After four episodes of stealing every scene he was involved in, this week it is time for Detective Looking Glass to step into the spotlight, and, oh boy, this was one heck of an origin story.
See, Looking Glass was there when the squid attacked New York.
Wade and the Giant Squid
More precisely, he was in Hoboken, New Jersey, at a carnival.
See, Wade Tillman was a Mormon, or at least he dressed like one and was in a group of likeminded Christian young men from Tulsa sent to a carnival in New Jersey to convince the sinners to repent before Doomsday.
When young Wade went to try to convert a group of rough-looking kids smoking in an alley, a girl stepped up to protect him and led him into the hall of mirrors.
She then started to undress him to take his virginity before Doomsday, but then ran off with his clothes. Then, before he could do anything other than call himself a loser and sinner, something exploded outside and he fell unconscious.
He woke up and stumbled outside naked and found almost everyone in the carnival dead and those who weren’t were scared to death. Yep, this is why Wade is so strange and reclusive and prepared for another attack.
He was just over the river from the Squid that killed New York City.
Detective Looking Glass
In the present time, it turns out the reason he chose Looking Glass is that the reflective material of his mask is supposed to protect his brain from another extradimensional attack. He also has that material under his cap he wears.
He is a mess.
He is also the speaker at meetings for people who suffer from fears based on those attacks 30 years ago.
That is when he meets a woman. She is attending the meeting and convinces him to go out for drinks after the meeting. She tells him her story and they connect.
Then, as her ride picks her up from the bar, a head of lettuce falls out of the back of the truck and Wade realizes this is the truck that killed the cop in the first episode of the season.
He follows them to a warehouse and realizes the woman is part of the Seventh Cavalry and when he approaches them, they capture him and tell him there is something he needs to see.
The greatest hoax in American history
Wade sits down and learns that one of the members of the Seventh Cavalry is Senator Keene. Actually, Keene is the leader, saying he took over leadership to make sure they didn’t kill any more cops.
He then said he had a deal for Wade. He said he knows that Angela either killed Judd Crawford or she knows who did. He wants Wade to help take her out of the picture because the Seventh Cavalry is planning something big in Tulsa and wants her nowhere getting in their way.
Wade can do this or they will kill Angela and her family.
See, Judd Crawford was also part of the leadership of the Seventh Cavalry after the original White Night, and killing him was a strike at them.
He then shows him why he should help them. He plays a video of Veidt recording a message for President Robert Redford in 1985, almost a decade before Redford becomes POTUS.
He then reveals that he dropped the squid on New York to save the world, even at the expense of all those lives. He also said that he knows Redford will become president because he will ensure it himself.
There was no alien invasion and the squid was not from another dimension. It was something Veidt created himself using his cloning technology.
Wade sets up Angela
Wade found out that the pills that Angela gave him were called Nostalgia and contained memories and were illegal. She had no idea whose memories they were.
However, Wade knew that Agent Laurie Blake bugged his desk and knew about the pills. He set up Angela to get arrested when he asked her what was happening and she told him her grandfather who was over 100 claimed to have killed Judd but she knew he was lying and covered it up.
Blake came out of her office with her gun and ordered Angela arrested so she grabbed the pills and ate them all before the police led her off.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Wade went home and realized he no longer needed the aluminum protection. But, as he went into his house, the Seventh Cavalry showed up with guns and went in as the episode ended.
Veidt is not on Earth
The show is not complete without Adrian Veidt.
He finally decided to use the catapult he had been testing and had his servants launch him at that exit point in the sky as he wore a spacesuit.
When he went through, he saw Mars was just in the distance. He then gathered up all the bodies of the clones he had shot there and gathered them to spell out the words “Save Me” and watched as a satellite flew over that spot.
He seemed happy but then the rope attached to his waist pulled him back through and to his Manor again.
That is when the Game Warden showed up and told him that he was warned and now he has no choice but to arrest him, making an ominous threat as he did so.
Watchmen airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.