“Counterpart”: A Rare Find Now on Prime
I’m a movie and T.V. buff! That’s well documented. I tend to watch more than I should and especially during winter I use it to catch up on things I’ve missed. One such catch is “Counterpart”. Originally on STARZ (which I don’t subscribe to) Seasons 1-2 are now streaming free if you have Amazon Prime Video.
J.K. Simmons is amazing in everything he does. He was Juno’s dad, he was Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman movies, and he’s the guy on the “Farmers” insurance commercials, not to mention his Oscar winning role as a NY music teacher in “Whiplash” (2016). This 64 year old character actor is finding it harder and harder to get lost in his roles. I thought he was good before “Counterpart” and after seeing season 1, I’m now in awe of just how great he is. His face is becoming so recognizable and that’s how stars are born.
In “Counterpart” he’s Howard Silk, a mild mannered servant in slave to the same job for 29 years and desperate to move up, but not sure how, or even what the company he works for actually does? This is labeled as a spy drama, thriller, Sci-Fi in the description, but I can assure you that it’s not the sci-fi angle that makes “Counterpart” impossible to turn off.
As the name suggests, everyone in this world where Howard lives and works has a counterpart or “double” in a parallel world that most don’t know about. Howard works in the embassy that is the “crossing” between the two worlds. He doesn’t know about the other world until he meets his “other” and things really get interesting. I won’t be a spoiler, so I won’t give more away that does the trailer, but trust me, you’ll be hooked after episode 1. The setting is Berlin, Germany for the location of our characters and the “crossing”, but it’s mostly all english and when there is German, it’s easy to follow as it’s well subtitled. How would you act if you met your “Counterpart”?
