I as the fucking viewer felt ethered
I understand that Laurie deeply longs for her past as a vigilante, but didn't she hated the sex with Dr. Manhattan because he was acting distant?
Well there's a lot to unpack here, between the duality of Laurie's public life in the present and private life in the past.
She was with a god in the past, and she was a superhero. Both are angles of pure power.
In the present she is getting older and supposed to care for a man who is imprisoned and was sexually impotent.
The juxtaposition could not be any more clear. Dr. Manhattan - free of human affairs with his raw sexual power, vs Nite Owl - caged and limp.