‘Dark Matter’ – Season 2 TV Review: A Multiverse Story Gets More Personal

The existential sci-fi premise that drove the first season of Dark Matter is developed even further in the second, which takes its convoluted quantum-physics logic and infinite parallel universes and, most of the time, steers it toward a more emotional and psychological place rather than one of pure mystery, action and/or suspense. That suspension—never permanent, but quite noticeable—of constantly piling on complications, explaining how things work, and keeping us perpetually confused about who is who and which universe they are in allows the series to continue and deepen in an unexpected way: restrained, elegant, and even moving.

A brief recap (with SPOILERS) of the first season should cover the basics. Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) is a physicist who is kidnapped by an alternate version of himself and thrown into a parallel universe, where he discovers a device that allows people to travel between realities and can infinitely multiply the possibilities of a single life. After passing through increasingly strange worlds and confronting alternate versions of Jason who want to take his family for themselves, he finally manages to reunite with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) and their son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). The three then leave their reality behind in search of a new world where they can start over.

But that idyllic paradise—a natural, forested setting where they spend several months—comes to an abrupt end when one of the alternate Jasons shows up. Daniela has no choice but to kill him, and when Jason (our Jason) is discovered by the authorities while trying to hide the body, the family has no option but to flee again, much to the frustration of the teenager Charlie. After peeking inside «the Box» and exploring other parallel universes (and Chicagos), allowing creator Blake Crouch to play with different versions of the present—some more futuristic, others less so, some more repressive, others more progressive—the Dessen family settles on a world that seems somewhat technologically behind our own. It’s something like a Chicago from the 1980s or ’90s: no internet, no social media, friendly, and populated by much warmer people.

This is where they settle, at least for a while, with a certain degree of peace. They find out what happened to the Dessens in this world, establish that they live far away, and, with so little technology at their disposal, assume they can keep a low profile. But it won’t be easy. Not so much because of potential encounters, discoveries or areas of conflict with their «other selves,» but because of their own internal, personal problems—and, in particular, some unexpected issues that emerge in the couple’s relationship. Curiously, for a good stretch of the season, the family’s problems have little to do with technology, mystery or pursuit. At times, Dark Matter becomes something closer to an adult drama than a sci-fi thriller driven by suspense and action.

But all of that continues to circulate beneath the marital storyline, occasionally reclaiming the foreground. The other key characters are still there, too. Amanda (Brazilian actress Alice Braga) decides to remain in an apparently utopian version of Chicago, where she eventually reunites with Ryan (Jimmi Simpson). Blair (Amanda Brugel), meanwhile, continues searching for a reality where she can start over after passing through increasingly hostile worlds. And the more sinister Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi) becomes fascinated by the possibilities of the Box and the multiverse in general. Controlling and manipulating the Box once again becomes one of the central plotlines, an aspect that is considerably less interesting and more routine than the protagonists’ personal drama.

Dark Matter becomes stronger when it recognizes that the narrative device invented for this story works extremely well as a metaphor for questions surrounding human relationships. Can people really change if the circumstances around them change? How different would we be if we made different choices in our lives? Jason and Daniela’s new experiences are tied to their «multiversal» problems, but beyond those circumstances, what happens to them is really about who they are and how they relate to one another, how they connect with each other and with those around them. It is thanks to that narrative decision that the series grows and improves, becoming smarter than it is clever, more honest.

That isn’t always the case, of course, because the narrative thread of intersecting, overlapping worlds and infinite versions of the same characters —Jason in particular— remains central to the story, generating some tense and suspenseful moments but, more often than not, interrupting what could very well be the story of a couple, a family, and the situations and circumstances that shape them. Those are the rules of the game, naturally, and it is nevertheless admirable that Crouch—who wrote this season from scratch, since there is no literary sequel to his original novel—has managed to push his story even further toward domestic drama. Because that is ultimately where, at least for these three protagonists, the fate of all humanity in every possible universe is at stake. And in the impossible ones, too.