If you think Lumon’s sterile stairwells are creepy, wait until you’ve seen two versions of J.K. Simmons stalking each other across a Berlin split not by a wall, but by dimensions. Counterpart is a brainy, noir-soaked spy thriller with just enough high-concept sci-fi to scratch the same itch as Severance. The premise? A mild-mannered UN pencil-pusher named Howard Silk (Simmons) discovers that his organization has been guarding a portal to a parallel Earth for decades—and his counterpart, a colder, deadlier version of himself, has crossed over to stop a cross-dimensional cold war from going hot.
Much like Severance, Counterpart weaponizes identity—posing unnerving questions about who we are when stripped of memory, emotion, or the comfort of a single self. And like Severance’s Mark S., Howard is both victim and investigator, forced to untangle not just a mystery, but his own fractured reflection. Throw in double-crosses, bureaucratic overlords, and a few ethically murky lab experiments, and you’ve got a show that doesn’t just echo Severance, it deepens the conversation.
