Last night, HBO’s Watchmen TV show introduced its incarnation of a familiar face: Laurie Blake, AKA Laurie Juspeczyk, AKA the second Silk Spectre has joined the show played by the legendary Jean Smart. But in true Watchmen style, this isn’t the Laurie fans of the graphic novel will be all that familiar with and we can assume that a lot (and we mean a lot) has changed over the last thirty years for her.
But before we talk about where she is now, let’s rewind to talk about where she was during the 1980s. Laurie’s position within the Watchmen canon has always been a little complicated. As the original Silk Spectre’s (Sally Jupiter) daughter, she was uniquely situated within the masked vigilante underworld and uniquely privy to the darker side of the career. Laurie was a teenager when she learned that her biological father was actually Eddie Blake, otherwise known as The Comedian, one of the heroes her mother had worked with The Minutemen; and that she was the product of a brutal sexual assault that The Minutemen had elected to cover up. The revelation drove a wedge between Laurie and her mother that was never really repaired, even when Laurie finally agreed to pick up the Silk Spectre mantle and continue in the “family business.”
At 16, Laurie met and became romantically involved with Jon Osterman, AKA Doctor Manhattan, which only served to put more strain on Laurie’s connection with her mom–not because Manhattan was a grown adult at the time, but because Sally thought Manhattan’s nuclear powers were dangerous to be around. Yikes.
Laurie and Jon remained together for around 20 years, even after the Keene Act outlawed vigilantism and forced them into retirement. However, Jon’s growing detachment from humanity eventually put a real end to things. Laurie eventually left him and began a romantic relationship with Dan Dreiberg, the second Nite Owl, who she remained with through the events of the graphic novel.
Following Ozymandias’s squid scheme, Laurie and Dan adopted new identities, Sam and Sandra Hollis, which they figured out keep them safe from any potential fallout both from Adrian Veidt himself and from the law, considering just how many they broke doing things like breaking Rorschach out of prison. They did not, however, plan on giving up the vigilante lifestyle. Their final moments in the comic are dedicated to them having a conversation about new costumed identities where Laurie implies that she’s going to want a new costume, a mask, and possibly a gun.
We learned from the Peteypedia that she did indeed get all of those things at some point. She adopted a new hero name, The Comedienne, after her father. She maintained this identity, presumably with Dan, until the mid-90s when they were caught. This is where things start to get a little tricky. Dan ended up in federal custody as a result and is still there in 2019. Laurie, however, is now a federal agent herself and a member of the anti-vigilante task force. We can’t be sure of what exactly happened, or what kind of deal Laurie would have struck to keep herself out of jail, but it’s certainly possible that she flipped on Dan to ensure her own safety.
Regardless of what happened in the 90s, the Laurie we see in the show is anything but sympathetic to the vigilante cause. She’s ruthlessly good at her job and makes no pretense for her disgust and disinterest in Joe Keene’s “DOPA” or “Defense of Police Act” that allows cops in Tulsa to wear masks and adopt vigilante identities for their own. She’s just as ready to kill costumed adventures as she is to arrest them.
With any luck, the gaps in Laurie’s story will be filled in eventually as HBO’s Watchmen continues every Sunday at 9PM.
