Counterpart 2.2 on earlier tonight was a relative rarity: tight as a drum. It took place on the other side, and focused on their Emily aka Emily Prime.
Her interactions with our Howard, held prisoner there, started off the hour with some excellent touches. I especially like how she explained to Howard why his Emily kept denying him his much sought-after promotion: to protect him, just as she had done to and for her Howard.
The hour ended with the jolt that Emily Silk - Emily from our side - was not only a spy but a far more pervasive and important one than we may have thought. I can't recall if I realized and thought much about this in the first season, but it seems pretty clear now that if there are good and bad people in the the two worlds, the good would be Howard Silk and Emily Prime, and the bad would be Howard Prime and Emily Silk. This is of course a bit too simplistic, all four are a lot more complex than just good and bad, but the categorization has some value: it vividly makes the point that we can't just assume our side is good, and the flu-ravaged other side bad.
Which is not say that the other side doesn't have some irredeemable villains. Certainly Mira is one of those, coolly killing an elderly couple motivated mainly to see their son, thought to be lost in the 1990s to that flu. (I'll tell you one thing: after watching Counterpart season 1, I got my flu shot earlier this year than ever before.)
One thing I'd like to see in the series, by the way: more of the rest of the worlds, outside of Germany. Have we seen anything of this at all? Surely, there's a rest of the world on the other side, just as there is one on our side. I wonder if Trump is President in their United States? If not, that might be one of the few advantages of being on the other side.
But enough idle political speculation. I'll see you here next week with another review. In the meantime, enjoy "Samantha," my alternate worlds love song, to be released on Old Bear Records next year.
See also: Counterpart 2.1: "Strange" and "Lucky"
And see also Counterpart 1.1: Fringe on Espionage ... Counterpart 1.2: Two Different Worlds ... Counterpart 1.3: Identification and Pandemic ... Counterpart 1.4: The Switch ... Counterpart 1.5: Ménage à Alternates ... Counterpart 1.6: Alternate Prince, Funeral, and Clear Clare ... Counterpart 1.7: Spying Across Dimensions ... Counterpart 1.8: Conversations ... Counterpart 2.9: The Spy Who Came Into the Fold ... Counterpart Season 1 Finale: Stuck in the Middle
more alternate reality - "flat-out fantastic" - Scifi and Scary
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