Dark Matter: Season 2, Episode 6 Review

Daniela is not only running from Jason

Daniela's story seems the quietest at first, but it is one of the most important. At Gabriel Vargas's house, she tries to put herself back together before returning to her life. Fixing the car, painting again and caring for the bird are small, manageable acts after her life has become something she can no longer control.

The issue is no longer merely her relationship with Jason or Charlie going away to college. The multiverse has changed her understanding of reality. How does anyone simply resume an old life after learning that other versions of themselves and their loved ones inhabit different decisions? Gabriel gives this thread more emotional weight because he recognizes the same hurt he saw in her years earlier. The episode wisely lets her remain unable to explain herself.

Then Gabriel calls the Daniela who belongs to this world, abruptly breaking the calm. She can distance herself from Jason, Charlie and the Box, but cannot hide from the fact that she occupies a life that is not fully hers. That is what makes the multiverse more than a science-fiction device here: alternate worlds can offer opportunity while constantly reminding you that you are an outsider in a life that might have been yours.

Jason wants to solve the problem rather than escape it

Jason has reached almost the opposite stage. Surviving the Box is no longer enough; he wants to understand it. His interest in quantum entanglement suggests something bigger than a doorway between worlds: what if the people themselves have become connected across universes? Blair2's return lends the idea force. So many versions arriving in one place cannot remain a convenient coincidence forever.

Blair offers a compelling possibility: perhaps the Box does not create these links but exposes or stabilizes them. It adds a layer to the show's founding idea of choice. Every decision creates another world, but what if the consequences of those decisions remain connected? Escaping to a better world would then be no lasting solution. You might leave one reality without leaving every consequence behind.

That makes Jason's decision to try to separate this world from the rest of the multiverse understandable. He is no longer searching for a better reality; he wants to protect the one he has chosen from all the others.

Amanda gives Jason something he actually needs

Amanda's presence matters for more than the novelty of another familiar face. Her different life restates the show's central question in simpler terms. She never became a doctor or followed the path Jason knows from other Amandas, yet her life is never treated as lesser. She runs the restaurant, has relationships of her own and understands Jason in a different way.

Her advice matters because Jason's life now revolves around saving Daniela, Charlie and sometimes other versions of himself. He cannot help anyone if he disappears inside that responsibility. His return to physics is therefore more than a plot mechanism: he recovers part of himself that was lost amid the Box, the chases and his family crisis. Science becomes character development rather than an instruction manual for the story.

Blair2 is one of season one's best consequences

Blair2's return follows naturally from her character. After being left in one of the most terrifying worlds we have seen, she could easily have returned broken or bent on revenge. Instead she learned to face her fear. Amanda's idea of repeating what frightens you until it loses its hold explains how Blair could use the Box rather than remain its prisoner.

The irony is that all this training has not made her want a life in the multiverse. She wants somewhere she can be unknown: no doubles, no pursuit, no Box. Leighton's return to her life is therefore dangerous. The man who helped set so much of this chaos in motion may draw her straight back into it.

Charlie makes the episode's most dangerous choice

For me, Charlie has the episode's best turn. He is plainly struggling with his parents' separation, his changed life and his own disorientation. Jason then makes a very human mistake by telling him about Max. For Jason, meeting another version of his son is a painful, beautiful memory and a way to connect with Charlie. Charlie hears something else entirely: there is a world in which Max is still alive.

His decision is reckless but understandable. If you knew that someone you lost still lived somewhere, could you truly accept that death was final? Charlie does not enter the Box for adventure. The multiverse offers a grieving person the most dangerous gift imaginable: hope. His disappearance is therefore stronger than a routine cliffhanger. Jason, trying to close the door between worlds, has given his son a reason to open it.

Leighton and the Box that could change the rules

The ending abruptly shifts the episode's direction. Leighton2 has been in this world for two years, and has done more than build a new life: he has built a new Box, or at least a markedly different and more advanced version. The episode has not definitively established what it can do, so calling it a precise navigation system would be premature. Its existence alone opens a disturbing possibility.

The original Box makes the human mind part of its navigation. Desire, fear, memories and even a passing thought can change the destination. If Leighton can remove or reduce that element, travel across universes might become a controlled technology. This sets up the season's most interesting conflict: Jason wants to disconnect this world from the multiverse, while Leighton may be about to connect it more tightly than ever.

We do not yet know whether Leighton will become an antagonist. So far his motives could be tied to repairing the damage. But Dark Matter has shown that good intentions do not guarantee good results, especially when someone gains the power to choose reality itself.

Many storylines revolve around one question

The episode moves among enough characters to risk becoming a series of status updates. It holds together because almost every thread asks the same thing: should we live with the reality we have chosen, or keep seeking a better one? Daniela tries to accept where she is, Blair wants stability away from the Box, Jason wants to close the door, Charlie opens it to find his brother, and Leighton appears to want to improve it.

Daniela's thread, despite its emotional importance, feels somewhat detached from the main movement, especially as Jason's, Charlie's and Leighton's stories accelerate. That separation may be partly intentional: she wants to get away from it all, and the show increasingly suggests that nowhere is far enough.

Strengths and weaknesses

The episode restores the multiverse to the centre of the story without depending on a prolonged new journey through the Box. Blair's return, Jason's research into entanglement, Charlie's decision and Leighton's invention are different developments serving the same conflict. Charlie's choice works especially well because it comes from grief rather than a writer's need to send another character through the door.

Its main weakness is the number of parallel threads. Constant movement between Daniela, Jason, Charlie, Blair and Leighton leaves some stories with less time and impact than others.