where various men with no next of kin have died and will soon become ashes over Saigon. She eventually shows him the body of Calvin Jelani and that’s the person Manhattan becomes as it’s who Angela would be comfortable with — Cal.

At the bar, Manhattan tells Angela that they end up together for ten years and that it ends tragically. He also tells her that in six months, they nearly break up after a fight. The scene shifts to that moment and yes, they fight. Angela explains to him that without fear there is no risk for him, and he has no fear because he knows everything. She tells him to leave and he does, going to Veidt’s outpost in Antarctica.

It’s 2009 and Veidt and Manhattan talk about Angela and why Manhattan has taken on his Cal form and it’s Veidt that comes up with the way to prevent him from constantly using his powers — a device that would let him “forget”. It turns out Veidt made it thirty years ago when he was trying to destroy him. The solution Veidt has is one that even Manhattan doesn’t know about and it’s the little device Angela retrieved from Cal’s head last week. It will let him forget everything, but Veidt wants something in exchange. He wants to know if he lives to see his utopia and he will — just on Europa. Veidt wants Manhattan to send him there and so he does.

Manhattan takes the device to Angela and tells her to put it in his head. They decide to leave Vietnam and start over in Tulsa once the device is in place. Back at the bar, Manhattan continues to tell Angela about their life together much to her surprise — and reveals that he could pass on his powers. He also explains that there is a period of time he cannot see. Angela dubs it the Tunnel of Love.

Back in the present, Angela has removed the device and brought Manhattan back. He teleports the kids somewhere safe — to her grandfather. He spoke with Will years ago in preparation for this moment. It also turns out that it’s the question Angela asks Manhattan to ask her grandfather is what starts everything off — Judd’s death, everything. Paradox.

Manhattan reveals the Kavalry is already there. Angela goes out and tries to stop the Kavalry, but while she comes close, it’s to no avail. Manhattan comes out to save her and when it looks like they’ve won, Manhattan is hit by the canon. Back in Vietnam, Angela agrees to have dinner with him.

After the credits roll, we then cut to Veidt on Europa. The Game Warden visits him in his prison, bringing a cake Veidt’s servants insisted he be brought. Inside is a horseshoe with which Veidt starts to dig away at his prison floor.

Watchmen airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.