What I’m Watching: Counterpart

Counterpart: Season 1, Episode 7 “The Sincerest Form of Flattery” (A-)

It’s very possible that I wasn’t paying close enough attention at the end of last week’s episode, and the “previously on” segment provided me all the clarification I needed, which makes its twist ending all the more incredible. I love episodes like this that provide an alternate backstory to what we know, specifically because it filled in so many gaps and now explains a handful of subplots that we’ve seen starting to come to fruition recently. The other Clare’s parents were killed by the flu epidemic in 1997, sending her to the school where she found out that a classmate wore braces even though his teeth were perfect since his shadow had them, a far more tolerable adjustment than having her legs broken because our Clare broke hers. This is like a dark version of “Never Let Me Go,” where those preparing for replacement are ultimately going to kill their others, though I’m not sure if that was necessarily the plan before our Clare got away and theirs had to be the one to kill her. This episode helped confirm who is on which side, with Pope as the contact on their side and Lambert as the one on ours. Howard coming over and quickly finding the cyanide capsule proved to Peter that she was indeed the spy, and he did not handle the news well, drowning himself in alcohol, giving a lengthy nostalgic toast, and then doing the opposite of playing cool and confronting her. While it is true that giving birth likely softened her, we’ve seen her and Baldwin over the course of the previous episodes, and there’s no way that she’s completely detached from her mission. I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens next.