The chess game of trust and betrayal escalates to a new level in The Copenhagen Test Season 1 Episode 5, titled ‘Looking Glass’. This chapter marks a major shift as analyst Alexander Hale (Simu Liu) stops being a passive piece in the Orphanage’s game and begins making his own decisive moves. The episode, available for streaming on Peacock, focuses on Hale’s growing autonomy as he actively questions his handlers, severs personal ties, and finally comes face-to-face with the mysterious hacker, setting the stage for long-awaited truths.
The Flashback: Victor’s Promise and Hale’s True Origin
The episode provides critical background through a flashback to Fairfax, Virginia in 1989. This scene reveals that Hale’s parents were not who he thought they were; they were Chinese assets who became “collateral damage” during a mission by his mentor, Victor (Saul Rubinek). Victor helped smuggle them into the United States and secure forged documents. With Hale’s mother pregnant, she made Victor vow to protect their unborn child. This child was named Alexander, and this long-held secret debt explains Victor’s deep, protective connection to Hale and his complex position within the shadowy world of intelligence.
Hale’s mother, in the 1989 flashback, tells Victor: “You owe us. You owe our child.”
This foundational revelation recontextualizes Hale’s entire life and his value to certain players within the Orphanage, suggesting his path was shaped by secrets long before his mind was hacked.
Hale’s Declaration of Independence: Recording the Truth
Acting on his growing distrust, Hale’s first independent move is to find a secure location. He travels to a spot along his train route where the signal to the hack in his brain is blocked. There, he secretly records a video message for Victor.
In the message, Hale openly discusses his paranoia and frustrations with the Orphanage’s manipulation, while still affirming his loyalty to the country’s mission. This act is a clear declaration that he is now operating on his own terms. He states he believes in the mission’s goal but can no longer trust the agency executing it. He later sends this video to Victor, who finally views it by the episode’s end, realizing Hale has stepped out of his controlled role.
Severing Ties: The Breakup with Michelle
A central personal conflict comes to a head as Hale deals with his relationship with Michelle (Melissa Barrera). After learning she is an Orphanage operative who has been deceiving him as part of her assignment, Hale decides to cut her out of his life completely.
Fearing for her safety if she remains close to him, Hale visits her apartment unexpectedly and breaks off their romantic connection. This leaves Michelle confused and vulnerable. Frightened, she follows her emergency protocol: she retrieves a hidden passport and goes into hiding at a church. Meanwhile, Parker (Sinclair Daniel), the Orphanage operative who scripts Hale’s life, becomes alarmed by his unpredictable behavior and Michelle’s sudden disappearance. Parker tracks Michelle down to a church, assures her the mission is still active, and convinces her to return home. Michelle, however, expresses deep doubt, knowing that operatives like her are often eliminated after their usefulness ends.
The Paris Trap: A Mission Within a Mission
The Orphanage’s main plot in this episode involves a mission to Paris. The agency has located the missing hard drive containing the Mosaic data and assigns Hale and his partner Remy to retrieve it from a theater. Officially, the mission is a trap designed to capture the “lone wolf” hacker they believe is watching Hale.
However, in a private, secure briefing, Director Moira (Brian d’Arcy James) gives Hale modified, low-dose drugs meant to incapacitate the target for capture alive. Parker voices her concerns in this briefing, warning Moira that something in Hale has changed and that he has stopped communicating with Michelle. Despite these red flags, senior agent St. George (Kathleen Chalfant) meets with Hale privately and, after a conversation off-screen, determines he is ready for the mission.
In Paris, Hale and Remy successfully retrieve the hard drive. Their problems begin at extraction when their assigned extraction agent is killed and replaced by Schiff, the very man they believe is the hacker. Back at Orphanage headquarters, the team watches the operation on monitors. When Schiff looks directly into a camera, facial recognition identifies him, but his details come back as “classified”. In a telling moment, St. George quietly leaves the room as soon as she sees Schiff’s face, hinting at a prior connection.
The Showdown: Truths, Betrayals, and a Chase
The operation in Paris quickly unravels into a multi-sided confrontation. Hale, realizing Schiff is the hacker, uses the drugs on his partner Remy to knock him out, intending to take Schiff into his own custody for answers. Simultaneously, a CIA team led by Cobb (Mark O’Brien) arrives on the scene. Cobb has convinced his superiors that Hale is a mole and has joined forces with the CIA to apprehend him.
This intervention allows Schiff to escape in the chaos. Cobb then sees Schiff on the monitor and, in a shocking reveal, recognizes him as a relative, calling him “uncle”. Schiff is angered that Cobb revealed their familial link on a recorded line. When Schiff is about to shoot Cobb, Hale intervenes and saves Cobb’s life. Amid the ensuing shootout between Orphanage and CIA forces, Schiff escapes in a car, with Hale firing shots after him. Hale hands the hard drive to Cobb, ordering him to deliver it to the Orphanage to keep the core mission alive. To hide his next move, Hale had previously placed the drive in a Faraday bag to block the Orphanage’s tracking signals.
The Final Confrontation: Hale and Schiff Face to Face
Hale uses his knowledge of signal dead zones to track Schiff to a basement in an abandoned building. The episode cuts briefly to Michelle, who finds a hidden message from Hale in a book, urging her to “get out clean” before the situation worsens. Another cut shows St. George looking up Schiff’s name in an old ledger, with the entry “Berlin, 1989,” confirming their history.
The episode ends on a major cliffhanger. Hale finds Schiff calmly preparing tea in a hidden basement kitchen. Schiff, knowing Hale will not shoot the only person who can give him answers, suggests they talk. This long-anticipated meeting promises to finally reveal the motives behind the hack and the deeper conspiracy at play.
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Character Developments and Unanswered Questions
Episode 5, ‘Looking Glass,’ is defined by Alexander Hale’s transformation from a manipulated asset to an independent actor. His decision to record the video, break up with Michelle, and secretly pursue Schiff demonstrates he is now playing his own game.
The episode raises pivotal questions for the season’s second half. What is the full history between St. George and Schiff from Berlin in 1989? Will Michelle follow Hale’s warning and escape, or will she remain a pawn of the Orphanage? Most importantly, what truths will Schiff reveal to Hale in the basement, and how will they redefine Hale’s understanding of his own life and the mission? With the Orphanage scrambling and Victor now aware of Hale’s solo actions, the stage is set for an intense continuation of the series.
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