Dark Matter S2E5 Recap and Analysis: The History of Another Person

The following recap contains spoilers for Dark Matter S2E5, “Love and Be Loved” (created by Blake Crouch, written by Blake Crouch & Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry, and directed by Alik Sakharov).

---

Welcome, dear reader, as we continue to review the second season of the Apple TV series Dark Matter with Season 2 Episode 5: “Love and Be Loved.” What an unexpected and amazing episode. Without a doubt, this is my favorite episode of the series, and certainly ranks somewhere in the top five episodes of any series I’ve ever seen. Everything about this episode was perfection. Chef’s kiss from me. So powerful and moving, in every moment.

That may perhaps say more about me and where I am in my life than it does about the episode. I know that there were people complaining about the pacing of last week’s episode, so those folks were probably going out of their minds watching this one. If so, this show might simply not be for you. The beauty of storytelling is when the audience can see themselves in the characters. When you want it to slow down even more so that you can linger in these moments and live them as you live your own life. That’s how this episode made me feel.

A Second Chance

We start at the end, of Season 1 that is. Similar to how we backed up a bit last episode and played things out from Leighton’s perspective, this time we rewind all the way back to the Dessens’ departure from World 1 and watch from the perspective of one of the Jasons gathered at the box for their send off. This is one of the good guy Jasons. Spokesman for those who came to the box understanding that the only solution to keeping Daniela and Charlie safe was for them to give up and let go.

This Jason proceeds to almost give up on life, as well. He goes up to the rooftop and positions himself on the ledge. He fought just as hard and valiantly as Jason 1, but this version of Jason lost everything. We’ve been following the winner of that contest and viewing everything from his perspective. But he really was just one out of many, the one lucky enough to have made the right choices and played the right strategies.

Over and over again, Jason is given choices. It is the foundational premise of this show, after all. Now, he is given the choice between giving up entirely or taking one last chance. One last roll of the dice with the vial of Lavender Wings in his possession. He decides to try. He chooses life. In the box, he uses his journal to write down what he’s thinking, to better visualize what world he wants the door to open up onto. It seems to work.

Homecoming

He steps out into a forest. The box is well hidden in this world, which is good. As he walks the streets of Chicago, it doesn’t appear to be too different from the world he left behind. Like Daniela on her run, his feet carry him to a destination that he might not have even known he was headed towards. This is the old neighborhood where he grew up. Looking up, he is standing in front of his parent’s home.

With some trepidation, he rings the bell. He is nervous. Will his mother still be there in this world? Will she even recognize him? She answers the door and is confused at first. They look at each other, face to face, across a great expanse of space and time. Then she holds his face in her hands and knows him. She pulls him into a hug and brings him inside.

At first, it is not enough. He goes down to the Village Tap and gets completely blotto, puking in the back alley and sleeping it off beside a dumpster. When he returns home, his mother is there waiting for him with another ultimatum. Another choice, similar to the one that Daniela offered Jason 1 at the end of Episode 3. If his plan is to drink himself to death, he’s going to have to do it alone. His mother is not strong enough to watch her son die all over again. Once again, he chooses life.

Holidays

He starts with fixing little things around the house. He does a little light reading, starting on the sprawling literary classic In Search of Lost Time. Some time passes. On a visit to the grave sites of her husband and son, Jason asks his mom if she ever feels lonely. She has a great philosophy about it. She had 23 great years with his father and 16 years with him. Some people don’t even have one good year with anyone.

One day, walking back from the store, he hears a homeless man coughing in an alley. A familiar sounding cough. Underneath the grime and scraggly beard, it’s another Jason. Jason 30, per the episode credits. Here is a Jason who didn’t have his mom there to prevent him from trying to drink himself to death. Jason remedies that by taking him home with him. Jason 30 cleans up well and now Ellie has two sons for Thanksgiving.

More time passes. Jason is now on volume six of In Search of Lost Time. He and Jason 30 plant a tree for the twins and hold the birthday ceremony. Jason takes up carpentry as a hobby, and has eight orders for his chairs. At Christmas, they add Jason 31 and now Ellie has triplets. Jason 30 even has a girlfriend. Life is good and everything is perfect.

An Ending

After Christmas, things take a turn the worse when his mom gets diagnosed with cancer. Her time is now limited, and like any good mother, she suddenly takes an interest in Jason’s love life. She’s worried about him. One day he’s going to wake up and realize that he’s old. Does he want to be alone? Six years ago, when he first arrived here, he thought so. But now, no, he does not.

Enter Maria. Well, actually, enter Jason into Maria’s Bookshop. He gets busted sniffing books, and they hit it off over In Search of Lost Time. The two have great chemistry together, but it’s Maria who feels the spark before Jason even knows what’s going on.

What follows is a montage of their relationship, set to the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk Górecki. They are holding hands at a restaurant, laughing. She reaches out to touch the hairband ring. He initially withdraws a bit, but then relaxes and she takes hold again. He has to tell her the truth. He takes her to see the grave, his grave, the grave of this world’s original Jason Ashley Dessen. She’s stunned, but still with him. Next stop, he takes her to see the box, and finally it’s too much. Exit Maria.

Jason returns to his woodworking. His mother’s condition worsens, and the three “brothers” take turns sitting vigil with her. When it is Jason’s turn, he pulls out The Fellowship of the Ring and wants to read to her. He has fond memories of her reading it to him when he was ten. Memories that they share. She requests a poem from the novel, and as Jason reads it to her, she fades away and it becomes his eulogy for her at her gravesite. Jason 30 and Jason 31 now both have girlfriends. And when everyone else has left, Jason sees that he still has one too.

A Beginning

We jump ahead to Jason bringing some moving boxes into Maria’s house. She is going all out on dinner, celebrating his first night there. She sends him to the store for powdered sugar and wine, and after he kisses her goodbye, we catch just the slightest hint of trepidation furrowing her brow. Perhaps she’s going all out because she’s trying to compensate for some lingering reservations.

When she moves some of the boxes off the dinner table, she spots his Field Notebook. She hesitates. She doesn’t want to violate his trust on the very first day of their being together, but she has to know. The pen is left in the same place it has been for the last six years apparently. Now we too finally get to find out what he wrote on that fateful night. What the box translated into bringing him to this world. “Please just let me find a world where I can love and be loved.”

At the store, Jason decides to add flowers to the shopping list, and as he looks through their selection, a familiar voice, a voice from the past, asks, “Who are they for?” He turns and it’s Daniela. He recovers pretty quickly and chats with her a bit. She directs him to the roses, always roses. As she walks away, she wishes him good luck, providing Jason a benediction to his new relationship that he didn’t realize he needed.

When he walks in the door at Maria’s, she practically pounces on him and showers him with kisses. As they get ready for bed later that night, he looks down at the hairband ring on his finger. He doesn’t need this reminder anymore. That was another life. Another Jason. He takes the ring off and puts it in a keepsake box on the dresser. Maria enters and they just smile at each other, both of their hesitations fully resolved. Ready to begin a new life together.

Quick Takes

A couple of quick takes on the rest of the episode:

• As much as the song selections have been killing it this season, the score absolutely knocks it out of the park in this episode. Haunting and beautiful.
• We were just shown last episode that Jason knows sign language, and it paid off in the very next episode.
• A definite theme of this season is going back to your family. Ryan went to his sister. Daniela seems like she is going to go back to her stepfather. This Jason goes back to his mother. The only one who turns away from family is Leighton, who declines to talk to the second plague world’s version of his grandfather. I think that will be telling in the second half of this season.
• If Joel Edgerton doesn’t win an Emmy for this season, there ain’t no justice in the world. I mean, come on. That scene where he brings his “brother” home and gets him cleaned up? Playing both sides of their interaction as two distinctly different versions of the same person, who each have their own trauma they are dealing with. Just incredible.
• There are so many subtle touches in this episode, as usual, but one that caught my eye was the framed photos at Ellie’s bedside. When he was first walking around the house, Jason picked up the wedding photo she kept in prominent display. As the boys are keeping vigil near the end, the camera pans past a nightstand, and there is that same wedding picture. Only now it is flanked by three more recent pictures of her and Jason, including one from Christmas with all three Jasons.
• In Search of Lost Time is a novel written by Marcel Proust (1871–1922), widely considered to be a literary classic. It spans seven volumes and three thousand pages, with over four hundred characters. It explores themes of love, memory and time—very applicable to this episode and the series overall. The BBC declared it “the world’s most difficult novel.”
• The poem that Jason reads at his mother’s funeral is I Sit Beside the Fire and Think, by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was a song that Bilbo Baggins sings to the Fellowship of the Ring before they set out on their quest.
• I’ve failed to mention this until now, but in an interview with ScreenRant at San Diego Comic-Con this summer, co-writer Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry said that they have a 3-season story planned for the series. Though they pitched it to Apple as such, the show has not yet been picked up for that third season.
• One quick note about the official podcast for last week’s episode. The writers clarify that it was always their intent that Daniela and Jason would break up. From their perspective, there was no way the couple could have gone through what they went through in Season 1 and been able to truthfully return to what they had. I guess that makes sense, and it also sounds like they won’t be getting back together either, at least not in this season.

Best lines of the episode:

• “But I’m…not strong enough to watch my son die again.”
• “Some people don’t even have one good year with anyone.”
• “I felt myself still reliving the past, which was no longer anything more than the history of another person.”
• “We went from sheer joy, to sheer terror, and back to joy again.”
• “That’s like my prison read.”
• “None of the California bulls***.”
• “I have lost everything. The love of my life. My son. My home. Please just let me find a world where I can love and be loved.”
• “Yeah, always roses.”

Conclusion

What a lovely episode. I just can’t say enough good things about it. Though as much as I loved it, I also have no desire to return to it. I do not want to see this Jason ever again. No, sir. I want him, Maria and his two “brothers” to live happily ever after, separate from all the chaos and catastrophe of the rest of the show.

This was a nice little breather. A great way to cap off the first half of the season. Really the first half of the entire series, if we get the full 3-season plan. Here was the kind of alternative take you can only get with a multiverse premise like this show. Nothing too wacky or crazy. Just a little bit of “all things beautiful” before we jump back into the “all things terrible” that undoubtedly await our regular heroes in the second half of this season.

That’s all for this week. Please let us know your thoughts and feelings about this week’s episode, and any theories you have on what’s to come, in the comments below. Remember that TV Obsessive will provide continuing coverage of Dark Matter throughout Season 2 and beyond.

---

All images courtesy of Apple TV