If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own

Last updated
"If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own"
Watchmen episode
Episode no.Episode 4
Directed by Andrij Parekh
Written by Damon Lindelof
Christal Henry
Cinematography by Gregory Middleton
Editing byDavid Eisenberg
Production code104
Original air dateNovember 10, 2019 (2019-11-10)
Running time52 minutes
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
← Previous
"She Was Killed by Space Junk"		Next →
"Little Fear of Lightning"
List of episodes

"If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own" is the fourth episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen , based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Christal Henry and directed by Andrij Parekh, and aired on November 10, 2019. The episode introduces the character of Lady Trieu, played by Hong Chau, a wealthy industrialist that had bought out Adrian Veidt's enterprises on his death.

Contents

Synopsis

The childless Clark couple is visited late at night by trillionaire Lady Trieu, who wishes to buy their house and farmland and offers them a baby created from their DNA as well as five million dollars in return. The Clarks agree, moments before an object from space lands nearby. Trieu claims it as her own.

Angela gets a call from the heritage center notifying that more information about Will has been discovered. She discreetly breaks into the closed facility, where she learns that Will is a survivor of the Tulsa massacre, but disappeared shortly thereafter. She hears a crash outside, and finds Laurie next to Angela's smashed car. Angela identifies the car as her own, and secretly pockets an unlabeled pill bottle belonging to Will that she finds inside. Later, Angela gives the pill bottle and the Ku Klux Klan outfit from Judd's closet to Wade for safekeeping, and asks Wade to have his ex-wife analyze the pills. While on patrol, Angela is outrun by an unknown vigilante, dubbed "Lube Man", after he witnesses her disposing of Will's wheelchair.

At the station, Laurie informs Angela they found unknown fingerprints on her car, and have a lead on new drone technology developed by Lady Trieu's company that may have been used to take her car. The two meet with Trieu at her Millennium Clock facility. Knowing that Angela was also born in Vietnam, Trieu asks to converse with her in Vietnamese and tells her that Will wants to know if she found the pills yet. Laurie takes note of a golden statue of Adrian Veidt at Trieu's headquarters. That night, Trieu's daughter Bian reports having had dreams of an attack on a Vietnamese village, despite never having been there. Trieu sends Bian back to her room and speaks to Will, who has listened from a nearby room. Trieu questions why Will does not directly tell Angela what is going on, but Will believes it is better for her to figure it out herself, with events coming to a head in three days.

Elsewhere, Veidt harvests human fetuses from a lake and uses a device to accelerate their aging to a new pair of Phillips and Crookshanks clones. As he brings them to his manor, he explains that they will soon gain full intelligence. He has them clear a room full of the murdered corpses of other clones, which he uses to launch by catapult to test the limits of his prison.

Production

Lady Trieu is played by Hong Chau, whose Vietnamese heritage helped in her casting. Hong Chau 2016 cropped.jpg
Lady Trieu is played by Hong Chau, whose Vietnamese heritage helped in her casting.

"If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own" introduces Lady Trieu, played by Hong Chau, an American actress of Vietnamese descent. Chau had not been familiar with the source material but had accepted Lindelof's invitation to hear about the part he proposed for her in the show. According to Chau, Lindelof spent about an hour and a half establishing the story of the comic series before going into the character of Trieu, how she was tied to the limited series, and his plans for her character within the show, all which intrigued Chau. He also expressed the importance of her Vietnamese heritage to Chau's story as well as ties to the original limited series. [1] To prepare for the part, Chau reviewed the behaviors of real-life billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson, as well as Japanese scientists that were on the leading edge of cloning and genetics research. [1] The episode's title is taken from a passage in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart , the book Cal was reading when Angela tries to pick a fight. [2]

The episode includes the only appearance of "Lube Man" within the series, in the scene where Angela attempts to chase him down after he witnesses her disposing of Will's wheelchair. Lube Man escapes by covering himself with some oil and then sliding feet-first into a drain opening. This was a wholly practical effect. While the drain was specifically constructed to help with the scene, Regina King, who played Angela, was amazed with the stuntman's ability. [3] The mystery behind Lube Man became popular with fans of the show after the episode. Lindelof had written the scene to be "in the midst of other insane things happening" during the episode and did not expect the character or his identity to take off in popularity with fans of the show. [4] While Lube Man did not appear again, the accompanying "Peteypedia" material for the show, purportedly collected by FBI Agent Dale Petey, heavily implies that Petey himself is Lube Man. [5] [6] Lindelof remained coy about confirming this, but directed readers to Peteypedia "to reach the obvious conclusion" to his identity. [4] During a webcam interview by Rolling Stone of Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Damon Lindelof about the creation of the score, Lube Man hijacks the feed to demand Reznor and Ross play an underscore while he reads a poem/rap in exchange for unmasking himself. He does so, revealing himself to be Dustin Ingram. After Ingram/Lube Man departs Lindelof wonders aloud whether the insinuation that Petey was Lube Man would be considered canon and asked viewers to reach their own conclusion. [7]

Reception

Critical

At Rotten Tomatoes, the episode has a 93% approval rating with an average rating of 8.3 out of 10 based on 27 reviews. The site's summary of the critics states, "Guided by the bombastic introduction of the eccentric trillionaire Lady Trieu, 'If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own' makes for a truly bizarre, highly captivating experience." [8]

Ratings

In its original broadcast in the United States on HBO, the episode had an estimated 707,000 viewers. [9]

Related Research Articles

<i>Watchmen</i> Comics by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Watchmen is a comic book limited series by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987 before being collected in a single-volume edition in 1987. Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moore's proposed story would have left many of the characters unusable for future stories, managing editor Dick Giordano convinced Moore to create original characters instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trent Reznor</span> Musical artist

Michael Trent Reznor is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and composer. He came to prominence as the founder, lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and primary songwriter of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. The band's line-up has constantly changed, with Reznor being its only official member from its creation in 1988 until 2016, when he added English musician and frequent collaborator Atticus Ross as its second permanent member.

Rorschach is a fictional antihero and one of the protagonists in the graphic novel limited series Watchmen, published by DC Comics in 1986. Rorschach was created by writer Alan Moore with artist Dave Gibbons; as with most of the main characters in the series, he was an analogue for a Charlton Comics character, in this case Steve Ditko's the Question. Moore also modeled Rorschach on Mr. A, another Steve Ditko creation on whom the Question was originally based.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Veidt</span> Comic book character

Adrian Alexander Veidt, also known as Ozymandias, is a fictional anti-villain in the graphic novel limited series Watchmen, published by DC Comics. Created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, named "Ozymandias" in the manner of Ramesses II, his name recalls the famous poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which takes as its theme the fleeting nature of empire and is excerpted as the epigraph of one of the chapters of Watchmen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damon Lindelof</span> American screenwriter and producer (born 1973)

Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American screenwriter, comic book writer, and producer. Among his accolades, he received three Primetime Emmy Awards, from twelve nominations. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Triệu</span> 3rd-century Vietnamese warrior

Lady Triệu or Triệu Ẩu was a female warrior in 3rd century Vietnam who managed, for a time, to resist the rule of the Chinese Eastern Wu dynasty. She is also called Triệu Thị Trinh, although her actual given name is unknown. She is quoted as saying, "I'd like to ride storms, kill orcas in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man." The uprising of Lady Triệu is usually depicted in modern Vietnamese National History as one of many chapters constituting a "long national independence struggle to end foreign domination." She is also known as Lệ Hải Bà Vương.

<i>Watchmen</i> (film) 2009 film by Zack Snyder

Watchmen is a 2009 American superhero film based on the 1986–1987 DC Comics limited series of the same name co-created and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Directed by Zack Snyder from a screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse, the film features Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. A dark and dystopian deconstruction of the superhero genre, the film is set in an alternate history in the year 1985 at the height of the Cold War, as a group of mostly retired American superheroes investigate the murder of one of their own before uncovering an elaborate and deadly conspiracy with which they are all connected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hong Chau</span> American actress (born 1979)

Hong Chau is an American actress. She has received several award nominations for her film roles as Ngoc Lan Tran in Downsizing (2017) and as Liz, a nurse, in The Whale (2022), including one for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the latter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ngoc Lan Tran</span> Fictional character

Ngoc Lan Tran is a fictional character that appears in the 2017 American film Downsizing and is played by actress Hong Chau. In the satire film, Tran is a supporting character and a Vietnamese political dissident who is jailed and "downsized" by her country. In the process of escaping her country, she loses her left leg below the knee. The film was directed by Alexander Payne, who wrote the screenplay with Jim Taylor. Chau's performance was widely recognized as a standout. Some critics complained that the role was an Asian caricature with the performance involving a heavy Vietnamese accent and broken English. Chau defended the portrayal and considered her character to be more layered. For her performance, she was nominated for several awards for Best Supporting Actress.

Watchmen is a 2019 American superhero drama limited series based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same title created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The TV series was created for HBO by Damon Lindelof, who also served as an executive producer and writer. Its ensemble cast includes Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Andrew Howard, Jacob Ming-Trent, Tom Mison, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, Louis Gossett Jr. and Jeremy Irons. Jean Smart and Hong Chau joined the cast in later episodes.

"It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice" is the pilot episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and directed by Nicole Kassell, and aired on October 20, 2019. The episode introduces the show's lead characters of Angela Abar/Sister Night, Judd Crawford, and Wade Tillman/Looking Glass.

"Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship" is the second episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse and directed by Nicole Kassell, and aired on October 27, 2019.

"She Was Killed by Space Junk" is the third episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Lila Byock and directed by Stephen Williams, and aired on November 3, 2019. It introduces the character of Laurie Blake, formerly the vigilante Silk Spectre but now a member of the FBI's Anti-Vigilante's Task Force.

"Little Fear of Lightning" is the fifth episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carly Wray and directed by Steph Green, and aired on November 17, 2019. It primarily focuses on the character of Wade Tillman, the masked police detective who goes by the name Looking Glass.

"This Extraordinary Being" is the sixth episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson and directed by Stephen Williams, and aired on November 24, 2019. It is principally the origin story of Hooded Justice, a minor character from the original comic.

"An Almost Religious Awe" is the seventh episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The episode was written by Stacy Osei-Kuffour and Claire Kiechel, directed by David Semel, and aired on December 1, 2019. The episode charts the aftermath of Angela's prolonged Nostalgia trip through her grandfather's memories, while also providing glimpses into her childhood in Vietnam.

"See How They Fly" is the ninth episode and series finale of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It was written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof and directed by Frederick E.O. Toye, and aired on December 15, 2019. The finale sees the two competing plots within Tulsa to kidnap Doctor Manhattan come to a head, while Adrian Veidt prepares to finally escape his exile.

"A God Walks into Abar" is the eighth episode of the HBO superhero drama miniseries Watchmen, based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It was written by Jeff Jensen and Damon Lindelof and directed by Nicole Kassell, and aired on December 8, 2019. The episode centers on the character of Doctor Manhattan and events of his life after the comic.

<i>Watchmen</i> (soundtrack) 2019 soundtrack album

Watchmen (Music from the HBO Series) is the original score for the HBO superhero drama limited series Watchmen, composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The score was released in three volumes on vinyl and digital services over the course of the series' broadcast in 2019, with Volume 1 on November 6, Volume 2 on November 27, and Volume 3 on December 18.

References

  1. 1 2 Wigler, Josh (November 10, 2019). "'Watchmen': How a New Enigmatic Force Plans to "Save the World"". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  2. ↑ Thomas, Leah (November 25, 2019). "Decoding the Watchmen Episode Titles". The Mary Sue . Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  3. ↑ Yehl, Joshua (December 17, 2019). "Watchmen's Regina King Offers Emotional Explanation of the Ending". IGN . Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  4. 1 2 Hibbard, James (December 15, 2019). "Watchmen showrunner answers 9 questions about that season finale". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  5. ↑ McHerny, Jackson (December 16, 2019). "Watchmen Unmasks Lube Man, in Its Own Slippery Way". Vulture . Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  6. ↑ Goslin, Austen (December 9, 2019). "Lube Man may be a Watchmen character we've already met". Polygon . Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  7. ↑ Kreps, Daniel (September 18, 2020). "See Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross Break Down 'Watchmen' Interrogation Scene". Rolling Stone . Retrieved September 19, 2020.
  8. ↑ "If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  9. ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (November 12, 2019). "Updated: ShowBuzzDaily's Top 150 Sunday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 11.10.2019". Showbuzz Daily. Archived from the original on November 12, 2019. Retrieved November 12, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.