Dr. Disappointment

Published December 2, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi guys,

Having watched episode 7 An Almost Religious Awe early this morning in the UK, after seeing Angela discover the elephant, it now feels like I am being beaten over the head by the Trieu company logo. Like those optical illusion drawings of the young woman/old woman – before I could see the T, now I see the elephant. There’s been a shift in my perspective thanks to the literal elephant in the storytelling to bring that to the foreground.

The question of Trieu is what are you saving humanity from? It includes the Seventh Kavalry as she states but this feels insufficient. There’s the notion of America itself as a racist endeavour to rescue the world from but perhaps that’s too far for HBO however woke they are.

So perhaps it is to rescue humanity from Doctor Manhattan himself? Both through his past actions and his future influence.

I am a bit disappointed that Dr M has turned up in our story. I was hoping that we would be exploring his legacy without having the character show up. Therefore there might be a bit of wish fulfillment in my following statement – to save the world from itself, Doctor Manhattan must die. There must be a yearning for death in his soul and Laurie Blake’s joke from episode 3 implies that Thanatos is at play. This would work with his years spent as Angela’s partner expressing his Eros impulses. Despite being a god, Dr M still struggles with human impulses.

I have been wondering about a meta conspiracy which combines the different players together and everyone wanting to be free of Doctor Manhattan for various reasons seems to fit. It would place Laurie Blake and Angela Abar together on the same side against the conspirators however if Dr M himself wants to die, this creates a conflict between him and his lovers.

How they wrap this story up in a couple of hours is going to be challenging to everyone I suspect. I don’t have any developed theories as to how this ends except that it won’t end well especially for elephants…

Still if Lindelof and his writing room team kill off Dr M, I will be impressed.

Regards
John Lish

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