Review of 'Counterpart' 2.4

The best part of the excellent Counterpart 2.4, I thought, were the two Emilys. Actually, three Emilys, which is what made this hour different and so revealing.

The third Emily is Emily as a little a girl, in 1984, before the split into two worlds. She has a nickname—Belinda, taken from the Go-Gos. This proves significant later on. When Emily Prime shows up at—I don't, at something between a resort and a bungalow colony—she's greeted as "Belinda" by the proprietor. She remembers the name, but apparently hasn't used it since she was a kid. This means that Emily Alpha, in one or more of her visits to the other side, came to this very place. And likely more than once, given how well the gent in charge seems to know her. This is confirmed when Alpha goes to the brick wall where she hid a ring behind a loose brick as a child, and finds something very different. Proof in hand that Alpha has been there. Lord of the Rings meets Counterpart.

This kind of in-depth presentation of before the split, and the two versions after the split, puts Counterpart in a more explicable light. Yanek the kindly shrink complements this process for us with his line of investigation. Specifically, in this episode, making it clear that he wants to know why the two Howards turned out so different, which relates to exactly when the two Howards split and began to diverge. Yanek is in effect not only working for the other side, but also for us in the audience, by pursuing exactly the line of inquiry which will give us answers to the most crucial questions.

That, in a nutshell, is why I think this season of Counterpart is better than the first, which I much enjoyed—but after we get over the shock and wonder of two different worlds in Germany. I like the puzzle-solving by the Emilys and Yanek—better than the murders.