HBO's Watchmen revealed intriguing new details about what happened to Nite Owl and Silk Spectre in the years after the Watchmen graphic novel ended. The third episode of Watchmen, "She Was Killed By Space Junk", reintroduced Agent Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) into the saga. Now an FBI agent with the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, Blake - the former Silk Spectre - is reluctantly investigating the murder of Tulsa Police Chief Judd Crawford (Don Johnson).
Laurie's arrival fused Watchmen's Tulsa, Oklahoma-set mysteries with the legacy of the graphic novel but it opened up questions about what happened to Nite Owl and Silk Spectre after Ozymandias' giant squid hoax on 11/2/85 saved the world from nuclear war. The Watchmen comics' epilogue established that Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg and Silk Spectre/Laurie Juspeczyk assumed new identities as "Sam and Sandra Hollis" but continued to fight crime as superheroes. By HBO's Watchmen's 2019 setting, Laurie has changed her last name to Blake and become a federal agent (like her late father, Edward Blake/The Comedian) while Dan Dreiberg was revealed to be in federal custody. In fact, Laurie accepted the Oklahoma assignment because Senator Joe Keene (James Wolk) inferred he would pardon Dreiberg if he becomes the next President of the United States.
Watchmen's tie-in website Peteypedia released an FBI transcript that sheds some fascinating light on what happened to Nite Owl and The Comedienne (Laurie took on her father's mantle after she abandoned her mother's - Sally Jupiter's - Silk Spectre legacy). Dated 4/24/1995, Laurie was interrogated by Special Agents David Latimer and Dinwitty when she and Nite Owl were apprehended by the FBI after they stopped the Oklahoma City Bombing and killed the perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, on 4/19/1995. (Another example of how Watchmen's world is different from the real world.) While Dan Dreiberg refused to speak to the authorities, the FBI agents found Laurie Juspeczyk (she hadn't yet changed her surname at this point) to be prickly but cooperative in their Q&A and she dropped lots of details that shoots down the Judd Crawford was Nite Owl theory.
According to Laurie, her and Nite Owl's special crimefighting equipment were supplied by MerlinCorp, a company secretly owned by Dan Dreiberg. MerlinCorp also equips law enforcement agencies, which is why "the cops fly Owlships". This explains why the Tusla Police have an Owlship - it turns out lots of police departments all over the country bought them from MerlinCorp - and Laurie's confession finally lays to rest that fan theory that Judd Crawford was Dan Dreiberg. Laurie's capture in Oklahoma in '95 also explains her reluctance to return there to investigate Crawford's murder.
Further, Laurie and Dreiberg were performing "one last job" together to stop Timothy McVeigh as their relationship had become strained. Laurie stressed that she and Nite Owl were "not lovers" - "He wanted kids, I wanted guns", Laurie confessed. Her tipping the feds off about MerlinCorp led to a raid on Dreiberg's company, where the FBI recovered the blueprints for the huge blue phallus fans saw Laurie take out of her briefcase in Watchmen. It turns out this was a "gift" from Dreiberg, which he named "Excalibur", and he made it to spite Laurie because Dan jealously suspected she still harbored feelings for her ex, Doctor Manhattan.
Intriguingly, there were several redacted sections of the transcript relating to the whereabouts of Rorschach and the events of 11/2/85. Based on what wasn't blacked out, it seems that Laurie confessed the truth about how Rorschach died, Doctor Manhattan leaving the planet, and possibly the details about Adrian Veidt's (Jeremy Irons) hoax. Once the FBI learned the truth about the events of the Watchmen graphic novel, the federal government helped maintain the cover-up. Laurie's cooperation explains why she isn't in custody like Dreiberg and she was even able to join the Bureau. It also clarifies that when President Robert Redford learned the truth about the hoax, this likely led to his falling out with his benefactor, Adrian Veidt, in the years before Watchmen's events.
Watchmen airs Sundays @ 9pm on HBO.