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This article contains spoilers for Dark Matter season 1.
It’s been nearly two years since Dark Matter wrapped up its first season on Apple TV, and the adaptation of Blake Crouch’s bestselling novel has quickly become one of the streamer’s biggest sci-fi hits, blending high-concept physics with a heartfelt personal story about love, regret, and the roads not taken. Now, with season 2 arriving in August, it’s the perfect time to revisit where Jason Dessen’s journey left off, especially given that, with the novel fully adapted in season 1, the story is now entering uncharted territory.
It would take more than a two-year hiatus to forget that Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) was a physics professor at a small college in Chicago, living a quiet but fulfilling life with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) and their son Charlie (Oakes Fegley) at the start of Dark Matter season 1. The mystery began when Jason was drugged and abducted by a masked stranger, only to wake up in a version of his life where he never married Daniela or became a father. In this reality, Jason was celebrated as a brilliant physicist who created a device capable of traveling between parallel universes.
We were all shocked to learn that the man who kidnapped Jason was… Jason Dessen himself! This alternate Jason spent years chasing professional success, but when he saw his other self living happily with the woman he regretted leaving behind, he decided to trade places with himself in the hopes that he could step into the happy family life he missed out on. He later justified the cruel swap by rationalizing that he was giving the professor a chance at greatness in his own professionally successful life.
The displaced Jason’s only chance of getting home was the invention known simply as “the Box.” Accompanied by psychiatrist Amanda Lucas (Alice Braga), a woman his other self was close to, he discovered the Box could access an infinite number of alternate realities, each created by different choices and possibilities. He and Amanda crossed one astonishing world after another, encountering frozen cities, plague-ravaged civilizations, and countless alternate versions of Chicago. Together they discovered that finding Jason’s home universe was far more difficult than simply opening the right door; they had to focus their emotions to find what — or who — they sought.
Back in Jason’s home reality, the impostor slowly realized that the life he coveted could not simply be absorbed without knowing the history he hadn’t lived. Daniela noticed subtle differences in her husband’s personality, while Charlie struggled to connect with a father who suddenly seemed like a different person. As the alternate Jason, known as “Jason 2” to the show’s writers, became increasingly desperate to hold onto the family he stole, his lies began to unravel.
Meanwhile, Jason 1’s search grew even more complicated. Amanda ultimately chose to remain behind in a Utopian alternate world rather than continue an endless search, while Jason pressed forward alone. Other travelers, including friends and colleagues like Ryan and Blair, also became scattered throughout the multiverse, leaving their own stories unresolved as the first season concluded.
The finale delivered one of Dark Matter’s biggest twists. Jason eventually found his way back to his original universe, only to discover that he wasn’t the only version of himself who succeeded. Because every decision inside the Box created new branches along the way, dozens of Jasons had independently survived the journey, each one of them believing themselves deserving of a reunion with Daniela and Charlie. The family suddenly found themselves surrounded by countless identical men, some willing to use violence to claim their place at Daniela’s side.
Daniela then made the only decision she could to keep her family safe. She, Charlie, and the Jason she believed to truly be her husband — the one we’d been following since episode one — entered the Box together and left their universe behind in search of a new home, strategically allowing Charlie to make the choice of which door to open so that like-minded Jasons couldn’t follow.
That ending left Dark Matter fans with no shortage of questions heading into season 2. Where will the Dessen family emerge next? Can they ever find a universe where they’re truly safe from other versions of Jason? And how will Jason 1’s home universe deal with multiple versions of the same person, many now dead, scattered around Chicago?
As for the other characters, it remains to be seen what will unfold between Amanda and Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) who, in the last moments of the finale, met in a universe to which neither of them belonged. And don’t forget about Jason 2’s wealthy benefactor Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi), who had multiple versions of himself wandering through the Box’s quantum corridor!
Dark Matter season 1 may have concluded with a happy ending of sorts for the Dessen family, but it also left the multiverse fully open with countless potential versions of several characters still out there. Season 2 now has an almost limitless number of directions to explore with no original source material to fall back on. It’s a good thing author Blake Crouch runs the show!
The post Dark Matter Season 1 Recap: A Multiverse of Stories Left to Explore appeared first on Den of Geek.
