Dark Matter S2E6 Recap and Analysis: The Shadow of Quantum Entanglement

The following recap contains spoilers for Dark Matter S2E6, “What the Universe Is Made Of” (written by Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry & Blake Crouch, and directed by Amit Gupta).

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Welcome, dear reader, as we continue to review the second season of the Apple TV series Dark Matter with Season 2 Episode 6: “What the Universe Is Made Of.” Well, I’m going to give the nay-sayers their due on this one. This was a bit of a boring episode. Now, we did get a lot of fun pairings and reunions that were satisfying to see, and I did appreciate that. Mainly though, this was a set up episode. Moving a lot of pieces into position for what’s to come in the second half of the season.

Although, that said, only some of the pieces were in play. Amanda and Ryan are completely sidelined for this one, as is Oluko and both MacNamaras. In fact, for once, all of the action takes place on a single world, World X. Favorite destination spot for the multiverse weary traveler who just wants to get away from all the surveillance and smuggle some otherworldly technology into his private Bond villain bunker.

Advice from an Old Man

After taking a week off, we pick up with Daniela arriving at her destination. Turns out she didn’t go to find a person, like we speculated. She went to find a place. Her parent’s cabin in the woods. Her very own Walden Pond. A safe place away from everything and everyone, where she can go to do a little reading, sketch some birds, and stare incessantly into the abyss. You can feel the healing vibes.

Then, her stepfather turns up unexpectedly. She is so happy to see him, but she also wants to flee. This man knows her too well. It’s been a while since he’s seen it, but he recognizes “that look.” He initially thinks it’s just a little bit of empty nest syndrome. That she just doesn’t know what to do with herself now that the house is quieter, and she came out here to find her sense of purpose.

Slowly he draws her out of her shell, as he had to do when she was a little girl. They reminisce about their night drives and the day her mom introduced her new boyfriend. Now he’s moved on to thinking maybe she is reliving the trauma she experienced at the hands of her biological father, even if it was so long ago. He advises her that ignoring the past will not help. It always comes up, one way or another.

As part of his therapy program, he drags her out to paint with him and let it out. She takes a break to go for a walk and her stepfather stays behind painting. No sooner is she out of sight than the phone rings. We know who’s going to be on the other side of that call. The poor guy thinks he might be having a stroke, hallucinating all of this. He knows those brush strokes to be his daughter’s, but he also knows he just spoke to his daughter in San Francisco.

Really Good Advice

Jason comes by the Golden Nugget to visit Charlie and hears a familiar voice in the booth in front of him. He looks up and there is Amanda, smiling down at him. He recovers pretty quickly and introduces himself as if he’s never met a version of her.

She slides in across from him and they talk. He finds out where this Amanda was derailed from her trajectory to become a doctor. Not by her decision, as it turns out, but by her bipolar mother’s choice to blow her college fund on buying this diner.

He asks how Charlie is doing, and he’s doing fine with work, but he’s worried about what his parents are going through. Amanda offers some unsolicited advice from a complete stranger. She’s sure he’s a good dad and that he’ll be there for Charlie, but he shouldn’t forget about himself. That was the mistake she made. He’s a physicist. He should go discover what the universe is made of.

Two Coins

At that prompting, Jason embarks on a project. He’s going to turn his new hobby into a bona fide scientific paper on “The Shadow of Quantum Entanglement in the Macroscopic World.” An exercise that is going to take him a few years, hunting and pecking at that typewriter like he does. Oof, that’s painful to watch.

He takes a break to meet with Blair, who has been sent to check up on him by Daniela. Eduardo catches a glimpse of the math he’s doing in his notebook, and he explains that he’s working on entanglement. You know, as one does when you wonder about things. Blair, feigning boredom, asks him to explain entanglement to them.

During the explanation, Eduardo asks if people can be entangled. As Jason answers, Blair finally notices Amanda walking around behind the counter. You can sense the hairs standing up on her arms. When Amanda comes up to scold her son for eating the customers’ fries, Jason slips up and introduces her as “Amanda Lucas,” which was the same name Blair was thinking in her head. After mother and son leave on diner business, Blair shows Jason her prop for explaining entanglement, a vial of Lavender Wings. And no, she didn’t get that from Daniela.

Gala

They go back to Jason’s place and compare notes, literally in Jason’s case. Blair suddenly remembers a gala she’s got tickets to and begs Jason to be her plus-one. There will be professors, and scientists, and engineers there that he might actually want to talk to. It is, in fact, a fundraiser for the “Vance S.T.E.M. Educational Trust,” but have no fear, Blair has been to several of these charity events and no one from the family ever shows up. Except this time. Whoops.

Nonetheless, Jason has a great time. This is what he wants. To be a real scientist, finally. The kind that publishes ground-breaking papers and unlocks the wonders of the universe. This is why Blair brought him. She has faith in Jason. He’s the smartest guy she knows, running same hardware as the other guy. Inspired anew, Jason returns home and gets back to banging away on the typewriter.

New Project

Which gives Leighton his opening to finally close in and chat with Blair. She tries to wave off his small talk and walk away, but he opens up and tells her that he adopted her cat when she didn’t return. He guessed it, and he was right. What are the odds? Impossible.

He tells her that he needs to show her something, but she doesn’t want to get mixed up in whatever it is that he’s doing here. Curiosity gets the better of her though, and she shows up at his place the next day. We find out that he is indeed bringing in technology to this world, in order to solidify the resources needed. Needed for what? His new project.

A hidden panel in a store room opens up upon a steel door, that opens up into freight tunnels. They were built in 1900, abandoned in 1959, and sealed off in 1992. A space that will exist in a similar state in any world Leighton can access. They walk the tunnels and eventually arrive at Leighton’s destination. Another door opens up into an enormous hanger, with an enormous structure at the center. Judging by the title of the next episode, this is the pyramid.

Charlie

We get a brief glimpse of Charlie’s college life. Partying. Oversleeping. Screening his mom’s calls. Even working at the diner, he just seems checked out. Sleepwalking through his new life, unfulfilled. When Jason has Charlie over for a low-key early birthday celebration, he says they can skip the ceremony with Max’s ashes. Jason’s level of concern is rising.

So, Jason opens up and tells him that he met Max on his travels. A Max who got a heart transplant and survived to grow up. Charlie is immediately hooked and asks what he was like. He was quick-witted, empathetic, and kind of a little bit of a dick. In other words, he was perfect.

Charlie wants to know everything. Here was something he had never considered about the box. A positive aspect to it. Thus, in the closing montage, we follow a mysterious hooded figure showing up at the abandoned school, going into the box, and taking a vial of Lavender Wings. As if it wasn’t blatantly obvious that it is Charlie, going to go find his twin brother.

Quick Takes

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

• Given Jason and Blair’s conversation about whether the handful of those associated with the box are entangled, could it be that Daniela’s papa didn’t just show up, but perhaps she drew him to her by thinking about him?
• They actually established Amanda’s mom as having bipolar disorder back in S1E5 when Jason and Amanda were talking about their mothers. In that same conversation, Jason also mentioned being at the hospital as a kid with his mom while she was having chemo treatments.
• Oh ho. Amanda of World X is divorced, and Jason 1 is…well, let’s just say he’s in limbo. Time to start shipping Jason and Amanda again, like we all did last season.
• It is so refreshing to see characters actually sharing information on this show. There was so much of that in this episode.
• It was surprising to find out that CEO Leighton has established his base of operations on World X, to say the least. And that he’s been there for almost two years. If that is true, how has he not run into the issue of Jason 1 destroying the original box in the abandoned school? We’ve seen Leighton using it. Has he been out and about the entire time the Dessens were here? Roughly a year of that two-year period? I hope they have an explanation for that, but it seems like a giant continuity error.
• Another seeming continuity error is the idea that they brought Max’s ashes with them to World X. I guess I would have to go back and rewatch Season 1 to be sure, but as I recall it, Jason brought Daniela out to the police station, and there was no returning back to the house after that, because it was surrounded by deranged Jasons.
• Just for the record, we found out that last week’s Jason was Jason 24.
• No particularly interesting tidbits in the Official Podcast to relay this week, but there are really nice interviews with both the star of the show, Joel Edgerton, and the director of Episode 5, Alik Sakharov.
• That said, because I loved last week’s episode so much, I did go down the YouTube rabbit hole to watch a handful of reviews. One really well thought out one was from the Storywalker channel, exploring why these versions of Jason were able to cooperate with each other instead of trying to kill each other for sole possession of their world.

Best lines of the episode:

• “Don’t forget about yourself in all of it. That’s the mistake I made.”
• “I would have used a different prop.”
• “Clearly you could use a night out.”
• “I’m thrilled you’re here.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. You can carry my bags.”
• “I make them feel like their institutions are exclusive, but not excluding.”
• “Really big fan.” “Well then, I’m looking forward to chatting with you.”
• “I adopted Murphy.”
• “There’s no calories in looking.”
• “I mean, how can an eight-year-old look at me with the brokenness of an adult?”
• “Calm feelings make for bland art.”
• “What are the odds?” “Impossible, impossible odds.”
• “Safety. Economic prospects. Pizza.”
• “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.”

Conclusion

After this episode, the Dessen family is scattered to the four winds. Jason 1 is finding that maybe Jason 2 was right, he does have a little ember of professional ambition burning inside him after all. Daniela has gone back into the past, finding comfort and consolation in the company of a long dead parent (similar to Jason 24 last week). And Charlie is off on his own quest, to find what has been missing from his life all along. The twin brother he never got to know.

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.

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All images courtesy of Apple TV