Counterpart: A parallel world spy thriller

D2 showed far more advanced cell phones than D1 in season 1.

You sure?

D2 = world of Howard Prime, Emily Burton, Ian Shaw, Alexander Pope. Those characters always had a flip phone.

D1 = world of Howard Alpha, Emily Silk. Only seen smart phones in this world.

The scene I’m talking about happened in D2 (while Ian Shaw has crossed to D1 in the past, he was in D2 when the crossing closed).

Well, there was that scene at the very beginning of the series, remember, where Baldwin has been smuggled into D1/Alpha by Indigo posing as a call girl from D2/Prime, and D2 security types are investigating a murder scene where their own diplomats are victims?* Those security guys have real fancy futuristic translucent smartphones.

*And Baldwin promptly murders her way out “into the wild.”

I don’t see any reason to believe those are smartphones. They’re fancy looking, for sure, but they have a flip-phone style numerical button pad and the display (while it’s only shown a little and not very closely) just looks like a black and white flip-phone style LCD display.

Edit: I think that probably explains the laptop, though - the laptop may look very modern and thin but I would guess it’s actually functionally much less advanced than the D1 equivalent. We don’t see her screen, I don’t think, so it’s hard to say for sure.

Yeah that was my impression too, malkav11.

Here’s a link to an interview with Justin Marks the series creator. About halfway through he talks about how the tech between the two worlds is different and mentions smartphones by example. https://www.slashfilm.com/counterpart-interview/

It’s also possible that their computer tech is on par with D1 or even more advanced but for whatever reason hasn’t been pushed into mobile devices, though that seems less likely.

Well, I guess they could be really nice walkie talkies, but they definitely communicated over them. And we may not be talking about the same thing. I’ll watch that scene again but I don’t remember a flip down number pad.

EDIT: I stand corrected. They were fancy phones that looked like they were made of Lucite but they did have a number pad. Whether it flipped out or slid down who knows. Also the scene takes place in D2/Alpha because we see civvies wearing surgical masks on the street, presumably on New Year’s Eve because there are fireworks (which is a big thing in Germany).

So, um, if they got Peter’s other at a young age (the clear inference from what Yanek says)…Peter was nobody important or even positioned to be someone important back then. Which means strings have been pulled to put him in his position, not just attach Clare to him. And this shit runs deep.

I’m in the middle of tonight’s show, just after the scenes where Peter finds that his personal voice recorder is missing from his office wall safe and the confiscated items dude is going to rat out Howard, and I’m FREAKING OUT. This show does suspense so well.

All right, now that it’s over, question about something almost at the end: Was the guy who shot Osman and was then killed by him supposed to be D2 Peter, or just a random guard?

Where things stand now, there had better be a third season on the way. Otherwise they’ve got their work cut out for them to wrap it up in five episodes.

BTW per the preview, young Yanek will apparently be played by the dude who played the odious Simcoe in TURN: Washington’s Spies.

Oh, also it’s interesting seeing J.K. Simmons back in a prison scenario…because I first encountered him as a charming, vicious neo-Nazi in HBO’s Oz. Very different character.

I can’t help but think that Spencer’s visit to Clare in yesterday’s show was not a coincidence wrt the timing. And who knows if it’s even the real Spencer. Also, of course Peter’s assistant was an Indigo plant.

I really hope that the showrunners have an explanation for this.

As you say, he was unimportant when he was younger. His value now is because of his job and it’s heavily hinted that he has this position only because of who his father-in-law is. Thus, the only theory I can think of is that Indigo planned all along for Clare to marry someone who could be promoted in Strategy and the best match would be someone who is a bit of a dope and easy to manipulate.

Which, if true, as you say this means that someone is really playing a long game.

The alternative explanation is that the writers decided to get a little too cute by introducing us to Peter Prime. Or rather, too cute by having Yanek say that they got him when he was young…

RE: Peter’s assistant being part of the Indigo conspiracy. I think this was just a little too much deus ex machina to save Peter’s ass. A minor nitpick. I think the writers of this are too smart to resort to that type of thing very often, or at least I hope they are.

I cannot imagine that wasn’t an intentional implication. But Indigo isn’t running Echo and in fact didn’t even know where Echo was. So Peter can’t have been Indigo’s game.

I still believe that the new head of security is the real Indigo mole and Peter’s assistant was a last-minute sacrifice to keep her in play. She came to escort Peter down to see Lambert right after killing him. It’s too pat otherwise.

That guy was a guard.

Great episode tonight! Lots of questions answered and new elements thrown into the mix.

I’ve got so many questions. BTW, did everyone recognize the actor playing the young Yanek(s) as the odious Lt. Simcoe in TURN: Washington’s Spies?

Alright, so I don’t have to watch the show again:

Summary

Which Yanek lived? Prime or Alpha? IIRC the one whose family was intact. Also, did the Prime world experience the Fall of the Berlin Wall at more or less the same time or slightly later? The Alpha world did in fact develop the deadly flu strain?

My understanding is that Yanek Alpha died. Prime being our dimension (it gets confusing). The prime dimension developed the flu strain which was then released (purposely or accidentally in the alpha/their dimension).

One thing I that wasn’t made clear was that while the experiment was going on in secret, how did the group finance everything. At some point the secret is revealed and the government gets involved but prior to then they needed funds.

It did seem to me obvious that Yanek prime would do in Yanek alpha though I did like the origin story of management.

Ok, I think you’re right except for getting the Alpha/Prime nomenclature reversed from how folks talk about it normally. Badass “dresses in black” Howard is Prime, Nice Polite Howard is Alpha (despite the everyday connotation of Alpha-- the one used in this show is from mathematics, I gather).

You are right @Papageno . See, I do find this confusing. The worlds are also referred to as Dimension 1 and Dimension 2, but that would seem subjective depending which world one is from.

Alpha as in the first is also problematic, as it is not clear to me whether both dimensions always existed and became connected by a portal, or whether the second dimension was created by the accident.

Regardless, in the show alpha Howard is from our dimension and prime Howard is from theirs.