In Season 2, Dark Matter’s Multiverse Expands, Bringing Bigger Sci-Fi Twists
If Season 1 was a character show that happened to have a sci-fi premise, Season 2 is a sci-fi show with great characters.
Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, Season 1 of Dark Matter was a bit of a risk in 2024. Novelist Blake Crouch adapted his brisk and fairly short novel into a character study that spanned 10 episodes, expanding the stories of some minor characters in huge ways and creating all-new storylines. That said, Dark Matter Season 1 stuck true to the ethos of the novel; at its core, this was a story about a man — Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) — whose life was stolen from him by his parallel-universe doppelganger. This meant that the story, despite having a slightly larger scope than the novel, was still Jason’s story, and by extension, the story of his family: his wife, Daniela (Jennifer Connelly), and son, Charlie (Oakes Fegley).
But that’s not the case with Season 2, because although the Dessens are still major characters, Dark Matter Season 2 has expanded and, as a result, is presenting all-new sci-fi ideas, suggesting that this time, the sci-fi engine of the show isn’t holding back anymore.
In Season 1, most of the over-the-top worlds encountered by Jason and Amanda (Alice Braga) were glimpsed only briefly. There was a world where the sun seemed to be burning the entire Earth, and others that were basically underwater. But other than the very idyllic futuristic world that Amanda decided to settle into, most of the alternate dimensions in Dark Matter Season 1 were made distinct by how the fates of the characters were different in each. In Season 2, things get a little bolder.
Without spoiling the various premises of Dark Matter Season 2, from the very beginning of the first two episodes, you get the sense that everything about this set of episodes is going bigger. The cliffhanger of Season 1 ended the way the book ended: making us wonder if the Dessen family could truly find peace in an alternate world. Season 2 answers that question very quickly with a firm no, and then moves on to bigger things. By the second episode, the Dessens discover a world that inverts a common sci-fi premise in an extremely interesting way. Again, no spoilers, but if you’re a fan of For All Mankind and Star City, let’s just say that one new world’s alternate timeline dives into some of those alternate-history waters.
The Dessen family’s journey is still a big part of Season 2. But it’s not the only part.
But more than the strange, new, and sometimes wacky alternate dimensions discovered in Season 2, Dark Matter is also floating a new sci-fi premise not present in Season 1. It’s one thing to think about stealing an alternate life from a different version of yourself. But what if different dimensions teamed up?
As great as Joel Edgerton is as the hapless Jason, the standout character in Dark Matter Season 2 is easily Dayo Okeniyi’s Leighton Vance. While Season 1 suggested that one version of Leighton was continuing to explore the multiverse on his own, Season 2 turns Leighton’s adventures into a story that is basically the exact opposite of what Jason 2 did at the start of the story. After Episode 2 gets going, Leighton’s goal — which involves meeting many versions of himself — makes the sci-fi possibilities of Dark Matter much bigger and, interestingly, somewhat new when it comes to multiverse stories. Yes, some of what Leighton is doing (again, no spoilers!) connects to some of the ideas of Everything Everywhere All at Once, but it also might be more apt to say that Leighton’s masterplan is closer to the premise of the deeply underrated multiverse episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, “Fissure Quest.”
Jason 2 (Joel Edgerton) and Leighton Vance (Dayo Okeniyi) in Dark Matter Season 2. Aspects of Season 2 could be called “Leighton’s Quest.”
It may sound trite, but if Dark Matter Season 1 was focused on the old idea that “home is where the heart is,” then Season 2 is another idiom: “Do what you love and you won’t work a day in your life.” Despite Season 1’s ambitious multiverse hopping, it was still mostly about relationships, and the idea of how love, marriage, and family can make or break a life. But in Season 2, Leighton’s various selves represent a much larger diversity of life’s purpose. Leighton is doing what he loves in Season 2, and those actions are either going to unite the multiverse or destroy it.
