Something Borrowed is the third episode of Season 2 of the Starz Original Series Counterpart.
The episode is written by Tom Pabst (The Sinner, Shut Eye).
Something Borrowed is directed by filmmaker Kyle Patrick Alvarez (13 Reasons Why).
Synopsis[]
Full Recap[]
Baldwin stands smoking a cigarette outside a bar called Q5 in a warehouse in Berlin. She watches Greta exit the bar. Her ex-lover notices her and does not look happy to see her indicating that she should not approach. Another woman exits the bar and hugs Greta. Noting the look of concern on her face she asks if Greta is okay and they kiss.
Baldwin looks close to tears just before an man approaches from behind and stabs the distracted assassin in the neck with a hypodermic needle and drags her away.
- EDITOR’S NOTE: The song playing during this scene is Der Engel der Verbannten by Juliane Werding from 1975. It is a German remake of the Merrilee Rush 1968 hit Angel of the Morning written by Chip Taylor. The 1981 version by Juice Newton was used in the opening sequence of the first Deadpool movie in 2016.
Lambert on Lambert[]
Clare is out for a jog. She approaches Ambassador Claude Lambert who is sitting on a park bench. She’s left him sitting there for a while as she had dinner with her father. Lambert complains that she hasn’t activated the last Indigo terrorist cell yet. She says she’ll do it tomorrow. He says they asked for her specifically. Clare’s phone signals an alarm and she starts to leave.
Lambert stops her and tells her that a counterfeit visa supplier in vetting needs to be paid off. Apparently their suppliers are not being paid regularly since The Crossing closed and most of their funds were cut off. He wants Clare to make the payment and gives her a partial address, 76 Glasgower Strasse. He’s not sure she’s listening. She wants him to take care of it himself but he says he can’t due to his status as a fugitive or, as he puts it, a lamb on the lam. She jogs away.
Lambert enters an apartment to the sounds of people having sex. Claude Lambert’s other is having intercourse with a sex worker named Lena. She reminds them that there is an extra rate, 100 euros, for two. D1 Lambert says he’s just there for moral support. She insists and he throws Euro bills on the bed. As the pair have sex, D1 Lambert watches and begins to masturbate.
Apparently, the Ambassador that met with Clare is Dimension One’s Lambert while his other was having sex with Lena.
After D1 Lambert showers, the others discuss household chores. D2 Lambert explains that he allowed his other to meet his “housewife crush” tonight and says D1 should do his share of the workload. D1 says Clare seems different lately but he can’t place it. The two Lamberts cuddle and discus if Clare is still trustworthy. They say they’ll soon find out.
Off to Echo[]
In Dimension Two’s Office of Interchange, prison interrogator Osman places a small tracking device into a gelatin capsule. He delivers this pill along with several other to D1 Howard’s cell. He explains that they are immunizations that he must take before his trip to Echo. Howard takes the pills and attempts to learn more about his destination, but Osman simply says he hopes, for Howard’s sake, that Echo will change him. Howard insists he is not a spy.
Wearing a black hood, Howard is led to one of three identical refrigerated panel trucks. He is sat down, hood still in place, and the doors close. All three trucks leave at the same time. Osman checks a small square device with a tiny black and white LCD screen that shows the position of the tracker Howard swallowed.
- EDITOR’S NOTE: These trucks are from a real German company called FRIGORENT. The production did nothing to hide the company’s real website and phone number.
Howard and Baldwin[]
In Dimension One, D2 Howard reads to D1 Emily an article about vacationing in Jamaica. She says she remembers that he used to read to her in a funny voice. This rattles Howard as she’s remembering his other and he has no personal memory of this behavior. He quickly heads off to work.
She notes that she remembers he always used to leave for work at 8:15 and she would leave 20 minutes later. He says he’s leaving early to get ahead of a few things. She says she now remembers that he was a man of habit. He tries to leave quickly but she kisses him. It’s awkward but Howard says it was nice and not at all weird. Howard leaves and Emily locks the door behind him.
At the train station, Howard is handed a flyer for a music show called Nocturnal Folks. The man handing out the free admission flyers is a bit frustrated saying Howard took long enough to show up. An address is scribbled in the margin flyer: Estate Coffee on Georgenstraße.
Howard goes to the address and is met by one of his spies, Remy, from the D2 Office of Interchange Section Two department. Howard wants to know how many of his people are still in Dimension One, there are apparently just three, Remy, “Sandrine and Barnes”. They were spying on the development of petahertz computer processors when the doors closed and they were stranded. Remy is nearly jumping out of his skin, freaking out about the fact that D1 is hunting illegal crossers. Howard tries to calm him but he won’t relax.
He points out that the OI got Edgar Brandt and he didn’t last one night (See Inside Out). Remy has a plan to capture Claude Lambert and turn him in in hopes for a deal for leniency. Remy is certain they’re going to die.
Howard says he doesn’t know how to find Lambert, but they heard different. They’ve got Baldwin. They found her hiding in one of Pope’s old safe houses in Kreuzberg and she told them about D2 Howard.
They asked about Lambert and she told them about D2 Howard.
Once he is alone with the assassin, who is tied to a chair, Howard chastises Baldwin for not fleeing Berlin when he gave her the big bag of money (See: No Man's Land). Baldwin suggests they simply kill the Section Two spies but Howard refuses saying they’re “his people”, he knows their families. She suggests that, because Howard didn’t tell the Section Two folks that he’s in Dimension One, they’re not really his people.
Neither of them knows how to find Lambert. Baldwin says she no longer has any connection to the Indigo network. She gently mocks him for staying with his counterpart’s wife. Howard claims D1 Emily is a “resource”.
Howard says he can’t find Lambert because he knows too much, too many people who know Howard is an illegal crosser. He says it would be easier to just take Baldwin out. Baldwin says his friends know about him and it would be suspicious if he didn’t help them.
Realizing she’s right, Howard says he’ll help find Lambert, but that Baldwin needs to kill him so he won’t be a problem for him in future. She agrees. He says she also needs to leave Berlin so she’s not a problem for him either. He also orders her not to harm his “friends” from Section Two. She points out that he can’t protect two sides forever.
Howard tells Remy and the others that he has a name of someone Lambert works with and wants them to lay low until he’s back. Remy, still nervous, refuses to “sit on our hands forever”. Howard asks for a single day to “fix this”.
The Two Quayle[]
In D1, Clare is feeding Spencer in their apartment. Peter Quayle locks himself in his room with one of Clare’s Nike athletic shoes. He removes the heel revealing a recording device. He pops the flash drive and inserts it into a portable speaker. He listens through an earbud to the conversation between Clare and D1 Lambert from the night before.
At the D2 Office of Interchange, Emily Burton speaks to Management about what they found in the Indigo apartment when Aldus Fray died. She wants to follow up on an address, Kladow Allee 149, they found, the small “dacha” in the allotment garden (See Outside In). Management relays that this is old intelligence they’ve already investigated and says Emily should only focus on Aldus. Emily balks out this, but they insist.
They press to find out if Emily learned anything else at the safe house. She did, but lies and says there was nothing more.
Later with Ian Shaw, Emily questions why Management is not looking into the house in Kladow. She points out that the photo of her other’s visit to Dimension Two is ten years old. She thinks management has been facilitating her other’s crossing for years because, if it was known within the OI, Housekeeping would have cut her off. She believes Management was covering up for D1 Emily just like they’ve covered for Mira. Emily believes her other is connected to Indigo somehow.
She sends Ian to check out the house in Kladow while she goes to the Archive to see if her other has a file. Before he goes, Ian informs Emily that D1 Howard is now at Echo.
Howard arrives at Echo at what appears to be an old bunker in the countryside. After having his blood drawn, urine collected and brain scanned, Howard meets Peter Quayle’s other among the prisoners at Echo. D2 Quayle is a very nervous sort fellow and becomes instantly interested in Howard because Howard knows his other. He seems very concerned about the status of his other in Dimension One and quite pleased to learn that he holds a position of power.
Quayle explains that Echo is designed to extract information, fears, loves, secrets no one else knows from the others of various Office of Interchange employees in order to get into the heads of the leaders in Dimension One. He calls the process harvesting and excavating memories. He says the man in charge, Yanek, is a genius and tells Howard not to resist the process. He says Yanek will show him “enlightenment”.
Howard notices the other of another former co-worker, Marcel (See The Crossing (Episode)). Quayle warns him off getting involved with Marcel and his friends. He says they’re bad news.
A Visit From Temple[]
In Dimension One, Naya Temple visits D1 Emily at her apartment. Temple brought files from work with pictures designed to help restore Emily’s memory.
Emily remembers the Strategy bullpen. She remembers she was in Housekeeping. Naya fills her in on the Indigo attack on the OI. She says there are still sleepers on the loose and says they had a breach recently when a prisoner was killed (Edgar Brandt).
Emily says the attack on the OI was a first step. They wanted to shut down all lines of communication and create chaos. She remembers that there was a school, but doesn’t remember much else. She can’t remember what she was investigating at the time of her accident. She can only remember an old church by a river but the memory is muddled with a memory of her mother. She says there are secrets from another world hidden there. She says she thinks she’s been to the other dimension.
Naya asked her what it was like. Emily says it felt wrong, like she wasn’t supposed to be there. Emily says she knows she saw things that she shouldn’t have seen, faces. She says the things there didn’t belong to her. She begins to cry and says she doesn’t know the woman she used to be, she’s a complete stranger.
Naya leaves her with photos of those killed in the attack. She advisers her to tell someone as she remembers things. Emily says she’s not told Howard any of it. Emily brings up Aldrich. Naya breaks the news that he’s dead and was the Indigo sleeper known as Shadow. Emily seems confused and says she thought Shadow was a woman.
On a bus, Clare waits to meet the leader of an Indigo cell in order to give them their final instructions and materials. A man steps on the bus and immediately sits on the seat in front of Clare. She explains that he’s been activated. He says it’s about damn time and he expected it as soon as the doors closed. She seems eager to be done with the exchange, but he stops her. He wonders that she doesn’t recognize him. She looks at him closely. He points out that he doesn’t have braces anymore but thought she would recognize her old friend. She realizes it’s Spencer the boy she met at the Indigo school when she was a child (See The Sincerest Form of Flattery). She seems pleased but exits the bus at the next stop.
In his office, Quayle toys with the recording device. His assistant, Milla, says Clare isn’t picking up and wonders if she should keep trying her phone. He says no, but then calls Milla back in and orders Housekeeping to his office because he has “time sensitive” information that he wants to move on immediately.
Enter Yanek[]
At Echo in Dimension Two, D1 Howard meets with Yanek for the first time. He has an X-ray of Howard’s teeth and says Howard’s bicuspids are “quite striking”. He says they can’t fake dental records and that both Howards grind their teeth.
Yanek explains that he extracts intelligence from the people in his world to use it on D1 people. He questions why Howard refuses to be a spy like his other. Howard says he’s not like his counterpart. Yanek questions what made the two Howards so different. He says it could be anything from not turning left instead of right or marrying a waitress. Howard points out that they both married Emily. Yanek points out that D2 Howard is now living with her in D1 Howard’s life and asks if he trusts his other.
Howard doesn’t answer. Yanek launches into philosophy, “Mankind has existed in a state of tension since the beginning of time, between what is and what could be. There’s a truth to it we can’t deny” “Any man may see himself as ordinary, but, confront him with another version of his life, the one destroys the other. It’s inevitable.”
Howard says he doesn’t believe that. Yanek says Howard’s other is erasing him from his own existence. He says Howard may not believe him but is worried it’s true. He says Howard is a gentle man and that they are at war. He then offers to make Howard as good a spy as his other. Howard says he’s not at war. Yanek says he’s in denial.
Before he goes, Howard says he doesn’t know if he is better or worse than his other, but he knows he is not him.
Answers About The Flu[]
Ian arrives at the allotment garden house and finds the body of Juma (Louis Mahoney) inside. A neighbor returns Juma’s dog and complains that it was in her compost again. She tells Ian that Juma had guests and describes Mira.
Ian calls Emily to update her. He then finds a hiding place in the garden and digs up Juma’s management communications case.
At the OI, Emily finds her other’s file in the archive. Inside she finds more pictures of her counterpart in D1. There’s also information under the heading Social/Political Environment that details D1 Emily’s strong relationship with her husband, her miscarriage, and her limited social connection to her brother Eric and Mother Lydia.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The listing of Emily’s mother as “Lydia” is either a failure of D2 intelligence or a production error. Emily’s mother, as shown in earlier episodes, is Charlotte Burton.
There is also a mention of “drug and alcohol abuse” but it is impossible, from the quick view of the document, to tell to what this is referring.
Much of the surveillance documentation is redacted, but there is a reference to someone named Langston. There’s also an address for Langston Motors GmbH, Löwenburgweg 122, 14169 Berlin Dahlem.
Emily visits Richard “Ricky” Langston and learns that he knew her other. He is aware of many things happening at the OI despite the fact that he retired from the office several years earlier.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The building shown does not seem to match the buildings at the real Löwenburgweg address.
Langston reveals that D1 Emily had discovered evidence that her side developed biological weapons in the 1990s that were eventually spread through The Crossing around the same time of The Flu epidemic in Dimension Two. It was only hearsay but she filed a report which she passed on to Langston to give to Management. Management assured him that it would be handled and then promptly transferred him. He quit shortly after and never heard from D1 Emily again. He had no idea what happened to the report. He says he doesn’t know Mira either.
Langston says D1 Emily was sentimental and spoke of a hiding place from her childhood where she kept things. It was a place only she would know. D2 Emily says she would apparently also know about this place. Langston warns her to be careful who she shows whatever it is she turns up.
Quayle Hunting[]
In Dimension One, Naya returns to the OI just as Quayle is readying his Housekeeping raid on the address he got from the secret recording of Clare. It turns out to be an empty office. The scene seems faked to look like an office. The phone begins ringing. Quayle answers it just as Naya notices a gunman in the window of the building across the street. She pulls Quayle to the floor just before the gunman opens fire. A few of the Housekeeping agents are hit.
Quayle returns home and confronts Clare believing that she set him up to be killed. He says he has evidence of who she is hidden away to be found if he dies. He admits that he bugged her. She had no idea and realizes that Lambert set her up. She’s pissed that his surveillance of her has burned them both.
D2 Howard shows up and tells both of them they need to have a “grown up talk”. He says they need to figure out what to do about Claude Lambert.
D1 Howard wakes up in his cell at Echo in Dimension Two. His door opens automatically. He wanders out and is confronted by Marcel and a few others. Apparently, Howard’s other is the reason they’re imprisoned at Echo. Marcel says Howard came into their homes and stole them from their lives and buried them at Echo. They beat Howard and leave him bleeding, all the while the surveillance camera is watching.