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"Yeah, well, it's my funeral."

—Chief Judd Crawford to Panda


"It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice" is the first episode in the first season of HBO's Watchmen, and first episode overall. It aired on October 20, 2019.

Premise[]

In an alternate America where police conceal their identities behind masks to protect themselves from a terrorist organization, Detective Angela Abar investigates the attempted murder of a fellow officer under the guidance of her friend and Chief, Judd Crawford. Meanwhile, the Lord of a Country Estate receives an anniversary gift from his loyal servants.

Plot[]

In the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, a young Will Reeves is sitting in a movie theater and watches a silent film about the black lawman Bass Reeves when an air raid siren and explosions are heard outside. Will's father comes into the theater to retrieve the child and his mother, the theater's pianist. Outside, the family navigates through the unfolding Tulsa race massacre, witnessing their neighborhood being razed and black citizens being publicly executed by a mob of Klansmen. The father gives Will a note reading "WATCH OVER THIS BOY" and entrusted him with a black couple who are trying to flee Tulsa by car. Will is knocked out after seeing a biplane firebomb the building containing his parents. Will comes to after dark, on the outskirts of the city, and finds the black couple dead. He rescues a crying infant and walks away from the scene and tells the infant that she's going to be okay. He starts walking with her, but turns around and sees the whole town in flames.

Almost a century later, on September 8, 2019 at 9:35PM, Tulsa police officer Charlie Sutton pulls over a pickup truck. The driver claims to be carrying lettuce, but Sutton notices a Rorschach mask that he has hidden in his glovebox, indicating that he belongs to a white supremacist group called the Seventh Kavalry. Sutton returns to his cruiser, patches himself through to the station, and has to ask the desk officer, Panda, to deactivate the maglock device that is keeping him from drawing his gun. The time-consuming process gives the driver enough time to sneak out of his truck and fire machine gun rounds into Sutton through his windshield. Police Chief Judd Crawford is notified of the shooting while attending an all-black production of the musical Oklahoma!. At the hospital, where Sutton has been placed in intensive care, Judd and a masked detective named Looking Glass speculate on why the Kavalry would attack the police again after three years of peace. Judd goes to Sutton's house to inform his wife of the shooting.

On a TV screen, it shows a breaking news segment of Doctor Manhattan on Mars. He seems to have build and elaborate life size castle, only to destroy it shortly after.

The following day, local baker Angela Abar gives a presentation to Topher's class, showing them how to make mooncakes. Taking questions from the students, Angela explains that she was born in Vietnam two years before it became a U.S. state and claims that she retired from the police force after being injured by the Kavalry during the White Night. A confrontational question by a student named Tommy about whether Angela's business was subsidized with "Redfordations" provokes Topher to attack him. Later, Angela and Topher's drive home is interrupted when an abnormal storm causes small squids to rain down on downtown Tulsa. When they get home, Angela's husband Cal informs her that she has received a page bearing the coded message "Little Bighorn," a reference to the Kavalry. Angela goes to her bakery, where she has a brief encounter with the now-older Will Reeves who cryptically asks her if he can lift two-hundred pounds.

Inside the bakery, Angela gains access to a hidden room where she retrieves her police badge and dons the costume and weapons she uses for her masked identity, "Sister Night." She drives a customized car to a slum dubbed "Nixonville", where she breaks into a seemingly random trailer and apprehends its occupant. Angela then drives to the police station, where a department-wide assembly is watching a video threat from the Kalvary. Despite the protests of Panda, Judd invokes "Article 4" and allows free use of firearms by the police for a 24-hour period. In Judd's office, Angela confronts him about not being immediately informed of the Sutton shooting, and tells him that she has the trailer occupant in her trunk. The suspect is taken to a chamber called "the pod", where he is subjected to subliminal images while Looking Glass asks a barrage of questions, including whether he's involved with the Kavalry. When Looking Glass states that The Suspect is being deceptive, Angela forces him into a room and viciously beats him until he reveals that the Kavalry's hideout is located at a cattle ranch.

After nightfall, Angela and the masked cop Red Scare infiltrate the ranch while Judd and another masked cop, Pirate Jenny, monitor the proceedings from a police-customized Owlship in the sky. Inside a trailer, members of the Kavalry are collecting lithium watch batteries when an alarm tips them off to the police presence. Two Kalvarymen attack the cops with a truck-mounted heavy machine gun while several others attempt to escape aboard a single-engine aircraft. Angela manages to overpower the gunmen and enter the trailer, where she gets into a fight with a Kavalryman who is revealed to be Charlie Sutton's assailant. However, the Kavalryman swallows a cyanide capsule and dies before Angela can question him. Outside, Judd and Pirate Jenny pursue the Kavalry aircraft and manage to destroy it with the Owlship's flamethrower, but debris causes the Owlship to violently crash. Judd and Pirate Jenny survive.

Elsewhere, in a remote country castle, the Lord of the Country Manor returns from horseback riding. He is then seen sitting naked at a typewriter while being attended to by a maid, Ms. Crookshanks. A butler, Phillips, presents him with a robe and states that he has a surprise gift prepared to mark his "anniversary." Later, in the dining room, the manor's lord is presented with an ornate cake and a pocket watch that has been repaired by Mr. Phillips. He informs Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Crookshanks that he has just completed a five-act play titled "The Watchmaker's Son", and tells them that they will be playing the leading roles. The three give a toast to the play.

Judd and his wife Jane join the Abars for dinner. Judd briefly excuses himself and takes a hit of cocaine where the rest of the party cannot see him, but he is told to wipe the cocaine from his nose by Angela when he returns to the table. Jane reveals that Judd previously played Curly in his high school's production of Oklahoma!, which leads to Judd giving an impromptu performance of the show tune "People Will Say We're in Love". After the dinner, Judd and Angela talk about the discovery of the watch batteries from the Kalvary's hideout, made of a discontinued type of lithium that has been linked to cancer, which raises the possibility that the Kavalry is trying to build a dirty bomb.

Meanwhile, a commercial for the television series American Hero Story: Minutemen is heard saying how, “the clock is ticking. We’re running out of time. Evil is rising. Second by second, we all cry out...” and while said commercial plays, it shows images of Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis, Comedian, Mothman, Dollar Bill, Silk Spectre, and Nite Owl.

Later that night, Judd receives a phone call that Sutton has woken up and is summoned away from home. On the way to the hospital, Judd's pickup hits a spike strip. Just as he realizes that he is about to be ambushed, Judd is confronted by a bright, rapidly-flashing light. Meanwhile, Angela and Cal are having sex when she receives a mysterious phone call instructing her to drive to a remote oak tree, where she will find something. Angela retrieves a hidden shotgun and arms Cal before she leaves her house. Upon driving to the oak tree, Angela is confronted by the same bright light until she threatens to shoot. Before her she sees Will from before, holding the note reading "WATCH OVER THIS BOY" -- revealing him to be the child who escaped from the Tulsa Race Massacre. He sits next to Judd's body, which is hanging from the tree by a noose.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Starring[]

Co-Starring[]

  • Jamal Akakpo as Bass Reeves
  • Landon Durrence as Adorable White Boy
  • Victoria Blade as Mom
  • Charles Green as Preacher
  • Lily Rose Smith as Rosie
  • Adelynn Spoon as Emma
  • Kyle McDuffie as Sheriff
  • Danny Boyd, Jr as Young Boy
  • Steven G. Norfleet as The Father
  • Alexis Louder as The Mother
  • Dajour Ashwood as Mechanic
  • Sasha Morfaw as Mechanic's Wife
  • Uyoata Udi as Curly (Oklahoma)
  • Teresa Jade Wilson as Farmer's Daughter (Oklahoma)
  • Jamie Miles as Nurse
  • Zsane Jhe as Roberta Sutton
  • Nicholas Logan as 7K Spokesman
  • Joe Sykes as Uniformed Cop
  • Gabrielle Manning as 4th Grader
  • Jay Amir as Curious Boy
  • Ethan Stormant as Tommy (Buzzcut)
  • Helena Hu as Girl
  • Joey Mekyten as One Kid

Gallery[]

Promotional stills[]

Screenshots[]

Peteypedia[]

Behind the scenes[]

Videos[]

Behind the Scenes[]

  • There are several references to the musical Oklahoma! including the premiere's title that's named after the lyric to the song "Pore Jud Is Daid".
    • “He looks like he’s asleep, It’s a shame that he won’t keep, but it’s summer and we’re running out of ice.”
    • The film version of "Pore Jud is Daid" was played at the conclusion of the episode which mirrors Judd Crawford's death.
  • In an interview for the ComicBookMovie website, Damon Lindelof revealed that when Watchmen begins, Robert Redford has been the President of the United States for 28 years, cell phones and the internet have been invented, and costumed adventurers are still banned under the Keene Act.
    • Fossil fuels, meanwhile, are a thing of the past thanks to Doctor Manhattan's time on Earth, however, rumors persist that he's hiding out on Mars.
    • The police have been forced to don masks to protect their identities and can't use their guns without them being unlocked by a dispatcher first.
    • Reparations (referred to as "Redfordations") have been issued for racial injustice but the country remains divided on the issue.
    • When the series begins, many of the original characters from the graphic novel are believed dead or missing and the focus will instead be put on new character, Angela Abar, an Oklahoma detective who has adopted the superhero identity of "Sister Night."
    • However, both Ozymandias and the second Silk Spectre are expected to factor into this story in some way. [1]
  • At the 2019 New York City Comic Con several things were revealed in the panel for the new HBO series, among them: [2]
    • Rather than a second adaptation, Lindelof was more interested in exploring what happened after the events of the original comic series.
    • The first episode of the series was screened for the audience in attendance.
    • The 7K are appropriating Rorschach's ideas.
    • Most of the members of the cast hadn’t read the graphic novel before starting work on the series, but were won over by Damon Lindelof’s enthusiasm and the scripts.
    • Regina King, received the pilot script in the mail along with a letter and a closed envelope. Inside was an image of her dressed as Sister Night.
    • Jean Smart's character of Laurie Blake and Hong Chau's Lady Trieu will not be featured in the first episode. Although at the panel, the audience present were treated to a first look at both roles.
    • Lady Trieu is an entirely new character and Hong Chau described her as, "an enigmatic trillionaire businesswoman."
    • Laurie Blake has a past linked with the graphic novel, and Jean Smart talked about how her character was, “drawn into the masked vigilante world at a very young age. She has a lot of resentment for that whole culture, although a small part of her might miss it."
    • At the panel the cast & crew continued to play coy regarding who Jeremy Irons is playing on the series. He was continuously referred to as “Probably Who You Think He Is”.
    • Jeremy Irons did reveal that, Damon Lindelof gave him bits of a script which amused him hugely and made him think that, "This is a very interesting character," and that, “that man has such energy and enthusiasm, I don’t know what he’s going to do or make but if he thinks I can be of some help in this story then I’m aboard.”
  • The show visually references panels and images from the original text, even as it tells a slightly different story.
  • In the EW article, it mentions how Louis Gossett Jr. plays a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre named Will Reeves.

Trivia[]

  • The opening scene of the episode is set in a movie theater right as the violence of the Tulsa race massacre breaks out, a young boy is watching a silent film about Bass Reeves, the first black marshal west of the Mississippi River. Reeves was a real life person, but in the movie, with a black hood and whirling around a rope tied into a lasso, he looks a little like Hooded Justice, the first costumed adventurer and one of the original Minutemen from the comic series.
  • After he wakes up following the car crash, the young boy has a bloody head wound, which just happens to be in roughly the same place as the iconic drop of blood on the Comedian's smiley-face badge.
  • The title of the episode is a lyric from the song “Pore Jud Is Daid,” from the musical Oklahoma!, which just happens to be the state where HBO's Watchmen takes place. The musical makes a few other appearances in the episode, as we hear the song during the end credits, and Chief Judd Crawford watches a staging of the play that they refer to as “Black Oklahoma.” Given the series’ focus on race and appropriation, it’s a fitting, somewhat meta Easter egg.
  • The transition from 1921 to 2019 is the first of many clever or interesting transitions between scenes that Nicole Kassell told SYFY WIRE were intentional. “That book is so brilliant for the jump cuts and match frames,” she said.
  • The car the 7th Kavalry member is driving has a prominent battery gauge, implying that electric cars are still standard in Watchmen’s version of 2019, likely a result of Adrian Veidt and Doctor Manhattan’s technological advances.
  • The Rorschach-inspired masks the Seventh Kavalry members wear are likely too integral to the main plot. It’s worth noting that the “ink blotches” on their masks do not change shape the way the original Rorschach's did, having been made from a special fabric.
  • After the 7th Kavalry member shoots Charlie Sutton, the clicking sound of his emergency lights flashing sounds like the sound of a clock ticking, which, given Watchmen’s use of clocks as a motif, is likely intentional.
  • When Chief Judd Crawford visits Charlie Sutton’s wife to inform her about the shooting, we see a blurry glimpse of Doctor Manhattan destroying a castle he built on Mars, having apparently stayed there ever since the events of the original series. Apparently, there’s a 24/7 stream of his Martian activities. Also, the castle Manhattan is demolishing looks kind of similar to the one that Jeremy Irons' character lives in, as seen later in the episode.
  • When giving a demonstration about baking, Angela Abar cracks eggs in the shape of a smiley face, another of the original comic’s iconic motifs. There's even a little blood in the yolk in the right place.
  • Angela Abar grew up in Vietnam, which the teacher notes is a U.S. state, as was the case in the comic series too. Following Doctor Manhattan winning the Vietnam War for the United States, Vietnam was made the 51st state. Because of this, the American flags are noticeably different, since there has to be room for an extra star in this reality.
  • Inside the classroom, we get quick glimpses of two posters. The first teaches students about the “anatomy of a squid,” implying that the supposed extra-dimensional squid monster that attacked New York City in 1985 is part of the school curriculum. There’s also a poster about four important U.S. presidents: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon (who in Watchmen served for five terms), and actor Robert Redford, who is the current president and has served at least seven terms so far.
  • As Angela and Topher Abar drive home from school, alarms blare and suddenly thousands and thousands of tiny little squid rain from the sky. Angela is pretty nonchalant about the incident, implying that it’s a regular occurrence. But, given that the squid that destroyed New York City was a hoax created by Ozymandias to unite society against a common enemy, it’s unclear who is responsible for the squid rains — presumably Ozymandias' himself or an agency committed to continuing the ruse.
  • Angela Abar learns about the Seventh Kavalry shooter when she gets a page, because despite many fantastical inventions, neither cell phones nor the internet were invented in the world of the Watchmen. Also, the alert “Little Big Horn” is a reference to General Custer’s Last Stand, as the masked white supremacist terrorist group named themselves after the 7th Cavalry Regiment he led into battle against Native Americans.
  • There’s a popular TV show being advertised called American Hero Story, which is likely a parody of Ryan Murphy's American Crime Story, which dramatizes events like the O.J. Simpson trial and the assassination of Gianni Versace. There is an upcoming season about the Minutemen, and it appears that Hooded Justice is being framed as a central character.
  • When Angela Abar heads into Greenwood, she walks by a man holding up a sign that says “The future is bright,” an optimistic counterpart to the sign Walter Kovacs carried in the original series, which read “The end is nigh.” Kassell told SYFY WIRE that the Easter egg goes even deeper, too. “He's got red hair. That's definitely an homage to Rorschach carrying his picket,” she said.
  • When Angela enters her bakery (which is called “Milk & Hanoi Bakery”), we see that she’s being observed by a mysterious old man in a wheelchair. He’s reading the newspaper, and there are three notable headlines on the front page.
    • The text of the accompanying article appears to be unrelated to the headline, since the newspaper is just a prop, but the headline reveals that despite Robert Redford’s progressive presidency, there’s still quite a lot of racism in Watchmen’s America, to the point where the Ku Klux Klan got the Statue of Liberty shut down
    • Adrian Veidt, the genius businessman and one-time costumed hero who, unbeknownst to the public, murdered three million people in order to unite humanity, has officially been declared dead. The text of the accompanying article reveals that he has been “formally declared ‘presumed deceased,’” so it’s unclear why his survival is a mystery, or for how long that’s been the case. It does not appear as though the general public knows the truth of his role in the squid attack, so there’s no reason to think that he would be a villain in the public eye.
    • The squidfalls are apparently not just limited to Tulsa, as they've also hit Boise, which destroyed a homeless camp, killing two people.
  • That same newspaper also makes reference to "intrinsic chamber talks" being held in Moscow. This would imply that there has been or is about to be an arms race involving intrinsic field chambers — the very technology which created Doctor Manhattan and escalated the Cold War — either because the political situation is breaking down again or the Soviet Union is desperate to create another superhuman to counter another possible squid threat.
  • When Angela goes into her secret base inside the bakery, she punches in the numbers “1, 9, 8,” and “5” to open the lock — presumably a nod to the year that the majority of events of the original Watchmen took place.
  • When Angela assaults and kidnaps a suspected Seventh Kavalry member, there’s a quick shot of a newspaper with a headline declaring that Robert Redford will not seek another term. A panel from the final issue shows another newspaper headline speculating that “RR” will run in the 1988 election. While in real life, another “RR,” Ronald Reagan, eventually became president, another, more liberal alliteratively named actor ascended to the office in the Watchmen Universe. Since he was elected in 1992, Redford will already have served seven terms at this point.
  • There’s a riff on a famous Watchmen quote in the Seventh Kavalry’s manifesto video the Tulsa police watch. “All the whores and race-traitors will shout ‘Save us,’ and we’ll whisper ‘No,’” one of the masked white supremacists says, echoing Rorschach’s “All the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘Save us’” line. Rorschach wrote the line in his journal, which he gave to the far right New Frontiersman before heading off to Antarctica to meet his eventual demise at the end of the original series. The comic ended on a cliffhanger, but the show heavily implies that the New Frontiersman did indeed publish its contents, which is how the 7K learned the quote and were inspired by Rorschach.
  • The actual Rorschach is believed to have disappeared. Nobody knows that Doctor Manhattan killed him at Karnak, and all the Seventh Kavalry have to go on is his journal. While Rorschach may not have been a white supremacist himself, he’s not around to object to what the 7K is doing in his image.
  • At the end of the meeting, Judd Crawford recites the Tulsa police’s motto, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”, which is Latin for “Who Watches the Watchmen?” — the phrase that inspired the name of the whole series in the first place.
  • Angela Abar, now in costume as Sister Night, is drinking out of a coffee mug shaped like an owl when she’s waiting for Chief Crawford in his office. The mug is a little easter egg referencing Nite Owl, a central character from the original series.
  • Also in Judd Crawford’s office is a copy of Under the Hood, the famous autobiography by Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl who fought crime with the Minutemen.
  • When Looking Glass is interrogating the 7th Kavalry suspect, one of the images he flashes on screen reveals that Richard Nixon’s face has been added to Mount Rushmore. This could be a direct reference to the 2009 film's viral campaign in which a video titled The Keene Act & YOU, reveals that at some point between 1968 and 1977, Abraham Lincoln's face on South Dakota's Mount Rushmore national monument was replaced with that of Nixon. The series, however, features Nixon's face right next to Lincoln's instead of replacing him.
  • Looking Glass also flashes an image of the New York City skyline, and the Twin Towers are still standing. It does mark a dark sort of sense that 9/11 wouldn’t have happened in the Watchmen Universe, especially after the squid attack.
  • When Sister Night assaults the Seventh Kavalry suspect, we don’t see any of the violence directly, but we do see a puddle of blood spill out from under the door. A similar thing happens in the original series, when Rorschach, before escaping from Sing Sing, excuses himself to go to the bathroom, where he murders the diminutive gangster Big Figure.
  • The exact details of the Seventh Kavalry’s plan are unclear, but it involves them harvesting parts from watches, another allusion to the comic’s clock motif and Doctor Manhattan’s backstory as the son of a watchmaker. Later, we hear Angela Abar and Judd Crawford talking about how the watch parts were from the old, now-illegal style of watches, with synthetic lithium that’s said to cause cancer. Doctor Manhattan and Adrian Veidt's big technological breakthrough involved synthesizing lithium, though it appears that the misconception that Manhattan gives people cancer has led to the batteries being outlawed and all devices recalled.
  • There’s a vintage poster for Dollar Bill, a member of the Minutemen who fought crime on behalf of a bank chain called National Bank. It’s worth noting that the poster is notably racist which probably explains why the white supremacists in the Seventh Kavalry have it displayed on their wall.
  • The Tulsa Police Department has an aircraft that appears to be modeled after Dan Dreiberg’s Owlship. How they obtained the schematics to designing this vehicle is unknown, as are Dreiberg’s whereabouts in 2019. The police’s Owlship takes out a plane with a flamethrower, the original Owlship’s signature weapon.
  • The masked detective who pilots the Owlship is codenamed Pirate Jenny, a reference to both the pirate comic seen in the original Watchmen and "Pirate Jenny," a song from The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht which Alan Moore cited as an inspiration for Tales of the Black Freighter. A version of the song by Nina Simone appeared in the end credits of the 2009 film adaptation.
  • When “The Lord of the Manor” rides up to his castle, he’s seated on a pale horse. In the original series, a band named Pale Horse was playing at Madison Square Garden the night that Adrian Veidt’s squid attacked and killed three million people in New York City. In the incredibly likely event that this is indeed Ozymandias, the pale horse seems like a reference to his horrible past.
  • There’s a glass contraption on the Lord of the Manor's desk that resembles a bottle of Nostalgia, a perfume that Veidt Enterprises manufactured. Laurie Juspeczyk, the second Silk Spectre, famously threw a bottle of Nostalgia at Doctor Manhattan’s giant palace on Mars, causing it the crumble into dust.
  • The cake the Lord of the Manor has a bite of is frosted in the same color scheme as Ozymandias’ old superhero costume.
  • The name of the play that the Lord of the Manor has written for his two servants is titled The Watchmaker’s Son, meaning it is likely about Jon Osterman, who was a watchmaker’s son before a freak accident transformed him into the nigh-omnipotent Doctor Manhattan.
  • A commercial for the upcoming season of American Hero Story shows a quick, animated glimpse at characters based on the original Minutemen: Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Comedian, Captain Metropolis, Hooded Justice, Mothman, and Dollar Bill.
    • Silhouette is only member of the Minutemen to be excluded from the intro to the show-within-a-show American Hero Story, possibly as an allusion to the character's expulsion from the team for her homosexuality.
  • When Judd Crawford takes his last ride, a voice on the radio mentions Senator Joe Keene, an as-yet-unseen character who will be played by actor James Wolk. Presumably, Joe Keene is the son of Senator Keene, the politician behind the Keene Act which outlawed costumed adventurers in 1977.
  • Following the murder of Judd Crawford, a drop of his blood drips onto his police badge in almost the exact same shape and placement as the drop of blood that Rorschach discovered on the Comedian’s smiley-face button after his murder.

References[]

  • Redfordations - Assumed - Payment of money made to victims of racial injustice. The current President Robert Redford must have had some kind of legislation that paid out to victims of the Tulsa Race Riots and other instances of racial violence. Those not happy about the pay-out nickname the payment "Redfordation", like the word reparations.
  • White Night - Assumed - A recent event in which black people/police were hunted down by the group calling themselves the Seventh Kavalry.

External links[]

Navigation[]

ve Watchmen (TV series)
Season 1
01. It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice • 02. Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship • 03. She Was Killed by Space Junk • 04. If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own • 05. Little Fear of Lightning • 06. This Extraordinary Being • 07. An Almost Religious Awe • 08. A God Walks into Abar • 09. See How They Fly
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