Dark Matter is Back

Well, it’s safe to say that the new season started with a bang. And I’m not just talking about Daniella straight up shooting a version of Jason who, let’s be honest, could have worked a lot harder to be less creepy. That said, if it was me, trying to convince my wife to come back to me, I don’t know that I’d line up an Oxford debate… I’d probably go the emotional, trauma as a connection route, too. But… if it’s not what you’re looking for, if it’s coming from someone you distrust because he’s not your Jason, then it’s also really easy to see it as creepy. And, in this, Joel Edgerton is really killing it.

But let’s step back because this episode sets up four storylines for this next season and each deserves a little bit of breathing room on their own. So let’s go over them in order.

FBI… or whomever

The show opens with a morgue filled with dead Jasons. This is outstanding and something I discussed with my wife at the end of last season. I said specifically that whoever was going to clean up that lake house was going to have a real mystery on their hands. This episode establishes that, yeah, it was noticed. And not just by anyone. Someone who has enough pull to pretend to be FBI but is actually some kind of spook. And he’s being led to Jason2.

This is exciting because it gives stakes in our world in regards to the box. And it gives us insight into what an institutional response to a fucking crazy situation like that might be. What does the US government do when 10, 100, 1000 dead Jason Dessens show up at a crime scene? This is something completely unexplored but worth exploring now that the show has the runway to do so.

Jason & Family

I already addressed another Jason appearing and Daniella gunning him down. This has already provided stresses on the relationship. Daniella was in the bathroom, sobbing. Charlie clearly didn’t want to move on. And Charlie seems to be the pressure point, he’s the one who’s the most unhappy with the situation.

But, then, he would be, wouldn’t he? Making friends as a teenager is hard. There’s a reason there’s a specific culture within the Army brat society. You move every two to four years, you get real used to keeping people at arm’s length, knowing you might never see them again at any point. Charlie hasn’t learned this yet. He wants to make a home where they settle in and that’s going to be a real problem for Daniella and Jason.

Unfortunately, this is the weakest part for me in the whole episode. It looks like Daniella and Jason have a fairly large property but… why not dig the hole before moving the body outside? That would’ve solved one problem.

Secondly, I really hope the journal Jason takes from the cop reveals how the dead Jason found them. I understand if you go looking for a family of three you know pretty well in the Chicagoland area. But the world is a big place. If they relocated to… Fargo… and if it was Charlie’s idea, how would another Jason track them down?

I’m not saying this is putting the suspension of disbelief into jeopardy but it would be nice if we could get this paid off somehow, just to know why nowhere is safe in a way viewers could understand.

Ryan & Amanda

We were teased this at the end of Season One but it was nice to see the “how” paid off right away in this episode. No guessing, no missed connections. This was deliberate. But it’s also nice to see that they’re developing their own relationship separate from Jason and their own original worlds.

To me, this holds the most potential. We have two smart people with an unclear motive but a pretty good knowledge of the technology… This could go anywhere and I am completely on board for it.

Two things I think that deserve special mention are (a) the movement of the box. I like that they discuss both space and power source. That moving it too far away from where it might be able to draw power across the multi-verse actually makes it useless. But (b) I also like that, at the end of the episode, we see Jason step out of the box to the same world (after wishing for a place where people are nice and they could start over) and dismissing it as a world he’s been to before. And I like that the show didn’t spend a lot of time rubbing the viewer’s nose in that the box was where it was before.

That seems to imply that the box appears the first time someone exits it. This is backed up by the world that was flooded in Season One. When they opened the door, the box was flooded and sank from a position that, presumably, was at the same level as every other box on every other world. But, because they could close the door and reactivate it, it also assumes that a somewhat short distance doesn’t disconnect it from its power source. I will be curious to see this played with a lot more in the upcoming episodes.

Leighton Vance

If there was a laugh-out-loud moment for me it was Leighton as the swami. His dead-eyeing the camera with knowing glances… I immediately thought, yeah, that’s perfect for “our world” Leighton, he was a drunk who mastered the box and is now teaching enlightenment to rubes and treated like a holy man because he can teach other people the same technique.

Then it turned out it was all in his imagination and where he wanted to end up! And that was a hundred times better. This wasn’t even a Leighton we knew, just a Leighton who took a different path. But then the “evil” Leighton walks in and blows his mind.

I won’t lie, while I’m interested in the Ryan and Amanda storyline, the Leighton thread just grabbed me as the most interesting one by far. It’s well established that he’s smart. Of all of the multi-verse characters, he’s kind of got the most diversity of character of all of them (entrepreneur, playboy, mystic). What happens when he’s able to synthesize all these into one super-Leighton? What’s his goal?

Even if he’s just a chaos agent, that will be stunningly interesting, I have no doubt.

Moving Forward

I’m not intending to write an article after each episode of this season. But I will certainly write a wrap-up when the season ends, discussing the through-lines and themes of the season and how it connects to the first season and the book.

What I will probably do is check in again at the half-way point of the season just to see how these four storylines are progressing and make some predictions as to where they’ll be by the end.

In the meantime, I encourage anyone reading this to keep up with the show and have a good time. There are few, if any, shows like this on TV at the moment and they deserve all the support they can earn, if just to encourage content providers to make even more.