Warning: spoilers ahead for the Watchmen comic books.
Jean Smart joined HBO’s Watchmen, playing FBI Agent Laurie Blake. Fans of the Watchmen comics know Laurie Blake by a few other names, one of which is Silk Spectre II. That’s right, this FBI agent is a retired superhero.
In the comic book series, Laurie’s mother was the original Silk Spectre (aka Sally Jupiter) and part of the first superhero crew, the Minutemen. Even though Laurie is not particularly interested in being a hero, her mother pushes her into the family business. The comic begins with the death of The Comedian, a vigilante also known as Eddie Blake, who is ultimately revealed to be Laurie’s father. Laurie grew up not knowing her father and was known as Laurie Jupiter, and later, she calls herself The Comedienne, in tribute to her murdered estranged father.
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We also know from the comics that Laurie is badass and was trained by her mother as a martial artist since she was five years old. In the comics she was able to break bones with her hands and spent most of her childhood alone, working out in a gym.
In the trailer for episode 3, she’s shown confidently striding toward a group of masked police officers who are holding a blindfolded man on his knees at gunpoint. “Who the fuck are you?” one of them asks.
“Special Agent Laurie Blake,” she says, flashing a badge. “Who the fuck are you?”
Blake has a murky, complicated history with Doctor Manhattan in the Watchmen comics, who she was romantically involved with. Her mother disapproved, and compared her daughter being with Manhattan to “sleeping with the H-bomb.” They lived together for 20 years, before Laurie left him and became involved with Nite Owl. Manhattan, who likes to teleport to Mars to be alone, permanently teleports off Earth after losing all empathy as he loses his own humanity.
Doctor Manhattan might not be gone from Earth and the Watchmen universe forever, if showrunner Damon Lindelof has anything to say about it. His return is hinted at by a blue hand reaching for a mask in the show’s trailer.
In the trailer for episode 3, we see Laurie in an eerie blue phone booth-type contraption, talking to someone. She says, “God snaps his fingers and a hero goes to hell,” which also hints at the chaos enveloping the human and superhero worlds — a chaos only Doctor Manhattan can fix? Is the super couple going to reunite? If so, it’s the dark world of Watchmen — so we’re not counting on a happy ending.
Watch the Watchmen episode 3 trailer below.