"Counterpart," Year One

Minor spoilers ahead.

It took me much longer than I intended to finish the first season of "Counterpart." I was initially drawn in by the cast, which features J.K. Simmons, Olivia Williams, Harry Lloyd, and Stephen Rea. I was less enthused about the gloomy visuals and Cold War atmosphere. The series is set in and around Berlin, full of cold gray architecture and people in heavy overcoats. However, it's the perfect setting for a spy thriller.

And that's what "Counterpart" is, ultimately. The premise may emphasize the more fantastical elements, but the bones of the series are all about the espionage. Howard Silk (Simmons), is a low level cog in a Kafkaesque organization, the Office of Interchange, or OI, that is hiding the existence of a parallel universe that contains doubles of everyone in our world. There are, however, key differences that have resulted in strained relations between the two sides. Harold's double, an arrogant, much higher ranked agent, crosses over the border one day and begins to involve Harold in the unfolding intrigue.

"Counterpart' functions similarly to "The Leftovers," which was also about an alternate reality where something fantastical had caused a fundamental change to the world. Neither of these shows is really interested in the mechanism of the big cataclysm, and there's not much else supernatural going on. Instead, the focus is on the consequences of the change on a very human scale. "Counterpart" is tightly focused on the employees of the secretive organization that controls the crossing point between the two worlds. They chase infiltrators, uncover conspiracies, and tussle over the control of information. Part of the fun is figuring out how all the various characters are related to each other and impact the story. In addition to Howard and his wife Emily (Williams), other major characters include a weaselly young OI director, Peter Quayle (Lloyd) and his lovely wife Clare (Nazanin Boniadi), a contract killer, Baldwin (Sara Serraiocco), and a secretive mastermind, Alexander Pope (Rea), who mentored Harold's double.

It's easy to see why J.K. Simmons picked this project as his follow-up to "Whiplash" - playing the two versions of Howard Silk gives him a lot of opportunity to flex his acting muscles. Some of the most exciting moments in the series involve Simmons essentially having conversations with himself. The lives and personalities of Harold and his double are so different, that it invites the audience to puzzle over how the divergence happened. Was it because of the influence of Alexander Pope? Was it because certain events happened to one and not the other? Or is it something more innate? The series also examines the cases where doubles have switched sides or even switched places, and the impact this has on the people around them.

All the material involving Howard Silk is fantastic, and Simmons' performances shine, especially when the doubles interact. However, some of the secondary characters are less successful. The whole subplot with Baldwin is pretty tedious, especially as it seems to exist mostly as an excuse for dodgy lesbian sex scenes. The narrative is often murky and I had trouble telling some of the actors apart. However, I like what they do with Emily and the Quayles. It takes a while, but Harry Lloyd emerges as a strong secondary lead, and there's a fantastic episode entirely built around Clare. Olivia Williams doesn't get as much to do as she should, but I'm hopeful that she's being set up for more interesting things next season.

So far the worldbuilding has been slow, as the creators are more interested in digging into the characters' personal lives and deep dark secrets. There's the potential for the show to become more of a genre piece, as we learn more of the series mythology, but the first season does a good job of being an entertaining espionage thriller and character study. However, it does take some patience to get through the slow spots, which is why I think "Counterpart" didn't attract nearly the audience that it could have.

It's a little disappointing to know that this is one of those cases where a much longer planned series has been cut short by cancellation, but the execution of the first season is strong enough that I'll be looking forward to the second.
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