Tonight, a comedian told a joke.

The episode begins inside a phone booth as someone makes a phone call to Mars. Just go with it. They eventually do manage to make contact with Dr. Manhattan. The speaker tells a joke: there’s a bricklayer who is very good at his job because he’s precise. Every brick has its place. The bricklayer is teaching his daughter to follow in this trade, so he builds a barbecue in the backyard and shows the daughter everything to do.

When he’s done, it’s a perfect barbecue, just like in the blueprints. Just one problem: there’s a brick left over, so Dad freaks out and thinks that he’s done something wrong. He picks up his sledgehammer and begins laying waste, but then Daughter picks up the orphan brick, throws it into the sky, and then…the speaker then forgets the rest of the joke, so she tries to tell another one.

This same woman heads to a bank and starts a holdup when a masked vigilante, Mr. Shadow, played by Lee Tergesen, enters and starts laying waste to some of the agents helping the woman. She demands to know how the vigilante knew she would be there and wonders if it was the FBI. After all, vigilantism is illegal, so federal enforcement would tip him off to set him up.

So yeah, he’s walked right into a trap and this thing is one big damn sting operation.

Mr. Shadow goes on the run, but the woman puts him down with a few bullets. The woman, Blake, leaves the scene and makes sure to cuff the vigilante. Before leaving, she tells some citizens that this vigilante is no hero, but a fucking joke. Who is this woman? Well, you and I know who she is, and her name is Laurie Blake, played by the always great Jean Smart.

Blake heads home and goes to get something out of a briefcase, but she’s interrupted by a knock at the door: it’s Senator Keene, who apologizes for bothering Blake at home. He congratulates her on capturing the vigilante from earlier, called The Revenger, but he apparently just goes by “Revenger.” Semantics, you know.

Also, Blake caught him last month. The recent catch was Mr. Shadow. Keene thanks Blake for keeping the streets safe from rich assholes playing dress-up.

Keene enters and finds Blake’s pet owl- apparently named Who because fuck you- and wants to know if someone can take care of the owl while she’s out of town. On Keene’s order, the Deputy Director is sending Blake to take care of the investigation in Tulsa and look into the chief of police’s hanging. Sure, Seventh Kavalry always takes credit for killing a cop, but so far, they haven’t made a peep. So it could be a vigilante.

Maybe professional jealousy since vigilantes see cops as the enemy, and now they wear masks. Blake isn’t really a fan of the cops wearing masks, but crime is down thanks to DOPA- the Defense of Police Act- and other cities want to implement their own version to help save the lives of officers. If someone wants to start a war with police, everything goes to shit…and Keene may not be President.

Then Keene reminds Laurie that the President can pardon anyone and even get her owl out of that cage.

As Laurie heads to a briefing, she tries another crack at telling a joke to Dr. Manhattan. This time, three heroes die and show up at Heaven. God’s there to decide if they’ll go to Heaven or Hell. The first hero, dressed like an owl, wasted his abilities to make inventions and instead made a flying ship, as well as cool outfits to bring peace to the city. So how many people did this Owl guy kill? Zero, apparently.

God frowns and tells the Owl that his heart is in the right place, but he’s too soft. With a snap of the fingers, he disintegrates into dust-I mean, he’s sent straight to Hell.

When Laurie arrives at the meeting, it’s already in progress. The presenter, Deputy Director Farragut, played by David Andrews, goes over the Seventh Kavalry, saying that they’re just the Klan with new masks. They popped up after the Victims of Racial Violence Act was passed. Blacks came to Tulsa to claim benefits and acquire land, but we all know how Whites act when Blacks move into their community.

Farragut’s words, not mine.

In Robert Redford’s America, the cops push back and identify everyone who is supremacist-adjacent, search their homes, and take their guns. But they missed a few. Farragut is thrown off when one slide shows a page from Rorschach’s journal- given that the Kavalry wears Rorschach’s mask.

The man running the slide show, Agent Dale Petey, played by Dustin Ingram, says it’s for psychological context, but Farragut doesn’t give a shit about Rorschach. It’s not the 1980s anymore.

Farragut then brings up the White Night attack of Tulsa police. There were only a few survivors, including Judd Crawford. Most of the force quits and it’s hard to recruit because how do you guarantee their safety. You don’t fight fire with fire, but masks with masks. Bright, yellow masks, at that. So the cops hide their faces and the Kavalry can’t identify them. And who doesn’t want a secret identity?

Peace returns to Tulsa until next week, when Judd Crawford wound up hanging from a tree. Initially, Blake is to run point with a team, but she insists on going alone because local police won’t trust an army of suits fall from the sky. A fair point. Farragut doesn’t want Laurie going in alone, so she will take one person with her: Agent Petey. Well, this guy lucked out after all.

As the plane begins the descent into Tulsa, Petey explains to Laurie that he also brought his own mask- not for sleeping, though. He figured that if the police wear them, why shouldn’t he. But Laurie reminds Petey that he’s an agent, not the Lone-fucking-Ranger. Laurie then looks outside to catch a look at the Millennium Clock.

As Petey looks out the window, he quotes a line from the poem “Ozymandias.” The line? “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.” This line was uttered by Lady Trieu said at a groundbreaking for the clock as a shout out to Adrian Veidt after she bought his company. He was declared dead, but according to a friend of Petey’s on the Argentina desk, Veidt got plastic surgery and is living incognito.

Petey brings up that Blake knew Veidt when he went by “Ozymandias,” and Blake figures that Dale here has a hard-on for the past. But it’s a bit more than that. Blake wrote his thesis on the police strike of 1977 when Blake and her ex, Dr. Manhattan- the most powerful being in existence- were in D.C. Yes, Petey knows exactly who Blake is, but hey, she brought him on this assignment.

Before he was recruited by the FBI to run a slide projector he had a PhD in history, so he doesn’t want Blake to treat him like some sort of fanboy. Blake finally admits that she knew Adrian Veidt, but she’s no fan.

Alright, back to Blake’s stand-up comedy. The second hero at the pearly gates is confident that they can get into Heaven. After all, he’s probably the smartest man in the world. So God asks what the man did with his brain, and he saved humanity. How? He dropped a giant alien squid in New York, and since everyone was so afraid of it, they stopped being afraid of each other. So how many people did Mr. Smartypants kill?

About three million or so. Small potatoes, you know? You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. God calls Mr. Smartypants a fucking monster, snaps his fingers, and sends him straight to Hell. Christ on a bike. Who actually gets into Heaven in this world?

Anyway, Blake and Petey arrive in Tulsa and begin their investigation. They soon arrive at a warehouse when a truck arrives. As Blake goes in for a closer look, we see Pirate Jenny and Red Scare have their own hostage. Before they can do anything, Blake interrupts them and introduces herself as Special Agent Laurie Blake.

She asks the blindfolded man if his civil rights are being violated, and he confirms that they are. These two came into his place of business-oh, wait, Blake doesn’t care. Actually, she’s looking for…well, Looking Glass.

The four head inside the warehouse, where officers have other suspected Kavalry members blindfolded and assembled. Blake doesn’t look to be a fan, but Jenny directs Blake to the pod where Looking Glass is. Indeed, Glass exits with another potential suspect, clearing him and telling the officers to take him off the board. Blake tells Glass that she wants to go next, so she does.

Inside, Blake turns on the screens. Glass explains that these screens determine and expose negative cultural biases to which a suspect might not admit. Calling it a racist detector is an over-simplification as far as Glass is concerned. She asks if these suspected men and women have admitted to being Kavalry, and they have not. Yet.

Laurie then uses Blake’s mask as a mirror to get something out of her teeth. She suggests that he just take it off. When Laurie identifies Glass by his name, he unmasks himself and says that calling him “Wade” is fine. Oh, and he gets his controller back. After turning off the screens, he goes over the details of Judd Crawford’s autopsy. No toxicology screen, though, and Blake already knows this.

There’s no need since the cause of death is apparently clear. Blake then brings up the recent raid at the cattle ranch- for which Wade was not present- and brings up how the location came from a suspect who was in the pod. Wade cuts to the chase: Blake has clearly done her homework, read the reports, and watched the tapes. But if she’s watched the tapes, she would know that the suspect didn’t talk.

In fact, it was Sister Night who got the information in a, ahem, secondary interrogation. Blake figures that’s just Tulsa-talk for beating the shit out of him, but Wade didn’t personally witness any violence against the suspect. Blake asks if Sister Night’s true identity is Angela Abar, and Wade eventually confirms this is true. She’s not around, though: she took a personal day to work on the eulogy for Judd’s funeral. When is that?

Oh, just a couple of hours. Well, Blake will have to change into something darker. Keep up the practice on the comedy, Laurie.

Fuck me, we’re back to the hero story! How does the third hero fare when they arrive at the pearly gates? Well, hero number three is a god himself. He’s blue, strolls around with his dick out, can teleport, see the future- basically he has actual superheroes. So God asks what blue god did, and he fell in love with a woman, walked across with the sun, fell in love again, won the Vietnam War, and stopped giving a shit about humanity.

How many did the third hero kill? Well, a live and dead body have the same number of particles, so it doesn’t matter to blue god. He already knows he’s being sent to Hell. How does blue god know that? Because he’s already there. So God does what he does: he snaps his fingers and the hero goes straight to Hell.

And you thought God on Preacher was an asshole.

Petey and Blake arrive at the cemetery and surrender their firearms to the Tulsa police. Blake introduces herself to Angela and Cal- both surprised that she knows their names- and says that she’s here to help. Angela claims to not be a cop anymore, as she’s retired, so Blake gives Angela her card: she’s a member of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force.

Blake asks how you can tell the difference between a masked cop and a vigilante? Angela can’t, and neither can Laurie. Damn it, Laurie, not everyone is cut to be a comedian!

So Jane delivers the eulogy, telling everyone how much Judd loved them. She then says that no one is better suited than Angela to say a few words before laying Judd to rest, so Angela heads up. She tells everyone that she and Judd were shot on the same night. Others died, but they were lucky, but they might not always be, so they should be prepared. They made a pact on what each would say at one another’s funeral.

With that, Angela takes out and starts reciting the lyrics to “The Last Round-Up.” As she does, we follow a Kavalry member underground as they arrive in a building and straps a bomb to themselves. They exit and head to the site where the funeral is being held, telling them that the bomb is connected to his heart, so if stops beating, everyone is dead.

The Kavalry member calls out Joe Keene Jr. as a race traitor and has declared war on the Seventh Kavalry.

So he must surrender himself or everyone will die. Keene does give himself over to the Kavalry member, but this hostage situation comes to a quick end when Blake plants a bullet into the Kavalry member’s head. What about the bomb? Well, it’s still gonna go off, so Angela pushes the body into the hole that would’ve been used for Judd…and then she pushes Judd’s coffin on top of it. She runs just as the dynamite goes off.

Funerals, as you know, are never easy.

But let’s see what The Lord of the Manor is up to, as Desmond Decker’s “Israelites” kicks in. The Lord is hard at work as he cuts, quarters, sews- all to prepare a suit of armor for one of his servants. The servant never doubted him, but he’s apparently incapable of doubt. The Lord turns on the pressure, takes the rope attached to the suit, and walks off while his servant heads into the great beyond.

Oh, he’s dead? Never mind. Tough luck, Veidt. The Lord removes the helmet and observes his now frozen servant as he stomps on the suit over and over again. Another servant joins The Lord, who tells him that they’re going to need a thicker skin. Back on the horse the Lord goes as he passes a very familiar looking pirate flag with a yellow-colored skull and bones on it.

He heads to a field and eyes a vast number of bison. He takes aim and fires at one, causing the rest to scatter When he takes out a blade and gets close to it, someone fires a shot, stopping him in his tracks. Okay, so no carving for you today, Adrian. Also, no more singing from the servants.

Veidt instead meditates for a bit when one of the servants, Ms. Crookshanks, played by Sara Vickers, interrupts him: there’s a letter for him from the Game Warden. On the letter is the same skull and crossbones symbol from the flag. Crookshanks reads the letter, which details the agreement on the terms of the Lord’s captivity. His recent behavior suggests he may violate those terms.

If he continues, he will face grave consequences. He even underlined ‘consequences.’

Next time the Game Warden fires a shot, it won’t be at the Lord’s feet. Consider this the Lord’s first and only warning. However, the Warden does still thank the Lord for the tomato. Well, there’s that.

Veidt dictates a letter for Crookshanks to type: The Lord is apparently suspected of criminal activities, as if he was some sort of dastardly forest brigand or republic serial villain. He is neither, and he assures the Game Warden that his activities are recreational. The Lord would never transgress the terms of the agreement, and he’s available at the leisure of the Game Warden to repeat these accusations in person.

But he’s glad that the Warden enjoyed the tomato. All the best wishes and encouragement, Adrian Veidt. Damn right about that. Crookshanks like the letter at least, and she’ll have it sent right away. Mr. Phillips will restring Veidt’s bow and have Bucephalus saddled up for the next hunt. At midnight. No rest for Ozymandias, apparently.

Following this, Veidt suits up in a very familiar purple and gold costume. You know what that’s all about, don’t you?

That evening, Senator Keene speaks to the press, saying that he’s no hero. He’s only here because of the swift actions of law enforcement. The officers kept him safe, and he’ll do the same for them. When asked why he was targeted by the Kavalry, he figures that nothing scares a terrorist more than someone they can’t terrify.

Keene is asked about the Russians building an intrinsic field generator. He reminds the press that when he was sworn in, he promised to defend America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He represents the people of Oklahoma and the Russians aren’t his problem- the Seventh Kavalry is. He won’t be leaving until the war is over.

Well, at the very least Keene has Petey’s vote, prompting Blake to ask if he’s old enough to vote. Ha!

Laurie heads into the building where the Kavalry member dug into when Angela pops out of the hole like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. As for where the hole goes, Angela tells Blake that it goes just outside the fence. It would’ve needed a powerful drill, but Blake warns Angela not to rule out extremist gophers.

Blake thought that the extremist was bluffing, given how often they say devices are rigged to their hearts. Angela just gave Judd a little push after he jumped onto the grenade. Well, now he can’t be exhumed, and Blake wasn’t joking about that. She finds it odd that this funeral was scheduled as fast as it was, given that this is an ongoing murder investigation. Blake planned to literally, and discretely, dig him up tomorrow.

Judd was murdered by the Seventh Kavalry, yes, but Blake warns Angela to consider other possibilities. For example, when Blake showed up at the crime scene, she saw tire tracks at the base of the tree. Not from a vehicle, but a wheelchair. She gets how the officers missed it. It’s hard to do your job well when you’re that close to someone. She then brings up how Judd had a secret compartment in his closet. Insane, right?

As for why Laurie was looking in the first place, turns out that when her father was murdered, investigators found a secret compartment in his closet, so she always checks. Once in awhile, it pans out. Angela asks Laurie what was in the compartment, but Laurie figures that Angela already knows. After all, Jane told Laurie that Angela was the only person in the bedroom since Judd died.

Frankly, Angela doesn’t strike Laurie as the fainting type.

Laurie found a naked bust, but she thinks there was something on it. Maybe Judd asked Angela to get rid of something or perhaps they had an affair. Whatever it is, this much Laurie knows: men who end up hanging from trees with secret compartments in their closets think of themselves as good guys. The people who protect them think they’re good guys, too.

As Laurie calls Angela by Sister Night, she says that she eats good guys for breakfast. Angela isn’t intimidated, though. Whatever Petey was having to drink, Angela wasn’t having any of it. She empties it into the hole and leaves.

Petey and Laurie head to their motel rooms for the night as Laurie is still telling the damn joke. After a long day at the pearly gates, all the heroes have gone to Hell and God is ready to call it a day. But then he notices someone else: it’s not a hero, but just a woman. The woman explains that she was standing behind the heroes all this time, but God didn’t see her. God asks if He gave her a talent, and she didn’t.

God apologizes to the woman, saying He doesn’t know who she is. The woman looks at God and quietly says that I’m the little girl who threw the brick in the air. At the sound of something falling from the air, God looks up, but it’s too late. The brick hits him so hard that his brains shoot out of his nose. So where does God go when He dies?

Straight to Hell. Ha. Anyway, Laurie has 55 more seconds for this transmission. She admits that she doesn’t know why she keeps coming back to tell these jokes. She knows that Manhattan doesn’t have a sense of humor and probably won’t hear this anyway. But sometimes it’s nice to pretend. The assholes on Earth think that Manhattan still gives a shit, even though he’s been on another planet for 30 years.

But then, they’re not worth giving a shit about, are they? This message will reach Mars in 40 seconds. Well, at least they’re quick.

Oh, by the way, Laurie has a blue, Dr. Manhattan dildo and she bones Petey. Isn’t that sweet?

As Laurie leaves the phone booth, she looks up when a car suddenly falls from the sky and crashes right in front of her. She then looks in the sky towards Mars and laughs. Well, perhaps Dr. Manhattan has a sense of humor after all.

You know how in some movies- particularly those on race- where the local authorities don’t take too kindly to some feds coming in and mucking about? Even if you haven’t seen a film or television show like that, you’re familiar with the concept. These feds, typically Northerners, feel like outsiders when they step into a small town that apparently can handle itself.

Having Laurie Blake symbolize that outsider is good for a number of reasons. For one, it allows us to see how outsiders view the Tulsa incident and growing threat from the Seventh Kavalry. A fresh set of eyes gives us a new perspective, and given Laurie’s past career as a vigilante herself, she already has a certain edge to her compared to the Tulsa police.

Plus, it’s fucking Silk Spectre II in the flesh. Her inclusion adds another huge nod to the greater Watchmen lore and plops her right into this post-Keene Act world. But I’ll save Laurie for later, because there’s a lot to talk about here.

Well, sort of. When you get right down to it, the story in Tulsa doesn’t move that much because we’re getting acquainted with Petey and Laurie. Having said that, I did enjoy seeing the perspective that the feds have towards vigilantes and the Seventh Kavalry. As many have said, the Klan similarity to the Seventh Kavalry is there, but now you’ve got Deputy Farragut flat out saying yes, the Kavalry is the Klan with a new mask.

But Farragut also isn’t interested in Rorschach, whether as a person or what his philosophy represents. His focus is just on the murder. Like other vigilantes, Rorschach is a relic of an era that no longer exists. Sure, Farragut and other agents don’t think of Rorschach as a villain, but they don’t see the need to give his words a first or second thought.

Given how much the Seventh Kavalry has twisted Rorschach’s words, how has the rest of the world taken it? Do they find any merit in what Rorschach wrote in his journal? Or do they just write it off as nonsense. When Farragut says that this isn’t the 1980s anymore, it feels like a commentary on some reactions to this series itself.

Now I don’t need to tell you how Alan Moore thinks about others adapting his works. Nor do I need to get into the various reactions from those who see the HBO series as some sort of ungodly adaptation. But then, this isn’t a direct take on the tale. This is Damon Lindelof telling his take on the Watchmen story. Indeed, this isn’t the 1980s anymore, and the show isn’t trying to set that era on any sort of pedestal.

It lives and breathes in the aftermath of Adrian Veidt’s actions that brought the world together, but this series isn’t about following up on what happened to the likes of The Comedian or Nite Owl.

Okay, that’s not entirely true because, again, Laurie Blake is right there and her inclusion brings some nods to characters like Nite Owl and The Comedian, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

While the plot in Tulsa may not move forward that much, I like seeing how they operate. Their methods may seem illegal to us, but that’s putting things in our more civilized way of thinking. The officers have lost their captain and are adamant that this is the Kavalry’s doing. Tulsa is a racial powder keg waiting to explode, and the officers won’t just sit on their asses as they wait for the war to hit them.

The Kavalry drew first blood, so they see their tactics as justified. Like the raid on Nixonville or Sister Night beating up one of the suspects for the ranch’s location, they’re operating outside the law for a greater purpose: protecting one of their own. I’d say it’s to protect and serve, but they’re only serving up some ass-kickings to Kavalry or presumed supporters.

That’s a place where you can argue the officers do cross the line when they start bringing in people merely suspected of associating with supremacists. Better safe than sorry, as far as they’re concerned, but how often have we seen instances in real life of people being abused just on a hunch? If the perp is cleared, it’s not like they get any sort of apology.

Hell, Laurie doesn’t even flinch upon seeing this shit because she’s seen vigilantes and costumed people at work before. What I find interesting about this is how the Tulsa officers are so adamant that there was no foul play. By that, I mean that the Seventh Kavalry is the only culprit, case closed. This could be true, but Laurie’s line of questioning does seem to rattle some of the officers.

She walks up on Red Scare and Pirate Jenny without so much as a thought, she messes around with Looking Glass’ pod, and she’s got no qualm with calling the officers by their real names because she just does not give a fuck about secrecy. As Looking Glass figured, she’s already read the reports on the murder. She’s 10 steps ahead of the officers.

But as Deputy Farragut indicated early on, the cops are fighting back in President Redford’s America. This escalation just leads to more retaliation from the Kavalry, as seen during the funeral scene. It’s nice to see that the Kavalry is actually making good on their word to keep up the pressure, rather than being reduced to taking action off-screen.

Sure, this one member didn’t have a chance in Hell of causing any actual harm, but he did still manage to disrupt the funeral and interrupt what should have been a solemn farewell to Judd. Instead, Judd’s coffin was used to smother the explosion caused by the very people the police are fighting. It was an unexpected attack and I appreciate the sudden urgency it brought.

Even though Angela isn’t in the episode much, I’m curious to see how her dynamic with Laurie plays out. She plays up like she’s not afraid, but I imagine she’s still thrown off by someone knowing exactly who she is and talking about eating good guys for breakfast. Angela did just have her car stolen out of nowhere by some flying contraption, so this would just be another headache.

Both Laurie and Angela seem to want the same thing: justice. However, Sister Night has no problem operating outside the law since, as we know, she is the law. But Laurie’s also the law and I assume in this instance that federal rule trumps whatever Tulsa tries to throw at Laurie to keep her out. It will be interesting to see if the Tulsa cops try to stonewall Laurie’s investigation.

Then again, she did stop the Kavalry member from kidnapping Keene and she knows some of the officers’ true identities, so it’s not like they have much that can surprise her.

The ongoing adventures with the Lord of the Manor continue to provide some unintentionally funny moments, made all the better with Jeremy Irons’ wit and delivery of his lines. What is he up to, though? I’ve heard a few theorize online that perhaps he’s not really Ozymandias, but Dr. Manhattan hiding as him. Interesting, and it would line up with Will suggesting that maybe Manhattan can hide as a human.

If not, then Veidt has some strange obsession with Manhattan. But like Laurie, he’s also a relic of the past with even more of his life shrouded in mystery. After saving the world, he lives in isolation with his servants that will literally die for him. He dresses up in his old costume, as if trying to relive the good old days, but to what end? Also, again, what the hell is up with his servants?

That said, the introduction of the Game Warden is interesting and I hope we get to learn more about them. Plus, I did appreciate the nod to the Tales of the Black Freighter comic with the skull and bones flag.

Now for Ms. Silk Spectre II herself. Jean Smart is a great actress, and you don’t need me to tell you how I could gush over her past performances in shows like Fargo and Legion. Joining the world of Watchmen as Laurie Blake brings another element from comic lore into the series and brings in even more questions.

Laurie seems to have hung up her costume in favor of hunting down vigilantes. The person who was once part of this marginalized group is responsible for slowly bringing about their downfall. She seems to care about them the same way that Manhattan cares about humans.

That said, she hasn’t buried her past self altogether. From what we can gather, it sounds like Dan Dreiberg is in prison. She’s taken on the last name of her father, so at least Edward Blake can be proud of that, and she’s in constant communication with Dr. Manhattan. By the way, I can’t imagine how much it must cost for a transmission to reach Mars in only 40 seconds.

As far as her joke goes, it’s a great way to deconstruct the various efforts of Nite Owl, Adrian Veidt, and Dr. Manhattan in helping humanity. Each man had supposedly noble efforts. Nite Owl was a builder, Veidt used fear to bring the world together- killing three million in the process- and Manhattan just didn’t give a damn about humanity.

In God’s eyes, these men aren’t worthy of being heroes, no matter how noble their intentions may have been. Then again, this take on God just seems like a prick. But I’m a mere mortal and far be it from me to try and predict how God operates, especially when it comes to determining our fates.

Perhaps that’s the punchline of the joke, aside from God getting a brick to the head. No matter how good we try to do, it won’t matter in the end. Not exactly ha-ha funny, but the point still stands, especially in regards to Manhattan.

Sticking with Manhattan specifically, I get a bit of why Laurie would be pissed at him. Humanity still tries to hold him up as this god, but in reality, he doesn’t give a damn about any of them, especially after being on another planet for so many years.

There’s a moment in both the graphic novel and film where Manhattan stands by as Blake murders a woman in cold blood. Blake’s actions are reprehensible, without question. However, as Blake points out, Manhattan just stood and watched when he could have done literally anything to stop it. This was just one of many examples showing that, despite Manhattan living among humans, he cares nothing for them.

Given the falling out of the relationship between Manhattan and Laurie, with Manhattan’s lack of interest in humanity, it makes sense that Laurie would be livid with him, despite moving past him. But if the blue dildo and phone calls are any indication, she can’t let him go. How could she, given her connection to him?

Despite how much Laurie wants to move forward, she’ll always have one foot rooted in her past. In present day, she sees no difference between cops and masked vigilantes- like she once was. It’s like she’s taking down vigilantes as some sort of penance for her past actions.

If you look at the joke she tells, it’s clear that she’s the girl who threw the brick into the air. So that girl managed to take down God himself. So is Laurie trying to take down Manhattan? Part of her still loves him, so this presents an interesting conflict.

Also, yeah, what the hell is up with the blue dildo? Then again, as Lindelof said in an interview, how could you date anyone else after dating a literal god? It’s like in Superman II when Lois told Clark that, as Superman, he’s a tough act to follow as far as finding another man. Still, great prop at least.

“She Was Killed By Space Junk” was another strong installment of Watchmen that brought Silk Spectre II into contact with the Tulsa investigation. It brought more Watchmen lore to this world and continues to provide entertaining moments with Adrian Veidt.