Dark Matter: Season Two

I will be honest, this is not the article I thought I would be writing following the end of the second season of Dark Matter. We had so many strong episodes. Obviously there was the mid-season mind-blower that followed an alternate Jason into an alternate world and an alternate life. One of the most stunning episodes of television I may have ever seen. To be followed just a couple of episodes later with Margo Martindale as Laurel running her own full episode about a woman who provides a safe place for travelers in the box. An episode almost as good as episode five.

But the basic plot of the season had to be resolved. So episodes nine and ten functioned as a pair to finish up the narrative arc that the season was building to around the chaos the box caused and how it might be stopped. And they did, functionally, resolve that plot. But the difference between season one and season two is that I don’t think there was initially a plan to bring the show back for another season. Whereas season two is structured much more like a show that is leaving its audience on a cliffhanger to bring them back for another round.

And that did make the resolution of season two suffer in a way. Because, even if we wanted more at the end of season one, we had a finished story. It was finished not so differently than in the book. And, so, it could have just been done. The existence of the second season implies there could be a third, fourth, or fifth season should Blake Crouch keep his mojo going, and because that’s the case, the ending doesn’t resolve in the same way. We don’t know where Daniela and Charlie end up. We know it’s not with Jason but we don’t even get an outside object or shadow to hint what world they opened the box into. But we can be pretty sure Jason won’t leave them there.

Thus, I found myself a little bit dissatisfied by the end of a season I thought had been ground-breaking, unpredictable, and leading me through who knew where but it didn’t matter because they hadn’t led me wrong yet. It may be because of the necessities of television production but another show on AppleTV, Widow’s Bay, didn’t pull the same stunt and it had already been renewed, which makes me wonder if this show needed to, either.

Season two was, overall, a masterful continuation of season one. And it demonstrated that you can extend a story in a different medium than it originated. It took all of the things that made the show different than the book and really ran with them. A cynic could say that it extended the story beyond what it needed to be by exploring elements of the characters that didn’t pertain directly to the plot. And they would be right. We didn’t need them. But the ending, as it was, only worked because we knew the characters so well by the end that, even if it did leave Daniela and Charlie as unknowns, everything else resolves pretty well.

So let’s discuss some of the more interesting elements of the show, point by point. It won’t be exhaustive but it will address the highlights.

Who’s a Latina?

This season we went into Daniela’s backstory. Which is fair because, in the first season, the only thing we knew about her was that she was once an artist and, in another universe where she didn’t have Charlie, she was a celebrated one. That’s it. In the book, we know her family is from Spain. But… she’s played by Jennifer Connelly who is… not Spanish. Instead, we have a minor story arc about her being adopted by a man from whom she took the name Vargas.

That said, that man is played by Gil Birmingham, perhaps best known to people for roles in shows like Yellowstone or, my favorite, Kimmy Schmidt, so it’s great to see him. But it’s also a lot of backstory to give her maiden name some history. Maybe too much?

While Daniela was at the cabin, I really enjoyed the story, even more so when her step-father arrived and then twice as much when he thought he was suffering a stroke after talking to the actual world incarnation of her who was living in San Francisco. But a lot of this seemed to be in service of explaining how Jennifer Connelly ended up with the surname Vargas.

It was well handled and the scenes were well written. But it seemed like something that was added because they never thought they’d have to, because it was a limited series, but when it was renewed they now felt the need to explain why this woman has a Latin last name. Again, I think it was all very well done but, of all the questions posed by the series, how Daniela has Vargas as a last name before she was with Jason wasn’t really top of the list.

Meanwhile, Amanda Lucas, played by the Brazilian actress Alice Braga, only had her heritage addressed here and there. Perhaps the most obvious bit was when she left a Brazilian flag magnet on the box in Gentle Sex world before leaving. Otherwise, the only time her surname “Lucas” is addressed is a line about a man she married in one episode.

The mental gymnastics for all of this is, honestly, a little exhausting. Plenty of white, European Spaniards are named Vargas. This really didn’t need explaining. Likewise, Amanda’s heritage didn’t really need to be explored either. Neither were really very plot relevant but, if given a choice, I guess I would have kept Daniela’s backstory just because we got the moments with her step-father.

Max the Dumb, Dumb

I don’t know what it is that actor Oakes Fegley is bringing to the role of Max but there’s something about him, every time I see him on screen, I just mumble “dumb, dumb” to my wife. It’s literally the same guy who’s playing Charlie! But he really just brings a dumb, dumb energy that’s incredible. Often, the problem with twins or duplicate characters is the difficculty for the viewers in telling them apart. Dark Matter has excelled in this area as all of the Leightons, Blairs, Danielas, and most of the Jasons have been pretty easy to tell apart except when they’re not meant to be.

But having Max on screen is something totally different. There’s something about those stooped shoulders and beat-dog eyes that just really sets him apart from Charlie. Which is amazing for a character who, like Blair, was invented out of whole cloth for the show. Remember, there was no Max in the book.

Amanda, Flipping Burgers

There was a throwaway line in Season One about Amanda in one world being the manager of a White Castle. I remarked to my wife that I really would have liked to have seen more about that world. Not because I wanted to see Amanda embarrassed in any way but because, if the same person could be a psychologist or psychiatrist but they end up a manager in a shitty burger store instead…? I want to know why! I want to know what went wrong and how they deal with their day to day.

They may not know they have the potential but we do. And that’s what makes it interesting.

We didn’t get White Castle Amanda as mentioned in Season One but we did get Diner-owning Amanda and that scratched that itch for me. She’s a brilliant woman left to managing a short-order restaurant, making sure the sugar and ketchup bottles are full and that her son, and his friend, aren’t burning down the kitchen. But it’s interesting because the show seems to continually be telling us that, even if circumstances are different, you’re still the same person at heart. Which brings us to something really interesting.

Enemy Disposal

Look, as a viewer, I understand MacNamara is a fly in the ointment. But what I found really interesting is that, regardless of it being Jason2, or Jason Prime, or Torture Jason, it’s awfully funny how fast they all run to taking their opponents to another world and leaving them there. You can say whatever you want about Torture Jason and his motivations but he literally left MacNamara in a world that was ending.

Jason2, when he shit-canned Ryan in Season One at least left Ryan in Gentle Sex world. Which, at the time, didn’t look like it would expire quickly.

So, how different are the Jasons, really? According to the text of the show, not that different. In fact, when they feel threatened, and when given access to the same tools apparently, they’ll react identically and strand a motherfucker in a place they can’t get back from.

If nothing else, that’s an interesting premise to ponder, doubly so because Jason is supposed to be our hero…

Leighton

What an interesting road Leighton went down this season. As a betting man, I would have called Leighton2 (the one that chased Jason into the box) a dead man. He wasn’t looking good when we saw him last in the season closer. And, yet, now we find out he’s set up shop in what I like to call 1970s World with everyone else and is dragging it into the present (technologically).

What’s interesting about his character is that he is literally the stone tossed into the pond. Everywhere he goes, he leaves ripples. First it’s with MacNamara and his sister who apparently own a family business on whose toes he’s stepping, but then, as we discover in the finale, everywhere else he’s tried to make things better! Bring crops to a volcano-devastated world? Those crops become invasive and kill what plants remain and then become blighted themselves. Bring a plague treatment to another world only for another Leighton to monopolize it.

Leighton is the reverse-Midas. Everything he touches seems to turn to shit despite his intention (I honestly believe) to make things better. Considering it seemed like he was setting up a super-hero council of Leightons in the beginning it was nice to have him, at the end, finally get on board with everyone else in the show and realize that maybe, just maybe, the box wasn’t going to solve all of the world’s problems.

This is proved doubly when he is murdered by his swami-self, who can’t imagine himself without the power of the box. When he recruited the swami, he specifically said that he’d been betrayed by people and never knew why but expected to know, on some level, why a version of him would betray him but… I still don’t think he did. I think he died wondering why. And that’s a tragedy because now the swami doesn’t even need the drug to use the box and, I assume, is on the loose.

The Box

The box is almost its own character this season. There are rules that govern its existence but it’s also a force in its own right. For instance, we learned last season that doors cohere to locations within the session. So a traveler can try three doors in a row, feeling three different things, and they’ll all open on different places but, if in the same drug session, the same doors are tried, the same places will be revealed.

We also learned that all the power for all the boxes comes from Velocity labs and the quantum entanglement is what powers every box. Lastly, we learned that the box pops into existence on whatever world it’s opened onto, the moment the door is opened. Hasn’t been visited, no box. Gets visited, gets a box.

And it’s interesting because they demonstrated this to us twice. First with the “Gentle Sex world” box. It was moved next to the Bean. Therefore it didn’t get power and no longer counted as being part of the network. So the next time someone traveled to that world, a new box appeared where the old box had been. Then, we saw Jason pull apart a box in 1970s world, thus rendering it inoperable only to have the box reappear where the old one had been the next time someone came through the door.

This actually helps explain some instances where the box is in motion. In season one, we have it sink to the bottom of the lake when the door is opened. This is because the box doesn’t float. But it also wasn’t there a minute ago. But, because it worked when the door shut, it must also mean the quantum connection has some range. This was repeated in the season two finale when they opened the box on a world without gravity.

This definitely implies there’s a range where it still functions as part of the network. Drag it a hundred yards and it’s fine but you can’t take it to Indiana.

What I would be interested in exploring is, if powered independently, could it start its own box network? If they plugged in the box next to the Bean and got it humming, could they then travel from there? Or does it always need the computers back at Velocity to do the math? And, if so, in the original world, could they see usage of the box through CPU spikes?

And this is the one part of the story that doesn’t satisfy. I can’t see a way for the world they built in the story to work with a way to also shut down the box. If the multiverse exists and it branches based on decisions (which I’ve said I don’t like), then there’s an “original” world where Blair goes inside and a world where she doesn’t. A world where two people go after her or don’t. A world where Jason goes… or doesn’t. A world Jason and Amanda return to 30 minutes later… or don’t. And a world where Leighton chases after them or doesn’t. Pretty quickly, the number of “original” worlds becomes exponential to the point where, which one do you return to when you want to shut down the box?

In Dark Matter, they kind of breeze past all this math to assume that they’ll just find the world Blair came from and then, software loaded, problem solved. In the book Recursion, Blake Crouch actually thinks through a problem not so dissimilar but commits to a solution. And it’s perhaps this lack of a solution that also helped make this season feel… not quite complete.

Wrapping Up!

So ten new episodes of a show that had exhausted its source material by the end of the first season. How did that go?

Pretty fucking well, if I’m being honest. The story picked up from the logical next step for the family Dessen and then kind of ran with it. We got a couple of new characters, like MacNamara, who served as an outside antagonist rather than using yet another version of Jason, and they worked amazingly well even if they had no tie to the original material.

The production team also continued to be creative with the worlds that were visited and the versions of Daniela, Jason, and Charlie that we saw. But, because there’s Rick & Morty out there, they kind of had to be. But, rather than lean into extra arms and weird details, they made everyone’s world slightly different to explain the differences in character and this was a much smarter choice. It allows the audience to see what’s both the same and different about the characters we’ve gotten to know not by random chance but through their reaction to trauma.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of the cliffhanger ending to this season, I would say that in almost every other way, season two of Dark Matter exceeds season one. The character work is better, there are just flat out better episodes, and for the episodes they needed, they had some Dragon Money to spend and they spent it well.

I really hope the show does come back for a third season just because I feel like there’s still a lot of fuel in this tank. And if they can milk Silo for four seasons, a writer like Blake Crouch should be able to get another season or two out of this material.