HBO’s Watchmen changes Vietnam history to set up a major storyline twist. Here’s why Saigon looks so different in “An Almost Religious Awe,” and what it means for the conclusion of Watchmen season 1.
“An Almost Religious Awe” details the aftermath of Angela Abar’s (Regina King) drug overdose, due to the mass consumption of Nostalgia: pills that allow people to immerse themselves into the past by reliving memories. Overdosing on these pills causes the to forget their identity. While recovering under the care of drug creator Lady Trieu (Hong Chau), the Tulsa detective known as Sister Night is slowly purged of her grandfather’s painful memories, regaining her sense of self. The treatment caused her to recall traumatic experiences from her past in Vietnam.
In real life, the Vietnam War ended after the Viet Cong captured Saigon in 1975, thus forcing the United States to send troops home, 10 years after the first soldiers arrived. In Watchmen, the Vietnam War ended much differently, and Angela’s memories not only reinforce why she became a police officer, but also set up a revelation about the mysterious Doctor Manhattan.
The opening sequence in “An Almost Religious Awe” reveals that Doctor Manhattan helped America win the Vietnam War, and also that Vietnam became the 51st U.S. State. The Watchmen episode opens with documentary footage about Doctor Manhattan’s defeat of Viet Cong forces, with the voiceover narration implying that the superhero, originally known as Jon Osterman, was viewed as both a liberator and a “blue conquerer who decimated an entire way of life.” In the Watchmen universe, Doctor Manhattan presumably relocated to Mars 10 years after the Vietnam War. In the present day, Tulsa residents send personal messages to the superhero through technology developed by Trieu Industries.
Young Angela grew up in the 51st American state, Vietnam, in Watchmen. Her memories revealed that on a national holiday known as “VVN Day,” many Saigon locals celebrate Doctor Manhattan’s achievements by wearing blue masks and/or blue clothing. In this U.S.-liberated version of Vietnam, Angela's mother and father celebrate VVN Day and politely remind their daughter that she’s not allowed to watch “Sister Night," a movie featuring a black character that ultimately inspires Angela's present-day police persona. In Watchmen's '70s-era Vietnam, there’s a tourism aspect that correlates with real-life Hawaii, the United States’ 50th state, located in the North Pacific Ocean.
Now that Saigon has been liberated in Watchmen's '70s timeline, it’s theoretically a pleasant place to live. In this world, it's Doctor Manhattan - not the Vietnam War itself - that’s viewed as “a toxic nightmare." In Watchmen, the Vietnam sequences establish why Angela chose to become a police officer: on VVN Day, her parents were killed during a terrorist attack, and she ends up living at the Phu Nhuan Home for Girls, an orphanage under the control of a stern Vietnamese woman. When Angela’s grandma June arrives in the '70s timeline, Angela will seemingly be freed from the source of her emotional trauma: her parents' deaths in U.S.-controlled Saigon. But June dies from a heart attack not long after her arrival, and life goes on for Angela in Saigon, now an American city that’s full of opportunities but also resentment about Doctor Manhattan's intervention. Angela learns about different forms of justice during her years in Vietnam, and applies those life lessons to her job in Tulsa.
In “An Almost Religious Awe,” Watchmen doubles down with Vietnamese revisionist history through a final ironic twist, one that connects Sister Night with Doctor Manhattan, and implies that there’s much more to be revealed about the moment when Angela first met her future husband, Cal, in Vietnam.
