Here's Everything 'Watchmen' Viewers Know About Laurie Blake
Having established Watchmen's new world over the first two episodes, the series' third installment finally began bringing back old characters. With Chief Judd Crawford dead, and no leads on his killer, Senator Joe Keene Jr. (R-OK) decided to go to the FBI for help. (One assumes Keene was unaware of the 105-year-old who travels by SUV-into-alien spaceship claiming to have done it.) But Keene didn't go to just anyone in the FBI; he went to Special Agent Laurie Blake. So who is Laurie Blake on Watchmen? Comic book fans might be surprised by her new profession. Warning: Spoilers for Watchmen follow.
When fans first meet Blake, she's in the middle of knocking over a bank. This might seem like a strange pastime for an FBI Agent, but there's a method to her madness. Her crime alerts a nearby would-be vigilante superhero, who arrives wearing something rather akin to a Batman costume. And that's when Blake pulls out her badge and gun to arrest him.
Despite what viewers have seen happening in Tulsa, the Federal statute outlawing "costumed adventuring" still stands. (Ironically, The Keene Act, as it is known, was named for Sen. Keene's father.) Blake is part of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, charged with rounding up costumed "superheroes" and putting them in jail.
For comics fans, this is a heck of a twist. When fans first met Laurie Blake in the 1985 comic, she was Laurel Jane Juspeczyk, daughter of Sally Jupiter, aka The Silk Spectre. Jupiter was part of the original 1940s era "Minutemen" group of superheroes who fought crime in New York City. Laurie grew up believing she was the daughter of two superheroes, her father being Hooded Justice, who fans saw in Episode 2's American Hero Story.
When Jupiter retired, Laurie took up the mantle, becoming Silk Spectre II. She also dated superheroes, first Doctor Manhattan, and later Nite Owl II. After the 1977 Act passed, Laurie still kept her costume. When Eddie Blake, the Minuteman known as "The Comedian," was murdered, she was ready to solve it.
But Eddie's murder brought out family secrets. Laurie learned her father wasn't Hooded Justice, but Blake, who raped her mother. Even so, after the comic ended, papers show she not only took her father's last name but did vigilante work as "The Comedienne" for a while.
Exactly what happened between then and now is not clear. But Blake isn't over her old life. She mentions in passing Nite Owl is jailed. She spends hours on the phone, leaving long messages to Manhattan far away on Mars, talking about their ex-vigilante colleagues. (As for that Manhattan-esque sex toy, the less said, the better.)
More importantly, Blake is clearly on to Angela and her Sister Night get up. It takes a vigilante to know a vigilante. Blake seems to have Angela's number at every turn, from the wheelchair tracks to the missing robes in Crawford's closet. Not to mention the sudden and hilarious return of Angela's SUV landing right in front of Blake now that Reeves' alien spaceship friends apparently don't need it anymore.
How much longer can Angela stay ahead of Blake? Let's hope Sister Night isn't in handcuffs anytime soon.
