Dark Matter Recap: This is Not My Beautiful Wife

Dark Matter

Trip of a Lifetime

Season 1 Episode 2

Editor’s Rating 4 stars ****

Photo: Apple TV+

Dark Matter’s 2nd section rematerializes close wherever the anterior 1 ended, with Jason A connected the tally from a clump of scientists who’ve antecedently introduced themselves arsenic his colleagues. He returns to the past spot helium felt safe, The Village Tap, wherever “We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place” is again playing connected the jukebox. Matt, his faithful bartender, tells him he’s conscionable missed last call, betraying nary motion of recognition.

The Jason B who’s been surviving successful this pouch beingness must’ve had less sorrows to drown or else chosen to drown them elsewhere due to the fact that the barkeep swears to Jason A that he’s ne'er seen him before in his life. Jason A tries to jog the bartender’s representation astir having sold an costly vessel of McCallan’s earlier that night, but the barkeep points retired that the vessel is inactive down the bar. “I haven’t sold a driblet each week,” helium says earlier ordering Jason A to deed the roadworthy and “get immoderate fucking help.”

Jason A takes this precise dependable proposal and reports to an Emergency Room, telling the doc who sees him instantly, “I deliberation there’s thing incorrect with my mind.” And this alternate world can’t beryllium each atrocious due to the fact that alternatively of telling him to instrumentality a spot and ignoring him for 8 to 12 hours the mode they would successful the dystopian aesculapian hellscape that suckers similar america inhabit, the hospital actually admits him overnight, and performs a CT scan.

Jason B, meanwhile, wakes up adjacent to his beauteous wife. He’s unimpressed with the apparel helium finds successful “his” closet but awed by the show of “his” sleeping son.

A Zippo-flick dependable cue signals our instrumentality to the different beingness arsenic a doc gives Jason A the results of his encephalon scan: No harm oregon tumors, though his toxicology surface did uncover some kind of “psychoactive compound” the doc says she’s ne'er seen before. She besides tells him that they’ve found nary grounds of the woman and lad helium asked them to contact. Reviewing the facts of his beingness with him, Jason A finds the details acquainted until she tells him helium won the Pavia Prize successful 2010 and that he’s been missing for much than a year. Using the doctor’s tablet, Jason A Googles the sanction Daniela Vargas — his wife’s name prior to their marriage, evidently — and finds a website dedicated to her creator practice.

Back astatine Velocity, which is apparently the sanction of the steadfast from which Jason A fled astatine the extremity of the past episode, Amanda wants to telephone the constabulary to effort to find their once-again-missing employee, but Leighton and Dawn (Aina Brei’yon) — a physically imposing pistillate whom we instantly grasp is Leighton’s enforcer — says no, unwilling to bring attraction to the information that immoderate Velocity has been up to has caused the disappearance of 4 people. They dispatch Dawn to the infirmary — she knows which 1 Jason would study to, someway — wherever Jason A sees her coming and manages to marque his escape.

Jason B, meanwhile, is swaggering into enactment astatine Lakemont College, wherever helium finds a TA instructing his students connected the laws of thermodynamics. He takes a tablet distant from a kid who’s playing a crippled alternatively of paying attraction to the acquisition earlier taking implicit the classroom. Jason B admonishes these kids to “respect the opportunity!” they’ve been fixed to walk a fewer years feeding their brains earlier they’ll beryllium near to fend for themselves successful the mindless sidesplitting fields of capitalism. His newfound passionateness — anger, adjacent — makes his assemblage beryllium up straight.

A Zippo-flick away, Jason A arrives at a big solo creation accumulation dedicated to the enactment of Daniela Vargas. It’s an invitation-only affair, and the pistillate minding the impermanent database seems taken aback erstwhile helium gives his sanction and hands him an envelope. Another attendant tells him to take 1 of 3 cards wrong the envelope, which volition find which mentation of the accumulation helium experiences. An overhead changeable lets america spot the T.S. Eliot quotation inscribed connected the marble floor: “Footfalls echo successful the representation down the transition which we did not take, toward the doorway we ne'er opened.”

Within the gallery, Jason A is shocked to find respective ample portraits of himself earlier laying eyes from crossed the country connected Daniela. But this Daniela has agelong hair, not the sensible middle-aged-mom ‘do his woman wears and is dressed in a glamorous achromatic gown for the occasion. She greets him and instantly introduces him to her agent. “The Jason who inspired the show?” the pistillate asks. Ryan arrives, but helium looks antithetic from the 1 we met before. This isn’t the confident, prosperous 1 who bought Jason A a pricey vessel of Scotch astatine The Village Tap the nighttime before. He’s puffier, bearded, and with much desperation successful his eyes. Daniela invites some men to a smaller gathering later, past goes disconnected to play host.

Ryan wants to cognize wherever Jason A has been. There’ve been rumors of his psychiatric break and/or death. He asks however “those compounds I made for you” worked out. When Jason A expresses bafflement, Ryan assumes he’s stonewalling and points retired however uncool it is that Jason allowed him to bash truthful overmuch enactment for Velocity without designation oregon pay. Jason perks up astatine the notation of Velocity, which enrages Ryan. Before helium tin laic into Jason, Daniela silences the room to invited everyone to her exhibition. After her thank-yous, she invites them each to instrumentality and acquisition the different versions of the amusement “to find retired if the grass really is greener.”

In Jason A’s blessed home, Daniela tells Jason B that Ryan called her to inquire if Jason B has considered his occupation offer. Charlie is connected his mode retired to spot Brooke, his crush, and Daniela gives her lad the same advice her hubby gave him the anterior time — Charlie should archer the miss however helium feels.

“Strong disagree,” Jason B interjects, contradicting “his” counsel from a time before. “Relationships are a negotiation, and whoever speaks archetypal benignant of loses,” helium says.

“That’s a cynical presumption of love, My Love,” Daniela says. But she’s excessively besotted by her husband’s newfound passionateness to question his abrupt displacement successful property excessively closely.

In the Alternate Chicago, Daniela B, Ryan B, and Jason A are passing a joint around at Daniela B’s unthinkable exposed-brick loft. “Where ya been?” Daniela asks Jason A. He tells his friends astir the chaotic events of the anterior 24 hours or so, presenting the nightmare he’s been surviving arsenic a hypothetical. Ruling retired LSD and “multi-tiered deepfake punking,” Ryan says the feline experiencing each this indispensable beryllium crazy.

Jason A asks Daniela B if he really inspired her show. “You told maine that our beingness is each astir choices,” she answers. “You said our choices make worlds, and truthful theoretically, we simultaneously inhabit an infinite fig of them.” Jason B went connected to archer her that his worst prime was the 1 he’d made with her. And that helium was moving connected a concealed project. And that he’d astir apt ne'er spot her again.

That was the past Daniela B had seen of him until helium showed up astatine her assemblage amusement earlier that evening. His archetypal words to her successful years were to inquire wherever Charlie was. So present Daniela B wants to know: “Who’s Charlie?”

“Our son,” Jason A tells her. He goes connected to tell his friends astir the versions of their lives that helium knows — his matrimony to Daniela, Ryan’s career arsenic a Pavia Prize-winning neuroscientist. To Ryan B, this each sounds like a peculiarly cruel joke. He storms out, telling Jason A to, successful the words of the 19th-century German physicist Rudolf Clausius, “eat a container of dicks.”

Daniela B is much receptive to Jason A’s story, however. She invites him to enactment with her until they can figure retired what’s happening. After she goes to bed, Jason A takes a rubber set and puts it on his ringing finger. Jason B stole his wedding band, but Jason A wants a carnal reminder of what he’s lost.

Back successful the Chicago wherever things started, short-haired Daniela A heads retired for a agelong grooming run, and Jason B calls Ryan to diminution the occupation connection — forcefully, ungratefully, angrily. As helium concludes the call, the camera zooms successful connected his wedding band.

A beingness away, Jason A calls Amanda — she’s moving retired erstwhile she picks up his call, truthful I’m gladsome the amusement doesn’t unreal its principals each look the mode they bash without making an effort — to accidental he’s astir to cheque himself into a intelligence hospital. But it’s a ruse to lure her retired of her house, or their house, so that Jason A and Daniela B tin snoop astir without her interfering. Jason is struck by a monochrome photograph of a waterfall. In the location helium remembers, the photograph is successful the aforesaid spot but features their blessed household of 3 successful beforehand of the quality scene. “I’ve ne'er been there,” Daniela B says. “It was the trip of a lifetime,” Jason A assures her.

Jason goes upstairs into what should beryllium their son’s bedroom. This is wherever Daniela B reveals that it was her gestation with Charlie that was the Sliding Doors moment where realities diverged. The Jason she knew, Jason B, chose the “cold sterile lab” that figured truthful prominently successful the matrimony connection that Daniela A recalled adjacent the extremity of the anterior episode. Her Jason told her helium was excessively engaged with his probe to rise a kid, truthful she ended the gestation and they went their abstracted ways.

Daniela B is exhibiting a near-superhuman capableness for empathy. As achy arsenic it is for her to perceive that this Jason comes from a satellite wherever they kept the babe and got married, she believes him. In fact, she’s warming to the thought of her different beingness — each of it but the portion astir however she discontinue painting.

There travel immoderate clunky and unnecessary expository scenes hopscotching among the 2 realities, wherever Jason A explains to Daniela B that Jason B must’ve utilized his years of solitude successful the aforementioned cold, sterile, lab to conception a instrumentality that allows him to traverse dimensions. Meanwhile, we spot Jason B stowing immoderate gear, including the pistol and the Eyes Wide Shut mask helium wore erstwhile helium abducted Jason A, successful immoderate nondescript retention facility. This all feels like the benignant of lame, over-explanatory worldly you’d sprout for a trailer.

The episode’s last moments are much, overmuch better. Daniela B asks Jason A what their matrimony is like. Both Jennifer Connelly and Joel Edgerton are terrific successful this scene, arsenic helium recalls their years together, and she tries to ideate them. “How’s the sex?” she asks, and helium blushes.

They’re some susceptible capable that she ventures a kiss. They’re interrupted by a ringing telephone and a hangup, followed by a sound astatine the doorway — an insistent, cop-style knock. Through the peephole, Jason A recognizes Dawn, Velocity’s legbreaker. She shoots done the fastener and forces her mode inside, tazing, binding, and gagging Jason A.

He’s inactive conscious erstwhile she shoots Daniela B betwixt the eyes.

• Composer Jason Hill’s people for Dark Matter has been exceptional frankincense far. While immoderate of the writing, in this episode in particular, has felt overdetermined and prescriptive, the euphony has been perfectly calibrated, stoking enigma and menace. Fine work from the composer of Gone Girl and different David Fincher projects.