In From The Cold

In From The Cold
Counterpart Starz Wiki
Season	2
Episode	8
Released	February 3, 2019
Written by	Erin Levy
Directed by	Hanelle M. Culpepper
Previous Episode	No Strings Attached
Next Episode	You to You

In From The Cold is the eighth episode of Season 2 of the Starz Original Series Counterpart.

The episode is directed by veteran filmmaker Hanelle M. Culpepperer (The Flash, Gotham, Star Trek: Discovery).

In From The Cold is written by Counterpart Co-Executive Producer Erin Levy (Mad Men, Mindhunter) and is the fourth episode of the series credited to her.

Synopsis

D2 Howard and D1 Emily work together to figure out Indigo's plans. Clare and Quayle consider their future. D1 Howard must face the truth about his wife.

Full Recap

In a rundown apartment in Dimension One, Baldwin adds a violin to her collection of photographs, concert posters, and other memorabilia from her counterpart’s (Nadia’s) life. The instrument reminds her of her childhood, her overbearing father (See Birds of a Feather) and her counterpart’s death.

As Baldwin visits Nadia’s grave site, she’s approached by Spencer who wants to hire her to kill Emily Burton Silk tonight. Spencer says Emily’s memories are returning and this is complicating Indigo’s plans. Baldwin refuses the contract saying that’s not who she is anymore.

Hard Times

In Dimension Two, Emily brings a wounded D1 Howard to the Inn at Potsdam (Sacrow Manor) where she discovered the Indigo documents hidden by her other (See Point of Departure).

Emily calls in her daughter Anna to come treat Howard. She keeps calling him “Dad” which confuses the near delirious Howard. She uses a transparent screen scanning device that apparently tells her that Howard is showing signs of “hypovolemic shock”.  She finds no exit wound meaning. She gives him drops of liquid from a glass bottle “for the pain”.

Howard almost loses consciousness. Anna begins to sing “Hard Times” by Bob Dylan. Howard recognizes it as a song his mother sang to him. Anna says he sang it to her.  Anna’s examination shows that Howard’s organs were not punctured by the bullet. The presence of multiple shallow wounds suggests it was probably ricocheting bullet fragments that hit Howard.

She injects tiny sponges into the wound to stop the bleeding.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Anna injects what appears to be the RevMedX XStat 12 into the wound. The syringe-like device injects a group of small, rapidly-expanding sponges into the wound. The sponges then rapidly expand and exert hemostatic pressure to stop the bleeding. The device recieved FDA approval in our world in 2017.

As Howard rests, Emily and Anna step outside and discuss Anna’s suspicion that her parents are spies. Emily assures her that they do indeed work for the United Nations, but admits they could be classified as spies. Anna says she always knew but, when she was eight, made up stories in which her parents were super heroes. Emily says that Anna is the superhero for putting up with them all those years.

Emily warns Anna that she can't tell anyone about her parents because the truth could put lives at risk.

The Skin of Your Past

Peter and Clare take the baby upstairs at the Dimension One version of the Indigo School. The place brings back many memories for Clare and she hears Mira’s voice telling her to shed the skin of her past.

Clare explains to Peter some of the things she went through at the school, the constant testing about her other’s life which Clare says was like a fantasy life to her.

They find Clare’s childhood bedroom where she slept until she was 15. There were bunks then and Clare shared the room with Amelia and Petra. Clare explains that they didn’t fully understand what they were meant to do back then.

Peter realizes that Indigo might own the school in BOTH worlds. Clare confirms this but says they’ll be safe because Indigo only uses the D1 school for sleeper agents when they first come over and all the sleeper agents are already placed and won’t be back.

Walking the Dog

At the Quale’s apartment, D2 Howard finds a partially burned photograph left over from when Clare destroyed the files she found in Lambert’s apartment (See Point of Departure).

Howard returns to his counterpart’s apartment frustrated. He tells D1 Emily that his frustration comes from the guards the OI have stationed outside. He claims it reminds him of when she was in the hospital and makes him feel helpless. He says Indigo is going to react to Milla’s death and come after Emily.

Emily points out that this is not Howard’s area of expertise (since she believes him to be her Howard) and says they can’t do anything about it anyway.

They begin to discuss how much Howard actually knew about her job before. He admits that, shortly after they were married, he became suspicious of her excuses for going out. He says it reminded him of when his father would “walk the dog” as an excuse to go gambling. His suspicions about Emily grew until he followed her one night. He thought she was having an affair but then saw her putting chalk marks on road signs.

Emily wonders why he never said anything. She believes if he had they might have shared that part of her life. Howard says they could have ended up hating each other (which is what happened in his world).

Emily decides they should work together now to “turn over” the apartment looking for clues to Indigo’s next move.

A Better World

Wandering around the D1 Indigo school, Clare finds her old classroom. In D1 it’s a dining room but still brings back memories of Clare’s first day in class at Indigo when she was a child. She remembers being tested about her other and her childhood friend Spencer.

Peter interrupts her unpleasant reverie. She explains that the room was a classroom and that she taught the “history of both worlds” there. Peter wonders what they were teaching about Dimension One. Clare says they taught the facts. Peter wants to know "whose facts". Clare balks at this pointing out that she is capable of critical thought. Peter points out that she was indoctrinated by Indigo. Clare retorts that “truth doesn’t need to be indoctrinated”.

Clare points out that their marriage, their entire life together was created by Mira. Peter doesn’t know this name and Clare explains that Mira created Indigo. It was Mira’s vision that powered the whole thing. Clare says Mira wanted “a better world where power doesn’t rest in the hands of Management, an invisible elite.” Mira believed that the two worlds would eventually destroy each other in the end.

Now that the doors are closed, Clare says Mira’s plan is to “return the balance to what it was before the flu.” Clare says she doesn’t know how. Peter doesn’t believe her. She says Peter doesn’t really want to know. Clare claims Mira had a memo, written by a D1 agent, that proved that D1 created The Flu that killed so many in D2.

Clare says everything she’s done to help Indigo was to help baby Spencer. Peter disputes this pointing out that Clare said “a better world” meaning just one world survives and Spencer is a child of both worlds. Clare believes Indigo would never hurt baby Spencer. Peter points out that Indigo doesn’t care about individuals. He relates that Milla was terrified when she died (See Shadow Puppets). Clare points out that she still chose to do it for the greater good. Peter says Clare is brainwashed. She says he’ll never understand.

Belinda and Mariah

In Dimension Two, Anna has finished dressing D1 Howard’s wound with a “smart bandage” and a monitoring device strapped to his wrist. There is a small, square, self-contained IV device attached to his upper arm. The monitor and the IV box glow blue. She explains that they will last only a few days, and, while she doesn’t ask outright, she assumes Emily has somewhere she can take Howard for proper treatment because otherwise Anna would be forced to take them to a hospital which she assumes they don’t want. 

Anna is curious about what exactly happened to Howard. Emily explains they were attacked by foreign agents. Anna asks if her mother has a gun and Emily produces her handgun from the nightstand. Anna says she has mixed feelings about the gun.

Anna hands over two bottles with eyedroppers attached. The silver one is for pain. The white bottle is for bacterial infection.

On her way out, Anna notices the horseshoe key ring attached to the room key. She remembers it. She says Emily brought her there when she was eight. Anna says her mother was supposed to be in rehab but claimed she’d snuck out. They'd come to the Inn to ride horses. Anna says they’d gone by fake names, Emily was Belinda and Anna was Mariah (after Mariah Carey) and she remembers the church by the water (Church of the Redeemer). Emily realizes that Anna is talking about Emily from D1.

In Dimension One, D2 Howard and D1 Emily search their apartment. They find a gun in a closet with 9mm bullets in a box. Emily says it’s like she has the muscle memory of another person. Howard points out that she’s still the same person. Emily says she doesn’t want to be her former self. She says she’d like to ask her “some awkward questions” but doesn’t want to be her.

Emily bangs her leg on the coffee table in the living room. She says she’s been doing that for a while. Everything in the apartment seems to be in the wrong place. She thinks the couch has moved and that they used to have a piano. D2 Howard realizes that she is describing his wife's apartment in Dimension Two.

Emily spots a landscape paining in a frame on the floor. She picks it up and turns it over. Removing the back cover, she finds a child’s drawing of the Church of the Redeemer. Two childish figures, one small, the other slightly larger, are staring out at the water. The picture is signed Anna.

Emily says she shouldn’t have brought the picture home. Howard is stunned. Emily admits she’d been going over to Dimension Two for years but then doesn’t want to talk about it further. Howard presses and Emily explains that Anna was their daughter and since the other Emily wasn’t around D1 Emily took Anna to ride the horses.

Emily says Anna is “our baby too” and points out that their others gave her the same name. Howard is incredulous that Emily would do something like that.

Let Me Go Under

Peter listens to the recording of Pope admitting that Mira killed Clare’s parents with arsenic poisoning.

In a dream, Clare continues to roam the house and remembering her childhood, when her friend Spencer disappeared Mira said he’d been deployed to Dimension One, when Mira informed her that the other Clare was marrying Peter Quayle, and when Mira said that Clare would be the one who changes everything.

She hears voices and footsteps. She follows them upstairs where she finds the younger version of D1 Clare hiding. D1 Clare asks why D2 Clare killed her (See The Sincerest Form of Flattery). D2 says D1 had everything she wished she’d had and that nobody loved her. D1 asks if Peter loves her and D2 says Peter is just afraid of being alone. D1 Clare says where she is now is lonely.

Peter wakes D2 Clare. She’d fallen asleep on a sofa near the fireplace. He has the flash drive. Peter confronts her about Mira. He confesses that when he first found out that Clare wasn’t from his world, he’d come apart because he’d been living a lie and was blind to it. Clare is now facing the same thing, the big lie which was all Indigo had ever taught her.

Clare wonders what the point of anything is anymore. Peter says it’s their life and without her there would be no baby Spencer and he wouldn’t change their child for the world. Clare points out that Peter doesn’t know all she’s done and that he wouldn’t like it.

She admits she might indeed be a brainwashed fanatic. She’s come up with a million reasons why the recording of Pope could be a lie. She wonders aloud if the recording could be a test and Peter assures her that it’s not.

Clare says she feels like a failure because she didn’t resist. Peter points out that she was a child and Indigo took her and molded her head until what they wanted was in there.

Clare relates a story of how she almost drowned before The Flu. Caught in a riptide, a man on the shore screaming for her to swim sideways, Clare gave up and let the water take her under. She explains that, while violent on the surface, the water was calm underneath. She was then yanked up, back into the violence.

Clare cries and begs Peter to let her go under because she doesn’t want to be there anymore. Peter refuses. She says he’s just as brainwashed as she is. She laments the fact that she still loves Mira after everything. He says there’s nothing wrong with loving and hating Mira at the same time.  

Clare admits she might know Indigo’s next move.

The Better Person

D1 Emily explains to D2 Howard how his marriage broke up after nine years. He wonders what Emily thought of her other. She says D2 Emily was a mystery to her with the drug abuse and unpredictability. She says Anna being sick as a child might explain some of the differences.

D2 Howard asks what she though of his “other” (meaning himself). She says she never met him but she heard he was very different from her husband. D2 Howard was apparently assigned to a special force high up in Strategy. She says he was a violent man. She had glimpses of him and she saw no kindness in his face. She says she preferred her Howard, but then corrects herself. She says she likes Howard better now that he knows what’s really going on.

Emily says she used to run all the time. She says she ran to D2 to visit Anna to “get out of my skin”. She compares it to her other’s substance abuse problems. She was using a whole other world to ease what ailed her. She says she doesn’t need that anymore now that she and Howard know each other and she doesn’t feel she has to protect Howard anymore.

She crumples up the picture Anna drew and throws it into the trash. Howard goes to retrieve it and sees one of Emily’s writing exercises. He recognizes it as the type of code they used in the Interface Department at the Office of Interchange.

In Dimension Two, Emily explains to D1 Howard that she never brought Anna to the Inn to ride horses meaning it had to be her Dimension One counterpart. Emily said it would have been easy enough since she was always away, in and out of rehab, and D2 Howard not paying attention to the family. She seems offended by her counterpart’s actions wondering what kind of person would impersonate a mother and tell a child to lie to family for her own gratification.

Emily says she’s always felt guilty because she thought her other was the better person. Howard agrees that she is not but says his Emily is the one that he deserves.

He explains that he knew his Emily was lying about where she was going the night of her accident. He said he always knew when she lied but never said anything.

D2 Emily says it makes sense because her husband caught her marking signals on street signs. She claims that incident marked the beginning of the end of their relationship. D1 Howard says he’d caught his Emily doing that too but just never said anything because he was afraid. Howard says he’s tired of always being afraid.

Emily says it will be over soon. They just need to figure out Mira’s next move. Howard disagrees. He wants to make a deal with Management. He says Management tried to kill them because they don’t trust him because he’s been trying to protect his wife like always. He says his Emily is the one who can’t be trusted. Howard says he needs to make a deal and go back home and say some things to D1 Emily that he should have said long ago.

Cracking the Code

In Dimension One, D2 Howard and Emily work out the code. He explains that the code is the classic structure of a two-part cypher. He says it could correlate to a book. Emily suggests The Tin Drum, but Howard says she wouldn’t use the same book for two purposes and The Tin Drum was her signal to Lambert. Emily is surprised that Howard would pick up information like that working in Interface. D2 Howard claims he’s just guessing but that it sounds possible.

They try a book of poems byRainer Maria Rilke . Howard explains that there’s always a key to the code. As Emily is rifling through the pages, Howard spots a slip of paper covered in numbers tucked into the binding. He pulls it out. He says each letter has a numerical value and then you divide into groups of three representing the page, the line on that page, and the specific word within that line. You then take the first letter of that word to begin the coded message.

They come up with an address: Nordufer 85.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nodurfer 85 appears to be a Bungalow along the Berlin-Spandauer Schifffahrtskanal.

They hug in triumph. Emily says she loves Howard so much and he says he loves her too which he hasn’t said since she woke up. Howard says he didn’t say it because he wanted to make sure she remembered him. She says her Howard said it all the time and wondered if it was just out of habit or if he really meant it.

She then invites him to sleep with her in her room.

In Dimension Two, Emily calls Ian Shaw and says they’re ready to turn themselves in. She says she wants a deal for Howard.

My Wife, Shadow

Clare leads Peter down to the basement in the Dimension One Indigo house. There they find a hospital ward with signs of medical experimentation and records of medical tests on a virus. In photographs, the virus appears to cause large irregular welts over the heart and all down the patients’ backs.

Clare says it looks like they’ve been testing it for years in an attempt to “get the symptoms right”. Clare says it’s their new version of The Flu. She claims Mira’s plan to “restore the balance” is “she subjugates your world like your world subjugated ours.”

Peter is alarmed and wants to know where the virus is now. Clare says she doesn’t know, that it could be anywhere. Peter says they have to tell someone.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In last week’s episode, No Strings Attached, the crates carrying the Indigo virus were labeled as a strain of Chicken Pox known as "Human herpesvirus 3 (strain Dumas)". This has yet to be explained in-show.

D2 Howard exits the bedroom after sex with D1 Emily to take a call. He’s apparently missed four calls from Baldwin. She leaves a voicemail with a warning that Indigo is coming after Emily. At that moment, Howard hears the assassins coming into the apartment.

Howard gets the jump on one of the assailants, uses that guy’s gun to take out the other guy. He wrestles with the remaining guy until getting him in a headlock. He either squeezes until he’s unconscious or breaks his neck, it’s not entirely clear. D1 Emily witnesses this last and knows immediately that this is not HER Howard. She demands to know where her husband is. D2 Howard explains that he’s on the other side. Emily pulls the gun the found earlier in the closet and orders him out of the apartment.

Peter arrives at Naya Temple’s apartment and says something is about to happen. She is not happy to see him but he says he has to talk to her. He introduces Clare as “my wife, Shadow”.