No Man's Land (Part 2)

**No Man's Land** is the two-part, two-night Season 1 finale of the Starz Original Series *Counterpart*.

Part Two is directed by Jennifer Getzinger (Mad Men, Outlander) from a script by Justin Britt-Gibson and Gianna Sobol.

The episode aired on April 1.

## Production

When they initially broke the episode in the writers' room, it had different names attached to some of the characters and a few different title options.

Due to their proliferation, the production team banned arm slings from future episodes after watching a first cut of No Man's Land Part 2.

According to Justin Marks, the final scene between D2 Howard and Peter Quayle at the hotel bar had both actors laughing. Marks says they kept those takes for the final cut of the episode.

Justin Marks says the final scene with D1 Emily waking to find D2 Howard at her bedside was always the goal.

**"There was never a moment when we didn't think this first season would end with Emily's eyes opening to see the man who isn't actually her husband. It was a guiding light."**

## Full Recap Part 2

A confused woman stumbles from the Office of Interchange and is quickly surrounded by ambulances and emergency personnel. The head of accounting (Mads Black) clutches his bleeding abdomen as he is helped forward by a first responder. He explains that “this man right here”, meaning D2 Howard, saved him. There is no one there.

D2 Howard is on the subway. There is blood on his hand and the sleeve of his shirt.

D2 Oskar Wolfe lays where he fell on the floor of The Crossing between two worlds. At the top of the stairs on both sides, OI personnel watch but cannot act within The Crossing without specific orders. Oskar manages to crawl to the side of The Crossing and prop himself into a sitting position with his back against the wall.

### A Tragic Case of Workplace Violence

Peter Quayle is just waking up in the hospital. On the television, an announcer explains that “…the ministry building off Eberstrasse has been leased by the United Nations, purportedly as administrative overflow.” The television news cuts to an interview with Roland Fancher outside the OI gates. A reporter asks if he knows the motive of “the shooters”. Fancher is quick to correct her that there was only one shooter.

Another reporter says that initial reports told of multiple gunmen. Fancher says, “Reports from last night were inaccurate. There were not multiple gunmen. This was not a conspiracy. This was an isolated, tragic case of workplace violence.” Another reporter asks if there will be an investigation. Fancher says they have no further comment but does ask that everyone respect the employee’s privacy.

A nurse tells Peter that the doctor wants to see him one more time before discharge. He has a broken clavicle. She says the police were coming due to the alcohol in his system at the time of the accident, but adds that someone at his office called them off. Clare is there and makes small talk about the nurse’s baby and the pictures she saw of it.

The nurse leaves and Peter asks Clare if everything she was working toward for the five years they were married amounts to a office-place shooting. **She says it hasn’t even begun and promises the next few hours, days, months are going to get very complicated.** She predicts the next step is for diplomacy to get involved.

She then talks about Peter intentionally ramming their car into the metal dumpster. She points out that it wasn’t an attempt at suicide because he was wearing his seatbelt. She surmises that he was doing it to give them both an alibi for the time of the attack at the OI. She believes it’s because he’s chosen to protect his family over everything else. He doesn’t confirm.

She tells him to go straight into work when they discharge him because people should see him banged up. She leaves to check on the baby and says she’ll be waiting for him at home.

### A Tangled Web

In Dimension Two, Ian Shaw and Emily Burton are trying rush to talk to Bob Dwyer. Dwyer doesn’t have time to chat. He says Diplomacy is drafting a letter of condolence and “keeping it sweet”.

Emily says it’s all about to blow up in their face. She knows the details of the attack on the Dimension One OI office. Dwyer is surprised. Shaw says the office is compromised and they need to gather people they can trust and formulate a response. Emily goes on to explain that D2 was behind the attack. She believes the D1 office is discovering the same thing and won’t respond well to a “sweet statement” of condolence.

D1 Howard meets with Raash (Marco Khan) at D2 Howard’s apartment. Raash explains how Howard is to go the Church to meet with Alexander Pope at 3 o’clock. He warns Howard that Pope doesn’t make deals but Howard says he doesn’t have any other choice if he wants to get back to his world. He asks Raash what his counterpart would do in the same situation, Raash says the other Howard would run too.

Aldrich and Cyrus (Mido Hamada) find the body of Dimension One’s Oskar Wolfe. They’ve apparently already found the bodies of D1 versions of Helen Moller and Rashad Roumani. They realize that the doubles were left for them to find so that D1 would know D2 is responsible. Aldrich orders his men to clean up the scene before police find it.

Cyrus is eager to go after Peter Quayle and Clare but Aldrich says she’s a director’s daughter so they have to be careful. Instead, he orders Cyrus to go to Silk’s hospital. Cyrus is angry and comes close to refusing. Aldrich explains that if Silk knows who is behind the attack, they need him back. Cyrus very reluctantly agrees.

Peter returns to work. It is a scene of chaos. There is a large pool of blood on the floor, people wander through the Strategy bullpen as if in shock, monitors are blown out and a man sits on the floor trying collate blood-splattered papers with shaking hands.

Roland Fancher catches Peter’s eye and ducks into his office. While fixing himself a drink, Fancher explains that the media has been taken care of. Peter says he saw the cover story on TV. Fancher says “lone shooter” is the key. Mental illness will shut down all questions. He says “I’ offer you a drink but …” in reference to the fact that Peter was drunk when he crashed his car.

Peter rushes to assure him that Clare is fine and already discharged from the hospital. He explains that they were fighting in the car, but that they spoke and are sorting things out. He says he’s so sorry for everything that’s happened. Fancher doesn’t respond to this. Instead, he goes on about a scarf he bought his secretary Helen for her birthday and how her counterpart looked right into his eyes as she shot his co-workers with a semi-automatic. He doesn’t understand why she walked right by him.

Peter asks how many shooters there were. Fancher explains two are dead and one is on the border. Peter panics a bit when he realizes one of the sleepers who can tie Clare to the whole thing is still alive. Fancher makes it seem as if he will die any second. He points out that the man doesn’t belong to them and that the other side needs to take possession and acknowledge that these murders are from their side.

He then gives Peter credit for knowing in advance something was coming when he warned them to keep Baldwin in custody instead of trading her away (See ‘’The Lost Art of Diplomacy’’). Fancher feels guilty now for not listening to Peter. With tears in his eyes, Fancher says he wants Peter in the meeting with Management.

### Management Meetings

Peter and Fancher walk to a nearby conference room where about a dozen people are milling about.

In The Crossing, D2 Oskar Wolfe sits bleeding out.

In Dimension Two, Bob Dwyer leads Shaw and Emily into the identical room where a group of different people also mill around. They take seats along just one side of a large conference table.

In both worlds, armed guards enter folowed by a thin man with a silver briefcase. From the case, they unpack identical, odd-looking devices. It appears to be four camera lenses mounted within a thick metal central mass. This is attached to a tripod. Audio and video cables are plugged into the bottom and the whole unit sits atop the table. It appears that these devices are transmitting voice and images to Management on another floor. The thin men plug in sets of headphones. Garbled and distorted voices can be heard softly emanating from both set ups.

The only difference between the devices is colored lights. The one in D1 glows red when turned on. The one in D2 glows blue. According to the thin men, Management thanks everyone for gathering.

In D1, Peter leans into Fancher to question the setup. Fancher says **this is as close as they get to Management.**

*In D2, Management requests an explanation. Bob Dwyer hands over to Emily to explain because she has “a better sense of what’s going on than anyone at this table.”*

In D1, Management requests that Peter explain if the conspirators belong to “our neighboring world.” Peter stands and explains they were citizens from the other world hiding in ours.

*D2 Emily explains about project Indigo. She says they haven’t yet be able to trace where the money for it came from. She says that for years Indigo was cultivating sleeper cells with children trained in the art of replacing their others.*

Peter explains to the room in D1 that the backers of Indigo believe the “’96 epidemic was our doing” (See: The Flu). He says the attack on OI was their revenge.

*Emily says they believe Indigo have already placed agents in D1.*

Peter says they don’t know who the agents are or how many are there, but they suspect that the attack on OI is just the beginning.

*With the surviving shooter collapsed in neutral diplomatic territory in what Emily believes was a purposeful act, Indigo hopes D2 will claim the body and acknowledge the assassins as theirs. She says denial could be seen as an open declaration of war.*

A D1 representative from Strategy (Pej Vahdat) says they should collect Oskar for questioning. Fancher disagrees. He says Diplomacy wants to hold off to see what D2 does about the shooter. Strategy wants answers. Diplomacy wants payback in the form of reparations. Fancher wants the other side to claim the body, acknowledge their role in it so he can shove it down their throats. Strategy says it’s not about reparations it’s about the 11 OI employees killed in the incident. Both are silenced by the flick of the thin man’s finger.

Management would like for Peter Quayle to make a recommendation. Strategy balks pointing out that Peter is a “Junior Deputy Director”. The thin man is undeterred relaying the belief by Management that Peter was the only one in Strategy who saw the attack coming. Peter agrees with his father-in-law and says they should do nothing and let the other side act first. Management concurs and says all the infiltrators should be hunted down. They place Peter in charge of the investigation and say “a specialist” will be brought in to work with him. Management thanks Peter for his “excellent work”.

*D2 Management requests a full investigation into all of those responsible and puts Bob Dwyer in charge. They also wish to do nothing with the conspirator in The Crossing. Emily balks at this saying, “Management, with respect, in the 30 years since The Crossing has appeared, there have been spy games, clandestine intelligence gathering, but never have we witnessed a direct attack on our neighbor’s sovereignty. I urge you, lay the cards on the table. Claim the body and admit that this is the work of a rogue faction. We need their help. If we don’t, we’ll be playing into this faction’s hands. It could be the end of diplomacy between our worlds.” D2 Management disagrees with her and says Oskar will remain where he is.*

### The One That Didn’t Turn Out

Oskar begins repeating the Indigo children’s mantra as he sits dying in The Crossing. “On the other side of the door, I can be a different me, as smart and as brave, as funny or as strong as the person could want to be.” One of the soldiers watching him from the D1 side look concerned.

Baldwin returns to Greta’s D1 apartment and is confronted with Nadia Fierro’s obituary on Greta’s laptop. Greta demands to know who she really is. Baldwin says Nadia was her twin sister. Greta doesn’t buy it, she grabs Baldwins backpack and finds her gun. Baldwin begins to cry. Greta begs to know who she really is. Baldwin says she’s someone who thought she could be someone else. She’s “the one that didn’t turn out.”

Greta throws her out. Baldwin begs to stay but eventually exits.

D2 Howard buys a train ticket to Marseilles because it is the next train leaving the country in D1.

Anna Burton-Silk (Sarah Bolger) returns to home in D2 to find a card from D1 Howard. It says “you’re everything I hoped you’d become. – Dad”

D1 Howard Silk is met at the church by Alexander Pope. The leave together.

Clare returns home via taxi in D1. Cyrus is waiting in a car on the curb drinking from a flask.

Inside, Clare’s mother (Jacqueline Antaramian) Ava Fancher is waiting with the baby. She calls Peter an idiot bastard but Clare says it was her fault because they were arguing. Ava says Peter was a mess when she picked up Spencer and if she’d smelled alcohol on his breath she would have stopped him. She asks if Clare spoke to her father. He’s apparently been at the OI all night. Ava relates that “Marie, from Fredrich’s office” is dead. She encourages Clare to call her father.

Ava says the accident gave her flashbacks to Clare’s skiing accident and broken legs. She says a mother never stops worrying. Clare discusses the difficulties in her marriage with Peter. Ava admits that she almost left Clare’s father once. She says she didn’t love him at first but grew to love him. She says she felt like she was faking it all the time. Clare admits to fantasizing about running way. Ava says, when things seem most difficult and Clare wants to leave, she should put on a smile and cook a nice meal and pretend everything is fine and eventually it is.

Cyrus is still drinking when Clare comes outside to see Ava off. He waits for the older woman to drive away and then exits his car and crosses toward the house.

### Thus Endeth Diplomacy

The D1 personnel watching Oskar in The Crossing note that he is not moving. The younger of the two rushes down to Oskar with water but realizes the man in the tunnel is dead. This information spreads quickly to D2 where uniformed personnel are also keeping watch.

Roland Fancher is angry because D2 never came for Oskar. Peter seems relieved to learn the sleeper is dead. He wonders how D1 Management will respond.

A klaxon sounds on the D2 side of The Crossing as Shaw and Emily arrive in the Customs control room. They watch on a monitor as Dimension One closes the large steel doors on their side of The Crossing.

On the D1 side, Fancher and Peter watch as the doors close and locks click into place. “Thus endeth diplomacy,” says Fancher.

D2 Howard calls Aldrich from the train station. Howard says he’s disappearing and apologizes for not stopping the attack. He asks that they protect D1 Emily since she’s Housekeeping and is the one who gave him all the intelligence on the Indigo plan. He says it’s in Aldrich’s best interest because Emily probably still knows more about what’s going to happen.

Aldrich informs Howard that his counterpart is never coming back because The Crossing is closed. Aldrich says Howard can’t disappear because deep down he actually wants his other’s life. He claims he’s pulling his men out of the hospital and Emily won’t live long after that. Aldrich hangs up.

D1 Howard meets with Alexander Pope. Howard explains that he’s changed a lot since coming to this new world and part of him began to think he could belong. He’s becoming more like his other and this scares him. He explains that he wants to go home. Howard promises to take his Emily far away from the Office of Interchange and never bother Pope again.

Pope is insulted by this. He explains that when D2 Howard was young and found out who Emily really was, he cast away his “interface life” and ran into the spy game. He says he can get Howard back to his world (a lie), but a “sad groveling promise of neutrality” is not what he wants in exchange. He wants to get Howard to spy for him in place of the other Howard in D1.

Howard refuses saying his Emily would never forgive him. Pope says he doesn’t know her and shows him some of the letters D1 Emily wrote to D2 Howard.

***“Howard, I trust my last letters have reached you safely. They’re onto me now. You’re the only one I can trust. I need for you to reach out to the other Howard. He knows nothing about any of this or me. I beg of you that he never learn who I really was.”***
Howard is shocked. Pope says there are more letters saying their correspondents carried on for some time. Pope implies that D2 Howard wants to stay with D1 Emily. He calls the fight between the two counterparts as “Darwinian” with only room for one of them and warns that “If you don’t become him, he will become you.”

Howard refuses. He says he is not his counterpart and won’t make the same mistakes. Pope agrees and says Howard is of no use to him and the conversation is pointless. He takes out a gun but Howard grabs a fire iron from the set near the hearth and swings it upside Pope’s head. The man drops, apparently dead. Howard is horrified.

### Tying up Loose Ends

D2 Howard doesn’t get on the train. He calls Andrei and picks up the Emily’s bag of money from the café where they usually meet. Howard says not a word to the man.

Baldwin enters the hospital from the loading dock under the watchful eye of Aldrich and his men. They’re also watching the lobby in hopes of snaring D2 Howard as well.

Baldwin readies the silencer on her weapon in the hallway and steps into the room. D2 Howard is already there and levels a gun at her head. He disarms her and explains that this is a trap so that Aldrich’s men can kill them both.

One of Aldrich’s men decides it’s too quiet and orders his companion to “take a walk”.  In an alley next to a dumpster, he finds another of their agents, he’s dead. He radios that Howard is there. Aldrich and the other agents close in on the hospital.

Howard explains that even if Baldwin had managed to kill Emily, they’d never stop chasing her. He gives Baldwin the bag full of Emily’s money and tells her to walk away. Baldwin points out that the woman on the bed is not this Howard’s wife. She realizes that this is where the two counterparts meet, the point of commonality that she first suggested when she met with D1 Howard in ***The Lost Art of Diplomacy***.

Aldrich’s men enter Emily’s room and find it vacant except for the patient. They fan out into the hospital hallway where Baldwin takes them out. One she kills with the first shot. The second is still alive. A nurse in a hijab approaches and witnesses Baldwin put another bullet into the gasping man. The nurse looks away as Baldwin passes her in the hall.

The assassin takes out two more men on the stairs as Howard exits onto the loading dock. Aldrich gets the drop on him and disarms Howard. He points the gun at Howard’s head but pauses to talk about how sentimental he is. This delay allows Baldwin to shoot Aldrich as she comes onto the loading dock. Baldwin says Aldrich is “for me”, and Howard walks away. Baldwin kneels beside the bleeding man and watches him suffer until he stops breathing.

In Dimension Two, D1 Howard is paralyzed at the sight of Pope’s dead body and the rapidly expanding pool of blood on the floor around him. Ian Shaw and his men come in with guns drawn. Howard explains that he didn’t have a choice. Shaw agrees. Howard says he just wants to go home. He explains he came because he thought he was doing the right thing. He admits that he saw what his other had and …

Howard says he is not his counterpart. Shaw agrees but says, from where he stands, the two are completely alike.

They place a black bag over Howard’s head and lead him away in handcuffs. Shaw orders that he be taken to “Echo”. Shaw’s man Lieber (Stefan Kapičić) questions this, but Shaw says, “Tell him, I don’t ever want to see this bastard again.”

### You, You Only Exist

Quayle returns home in Dimension One to find the baby crying and the kitchen covered in blood. Clare is crying on the floor with Cyrus’ corpse. She mumbles how she wanted to have it all cleaned up and is sorry he had to see it. She explains that Cyrus was going to kill her. He goes to her and they embrace. She says she’s okay and he asks what he can do to help.

D2 Emily returns home and finds Ian Shaw leaving with a packed bag. He explains that her “ex” made quite a mess over there. She asks where Howard is now. This offends Ian. She says he wouldn’t have understood why Emily was working with her ex’s counterpart. He questions if she felt something for him. Emily says if she did, “it was just a phantom limb.” He promises to keep her name out of it and leaves her alone.

D2 Howard meets Quayle at the Hotel Walcott bar (the Hotel de Rome at Bebelpatz). Howard explains that Aldrich is dead and they need to come to an understanding. He says he can’t leave and assumes the mole hunt at the agency will escalate. Peter explains that they’ve put him in charged of the investigation. This amuses them both.

Howard asks for a truce. He says Emily means a great deal to him and promises that “nobody finds out about your wife as long as nothing happens to mine.” Peter points out that Emily is not his wife. Howard brushes this off. Howard pays for the drinks and says he’ll see Peter at the office.

Peter returns home later to find the kitchen spotless and Clare cooking. She asks if he’s hungry and he says “famished”.

D1 Howard is locked inside a small concrete cubicle.

D2 Howard returns to the hospital in Dimension one the next day. He takes a bouquet of irises, leaves one at the nurses’ station and places the rest in the vase in Emily’s room. The nurse explains that Emily is having a good day. Howard thanks her as she leaves. He pulls up a chair and begins reading *You, you only, exist* by Rainer Maria Rilke. Emily opens her eyes, smiles and slides her hand across the sheet with some difficulty. He takes it and continues reading.

**“You, you only, exist.**

**We pass away, till at last,**

**our passing is so immense**

**that you arise: beautiful moment,**

**in all your suddenness,**

**arising in love, or enchanted**

**in the contraction of work.**

**To you I belong, however time may**

**wear me away. From you to you …”**