FBI agent Laurie Blake of the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce heads to Tulsa to take over the recent murder investigation and Adrian Veidt receives a harshly worded letter and responds accordingly.

For its first two episodes I’ve made the point that the show belongs to Regina King’s Angela/Sister Knight, but little did I realise that she’d soon have competition in the form of Laurie Blake (Jean Smart – Legion). We see her at the start of episode phoning in a joke to Dr Manhattan via a space phone, and this joke is stripped across the episode.

The fact that it’s a joke is even more relevant once you realise that this is Laurie Juspeczyk, AKA Silk Spectre, daughter of Eddie Blake, The Comedian. This is the point that the show really sinks its teeth into its legacy and Smart is a powerhouse. Smart, ruthless and great at her job, her sarcastic and jokey approach to the investigation meet their match when she interviews Angela. She might ‘eat good guys for breakfast’ but Angela is no regular vigilante.

The funeral of Crawford is a stunning action scene with a vigilante turning up wearing a suicide vest. Blake shoots him, but it’s up to Angela to take control – throwing his body into the open grave and kicking the coffin down on top to cushion the explosion!

Elsewhere, Veidt is finally named and we watch as he jettisons a clone into space and shoots a buffalo. However, this latter act invokes the ire of his captor, the enigmatically-named The Game Warden, and we get to see Veidt in full Ozymandias costume.

Verdict: Wow, Watchmen is now fully the show it promised to be. With great leads, a labyrinthine plot and the right throwbacks to its source material, it continues to sparkle.10/10

Nick Joy