DISCLAIMER: This recap of Dark Matter Season 1 Episode 4, “Worldless,” contains spoilers. Read at your risk.
Last Week on Dark Matter
In the last episode of Dark Matter, “The Corridor”, Original Jason (Joel Edgerton) and Amanda (Alice Braga) learn a few things about the nature of quantum travel. In combination with the drug, Lavender Fairy, The Box allows anyone inside to enter a state of quantum superposition. The human mind manifests this as an endless corridor filled with doors. Behind each one, is another reality, including the reality Original Jason was booted from by Jason2.
The pair learn the hard way that it wasn’t as easy as just opening a door and walking through. This is because the mental and emotional state of the person who opens the door determines what would be on the other side of that door. After they nearly freeze to death in an Ice Age Chicago, they manage to return safely to The Box.
Meanwhile, Jason2 decides that, while he likes having Daniella (Jennifer Connelly) and Charlie (Oakes Fegley), there are plenty of things he wants to “curate” about Original Jason’s reality. This includes his crappy teaching job. After quitting, he seeks out this reality’s Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi), shows him the box, and convinces him to pay millions of dollars for a chance to explore the multiverse at his leisure.
RELATED: Read our recap of Dark Matter, episode 4, “The Corridor”.
Learning Curve
In Dark Matter’s “Worldless,” we rejoin Amanda and Original Jason back in The Corridor. They try to master control over their mental/emotional states. They continue to search for the door that will take them back to Original Jason’s reality. Even after stating his hopes out loud to cement them in his mind, the first door they open nearly kills them. The Box in this universe is inconveniently located in the middle of Lake Michigan. Water rushes in and they nearly drown before Jason manages to shut the door. Turns out that though he said what he wanted out loud, inside he felt overwhelmed which affected the outcome. You can’t fake it to make it in The Corridor. It knows everything you’re thinking.
While they dry out in The Corridor, Amanda and Original Jason begin to reckon for the first time with the idea that she’s in love with a man who looks just like him. A man who shares many of the same memories and traits. It’s a more intimate moment than they’ve shared thus far, no doubt aided by the fact that they are basically in their underwear. After falling asleep and with the drug having worn off, they wake up back in The Box. But where?
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Lost and Found
It’s none other than the hangar at Velocity Labs which looks abandoned. Mainly because this is an alternate version of the lab where something very bad has occurred. The ominously buzzing wings they hear seem like that “bad” thing. So, they wisely decide to make a run for it only to discover that there’s one person still holed up in the building. It’s the Blair (Amanda Brugel) from Jason 2 and Amanda’s universe. The one who disappeared in the box.
Blair tells her story and it’s a dark one. She was lost in The Box for months then arrived in this universe. But not alone. She brought with her a swarm of giant flying bugs (like murder hornets on steroids). They quickly multiplied and infested the entire planet. Somehow she survived and has been living at Velocity Labs like a hermit. Though she has ampoules of the drug, she’s traumatized by her time in The Box and, perhaps, by the guilt of bringing an apocalypse to this world. She’s frozen by terror and chooses her current nightmare because she has some control over it. It’s better than the uncertainty she may find behind the doors of The Corridor.
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Private Lessons
Back in Original Jason’s universe, Jason 2 continues to school Leighton on The Box and how it works… and about its many dangers. He instructs him to be honest while inside it, especially with himself. They train for a bit with the ampoules and injector and then they enter The Corridor.
Jason 2 continues to explain the nature of the construct. Though the doors seem infinite (and probably are), they only represent different versions of the traveler’s life that have split off in the recent past. They are all different in subtle and massive ways due to the choices the traveler has made. This explanation has the vibe of a wealthy tourist being walked through a SCUBA tutorial at a resort. And despite the mind-bending dangers and consequences, Leighton’s takeaway seems to be that the multiverse belongs to him! But in the murder-hornet world, Blair is describing things a little differently.
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Happy Thoughts
After some rest, Amanda and Original Jason prepare to depart. Blair warns Amanda that the worlds she finds beyond those doors are not hers. Case in point, if they find Original Jason’s world, he will be home, but she will be an alien in that reality. She is not just homeless, she’s “worldless”. Blair advises her to start to think of the reality in which she might like to stay because continued exposure to The Corridor will eventually destroy her physically or mentally.
Blair provides Amanda and Original Jason with her logbook from her travels and warns them that controlling The Box takes more than just happy thoughts. Our minds and souls are filled with complicated and competing desires, fears, hopes, and passions. And all of those swirling streams contribute to what one will find behind the doors of The Corridor.
A Tale of Two Jasons
Back in The Box, Amanda struggles with what she’s learned from Blair and how that squares with what she thought she knew about Jason 2, a man she deeply loved. Like the travelers before him, he must have discovered the dangers of The Box. But, unlike them, he seems to have acquired some control over those dangers. So why didn’t he return to his world and her? How could he be that kind of person?
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Original Jason offers some explanation in the form of a story about the night he decided to be a father instead of pursuing his scientific ambitions. That decision wasn’t as simple as it seems. Daniella was uncertain of Jason, sensing in him the potential for both care and kindness and narcissistic tunnel vision. Jason convinced her that he wanted to be a father, allowing them to go forward. At that point, two Jasons and two realities split from each other. One who understood that real connection requires sacrifice. Another who viewed every decision from the lens of his selfishness. The real danger of The Box is not the unpleasant worlds it reveals, but the inconvenient truths it reveals about ourselves.
But these revelations are nowhere in sight on Leighton’s training trip. Instead, Jason 2 continues to sell his “client” on the promise of infinite realities. Leighton is so excited about the possibilities, that he makes Jason 2 an offer. If he can obtain more ampoules of the drug, he will pay him one million dollars per vial. That’s a lot of cheddar that Jason 2 could use to fund his new life with Daniella and Charlie.
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Closer and Crueler
While Jason 2 contemplates a windfall, Original Jason is dialing in strategies for controlling The Box. He posits that when writing, one’s mind can’t wander. He writes down the world he wants to see on the other side of the door. This theory seems to have merit when the next door they open leads to what looks like the warehouse he was taken to on the night of his kidnapping.
Original Jason soon discovers that, while similar, this world has a big difference. A plague has killed most of the population of Chicago. He goes to his house and discovers that Charlie has succumbed to the sickness and Daniella is not far behind. After an encounter with some military doctors and their armed security contingent, he is told that Daniella’s case is terminal. As a mercy, they give him enough morphine to ease her passing and move on. This world is so close to his own. Even the family photograph from Yellowstone is on the wall. But after helping Daniella die, Original Jason learns that “close” is far worse than anything he’s experienced thus far.
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Even so, Amanda sees the trip as instructive. Even though Original Jason tried to control his thoughts by writing that he wanted to see his family, he harbored the fear that something terrible could happen to them. Namely, an illness like the one that took his mother. As awful as this experience was, it taught them another valuable lesson about Box travel.
More Closer and More Crueler
Jason 2 returns home from training Leighton to find Daniella is still uneasy about some of his recent decisions like buying Charlie the car and quitting his job. As they have a heart-to-heart about honesty in the bathroom, Original Jason and Amanda try another door. Like the plague world, this one looks promising, especially because everyone in Chicago seems to be alive.
Jason enters his house and creeps up the stairs to the bathroom. When he opens the door, he finds Daniella brushing her teeth. But Jason 2 is not there. Instead, he discovers that this world’s Jason is supposed to be in jail. After a terrified Daniella and Charlie (with slicked-back hair) call the police and chase him from the house, Original Jason and Amanda flee into the night. With the police looking for Jason, they need a safe way back to The Box.
RELATED: Read our Outer Range recaps, here.
The pair make their way to another house. This one belongs to Amanda’s mother. Even though she’s previously described her mother as having bipolar disorder, her reaction at seeing Amanda seems overly emotional. As the two speak in Portuguese, Original Jason discovers why. In this world, Amanda has died so her mother believes she’s a ghost. Just another incredibly messed up scenario in the world of Quantum travel.
After making their way back to the box, Amanda and Original Jason process these recent experiences. Even though they were deeply disturbing, each trip gets them closer and closer to finding Original Jason’s world. The question is, how many near misses can they bear?
Pursued
Jason 2 makes a stealthy sojourn to his home universe to swipe a pair of backpacks full of ampoules to sell to Leighton. It’s meant to be a quick errand, but after an encounter with a lab worker, he finds out some disturbing news. Original Jason, Amanda, and this world’s Leighton are all looking for him in The Box.
When he returns to Original Jason’s universe, he finds Leighton waiting for him. He is overjoyed that he’s come back with dozens of extra ampoules. At a million dollars a pop, this will make Jason 2 a very rich man. Jason 2 should be happy, but all he can say is that, once Leighton sets off on his trip into the multiverse he intends to seal this world’s box forever.
Catch up on our Dark Matter Recaps, here!
Dark Matter is currently streaming on Apple TV+.
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/netflix-renews-3-body-problem-season-2/
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