Dark Matter season one ended with the Dessen family—Jason (Joel Edgerton), Daniela (Jennifer Connelly), and Charlie (Oakes Fegly)—reunited and setting out across dimensions to find a new home. It’s a quest necessitated by the actions of a Jason from another world. He forced a life-swap with “our” Jason, who then spent most of the season using Jason #2’s travel cube, known as “the Box,” to fumble his way back to his family.
Lots of collateral damage results from Jason #2’s selfish decisions, with other characters becoming enmeshed in the drama surrounding the Box and the ways it’s used. Things become more complicated when it’s discovered that every time Jason #1 makes a choice while using the Box, he spawns a new version of himself. In the season one finale, many different versions of Jason #1—meaning they share his exact memories and desires up to a recent divergent point—end up in Jason #1’s world, hellbent on reuniting with Daniela and Charlie and getting revenge against Jason #2 while they’re at it.
But they can’t all prevail. As in the Blake Crouch book that the Apple TV series is based upon, Jason #1 is able to convince Daniela that he’s “her” Jason. Jason #2, who finally realizes the agony he’s caused, helps the couple and their son escape to the Box so they can start again. Along the way, however, multiple other Jasons with very strong feelings about the situation try to interfere, and many of them perish as a result.
However, the viewer isn’t really thinking about them at the end of season one. We’re focused on the Dessens, as well as characters like Ryan (Jimmi Simpson), Amanda (Alice Braga), Blair (Amanda Brugel), and Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi), who are also grappling with how the Box has irrevocably altered their lives.
So it was a fun jolt when season two’s first episode, “A Quiet Life,” opened with… a coroner puzzling over a big row of dead Jasons. Dark Matter takes a beat to pull back from the emotional drama to acknowledge that the world at large, or world #1 in this particular case, would absolutely have a lot of questions if 13 identical corpses suddenly popped up in Chicago.
Local law enforcement can’t believe their eyes. And even cocky Agent Mitchel MacNamara, a new character played by Chris Diamantopoulos, is taken aback by what he sees when he bursts in and takes over the case.
But not every superfluous Jason perished. A few have been detained at the police station, where Agent MacNamara—who smugly points out he’s not a cop, nor is he from the FBI; he works at black sites and is therefore hot shit—starts interrogating the first one he meets.
“How the fuck did they do it?” he asks the imprisoned Jason. He assumes the duplicate men are clones, though who or what he thinks is behind it (the mysterious “they”) is uncertain. When Jason proves reluctant to talk, Mac lets him know he’s got no time for that.
“I got two other Jasons in custody,” he says curtly. “The first one to prove how useful they can be stays off my autopsy table… I’ll cut you all open.”
Pressed, Jason tells him that they need to find Jason #2, since he’s the one responsible, and Mac seems delighted by the prospect. We don’t see this duo in episode two, but there’s definitely some action awaiting in episode three, “Everything Terrible, Everything Beautiful,” going by this exclusive clip io9 has to share courtesy of Apple TV.
It’s a quick scene, but a lot is going on here. We have Jason #2 driving a car being pursued by furious-looking Agent MacNamara, with two Ryans (Ryan #1, who Jason #2 kidnapped from this world in season one and deposited in a more progressive Chicago; and Ryan #3, who Jason #2 kidnapped into world #1 when people started wondering where Ryan #1 was) and one Amanda (Amanda #2, who used to date Jason #2 until the events of season one; in season two, she starts traveling with Ryan #1 after they meet in the same alt-Chicago).
And, at last, we learn who Mac is working for: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aka DARPA, aka “R&D for the Department of Defense.” All those dead Jasons attracted DARPA’s keen interest, and it certainly seems like Mac isn’t going to stop until he gets some answers.
That’s to be determined. But that Dark Matter addresses the “dead Jason overload” thing head-on helps propel the story forward while also reminding the characters and the audience of the unavoidable wider impact the Box would make on everything in its orbit.
Crouch, who’s the showrunner, executive producer, and co-writer of the series based on his book, talked more about this in a recent interview with io9.
“We wanted to live in the aftermath of season one for a minute,” he said of season two’s opening scenes. “The idea of, like, what would Chicago make of a bunch of dead versions of the same Jason being found all over the city?”
He continued. “And so that led us to the character of Agent Mac, who’s played by Chris Diamontopolis. He’s in some ways a stand-in for the audience. Like, what would someone who has no knowledge of the Box make of all these doubles of this guy around the city? And then after that, assuming he finds the Box, what will he make of this weird cube with a door in it, and trying to understand what it does with no other context? When we started writing those scenes, we just had such fun. And I think Chris brings a really amazing new energy to the show. He’s just such a blast to write for and to work with, and he in some ways just brought this different dimension to Dark Matter.”
There’s an actual different dimension to Agent Mac in the world where Jason #1 and his family eventually end up. There’s no internet or even widespread personal computer use there, so in season two’s second episode, “A Perfect World,” Jason visits a private investigator to handle what Google could easily take care of otherwise: conducting background checks on the Dessens.
“I just want to know what anyone who looked into us, or knew us, might find,” he tells the private eye, who is… this world’s version of Mitchel MacNamara. It’s an odd request, but, as the gruff but friendly investigator explains, “I deal in weird.”
However, though he may not be working for DARPA, this Mac’s interest is also very piqued when his sleuthing turns up photos of the Dessen family in San Francisco. (We’ll let it slide that Dark Matter pretends the city’s Mission District is adjacent to the fog-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge.) They are not in Chicago. That Jason Dessen is not asking private detectives to do background checks. As we see, this leads this Mac to do some poking around off the clock, tailing Jason and eventually beholding the Box in all its hulking, enigmatic glory.
Dark Matter will surely reveal more in that storyline. But another facet of Box mystique is captured in a less sinister light in the idealized Chicago where Ryan #1 and Amanda #2 become close. There, the Box is hailed as public art gifted to the city by an anonymous creator; it’s viewed with such wonderment that it’s moved from the field where it first appeared to a place of honor smack in the middle of downtown.
The location change renders it useless to our quantum explorers, but not long after it goes out of commission, another Box appears when the Dessens briefly stop in that world. That’s how Ryan and Amanda are able to travel to world #1, as seen in that clip above, where DARPA’s most ruthless operative is clearly about to realize not only are there multiple Jasons on the loose, but multiple Ryans too.
New episodes of Dark Matter release Fridays on Apple TV.
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