Tonight Starz kicks off the second season of Counterpart. The series an espionage thriller with a sci-fi twist. In the first season, mild-mannered Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons) found himself thrust into a dangerous new world when he learned the truth about the United Nations agency he worked for in Berlin. In 1987, East German scientists had created a door between two parallel Earths, and it is the agency’s responsibility to oversee this crossing point. Up until that point in 1987, the two worlds were exactly the same, but over the 30 years that have passed, they have become much more divergent. In Howard Alpha’s world, his wife is in a coma, but in the Prime world, she is still well—though Emily Prime is involved deeper in the agency and has a strained relationship with her husband. Howard Alpha and his Prime counterpart swap places so that Howard Prime can track down an assassin from his world who made her way into the Alpha world. Meanwhile, we learn that there is some deeper conspiracy going on, and a mole inside the agency. By the end of the first season, travel between the worlds is off-limits, and the Howards are stuck living each other’s lives, just as Emily Alpha awakes from her coma.

J.K. Simmons is phenomenal in this series. The two Howards have very different personalities, and it is easy to tell which is which simply by the way they act. However, when the Howards are pretending to be one another, there is this added layer to the performance that is just amazing. I’m looking forward to seeing where the series goes this season, and if we’ll get more information on how and why this door was originally built, and what’s really going on with this conspiracy. Also, how much does Emily Alpha knows about all this parallel universe stuff, and was her coma a result of someone trying to silence her?

In tonight’s premiere, “Inside Out”, while hiding in Howard’s life, Howard Prime must avoid detection at home and at the OI; Quayle and Clare struggle to adjust to their new arrangement.

Tonight I’ll also be watching/recording The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, The Flash, Doctor Who, and Nightflyers.

For additional suggestions on what to check out tonight, including NCIS: Los Angeles, check out the If We Controlled Your Remote… 12/9/18 post at TVisMyPacifier.com.