HBO’s ‘Watchmen’: Everything You Should Know About Laurie Blake ~ Digital Library

Damon Lindelof’s latest HBO series Watchmen has burst onto the scene as the year comes to a close. The series brings us into the present day, taking a fresh look at both the Watchmen story begun in comics written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons back in 1986 and 1987.

Working in an alternate timeline, the original Watchmen comics series wrestled with the hagiographic presence of superheroes (referred to as “vigilantes” in the comics) in our everyday lives, where we dream up human beings endowed with special gifts that can help save humanity. For their services, we’ve come to revere them, cheer for them, encourage others to follow literally and figuratively in their footsteps, and put their image on everything from cereal boxes, to T-shirts, to coffee mugs.

From this foundation, Lindelof’s Watchmen builds to include America’s ongoing reckoning with racism: how it built this country, how the traumas of it continue to affect its descendants, how those given the power to perpetuate it get away from it and are rarely ever brought to justice. Watchmen has never been light and frothy and nor have the characters affected by the events that play out.

Photo Credit: Mark Hill / HBO

Speaking of characters affected by this world, it’s important to note that many characters from the Moore/Gibbons Watchmen pop up in Lindelof’s continuing story. One of those important figures is Laurie Blake (played by Jean Smart), who we first meet in Episode 3, “She Was Killed by Space Junk.” She may have a new (kinda) last name and she may qualify for AARP discounts (if the math is right, Laurie is 70 in 2019), but Laurie is still as much of a badass as she was when she was younger. How do we know that? Because Laurie’s personal history is explored fairly deeply in the Moore/Gibbons Watchmen run.

So, who exactly is Laurie Blake? Here’s what we know about the Watchmen character.

Laurie Is the Daughter of Two Famous Vigilantes

Photo Credit: Warner Bros.

Laurie was born into the vigilante profession, the daughter of two of the most prominent vigilantes from the first group of heroes known as the “Minutemen.” Laurie was born in 1949 as Laurel Jane Juspeczyk, daughter of Sally Juspezcyk, a.k.a. Silk Spectre. Although Sally was married to the Minutemen’s manager, Laurence Schexnayder, Laurie’s father is actually Edward “Eddie” Blake, a.k.a. The Comedian. Laurence was initially just Sally’s manager, spending his time organizing public photo-ops where it looked like Sally was a hero who managed to save the day; she was never really much of a crime-fighter, though. Captain Metropolis (who we see in Episode 6 of HBO’s Watchmen) later invited Sally — and Laurence, by association — into the Minutemen group where he worked alongside Hooded Justice, The Comedian, Nite Owl, Silhouette, Dollar Bill, and Mothman.

Based on the way Watchmen depicts The Comedian, you’d be right in thinking he is the jolliest yet most nihilistic sociopath you’ve ever met. The Comedian enjoys the act of killing, regardless of whether it’s an innocent person or an actual criminal. He’s a cad, a brute, and altogether a tough, bitter pill to swallow.

Despite Sally already publicly dating Hooded Justice (a PR-devised relationship to cover for Hooded Justice’s homosexuality), The Comedian took advantage of alone time with Sally after a Minutemen gathering and sexually assaulted her. From this horrific, reprehensible act that took place in 1940, an affair began that Sally and The Comedian maintained ostensibly through Laurie’s birth a few years later. Sometime in her late 20s, Laurie learned the truth about her father being The Comedian and his sexually assaulting her mother, a fact revealed to her by Dr. Manhattan. Up until then, Laurie had only ever known The Comedian to be a former Minutemen team member and someone she worked alongside, too, in later years.

She Followed in Her Mother’s Footsteps

Photo Credit: DC Comics

Even though Sally retired from the Minutemen around the time of Laurie’s birth, the daughter of Silk Spectre grew up aware of who her mother was in what seemed like another life. Laurie watched as Sally and Laurence’s marriage crumbled, ultimately ending in divorce before Laurie was 10 years old. Despite Laurie’s dark history, which includes the knowledge her mother was raped by her actual father, she remained close to her mother.

Then again, their bond might have something to do with the fact that Sally encouraged to the point of pushing her into vigilante work, training Laurie and costuming her into a teenage superhero. Laurie begrudgingly went along with Sally’s efforts and through the 60s and 70s, she worked as Silk Spectre II — further proof she was, literally and symbolically, her mother’s daughter.

Through her vigilante work in the new group formed by Captain Metropolis in 1966, Crimebusters (which included Dan Dreiberg, a.k.a. Nite Owl II; The Comedian; Dr. Manhattan; Walter Kovacs, a.k.a. Rorschach, and Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias), Laurie connected with her father but mostly worked alongside other team members, especially Dr. Manhattan, shortly before the Keene Act of 1977 outlawed “costumed adventuring,” a.k.a. vigilantism. It’s also noted on HBO’s Watchmen that, at some point during Laurie’s time as a vigilante (most likely in later years), she changed her hero name from “Silk Spectre II” to “The Comedienne” — a sign she acknowledged and accepted the truth about her father.

She Was Romantically Involved With Two of Her Crimebusters Team Members

Photo Credit: DC Comics

As is frequently the case with female superheroes, Laurie was the only woman working as a vigilante (at least, that we know about) during her time as Silk Spectre in the late 60s and 70s. The comics seem to imply that both working in such close proximity to enigmatic men coupled with the fact the she was the only woman in the group meant she was destined to start up a workplace romance. Laurie first became involved with Dr. Manhattan while he was still married to his former wife, Janey Slater. Laurie and Dr. Manhattan met at the first Crimebusters meeting and later began an affair.

Since HBO’s Watchmen has yet to give us more detail about Laurie’s relationship to the only true superhero in this alternate timeline, it’s unclear if the narrative of her relationship with Dr. Manhattan beginning as an affair before ultimately coupling up is in place. What we do know, thanks to both the comics and the show, is that Laurie and Dr. Manhattan worked side-by-side, a kind of special team within the larger team. Of note was the couple’s presence at the 1977 police riots. The couple broke up something thereafter, with specific reasons still unclear as far as the Watchmen show is concerned but resulting in Laurie moving into a new line of work and Dr. Manhattan losing all faith in humanity, choosing to retreat to Mars.

But Dr. Manhattan wasn’t the only man in Laurie’s life. Sometime after her break-up with the big blue guy, we find out via the Watchmen comics that Laurie became romantically involved with Dan Dreiberg, who took up the “Nite Owl” mantle after Hollis Mason (one of the first vigilantes and members of the Minutemen alongside Sally and Eddie Blake) when he joined Crimebusters. Through both the Watchmen show and Peteypedia, we know that Laurie and Dan got together and assumed new identities after Veidt’s faked squid attack in the 1980s. From there, the couple assumed new identities and carried on with their vigilante work, taking great pains to make sure they weren’t caught considering they were now officially breaking the law.

We learn that Laurie and Dan, still working as Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II, were apprehended by the FBI in 1995 after they stopped the Oklahoma City bombing and killed the would-be perpetrator (and actual perpetrator in our timeline), Timothy McVeigh. Dan was arrested and taken into FBI custody while Laurie was interrogated (in that same interrogation, she spilled the beans on Rorschach’s death, Veidt’s hoax, and the origins of the Manhattan sex toy). In the present day, we learn that Dan is still in prison and Laurie keeps a pet owl named Who, quite possibly as a tribute to her former flame.

Laurie Ended Up in an Interesting Place

Photo Credit: Mark Hill / HBO

Based on the 1995 interrogation transcript on Peteypedia, we know that Laurie’s cooperation with the FBI likely led to a new relationship with the all-knowing government group. While Laurie has never been outwardly or outspokenly anti-government, the nature of vigilantism kept her in opposition to or, at minimum, in wary association with the government and law enforcement. As such, her not only talking with the FBI in 1995 and later joining the intelligence outfit no doubt surprised Watchmen fans who rejoined her in the HBO series in Episode 3.

From what can be gathered through context clues, Laurie has been with the FBI for at least 20 years and shows no signs of fatiguing despite her septuagenarian status. In 2019, she runs the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, which seeks out vigilantes still working today and shuts them down by arresting them. No doubt Laurie’s insider knowledge of how vigilante’s think and operate after years working as one of them contributed to her being chosen to head up the task force to begin with. Today, it seems she operates with a mild disdain for those working as vigilantes and is genuinely dedicated to stopping people from taking it up, no matter what it takes.

She’s Still Pining For Dr. Manhattan

Photo Credit: Mark Hill / HBO

What HBO’s continuation of the Watchmen story has also made very clear is that Laurie is still pining for Dr. Manhattan to some degree. Even though she has moved on with her life and now works for the FBI, she still gravitates toward the very person she tries to suss out in her work. Now, Dr. Manhattan has always been a bit of an accidental vigilante and the series makes it clear that his retreat to Mars means he wants nothing to do with that work now. But still, it seems Laurie can’t let go of the past; she is still drawn to him and who they used to be as a couple.

If there’s any question about whether Laurie is still thinking about Dr. Manhattan and their history together, consider her actions in “She Was Killed by Space Junk.” There are a few key things that tell us Dr. Manhattan is still on her mind in a major way.

It’s not just that she carries around a giant sex toy modeled on her former boyfriend’s own enhanced junk. Eagle-eyed viewers will have spotted the Esquire Magazine cover from back in the day with the words “Silk Spectre Takes Manhattan” splashed across an illustration of Dr. Manhattan, naked and back to the reader, so close to Laurie, facing the reader, that she can embrace him and is smiling. Laurie may have shut out certain parts of her past, but she has built a kind of carnal shrine to a man she remains devoted to in every way. Laurie also calls Dr. Manhattan during the episode, too, and seems to spend a hefty amount of time on the phone telling jokes (a trait she gets from her pops, perhaps?) and checking in on him.

Watchmen airs on HBO every Sunday at 9/8c.

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