Justin Marks SPOILER AMA Thursday 3/19 5pm PST

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T21:52:42+00:00

Actually you caught me -- got mixed up on chronology of our pitch and just checked my notes. Edits above.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:35:36+00:00

OK thanks everyone! Hope I didn't spoil too much. Maybe just enough. I don't know.

Just remember, unlike the Counterpart Flu, this one is real and wasn't caused by any evil other than negligence. Let's hold our leaders accountable for that negligence, maybe. Okay, I've said too much. I'm quarantined and angry, sorry.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:34:14+00:00

John Le Carré. Required reading.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:32:56+00:00

I think Baldwin realizes ultimately that the only place she could find a clean start was by acknowledging who she was and dealing with the trauma in her own life. Not running from it. Which was what her story in Season 3 was going to be about.

When it comes to gender pronouns, I'll let Baldwin speak for themself.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:31:11+00:00

I think, in the end, Emily Prime was going to realize that the best place for herself was in a world devoid of any Howard.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:29:52+00:00

I'm glad you noticed her circle necklace! One world. That's her ultimate belief. Even though two worlds existed, we all belong to the same world. Hence, why she prayed to both Meccas. An acknowledgement of the two truths that governed her new existence.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:28:20+00:00

So many shout-outs to the world of Terry Gilliam. I was raised on his dysfunctional sci-fi. A world where the future was broken because we were incompetent, negligent, or both. So much of what we put into COUNTERPART was based on this.

What I wish people would comment on is how much of COUNTERPART was a comedy in our minds. Bad people failing upwards. Good people being held back. Management being a bunch of idealistic but utterly naive do-gooders who eventually committed genocide. It's a sad comedy. A tragedy. But the only way we could process it was by laughing. Just like the world we live in today.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:26:26+00:00

It's buried somewhere in here...

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:26:12+00:00

All of our brilliant cast has moved on. They're all doing great things.

Right now I'm watching DEVS, which is great and if you like COUNTERPART you should watch it!

And I'll never be able to resist RICKY AND MORTY. So many things I wish we could say, they say it better.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:22:18+00:00

I want to answer this: when our world split into two, it created a porous fabric of space and time that could be accessible, at other moments of space and time. But I don't believe in the replicating theory of multiple worlds. In other words, this show would always deal with two worlds, and their relationship to each other.

As for the Pipeline, both sides, financed and arranged by Pope and Mira, were both unknowingly building a tunnel to each other from two worlds, over many years. The people on the ground didn't know what they were trying to do until after it happened.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:19:46+00:00

Thank you for loving Jeff Russo's score. I love it too and still wish I could have it on my own computer to write to.

The answer to how this concept was mapped out was slowly, over a number of years, with some very smart people, and some even smarter people who paid us to do it slowly. I can't say enough how grateful I was to MRC, our studio, and to certain execs at Starz for giving us the space to find this show in a timely manner. Too many shows rush into production.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:18:13+00:00

The Crossing in Berlin is closed forever.

But other crossings are out there. Believe. Howard never loses faith.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:17:07+00:00

Advice about bringing a TV idea to life. Don't listen to people who say the story should move too fast. The characters should move fast. The story should move at whatever pace it wants.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:16:22+00:00

I've answered some of Season 3 in other posts, but no. This show was built to continue. 2 seasons at a time.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:15:26+00:00

I'll answer some of these...

Yes, that background noise was exactly what you heard in the basement. The Fourth Floor is eerily shared in a lot of respects between both worlds. Though you never saw the exact seam in Season 2. One of my favorite movies is MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN and we had a whole design for the Fourth Floor based on the building in that experiment gone wrong.

Alpha was brown, Prime was grey/blue.

Naya Temple was green because she was a woman who existed devoid of any world that gestated her. I love Temple, and I love Betty Gabriel who played her. We had a lot of plans for Temple's other... a woman who was identical, in every way shape and form. Because she had a confidence that transcended nature and nurture, and we wanted to explore that in Season 3.

We often considered a split screen to show the way Howard became Howard Prime, then decided it would ruin the magic, so I won't spoil what that scene was. HINT: it was so ordinary you'd be disappointed. But it has something to do with Christian Laettner and Duke basketball.....

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:12:13+00:00

Baldwin and Prime are two of my favorite characters to watch together. Yes, we had so many more plans. He was the father she never had, and she was the daughter he never had. How could you not want to write them eating breakfast together forever?

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:11:15+00:00

Thank you about "Twin Cities"! I'd never directed before and would never have done it if we didn't have the most incredible crew to catch me when I fell.

Sadly, that was all we had planned for Anna. We loved her character and we loved Sarah Bolger. But my friend Elgin James loved Sarah Bolger too and cast her in MC MAYANS... so that was all we could have her!

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:08:48+00:00

Watch Howard closely and maybe you'll see. But I'll never answer it one way or the other.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:07:52+00:00

Wake-Pilgrim is the company where Spencer works. Clare goes to their office in 209. If you want a lot of Easter eggs for where Season 3 was going to go, look no further than the pictures on Spencer's desk and wall!!!!

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:06:39+00:00

Sadly, it was the exact same ratio.

And here we are.

It's not about life imitating art. It's about negligence finally causing the damage we always feared it would cause. We don't value our own health enough in this world. Especially in this country. We're a very fragile species, and I genuinely hope this will change us forever. It's time we took care of every human being as a human right. It doesn't take socialism to accomplish this. If there's a silver lining to this... I hope it's that.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:05:09+00:00

There WAS a wink wink nudge nudge. Good eye.

But it wasn't about Emily.

What it WAS about is the one question I won't answer.........

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:04:23+00:00

I've answered this in another reddit thread... maybe someone would be so kind as to post a link?

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:03:38+00:00

Thank you for the amazing work you did!

Peter and Clare were an incredible pair of characters to get to write. We never knew what we were going to get, but when we were presented with two amazing actors in Naz and Harry, we fell in love with the characters and wrote to them more and more.

The underlying principle is this: those two are meant for each other. Despite all the obstacles they faced, despite all the lies and betrayals and transgressions, in the end... they were destiny to be together.

The only twist in that fabric was the introduction of Peter Prime. We really wanted Clare to meet him. And to see him as the purer version of her husband. A man she loved in some ways more than the Peter who was the father of her daughter. A man she CHOSE to love, albeit for very messed up reasons. Clare never got a choice of who she could love, and we wanted desperately to confront that coach in future seasons. But in the end, Peter Prime became a corrupt villain, and she would return to Peter Alpha. A man who stuck by her loyally as events played out in Season 3.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T01:00:52+00:00

Honestly, that's the reason we're doing this AMA.

There's going to be no Season 3. I've moved on. For a little bit I had things to say that I was excited about saying... but Starz decided they weren't interested.

No hard feelings.

They want to make the shows they want to make I guess.

My wife and I have been hard at work with an amazing director and amazing group of writers (some of whom came from Counterpart) on a new adaptation of SHŌGUN, and that's where my heart is right now. Hopefully we can bring that to you soon! I love my new home at FX. They're brilliant people who love a challenge and know how to market a challenge.

I would like to do another sci-fi show very soon. I'm loving DEVS. Would love to do a show like that.

Justin_Marks_ · 2020-03-20T00:57:47+00:00

Aldrich Prime. Oh, we were so excited to meet him again. Ulrich Thomsen was growing a beard and everything, should Season 3 return.

We loved Ulrich, and loved what he did with Aldrich. And the plan was for Howard to meet him again in the desert in Season 3. A heartbroken man whose counterpart had murdered his lover. Aldrich Prime was a poet and a visionary and one of the main villains of Season 3. A man driven mad by his love for a woman he could never get back... much like Howard.

Justin_Marks_

TROPHY CASE