"An Almost Religious Awe"
Air date: December 1, 2019
"So many prayers unanswered… You wouldn’t believe what people ask him for. They beg and beg and beg for his help. Beg for him to come down from the heavens, and make things better. But he ignores them, every single one. Do you know why? Because Dr. Manhattan isn’t listening. He’s not even on Mars."
— Lady Trieu
As the Millennium Clock activation nears, Angela struggles to recover from Nostalgia poisoning in Lady Trieu's headquarters. She drifts in and out of Will's and her most vivid and traumatic memories.
Meanwhile, Agent Blake, having listened to recordings of Angela's delirious ramblings, deduces that the Seventh Kavalry are scheming to get Keene elected president and goes to confront Mrs. Crawford. Blake turns out to be right, but Mrs. Crawford was in on it, and Blake is captured by the Kavalry. Lady Trieu explains to Angela that their plan is to capture Doctor Manhattan and use his powers for themselves. Fearful, Angela rushes home to bring "Cal" out of the tunnel, unaware that Kavalry members are watching their house...
Also, Adrien Veidt is found "guilty" at his trial.
Tropes:
- Amnesiac God: Cal turns out to be the human guise of Dr. Manhattan, who has deliberately forgotten his original identity.
- Armor-Piercing Question: "If you don't want your kids to worry you're a cop, then why are you a cop?"
- As You Know: Petey asks Laurie whether she remembers the instructions she gave him about going to Wade's house on the suspicion that he might be working with the Seventh Kavalry. Lampshaded by Laurie in her response.Laurie: I remember that as if I said all of that to you verbatim.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Angela lost her parents on her tenth birthday.
- Easy Amnesia: Discussed, Lady Trieu mentions that conveniently forgetting everything about your identity is very common in soap operas. Not the case in real life, which is why she's suspicious of Cal's accident.
- Gasshole: Veidt lets a loud fart out as a middle finger to the Game Warden and the various Phillips and Crookshanks clones present."The defense... rests."
- Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: The prosecutor does this rather dramatically at Veidt when giving her closing statement. When he is found guilty, the entire court points at him while chanting "Guilty!".
- Got the Whole World in My Hand: Lady Trieu has a room that simply has a glowing globe that when you touch it, it reveals one of the messages someone sends to Doctor Manhattan from one of Trieu Enterprises’s Manhattan phonebooths.
- Hollywood Heart Attack: June has one right after getting a young Angela from the orphanage.
- Honorable Elephant: The live source of the cerebral fluid used for Nostalgia overdose treatment is an elephant, which are renowned for their memory.
- Hope Spot: Angela is briefly rescued from the orphanage by her grandmother...who then keels over after a heart attack.
- Idiot Ball: Blake figures out what's going on and immediately explains it all to Mrs Crawford, who turns out to be in on it.
- Kangaroo Court: We see a rather literal example of this, as the jury for Veidt's trial consists of piglets, whose squeals the judge interprets as a "guilty" verdict.
- Match Cut: A scene transitions from Angela's eyes to the stained glass windows where Veidt's Kangaroo Court was held.
- Mook Horror Show: Petey goes to Wade’s house and finds the dead bodies of several Kavalrymen killed by Wade.
- Trap Door: The Crawfords have one in their living room. It takes a couple of tries to activate. Laurie sighs about the spectacle of it all.
- Trauma Conga Line: Angela's childhood in Saigon, where she loses her parents to a bomb blast and then has to live in an Orphanage of Fear. Her grandmother June comes to adopt her but dies before they can even leave the country.
- Wham Line:
- The episode has been building up to this twist, but this line by Angela basically confirms it:Angela: Time to come out of the tunnel.
- And if the previous line didn't set you off immediately:Angela: No, Jon, you're not yourself.
- The episode has been building up to this twist, but this line by Angela basically confirms it:
