Summary
Jason2 gets some necessary focus here, but the glacial storytelling of Dark Matter still leaves a lot to be desired.
To be fair, I can see why someone who has really bought into the characters and plot of Dark Matter might have liked Episode 6, “Superposition”, and might have perhaps found it one of the most vital installments. Personally I thought it was silly, boring nonsense, so much so that even the sudden arrival of blonde Jennifer Connelly couldn’t save it.
But there are some highlights, at least. This is by far the most Jason2-focused episode yet, and since he has been the weakest part of the season – as I pointed out in my recap of Episode 5 – this is welcome. But you still have to laugh. With almost zero respect for Daniela’s wishes and an absolutely cluelessness when it comes to Charlie, it’s nuts this guy thought his plan would ever work in the first place.
Jason2 almost killing Charlie with ice cream full of nuts, to which he’s massively allergic, begins a series of calamitous turns in his attempts to slip neatly into Jason’s life. He forgot about Charlie’s allergies, he’s suddenly flossing, and there are track marks all up his arm from self-administering his miracle dimension-hopping drug.
While Jason2 tries to unburden himself to this world’s version of Amanda, Daniela does the same with Blair, reeling off all the weird stuff she has noticed about him lately. Blair advises Daniela to follow him. She does this later, but before that, Jason2 puts his foot in it even further by displaying Daniela’s latest painting at a charity auction, without her knowledge. She’s furious about this, and Jason2 is so befuddled by her reaction that it just exposes him as a massive narcissist.
Then Daniela follows him, right to the storage unit, where she finds an ampoule of the miracle drug. She takes it to Ryan and asks him to look into it, and he promptly accuses Jason2 of stealing it from him. Of course, Jason2 takes the opportunity to prove to Ryan that his compound is actually a completed, working version, showing him the Box and how he navigates the corridor inside.
Jason’s lesson about the innards of the Box being the mind’s efforts to rationalize superposition would be fascinating… if we hadn’t seen Jason make the same realizations already. Likewise about how the traveller’s headspace dictates the realities that emerge on the other side of the doors. There’s a nice moment when Jason2 shows Ryan an idyllic version of Chicago with the aurora borealis visible overhead, but Jason2 ruins the moment by disappearing back inside the Box and locking Ryan there.
When Jason2 returns to Jason’s reality, he has a construction crew encase the Box in concrete to prevent Jason and Amanda from getting back to this reality.
This is Jason2’s biggest villain move yet, but it’s less interesting than the personal arc he goes on throughout the episode wherein he realizes that he kind of can’t be bothered with Daniela and Charlie. As Amanda points out, he’s craving an unachievable degree of perfection, but it’s a very extreme version of the grass not always being greener on the other side.
I mentioned Jason and Amanda earlier, so I should briefly explain what they get up to in Episode 6 of Dark Matter, which turns out to be mostly a lot of bonding. They visit different realities looking for the Village Tap, they get dinner, and they dance a little. They lay in bed together (platonically) and Jason deploys the most original romantic rejection I’ve ever seen, telling Amanda to get in the other bed so that he can hold on to his reality.
That’s one way of putting it.
Anyway, Jason also meets a blonde version of Daniela who understandably renders him near speechless. With the worm having truly turned, Daniela rejects his offer of getting coffee. Jason is inter-dimensionally unlucky in love at this point.
Jason and Amanda both find and observe alternate versions of themselves, which only serve as constant reminders of how far away from their real lives they are. The fact they’re running out of ampoules only makes matters even more pressing. If they don’t find home soon, they’ll be consigned forever to a reality they know is not theirs.
That’s a pretty dramatic proposition. Somehow, though, Dark Matter continues to never feel all that dramatic.
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