This Extraordinary Being

"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.

After a riot in a movie theater, Will discovers that Cyclops is using film projectors to hypnotize African-Americans into committing acts of violence upon one another.

June, disturbed at the extent to which Will is absorbed in his Hooded Justice identity, decides to leave him and return to Tulsa with their children.

Much of the origin of Hooded Justice is based on the material that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons had established for the Watchmen comic series.

While Hooded Justice is a minor character whose identity was never revealed within the comic book, he played a key role in stopping the attempted rape of Silk Spectre by The Comedian shortly after the Minutemen had posed for their first photo session.

Many elements of the comic's supplemental texts written by Moore as interludes, particularly the fictional Under the Hood memoirs by Hollis Mason (the original Nite Owl), were drawn from and referenced in the episode.

These included Hooded Justice saving a young couple in his first known appearance, his participation in the Minutemen photo session, and his homosexuality.

Mason notes that Müller's body was later recovered from the sea, which the miniseries had depicted as the opening scene of American Hero Story in the episode "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship.

"[1] Remarking on the racial themes in the episode, director Stephen Williams stated that Watchmen endeavors to "unearth... that part of our collective history that has been neglected, or omitted, like Tulsa 1921, in the pilot....

[2] Additionally, in seemingly one-shot takes, young Will (played by Jovan Adepo) is swapped out in scenes with Angela (Regina King) to show her immersion in the Nostalgia-induced lucid dream.

Director Stephen Williams, who previously worked with Lindelof on Lost, was hired to direct this episode even before its script had been written.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Revealing and relevant, 'This Extraordinary Being' cleverly shows the long-term effects of generational trauma and deep-seated racism.