Season: 2 / Episode: 3 (13) / Starz
Spoilers be getting freaky with themselves and…themselves. Previous COUNTERPART recaps are here***
Maaaan, listen. We outside the club and everybody looks like they’re having a good time. Until we finally see Baldwin. Look fam, Baldwin been through A LOT. Scar healing up. I just wanted her to make it, nah mean. She gotta bag full of cash and a empty workload, I was really hoping she was settling down and living the good life.
These Primes Ain’t Loyal
But naaaaaah. She out here waiting on that boo she scorned back in season one. Greta comes out the club to meet her girlfriends and spots Baldwin. Baldwin is like, sheeiiit, I done did the hit (sorta) so my dance card is empty. But then Greta’s new bae roll up and put her arm around her. I say gotdamn. She out here rockin’ Baldwin’s haircut too?!?! Not like dis. Not like dis. Great is like, yeah, let’s get out here cuz my identity thieving, gun toting ex my kill everybody up in this mutafucka.
And if you thought Baldwin was having a bad night, that was before somebody got the drop on her and stuck a syringe in her neck. YIIIIIIIKES.
Snake Ass Clare on her evening run and of course it’s a meeting with Lambert. Dude on the bench lookin’ like he lives on the bench. He gives her shit about not contacting the other cell. He also gives her the responsibility of paying the debts for some visas.
Two Times the Self Absorption
Lambert goes home to hear some folks getting it IN at his apartment. It’s a woman and…him. Of fucking course Lambert lives with his other. Even though they’re on a first name basis with Lena, Lena lets him know that if two Lamberts are in the round, then she getting paid for both.
Also, look, I don’t know much about inter-dimensional doubles from other worlds, but I can’t be the only one that thinks its unusual to make eye contact with your other while you pleasure yourself and he is halfway to his O-Face. Like…this ain’t about your sexuality, I just don’t know what to do with about seeing own Vinegar Strokes, man.
I Wanna Get Freaky With Me
To be clear…that’s not where the weird shit ends. Turns out, there are two Lamberts but they treat themselves as interchangeable. You don’t even know when one you getting, but both of them are on the same page and working with Indigo. While they are cuddling, pre-spooning, whatever, they discuss how Snake Ass Clare is different. They starting to question her loyalty, but yo…she still out here doing all the dirt so I dunno about that fam.
Why Did You Request The Transfer Order?
Howard up in the cell awaiting transfer and this traitorous Indigo bastard is putting a tracker or some shit in his pills. He tells Howard he has to take them for immunizations on his way to this blacksite Echo.
They got your dude with the black bag over the fuckin’ head, put in the shell game trucks for delivery. Shit is all bad man.
Meanwhile, Howard in Black, living Howard’s fuckin’ life, is reading to E-Amnesia. E-Amnesia trying to work out the details from her memory. She noticing that Howard seems to be doing shit different than old habits she remembers and he’s like, yeah…I’m out here, new year, new me, nowhatImsayin? He goes to work and a dude handing out flyers hit HIB with the secret code on the joint right below the women get in for free before 10pm promo.
Section Two or Section Too
HIB goes to the meet at a coffee shop and a brotha watching the door hurries over to him. Fam, can I just say that the Black men quotient on this show has jumped up exponentially? I mean, we still working on the sista representation, but crawling / walking, ya know.
Apparently, dude is from Section 2, whatever the hell that is and freaking the fuck out. He’s like, first off, the fuck are you doing here looking like an Interface lifer. Lookin’ like Clark Kent under a red sun and shit. Anyways, dude is paranoid cuz he know that Prime folks being hunted Jedis after the fall. He’s like, the only play we got is if we grab Lambert and turn him over, that might spare us. HIB is like, Lambert? Never heard of him. Brotha from Section 2 is like, yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit on that one.
But Who is The Prisoner?
And he can do that cuz it turns out, they are the ones that kidnapped Baldwin. They got her strapped to the chair like Get Out, fam. She’s like the only person I’m talking to is this fake ass Howard. Alone.
Some Real Spy Shit My Pete?
Snake Ass Clare doing the mommy thing. Ballad of the Fallen Pete got the triple lockdown security in his room and he takes a tracker recording device out of SAC’s shoes. LOOK AT FUCKING PETE SHOWING SOME FUCKING SPYCRAFT GOOD GAWD WE BEEN WAITING. Though, you can tell Clare ain’t no really runner cuz you can definitely feel some shit in your shoes when something at ain’t right. BFP know she be runnin’ for play play.
He hears the conversation with Lambert and knows about the house concerning the visas.
EPMD is Fed Up
Emily Prime debriefing with Management. She says she’s got an address to check out but management hits her with the record scratch like, yeah, we knew about that shit, ain’t nothing there, keep it movin. Management wants her to follow up on one of the bodies and see how they connect to Mira. They also ask her about any other files she may have discovered at the safehouse. EPMD is like, Oil, what bish, you cookin?
Needless to say, EPMD got some doubbbbbbts. She don’t think it’s a coincidence that E-Amnesia been getting her passport stamped for ten years without anyone knowing and don’t management don’t want them to check a solid lead. She convinces Ian to check the address that Management didn’t want them fucking with. Before Ian leaves, he lets EPMD know that Howard done been shipped to Echo. Look, this shit must be all bad cuz EPMD instantly goes into the fetal position when she hears that.
Arkham Echo
Back to Howard, still black-bagged over the head, gets dropped off at Echo. Nothing good about this shit. They basically escort your boy into an airport hangar. There must be about four lights total in this whole place and three of them are in the MRI room. Dude getting a whole ass physical workup. You’d think he was signed up for the Affordable Care act with all the medical treatment he’s getting.
They escort him into a prison, basically. Just muthafuckas in gray ass jumpsuits. One of the first people he sees is Pete. Muthafuckin, crazy ass Lawnmower Man Pete. He’s astonished that Howard called him Mister, so now he needs to know how important he is on the other side. Fair to say, Pete probably isn’t passing any psych exams in the near future. Basically, his job is to be a snitch for Ballad of Fallen Pete on the other side, telling his most intimate secrets that only a Pete would know. To be exploited.
And that’s what this whole place is. A bunch of doubles being mind-strip mined for intel on their others. Cold. Fucking. World.
Yeah, Howard Just Digging Deeper
Back on Earth proper, HIB is talking to Baldwin and he’s pissed. He’s like, sheeeiiit, if you weren’t gonna start a new life with that money, I should’ve kept that shit for myself. Of course Baldwin is like, yeah, did your ass bounce and HIB ain’t got shit to say to that. HIB is like, so what now and cold ass Baldwin is like, yeah, you could just take care of my captors. HIB is like, yo, I ain’t that fucking heartless, these my folks. So the only way to help Baldwin, not kill his people and keep their faith in him is to find Lambert. Then HIB drops this bar:
You need to take care of him. He needs to not be a problem anymore…and then you fuck off so that you’re not a problem anymore.
That sounds great but you know HIB just made his life 10 times more complicated.
Spy Hunter On The Case
Nia baaaaaaack. Our favorite spy hunter rolls up on the Silk residence and introduces herself to E-Amnesia. As opposed to everyone that’s feeling her out to see what she knows, Nia actually brings the dossier to tell her exactly what the hell she was doing for for Division. Man, HIB is gonna have him a whole ass day, ain’t he?
SAC on the bus to meet the Indigo contact. She gives dude the marching orders that the cell is activated. Dude staring her down and SAC is like, fam, this is now how we do this spy shit. He’s like, so you ain’t gonna holla at your soulmate when you see him 25 years later? This grizzled in the field, sexy ass beard and no braces dude is Spencer. You know, the muthafucka that Snake Ass Clare named her daughter after. He really looking at her like yeah, my glow up was real and you missssssed it.
But Seriously, Everyone is Miserable
Ballad of Fallen Pete sulking away in his office. He tells his secretary that he has time sensitive intel that needs to be moved on. I swear if BFP actually does something with that intel that puts SAC and Indigo at risk, we might have to give this bastard a new nickname.
Howard gets escorted into a room that looks…less than sanitary. My dude Yanek walks in starts fucking with Howard. He’s like, fam, your not-boy Howard is over there erasing your life. How you think this shit gonna end? Howard is convinced that he’s a different person that HIB and Yanek is like, that’s cuz you’ve never had to be. Shit was pure bars though. Yanek got me thinking of my own existence and paths taken and shit.
Ian On The Prowl
Ian goes to check out that address and it was in fact Black man gatekeeper #1 that we saw Mira shaking down. And she shook our Uncle gatekeeper all the way down. Ian finds my dude beaten brutalized to death in his apartment. Ian meets the neighbor and gets the intel that Mira (“she was pretty. And ugly” LOL) came around. She also stated the last time she saw Uncle Gatekeeper, he was gardening in the middle of winter like a crazy person. Crazy like a…fox?
Ian makes the call to EPMD to let her know what he found (so far) but also finds a cache hidden in the backyard. Dude digs up a briefcase and knows this shit only going deeper. Especially since Management didn’t want them anywhere near this shit.
EPMD goes to look at some personnel files to follow the lead that Management sent her on. Dude at the desk looking at her like he never gets fucking visitors.
A Tale of Two Emilys
FAM. Are you loving this shit? Cuz I’m loving this shit.
Nia reads E-Amnesia in, but yo, we are getting read the fuck in. Nia tells her about the attack on the office and starts asking her what she remembers. Meanwhile EPMD on the other side doign what EMPD does and going off script. Instead of investigating the name Management sent her, she investigating E-Amnesia while she was on Prime.
Turns out E-Amnesia knew A LOT. She new about the school, the protocol and why the closing of the crossing was part of the plan all along. She also remembers some shit about a church where secrets were kept. Meanwhile, EPMD checking the file and seeing all the redacted goodness, checking the whereabouts of her other, nahmean. Shit getting tense.
E-Amnesia having a hard time cuz she starting to realize that she may have been a horrible fucking person. Nia goes to leave and E-Amnesia and E mentions that Aldrich is probably running around. When Nia breaks it to her that Aldrich was Shadow and is now dead, E-Amnesia is like nah fam. Shadow was a woman. You got the wrong double agent.
Breadcrumbs
EPMD visiting the address of someone she saw in the dossier connected to E-Amnesia. He knows her on sight, but knows she ain’t the one she used to deal with. This dude Langston start spillin’ all the tea. Turns out that E-Amnesia thought she had a smoking gun that Earth proper created the flu. This dude Langston brought her to Management claims that he never heard more after that. He tells EPMD that E-Amnesia talked about a childhood place that she would store secrets at, so EPMD might be the only person that knows where that’s at.
Oh, We Goin Out Tonight?
Nia comes back tot he office to see BFP preparing a team to raid that address. She like…oh, you gonna do this shit in the middle of the night and not tell your girl? Bet. I’ll just tag along on this raid I’m not supposed to know about. They get to the spot and BFP is like, yeah Nia why don’t you stay outside. Nia pulls out the 9 is like, why don’t you shut the fuck up let us get into this gangsta shit.
Turns out this shit is an office meant to look like an office. BFP picks up the ringing phone in this empty ass office. Nia sees a sniper across the way and starts shooting. A couple of the team get shot down and BFP realizes it was a trap. So the question is, was it a trap set by the Two Time Lambert for Snake Ass Clare, or by Snake Ass Clare for BFP listening in on her shit.
Setups On Setups On Setups
Let’s just say, Ballad of the Fallen Pete thinks its the latter. And for the credit I was giving this dude for spy craft earlier, he completely blows this shit because his feelings are hurt. But it becomes obvious while he’s pressing SAC that nah, the setup for her. SPICY. SAC realizing that Lambert set that shit up and now EVERYTHING IS BLOWN. Even when BFP thinking he doing some real spy shit, he fucking things up even worse than before.
Which couldn’t be more awkward except for when Howard in Black shows up at the door. And right on cue, he’s like, so, we have a Lambert problem (he don’t even know the half…literally). He’s like, we need to figure this shit out cuz he got us all fucked up.
Howard Gotta Deliver Howard Prime’s Fade
Howard wake up in Echo and starts wandering the halls. Looks like he bout to get jumped in. Except its all beatings, no initiation. D-Block must have all been put there by Howard-in-Black and they like, yeah, you bout to catch these hands for the years we’ve spent here.
But like…nobody believes the possibility that he ain’t HIB even though they know about the other side and crossing and all that? Don’t matter, Howard got the brakes, axles, spokes and transmissions beat off of him.
Things are literally as bad as they’ve ever been.
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