DISCLAIMER: This recap of The Ark Season 2 Episode 10, “It Should Have Been You,” contains spoilers. Proceed at your peril.
It’s hard to believe we only have two episodes after this week’s emotional The Ark outing. Christie Burke and Reece Ritchie churn in nuanced, vulnerable performances as Garnet and Ian experience a decades-long bottle episode. It’s reminiscent of The Magicians‘ “A Life in the Day.” Garnet navigates the complexities of losing Lane, someone to whom she never expressed her feelings, and remaining trapped on an empty ship with his clone. I wouldn’t say she loves Ian, but she perhaps projected her feelings for the late Lane onto Ian. I suppose time will tell.
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The Ark, “It Should Have Been You”
We open with Capt. Garnet (Burke) speaking at Lt. Lane’s funeral service. Behind her is the EF2, which is currently being disarmed. Garnet commends Lane for putting peace with the Eastern Federation above all else.
After this, Kimi (Díana Bermudez) and Felix (Pavle Jerinic) eject Lane’s coffin into space, where they blow it up with all of the EF2‘s weapons. Capt. Avega (Daniel Fathers), now on the mend (and with Lane’s liver), tells Garnet they should share a drink when they get to Trappist and swap war stories. Garnet takes him up on his offer and vows to inform him when they’re ready to initiate FTL for their trip to Trappist.
Meanwhile, Alicia (Stacey Read) and Angus (Ryan Adams) comfort each other. Alicia mentions that she always assumed Garnet and Lane would end up together. We all did, Alicia. She urges Angus to stop by her room later. After all, life is short.
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To Spencer Lane
Later, Garnet, Lt. Brice (Richard Fleeshman), Eva (Tiana Upcheva), Alicia, Kimi, Dr. Kabir (Shalini Peiris) and Felix toast to Lane. Garnet promotes Brice to second-in-command, which makes sense. Then, Ian (Ritchie) chases Garnet down in the hallway. He feels purposeless without a job. Garnet refuses to make eye contact with him. He acknowledges this but reassures her he’s nothing like Lane (besides looking like an identical copy). Garnet states that Brice is now in charge of crew jobs.
Next, Dr. Marsh (Jadran Malkovich) asks Garnet if Kabir can take a few days off. Kabir blames herself for Lane’s death. However, Garnet is called to engineering, so she urges Marsh to tag along (Ian does this unsolicited). The trio arrives in engineering as Eva and Trust (Paul Murray) argue over who’s head of engineering.
Garnet clarifies that Trust was only interim head of engineering; now that Eva has cleared her name, she’s back in charge. That said, the team could still use Trust’s help. True to his nature, Trust storms out. Avega contacts Garnet to inform her that they’re ready to jump. When Ark 1 does, though, they stay put while EF2 zooms out of sight. Eva tries to troubleshoot why engaging FTL didn’t work. Perhaps Trust’s makeshift weapon that disarmed the EF2 played a role in this.
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Comatose
Suddenly, an electrical surge emanating from the FTL shocks Garnet, Ian and Marsh, knocking them unconscious. Kabir has them wheeled into medbay. On her way out of engineering, she tells Brice that they’re in a coma. Brice, now in charge of the ship, urges Eva to fix the FTL situation because Garnet, Ian and Marsh’s lives hang in the balance.
Brice joins Kabir in medbay, where he questions whether she’s capable of bringing our unconscious trio out of their respective comas. Kabir witnessed Lane die on her table three days ago. That alone is traumatizing. Kabir reminds him that she’s the only conscious doctor in the room, so let her work, dammit (I’m paraphrasing here).
Can’t Hardly Wait
Later, we see Alicia and Angus basking in that postcoital glow. Well, more like Angus is anxious about his performance, and Alicia reassures him it’ll improve. After all, this was their first time. Meanwhile, Garnet, Ian and Marsh wake up in medbay. Marsh notes that their heart rates are normal. Garnet tries to contact Brice and others on the ship but to no avail.
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Our trio explores Ark 1 to find it bereft of people. They search the whole ship, finally landing on the bridge. Ian looks at the energy diagnostics, surmising that the FTL malfunctioned and caused a power surge. He claims it’s connected to the battery transformer and offers to have engineering check it out. Garnet approves this idea.
Fast forward months later, with Garnet sitting in the observation deck as she tries (again) to boost the signal of their distress call. Marsh and Ian bring in the latter’s vegan tofu. They all share a meal. During dinner, Marsh theorizes they’re in an alternate universe with no people on Ark 1. Ian continues to pore over the ship’s physics databases because it beats banging his head against the wall.
Marsh Is Back
Ian’s also hard at work on repairing the FTL. They’ll never make it to a livable planet on the neps alone. Suddenly, Marsh vanishes mid-sentence. He wakes up in medbay. This time, it’s full of people. Kabir is glad to see him conscious. She informs him that he’s been in a coma for over an hour. For him, though, months have passed.
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Marsh notes that his coma dream was so vivid. He starts hyperventilating. Kabir and Brice comfort him as the latter spies scars on his back. Marsh reveals he had implants like Kelly. However, he accepted them willingly — he was a broke college student, and this experiment offered money. The implants didn’t take, though, so all of them were removed save the one in his brain. Marsh insists that the brain implant isn’t active.
Unfortunately, our trio finds proof that his brain implant is, indeed, active. Marsh remarks that the implant seems to be malfunctioning as the signal on his wrist device switches from activation mode to deactivation. Suddenly, he feels a searing, white-hot pain in his head. Marsh doubles over. He tells Kabir she’ll have to remove the implant surgically.
Time for Surgery
Kabir reveals that she never took out Kelly’s implants herself; she merely assisted Marsh with the procedure. She’s not qualified to dig around in Marsh’s brain. Kabir orders Brice to grab Felix and Griff to help her with the surgery.
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Next, we see Garnet and Ian on the observation deck. This time, a few years have passed. Ian now has a beard. They observe a wormhole. Ian surmises they fell through a wormhole. Why? Because even though he fixed the FTL, the computer can’t chart a course because it doesn’t recognize the stars around them. Thus, the initial FTL crash sent them through a wormhole and launched them to the other side of the universe. Trippy.
Garnet asks why nobody else is with them. Ian chalks this up to quantum mechanics. The databases don’t cover the side effects of “wormhole travel.” Ian believes they should travel through this particular wormhole. Who knows? They might return home — or to the world as they know it.
Wormholes and Kisses
During all this, Garnet smiles at Ian as he enthusiastically talks about wormholes. She admits she likes his eyes. However, she’s not sold on the beard. Ian claims he only grew it out to distance himself from Lane. He reveals he wouldn’t want to be stuck with anyone else. They kiss. Aw. My heart is still Garnet + Lane, but this ship also does it for me. I like Ian’s bouncy energy. After the kiss, Garnet agrees to try the wormhole thing on for size.
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Later, Kabir, Felix and Griff (Tamara Radovanović) successfully remove the implant from Marsh’s brain. Brice checks in on Eva and Alicia, who struggle to find a solution to the FTL problem. He asks about Trust, but he’s off sulking somewhere. Brice offers ideas, clearly nervous about being in charge. Eva gently reminds him that she’ll let him know when she has an update.
Meanwhile, in Coma Land, Garnet and Ian pilot the ship through the wormhole. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. They’re still in the same, people-less spot. Elsewhere, Marsh wakes after his surgery. He and Kabir partake in some light flirting. Griff shows the two doctors an alarming development: Garnet and Ian’s brain waves are spiking significantly. In fact, their brain waves are synced. Kabir compares them to Marsh’s brain waves when he was comatose, noticing the same findings.
Going to the Chapel
Marsh wonders if they’re sharing the same coma dream. Kabir believes that Garnet and Ian’s spikes could lead to intracranial swelling and permanent damage. The time to act is now. At the same time, a decade has passed in Coma Land. Garnet wears the wedding dress she found in the “Remember Earth” crate. She and Ian tie the knot on the observation deck, with a stunning, sprawling nebula as the backdrop. ¡Qué romántico!
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Next, Kabir injects Garnet and Ian with a solution to stimulate their reticular systems. She hopes it’ll be potent enough to wake them up. In Coma Land, Garnet and Ian kiss. Afterward, they see a bright light and fall unconscious.
In the real world, their eyes flicker open, but only for a few seconds. Then, they’re pulled back into Coma Land. Garnet claims she saw Kabir, while Ian mentions Griff. Garnet wonders if any of this is real. Perhaps they’re unconscious. Ian has the same thoughts. They brainstorm ideas regarding how to help the team wake them up.
Bartender Angus
Meanwhile, Angus moonlights as a bartender, pouring one of his specialty drinks for Brice. Brice mourns the loss of Lane while filling Garnet’s shoes as captain since she’s comatose. A lot rests on his broad shoulders. Plus, he’s struggling to delegate. Angus encourages him to pick folks suitable for the job. Then, stand back and let them do it. Now, it’s Angus’s turn to ask for advice. He turns to Brice for help in the bedroom. Angus returns to Alicia’s room with newfound confidence. Bow chicka wow-wow.
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Then, Felix chats with Kimi about the implant extricated from Marsh’s brain. The serial number on the chip begins with “MX,” meaning “Maddox.” It’s always Evelyn Maddox. Kimi claims she stole files from Evelyn before hightailing it off Ark 15. They find something shocking. After this, the senior officers assemble for a meeting. Felix explains that Evelyn was attempting to harness mind control as a weapon.
Trust adds that the project took place in his company, but he shut it down, fearing what might transpire if said project fell into the wrong hands (Evelyn’s). However, once Evelyn took over his company, she restarted the project. Trust claims he wanted to develop a device that could transmit brain waves into other people’s brains. Kabir wonders if they could use Marsh’s implant to wake up Garnet and Ian. After all, the implant malfunctioning was how Marsh returned to reality to begin with.
Waking Up Garnet and Ian
Brice states that his uncle had Parkinson’s, and his doctors used stimulation probes on his brain. Kabir expands on this idea. They can use the probes to connect the implant to Garnet and Ian’s brains. Trust has a tool that can send a signal to the chip, delivering the same “malfunction” that awoke Marsh. Brice encourages Kabir to do what she feels is best — he trusts her completely. As for Trust himself, Brice urges him to rejoin Team Engineering. They need his expertise.
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In Coma Land, our lovebirds, now in their golden years, pick oranges in the biodome. Suddenly, Garnet collapses in Ian’s arms. He tries desperately to wake her up. In the real world, Kabir and Marsh attempt their experiment with the stimulation probes and the implant. Garnet’s eyes flicker open; however, she has a thousand-yard stare.
They wind up using defibrillators on Garnet. In Coma Land, Ian kisses Garnet. She wakes up there and stabilizes in the real world. Garnet claims Ian’s kiss brought her back to him. She has a realization: they need to die to wake up. Marsh and Kabir now believe they must connect the probes to Ian and Garnet simultaneously since their brain waves are inextricably linked.
Going Out Together
Later, our lovebirds are nearing the end of their lifespans in Coma Land. They share one last dance. During it, Ian experiences chest pain. They head toward the airlock, deciding to go out together. Hopefully, this will wake them up. Ian discloses his fear that this won’t work, but they must try regardless.
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Thankfully, it does. After they “die” in Coma Land, Garnet and Ian wake up in the real world. Initially, they hold hands until Garnet pulls away. Ian asks her what’s wrong, but she’d rather not talk about it.
Meanwhile, Trust returns to engineering to assist Alicia and Eva in fixing the FTL. Garnet thanks Brice for steering the ship while she was in a coma for 36 hours. Then, she chats with Avega, who returned after noticing Ark 1 didn’t jump with the EF2. How sweet.
After Ark 1 engages a repaired FTL, Garnet marks Lane’s file as “deceased.” She sobs, saying, “It should have been you.” Oh, my heart. This hurts.
The Ark airs new episodes every Wednesday at 10/9c on SYFY.
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