'Watchmen': One missed opportunity in season finale was Laurie Blake-Dr Manhattan reunion

Spoiler alert for the season finale of ‘Watchmen’ 

Midnight closes in, and everyone wants a piece of Dr Manhattan (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). It’s what the series has been leading up to, and everyone has their reasons for wanting the scientist-turned-god-turned-superhero all to themselves. Senator Keene (James Wolk) wants the power to conquer the world, Lady Trieu (Hong Chau), wants to save it, and poor Angela (Regina King) just wants her husband home. Dr Manhattan is the belle of the ball, and in the rush of all that’s happened, there’s one character who really should have gotten more time with him than she got — Laurie Blake (Jean Smart). 

Though their relationship ended over 30 years ago, it’s obvious that Laurie still cares for John — or at least thinks about him often. It’s not just the giant blue vibrator she carries around with her — she talks to him, pretty regularly, at the phone booths to Mars that Lady Trieu (Hong Chau) set up throughout the world. She has no idea if the phones work, or if Dr Manhattan is even on Mars, but she reaches out to him all the same.

In the final episode of ‘Watchmen’, Agent Blake is tied to a chair when Dr Manhattan is teleported into his cage. She barely gets a moment to recognize that her former is alive, and what the implications of that are, before the senior members of the Cyclops organization are killed, and Dr Manhattan teleports her, Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons) and Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson) away to Karnak. Laurie Blake doesn’t even get to see him die — as an FBI agent, all she gets to do is clean up in the aftermath. 

Of course, a lot was happening this episode and a limited time in which to show it all. As great as a scene featuring Blake and Manhattan’s reunion would have been to see, it’s harder to imagine what scene from the finale would have been worth taking out to make that reunion happen. There are only so many stories to tell, and Laurie Blake is just going to have to be satisfied with her reunion with Ozymandias and the arrest she’s been waiting to make for over 30 years.

With Lady Trieu gone, it’s unclear as to whether or not the phone booths to Mars will be taken down or not. But either way, Laurie Blake will probably still be talking to him, whenever she misses the god she used to date.