Watchmen Review: She Was Killed By Space Junk (Season 1 Episode 3)

It’s Laurie’s world, and we’re all just living in it on Watchmen Season 1 Episode 3, “She Was Killed By Space Junk.”

Not only is this the most straightforward episode of Watchmen thus far (and we’ve needed it), it happens to be the best episode so far. There are hints of The Leftovers storytelling in its bones, where characters are deeply explored and so much is said through their eyes and their view of the world, a way to better understand character through their interactions with what surrounds them.

Jean Smart’s Laurie Blake is perhaps the most sarcastic and cynical character to grace Watchmen so far, but it’s for good reason. Her time as Silk Spectre has aged her beyond her years, and as we hear in her messages to Doctor Manhattan out on Mars, she does not view the goodness in people as virtue, but rather as self-aggrandizing.

Laurie even says as much to Angela after the funeral attack. Laurie’s seen enough to have a pessimism in her that perhaps has some merit. She holds onto her past not quite like a badge but as a scar, a reminder of her not-so-humble beginnings.

A lot of the interesting parts of the episode come from Laurie, as an outsider, walking into the situation we’ve seen up to this point. Once it starts to feel like she may be judging the situation, like the rounding up of the Seventh Calvary and their less-than-ideal treatment, she lets it be known that she does not care.

The scene between Angela and Laurie is important, as it shows that while both may be a step ahead of the other, neither knows the full picture yet. It’s a game of cat and cat, where the mouse is still not in the picture. Two incredibly powerful women seeing each other for who they are, and knowing they have a rival, if not a target, is such an exciting moment for the show to offer on an already excellent hour.

Jean Smart is otherworldly on the episode, able to use Damon Lindelof and Lila Byock’s writing to bring Laurie this tired but still prominent vibe. It’s easy to fall back on a weary persona, but Smart brings so much wisdom and frustration with it. The writing is allowing Laurie’s jokes (living up to her father’s namesake) to inform character, and Smart’s dry delivery of them to speak more volumes than the words.

Outside of Laurie, though, is the fact that the Seventh Calvary are escalating their terrorism. Going after Senator Keene and the bulk of the police force is a bold move, and though it’s unsuccessful due to Laurie’s intervention, it shows that they will not take the hostilities on them lying down.

But the stranger events come from Adrian Veidt’s latest experiment. The sending of a clone to space with such a short rope for return makes Adrian’s location a rather peculiar place. He is being held captive, that much is sure, and he is on a strict leash, whether he’s willing to admit it or not with his strongly worded correspondence.

Could it be a leap to consider that he’s under the watchful eye of Doctor Manhattan? The events of the original graphic novel leave him as a harm if anything major arises again, and so placing Adrian in a world of his own devices is a fitting punishment for him. But he’s clearly testing his boundaries, looking for cracks. Donning his Ozymandias persona at the end of the episode is not a sign of stopping.

The ending is a brilliant nod to not only the brick story that Laurie tells intermittently throughout the episode, but a reminder of the ending of Watchmen Season 1 Episode 2, “Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship,” as the car is the one Will is in when he’s taken off into the sky. Laurie likely sees it as a great irony and potentially a message from Doctor Manhattan, when really it’s another big joke.

Watchmen Season 1 Episode 3, “She Was Killed By Space Junk,” is a downright genius episode that manages to bring an outsider’s view onto the events of the first two episodes and give them a new perspective. But it’s through this new perspective that Laurie provides that allows a deeper, more emotional story to play out.

Decades of vigilantism and heartbreak brings age and hardness down upon someone. Laurie is a weathered agent, and as the lead on uncovering the truth behind Crawford’s execution, she will likely need help from Angela to strike closer to that truth. She clearly needs a reason to trust Angela, though.

But along the way, there’s a lot of periphery chaos happening. Perhaps that it what it is: chaos. Or maybe it will inform the story in its own time, like Adrian, waiting for the opportunity to find the cracks.

 

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Watchmen airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.

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