Little Fear of Lightning

"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.

A girl from a local street gang leads Wade into a hall of funhouse mirrors and pretends to seduce him to steal his clothes and belongings.

In 2019, Wade maintains a cover identity as a market research consultant, and runs regular group therapy sessions for others suffering PTSD from the squid attack.

Cynthia reveals that the pills contained Nostalgia, an illegal drug partially derived from human brains allowing consumers to experience the memories of the harvestee.

In exchange, Joe shows Wade a video made by Adrian Veidt on November 1, 1985 that explains his staging of the squid attack to future President Robert Redford.

The episode opens with the climactic scene from the graphic novel depicting the 1985 appearance of the giant squid in New York City, which killed millions with the psychic blast emanating from its arrival.

The effects team incorporated much of the imagery from the limited series into the sequence, such as tentacles from the squid appearing embedded in buildings, while striving to maintain a realistic look for the scene.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Along with the Lovecraftian inspired Giant Squid attack, Looking Glass's heartbreaking story adds much-needed momentum in 'Little Fear of Lightning'.

"[8] Siddhant Adlakha of IGN called the episode "a near-perfect hour of television," praising its prominent connections to the source material, the focus on Wade's character, and its advancement of the series' narrative.

[9] Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall praised Lindelof's vision for the episode, drawing similarities to his previous series, The Leftovers, and remarking that the episode "fills in a huge chunk of the mythology, while also doing that thing that both Alan Moore and Damon Lindelof do so well: looking at an utterly outrageous sci-fi/fantasy construct and wondering how a very real and fragile human being might respond to it.