We put our curved blade to work, and pop out the display glass.

The glass floats away intact, in all its perfect circularness, and the last layer of the display—which looks like a polarizing film—peels off, leaving behind some gooey optically clear adhesive (OCA) residue.

Unfortunately, it seems like the procedure we just endured is the only way to replace a cracked screen—the display and digitizer are adhered to the back of the glass after it is installed in the watch body.