Watchmen Recap with Spoilers: There’s No Good Time for a Rude Awakening

The seventh episode of HBO’s Watchmen, “An Almost Religious Awe,” aired tonight and revealed one of the biggest shockers of the series so far. While recovering from last week’s overdose on Nostalgia, Angela Abar (Regina King) spent this week at Lady Trieu’s (Hong Chau) compound where she learned the ultimate goal of the Seventh Kavalry/Cyclops. Meanwhile, the episode saw Adrian Veidt (Jeremy Irons) receive his final judgment from the clones of Europa while Agent Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) got caught off guard by a secret enemy.

Warning: Watchmen Spoilers Ahead…

Tonight’s episode kicked off with a flashback to Saigon, which had just become a new state thanks to Doctor Manhattan single-handedly winning the Vietnam War. The scene reveals the origin of Angela’s “Sister Night” alter ego as her younger self buys a Blaxploitation video of the same name. After being told by her parents that she needs to return to the video, she passes a Doctor Manhattan puppet show and witnesses a sinister-looking puppeteer give a bag to a man on a bike. This ended up being a bomb, which ultimately kills Angela’s parents.

The explosion from Angela’s memory knocks her out of bed, where she’s greeted by Lady Trieu, who proceeds to gives Angela a “tutorial” inside her mind which explains that consuming someone else’s memories is deadly and that Angela is now hooked up to a “natural host” to help “exterminate” the drug from her system. Angela assumes the host is her grandfather, Will Reeves (Louis Gossett Jr.), and asks to speak to him, but Lady Trieu says it’s a bad idea.

From there, the episode shows Cal Abar (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) arriving at Lady Trieu’s compound where he encounters Red Scare (Andrew Howard) and Pirate Jenny (Jessica Camacho), who are waiting for Angela to recover so they can arrest her. Cal speaks with a hologram of Lady Trieu’s daughter, Bian (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), who assures him Angela is recovering but insists that he can’t speak to her.

The episode moves on to Laurie, who receives a call from Petey (Dustin Ingram). He tells her the Seventh Kavalry men who were last seen storming Wade Tillman’s (Tim Blake Nelson) house at the end of episode five are now dead, which debunks Laurie’s theory that he’s a part of their organization. From there, Laurie goes to see Jane Crawford (Frances Fisher) and shares everything she learned about Judd Crawford’s (Don Johnson) murder. Laurie thinks she’s pressing Jane for information, but Jane immediately confesses to knowing the Seventh Kavalry/Cyclops agenda and she grabs a remote, which sends Laurie soaring through a trap door.

In another Saigon flashback, Angela is taken by the police to point out the puppeteer who helped murder her parents, and when she gives him up without hesitation, the cop gives her her badge and says to find her when she’s older.

Next is the trial of Adrian Veidt on Europa, which we learn is on day 365. One of the Crookshanks (Sara Vickers) clones is serving as the prosecution and offers a long and convincing closing argument about Adrian’s guilt that ranges from the murder of countless clones on Europa to the millions of people he killed in the original Watchmen comic. The judge then calls for “a jury of his peers,” which is just a bunch of pigs, and their squeals determine Adrian’s guilt.

While attempting to break into what she believes to be her grandfather’s room, Angela is stopped by Lady Trieu. Angela accuses her of slipping Nostalgia to Bian, which causes Lady Trieu to admit that Bian is not her daughter but rather a clone of her mother.

The episode goes back to Laurie, who is tied up in Jane’s basement. Keene arrives and shocks Laurie by revealing that since it’s become “too difficult to be a white man in America” he’s now thinking he “might try being a blue one.”

While Lady Trieu gives a speech to her employees, Angela takes the opportunity to break into her grandfather’s room but discovers the “natural host” is actually an elephant. She rips out the tube that connects them, which takes her back to a Saigon memory. In the past, she meets her grandmother, who promises her a better life in Tulsa. Sadly, her grandmother dies, presumably of a heart attack, just as they’re getting ready to leave.

Present-day Angela attempts to escape the compound but comes across a room with a giant blue globe. Lady Trieu enters and reveals she owns and operates thousands of the booths where people go to ask Doctor Manhattan for help. She says he ignores the messages because he’s not listening. In fact, she explains that he’s not on Mars at all, but rather in Tulsa pretending to be human. She explains that she got this information from Will, who came to her asking for help to stop the Seventh Kavalry from their plans to capture Doctor Manhattan, destroy him, and ultimately become him.

Angela finally escapes by making her way past Red Scare and Pirate Jenny. She goes home and tells Cal he’s a great husband, an amazing father, and the best friend she’s ever had. Then, she takes out a hammer and says, “time to come out of the tunnel” before calling him Jon and smashing his head in. She digs a circular metal piece out of his head that resembles Doctor Manhattan’s symbol. A blue light illuminates her face and she says, “Hey baby, we’re in f*cking trouble.”

Watchmen airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.