With "Birds of a Feather", I got my wish after watching the first episode: some added depth to Nadia, the hired assassin from "the other reality". The Howard (dubbed Howard "Prime") from the other parallel world, a "duplicate" reality splintered off from the world of the show 30 years in Berlin due to a scientific experiment gone awry. Prime returns (with 36 hours on his "visa", thanks to an enigmatic figure named Pope (played with quiet intensity and understated nuance by Stephen Rea)), with instructions to Quayle for his counterpart, Silk, to accompany him and the Interchange's "security detail" (led by suspicious Aldrich, who tells Prime he doesn't trust him). Prime is to find and kill Nadia (the Baldwin assassin) who could be targeting her own counterpart (a depressed, tortured, and very talented violinist, who allowed a subway to ride right over her drunk father). Prime actually carries on a conversation with the violinist as she boozes away in a sleepy bar, while Silk remains with Aldrich and his weaponized detail as they look for Nadia/Baldwin to show up. But Baldwin is clever, calling the police to report the deaths of two of Aldrich's redshirts, surprising them in their own car, slitting their throats before successfully prying away her counterpart from Prime's clutches. But Aldrich has his own agenda, ordering one of his guys to take out the violinist as she frees herself from Baldwin during a shootout, right in front of Silk, who is startled at the unnecessary violence. Aldrich is presented as paranoid and untrusting of the Howard Prime, confronting him bluntly about how his suspecting feelings, even giving Silk a hard time, the Howard who has no real idea of what is going on, just moved to Analysis by Quayle. But Silk finds this whole set of circumstances rather frustrating and tiresome, being dragged around by Aldrich and his detail, seeing an innocent die, worried about the safety of his own wife, trying to grasp the whole "alternate reality" that his counterpart explains, gradually realizing that there is so much about his UN employ completely unknown he couldn't possibly have anticipated. Nadia's conscience not allowing her to kill her violinist counterpart, with Aldrich capitalizing on it to have her arrested, as Prime is left to grimace and kvetch the possible results, gives us a different side to her character. Both Nadias carried the burden of letting their fathers die, and neither has dealt with the guilt particularly well. Emily "Prime", alive and well in her alternate reality, has certainly "divorced" herself from Howard Prime, even allowing her own detail to "attempt" to take him "out" because of his secrecy involving trips to the other world. Emily is told to not question what is going on, but she does...to Howard and then Pope (who knows a lot and has the keen ability to make arrangements for agents when need-be). When Emily is confronted by her superiors on an order to take out Howard that supposedly didn't exist, it piques her interest more because she's made to look like a rogue from "Housekeeping". Pope remains this curious puppeteer, sort of hinting to Emily that he is okay with the other reality suffering due to their responsibility for the second alternate reality's existence. This is quite a story arc to unpack, and I can imagine some viewers will perhaps find it all confusing or at least a bit difficult. J.K.Simmons remains quite an anchor for the show, but I think Nadia is a genuinely captivating character, carrying around a lot of pain. Aldrich, and his obvious disdain for anything/anyone Prime, doesn't hide it. But how Pope plays into it all certainly leaves me curious. Consider me engrossed!
Review of Birds of a Feather
