Counterpart 2.1: "Strange" and "Lucky"

Counterpart is one of the strangest science fiction series ever on television.  It is also one of the best.  That's why it wasn't the least bit strange that I was glad to see it return for its second season tonight.

"Strange" also plays a major role in tonight's story.  Emily Silk, back from not the dead but a coma, is having trouble adjusting to home life in our world.  In particular, she finds her husband Howard a little strange - he doesn't seem quite right to her.  We know why - this Howard is not really her Howard, the Howard she is married to.  It is Howard from the other world, under cover here as our Howard.  Though he puts on a good act, he's not quite as affable as Howard her husband.  This Howard certainly betrays to us on the other side of the screen a hard glint in the eye, when he thinks Emily isn't looking.

By the way, I have to say, again, how impressed I am with J. K. Simmons.   He is able to play tough Howard portraying softer Howard just perfectly, when he (tough Howard) is trying with about 99% success to be softer.  That can't be easy to do for an actor.

He also portrays just tough Howard to a tee, like when he's taking to his colleague other-worlder Clare.  This bring us to the second key word tonight - "lucky".  That's what Peter says to himself and to us he's been, up until now.  Followed by he's not going to rely on that anymore.  He has a daughter and a wife to protect, even though his wife Clare is from the other side, which means Peter must be ready to protect himself from her, too.

Just what this Clare will ultimately do is a big question left over from the first season.  She says having a daughter has changed her, and her deepest loyalties, and demonstrated this last season.  But tonight, in that conversation with Howard, she sure seems loyal to that other side that trained her.  Or maybe she's putting on an act for him.  In a world in which doppelgangers lurk almost around every corner, you better be ready to put on an act any time it's needed.  Your life may and likely does depend upon it.

As I said, Counterpart is a strange show.  And we're lucky to have it.   And good to see Betty Gabriel in an important role as Naya Temple, new bureau chief on our side.  I'll see you here next week with review of the next episode.

In the meantime, check out the rough mix of my song "Samantha," recorded last month at Old Bear Records in Batavia, NY, and due to be released on my new album of science fiction related songs in 2019.  ("Samantha" is about love between people from parallel worlds.) 




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

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Triple Hit: Parallel Schrödingers

Parallel worlds lurk behind a lot of time travel - since one way of getting around the paradox of that, if you changed the past, how would the earlier you in the future know that the past needed to be changed if it no longer existed, but if the new reality were a parallel reality, in which the event that needed changing now never happened, there would be no problem, since the time traveler came from the old reality - but it's not often been explored in the movies, though it was a mainstay of Fringe and is the theme of Counterpart, just now beginning on Starz.

All of which is to say I was eager to see Triple Hit, because it's a movie (free on Amazon), in which parallel universes are almost the whole story.  The "almost," though, is its main problem, since it also brings in space travel and time travel, and is a bit of a free-for-all hodge-podge of science fiction tropes.

But it has its moments.  Triple Hit (2009, originally Schrödinger's Girl - you ever notice how the original titles are usually much better than what they've been changed to?) tells the story of Rebecca/Anastasia/Sarah, Dave/David/Dmitri, Matt/Matthew/Mateus, etc in three parallel realities (worlds) in which Rebecca/Anastasia/Sarah is/are trying to break on through to at least one of the other realities.  All of the realities are some version of our United Kingdom.  One of them is pretty much like ours, another seems like a high-tech white-coated European Union, and the third, the most fun, is a "People's Republic," replete with a statue of Stalin and obeisance to the Soviet Union(!).

Of course something goes wrong with the attempt and frenetic craziness and mayhem ensue, done up almost in a slapstick 1950s bug-eyed-monster B-movie kind of style.  So ... it's hard to take Triple Hit seriously, but it is fun, especially in the wee hours of the morning, with good multiple campy performances by Abigail Tarttelin as Rebecca/Anastasia/Sarah.  See it if parallel worlds are your cups of tea.

  
more parallel realities ...

Counterpart 1.1: Fringe on Espionage

One of the best parts of the late, lamented Fringe - in fact, maybe the best part, tied for first place with its time travel - was its alternate reality.  It was brought about by Walter some years earlier - actually, not brought about, but Walter brought into being the bridge - which in turn brought us access to an alternate reality in which JFK wasn't assassinated, Walter was sane, and lots of cool things like that.

Counterpart - the first episode of which was on Starz tonight as a sneak peak preview - has a lot of that Fringy quality, but so far, nothing as major in the two realities as JFK survived in one of them.  Instead - and instead of the science fiction that inhabited every scene in Fringe - we get what could be a first class espionage story.

The other Howard Silk - perfectly played by J. K. Simmons - tells our Howard Silk (also perfectly played by Simmons) - that one reality split into two due to some Cold War experiment gone wrong 30 years ago.   So both Silks were exactly the same until that split, sharing not only identical DNA but identical memories.

One nice part of this story, so far, is that it's not completely clear which reality is ours - that is, which one is the reality I'm now in as I write this review.  Well, I guess since the show Counterpart exists in neither of the two realities in the show Counterpart, the answer is I'm now in neither.

But you know what I mean when I wonder which reality on the screen is ours, and I'd say it's the one in which Howard is a tough spy not a Caspar Milquetoast.  There's also an excellent twist at the end of the first episode pertaining to the tough Howard, but I won't spoil it for you.

I will be back in January with more reviews when Counterpart resumes.




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