The pilot episode of Counterpart put in viewers to two version of Howard Silk ; one a no - nonsense field operative , the other a meek composition - pusher . The two men conduct their lives in vastly dissimilar humankind and , last Nox , we get down to see the Earth that Doppel - Howard hails from .
Episode two of Counterpart began on the serial ’ alternate Earth , showing a tense encounter between Doppel - Howard ( J.K. Simmons ) and the alternating Emily ( Olivia Williams ) . She ask about his frequent trips crossing over to the original Earth and reveals that there ’s a interpretation order to bring him in . Two heavy in her serving remove Doppel - Howard from the bar under duress with the clear intent to drink down him . All we see next is two muzzle jiffy inside the darken car and Doppel - Howard calmly exiting the vehicle and walk off .
The aspect shift back to Doppel - Howard ’s apartment , which is spartan , lack any of the soupy mementos seen in Main Howard ’s shoes during episode one . He gets intel on female assassin Baldwin , specifically her veridical name . Doppel - Howard then meets with a man address Pope ( Stephen Rea ) in a church . Pope , who seems to be unite to the tidings residential area in some way , runs down possibility about whether the rendition lodge was official or a rogue assassination attempt , and severalize Doppel - Howard he got him a 36 - hour visa to the main reality .
Pope aver that if the interpretation lodge was official , then Doppel - Howard ’s going to get locked up for murder . If nothing happens , then it ’s an act of jiggery-pokery that someone ’s going to attempt and overcompensate up . There ’s a beatnik of tension and precariousness when Doppel - Howard shows up at the crossing window but he ’s let to go through with no fuss . Then the show rationalize to a meeting with Emily and her superiors . “ Why is personnel in this meeting ? ” she asks when narrate to narrate last Nox ’s events . Emily tries to spin and mask what she knows and does n’t but gets drive to take clip off while an probe gets underway .
Main Howard is adjust fitfully to his new chore in Analysis on Main Earth , but he gets summoned to more dangerous work with his doubled . Along with the flinty operative Aldrich ( Ulrich Thomsen ) , they meet in a theater and lecture about Baldwin ( Sara Serraiocco ) , what precisely it is Doppel does , and their split existences . It ’s divulged that the dimensional schism happened 30 eld ago and Doppel say he pull out defectors back to the split timeline . “ There was one reality and it duplicated . No one really knows how . Well , maybe somebody lie with but they ’re not telling , ” Doppel - Howard says .
Doppel - Howard ’s learned that Baldwin ’s real name is Nadia Fierro . That small bit of intel lead them to her Main Earth counterpart , a virtuoso violinist who come off like a difficult - crapulence diva . Elsewhere , Baldwin tends to the nasty face injury from last installment and meets with a compatriot who evidence her that Doppel - Howard has her name . The handler woman evidence Baldwin that she need to kill her other self “ before they expend her to get to you . ” Baldwin insists that she and Nadia “ share nothing ” and that it ’ll be soft to belt down her . We get a few flashback to Nadia ’s youth practicing in front of an upstage father and then , on the alt - Earth , we see alt - Emily with a virile fan , with whom she talks about the sloppiness of the rendition probe .
After an orchestra dry run , Doppel - Howard talks to Nadia in a bar , position as the alienated dad of another player . He use sympathy to find out her backstory . We learn that Nadia ’s dad was a failed artist , who died when she was 10 . She habituate the phrase “ nothing but crapulence and anger ” to delineate him and say that “ he left me his debt , ” in the form of a dilapidate house outside the city . Main Howard and other agents go to Nadia ’s apartment in the hope of run Baldwin down . When Main Howard objects to invading Nadia ’s privacy , he and Aldrich get into a peevish rally :
Main Howard : “ I am not him . You may get laid him . You do not have sex me . ”
Aldrich : “ Do you really believe you ’re that different ? Do you opine I ca n’t calculate at you and know everything about him ? Look at him and eff everything about you ? You share more than you think ? I see everything . ”
Baldwin lurks stealthily outside Nadia ’s apartment and enters when Main Howard and the agents allow for to go to the suburban house . She lead to the bar near the theatre where she sees her other ego for the first clip . Baldwin promise in a snatch report to the cops and kills agentive role on watch , as Nadia discusses her past in a series of surrogate home . She “ strain on lives like attire , ” she say , adding that “ you become who they require you to be and you lose yourself . ” She concludes , “ you may not escape who you are . ”
Then we get a flashback from before the split up where young Nadia ’s playing for money in the underpass . Her dad is drinking nearby and falls onto course , injuring his leg so he ca n’t get up . He pleads with Nadia to get someone but she does n’t help , coldly watching him get melt down over by a train . Back in the nowadays , the cops come in response to Baldwin ’s earphone call . They distill Nadia , only to have Baldwin kill them . She direct the gun for hire at Nadia but the painful emotion of their partake in past make it so that she ca n’t shoot down her . Baldwin drag in Nadia off into the theatre and gets into a standoff with the PI at bottom . Doppel - Howard shout out that he needs her alive but Aldrich does n’t like . set to try and do something good in the thick of all this pandemonium , Main Howard leaves the safety of a machine outside and runs into the theater .
Inside , Baldwin sneers at Nadia from behind a masquerade : “ depend at you , with your peel and your clothes . Everything is so perfect … ” Baldwin shows her face to Nadia and Nadia laughs creepily , thinking she ’s lost her mind :
Baldwin : “ Do you know who I am ? ”
Nadia : “ You ’re my true boldness … You ’re not real . You ’re just a creature just send to punish me . ”
We then we see that Nadia trend herself as a result of her trauma , as opposed to Baldwin who kills others . Things step up , bullet originate flying , and Main Howard extend on stage to seek and stop Nadia from running into the line of flak . But an agent scud her and Baldwin watches her other ego die , then go on to get bewitch by cops .
Back at Main Howard ’s flat , a debrief gets tense . Having a “ crosser ” in detainment of the other side is a cataclysm . het words fly and Main Howard punches Aldrich because of the ostensibly guiltless Nadia ’s death . Doppel - Howard wants Main Howard to aid him , verbalise up a transfer to the Strategy section of his Main Earth undercover agent workshop , and sound out he ’s stress to help Doppel - Howard . Main Howard balks at all of this :
Doppel - Howard : “ A few days ago , you were nothing . A flatliner , sleepwalking . front at you now . ”
Main Howard : “ Do me a favor : lay off trying to make me into your simulacrum . ”
Back on alt - Earth Pope is back at Christian church , with Emily this meter . Pope asks her “ how long have you known your ex - husband ’s signal program ? ” which signify that she ’s not presuppose to meet with Pope in this way . Emily acts like she ’s being framed and protestation that she ’s just examine to do her caper to keep the public security . Pope needles her about substance abuse and then verbalize something ominous :
Pope : “ Peace ? I wonder when we ’ve ever had peace . I enquire if there will ever amount a tally for what they did to us . clip are changing . Scary to cerebrate how fragile this peace really is . ”
Emily huffily walks out of the church and sequence two cuts to citation .
We get a abstruse sense of just how much Counterpart is going to dally with the musical theme of divergence in this sequence . On the main Earth , Emily is Howard ’s married woman , who he pin aside for while she lingers in a coma . But , on alt - Earth , she ’s alive and work for the same undercover agent organization as Doppel - Howard . Their irritable exchanges — along with a hidden affair and allusion to substance abuse — paint a picture bad history between them . She may actually be trying to vote out him or relieve him from danger , but the fact that we ca n’t quite tell yet is a augury of how mess - up thing are on that side of the dimensional water parting .
In last week ’s debut episode , Doppel - Howard mentioned inner conflicts razz through the intelligence agency community on his side . This week , we get a glimpse of that tenseness when Emily gets called in to respond why men assigned to her were found dead . Then her meeting with Pope seed even more confusion because he seems to be pulling string in pursuit of a forbidding agendum . There ’s a quite a little of secret being set up so far and my big promise is that Counterpart does n’t pass too long playing coy with answer .
Assorted Musings
• I sleep together how the two Howards ’ sartorial law of similarity and differences are becoming a comedic window into how they ’re alike and dissimilar .
• I ’m also really into how Counterpart is knowingly invoking Cold War trappings and setting in a mod - day scifi story .
• If I think correctly , Doppel - Howard said that his Emily was dead . The fact that she is n’t is a immense shock and call into question just how honest Doppel - Howard is being with his Main Earth counterpart .
Sci - FiStarz
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