What I’m Watching: Counterpart

Counterpart: Season 1, Episode 4 “Both Sides Now” (B+)

This proved to be an exciting experiment, one which put our ill-prepared Howard on the other side and found him not under threat of being discovered by enemy forces or taken out by an assassin’s bullet but instead of being way too nice to be convincing as the Howard they all know and don’t particularly like. Our Howard spent so long telling theirs how he has to be early to work and what he doesn’t do, and theirs didn’t offer anything up about his life, like the fact that he has a daughter and that his Emily, fortunately, is very much alive much to be delight since I thought she was dead following the events of last week’s episodes. Our Howard was right to take theirs to task for treating him so poorly, and it was great to see him, inspired by the other Emily, stand up for himself and insist that he’s going to make the most of his time over there without needing a babysitter and strict rules to regulate his behavior. The other Howard certainly isn’t abiding by anything like that, yet he just has to be chastised by an angry Peter. It was entertaining to see just how quickly our Howard gave himself away due to his kind behavior and the fact that he wanted to spend time with Emily, and his delicious dinner went over very poorly with the daughter that clearly resents him. I’m intrigued to see how Howard develops as a person on the other side and what’s next to come on this show.