Betty Gabriel, one of the many standout performers in Get Out, has joined the cast of Counterpart in season 2. Gabriel left quite an impression as Georgina in the Oscar-nominated film from first-time writer-director Jordan Peele, and can be seen again this year in the Blumhouse thriller Upgrade alongside Logan Marshall-Green, as well as in season 2 of HBO’s Westworld. That’s definitely a full dance card, but now she’ll be joining the second season of one of the best-reviewed series so far this year, in what sounds like a pivotal role.
Counterpart has impressed since its premiere. The series brings all the elements of a solid spy thriller and combines them with an intriguing science-fiction device: the existence of a parallel dimension. The alternate dimension affords the series two terrific performances from series lead J.K. Simmons, as two different versions of Howard Silk — one a high-level spy and the other a small-time cog in a bureaucratic machine that’s kept him in the dark for the past 30 years.
Though the season still has four episodes to go, the announcement from Starz suggests some big changes are headed Counterpart’s way, and Gabriel will play an important part in their aftermath. The press release from the network offers some details on the character Gabriel will be playing, saying, “Betty Gabriel joins the cast as ‘Naya Temple,’ a former FBI agent recently hired by the Office of Interchange to clean house, a figure both intimidating and magnetic.”
Gabriel will certainly bolster an already impressive cast that includes Olivia Williams, Harry Lloyd, Nicholas Pinnock, and Stephen Rae. It stands to reason that she’ll have plenty of interaction with the key players in the cast, but the obvious question is: will she also be playing a double role? Part of the fun of Counterpart is seeing the differences in certain characters and speculating on where their shared paths diverged in order to create two identical but still different individuals.
Since the first season has yet to end, and the most recent episode just dropped a huge bombshell, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the main cast might be a bit different when Gabriel steps on board. So far, none of the major players have been in jeopardy, but there’s a lot of time in four episodes to clean house before Temple comes in to the Office of Interchange to do the very same thing. At any rate, Gabriel makes welcome addition to a great new series.
Next: Spring 2018 TV Premiere Dates: New and Returning Shows To Watch
Counterpart continues next Sunday with ‘The Sincerest Form of Flattery’ @9pm on Starz.
Source: Starz
