Mix of high-concept sci-fi and family drama benefits from down-to-earth performances from its lead actors

We independently select everything we recommend. Buying through us may earn us a commission, which supports our work.

Joel Edgerton does not mince words when asked what fans can expect when Dark Matter returns.

“There’s so much at stake for everybody, it just feels like Season 2 is this wonderful, mad chaos,” he says, in a joint Zoom interview with co-star Jennifer Connelly.

Fans of the trippy sci-fi series have been waiting for more than two years for a second season. It doesn’t take long into Episode 1, which launches Friday on Apple TV, to get a taste of the chaos.

The first segment, in fact, offers a build-up of corpses that all resemble Edgerton’s Jason Dessen, a physicist whose life entered some serious chaos in Season 1 when he was abducted into a parallel universe and had to fight to get back home. His abductee is an alternate version of himself who regretted abandoning his pregnant wife Daniella (Connelly) in a different universe and wants to take back what he lost.

Dessen soon discovers there are multiple versions of himself in multiple universes.

Based on the bestselling novel by Blake Couch, Dark Matter explores complex scientific concepts that delve into quantum mechanics and the notion of superposition, which posits that every possible outcome from every event creates another universe. The duplicitous second Dessen was able to infiltrate his other self’s more domesticated life because in his world, he is an ambitious scientist who helped create The Box, a groundbreaking device that is capable of transporting people across the multiverse into different realties.

The first season introduced mind-bending what-if scenarios, but at its heart were universal themes about regret, roads not taken and the journey home.

“Season 1 is a very simple kind of diagram of one person trying to get back to their family while another person is taking over the same family, a two-timeline kind of situation,” he says. “Season 2 is intertwining roads of various characters that deal with the aftermath of this awareness of technology and characters looking at their choices and being aware they have the ability to explore, escape or terminate their journey.”

Season 1 ended with Jason being reunited with Daniela and their teenage son, Charlie (Oakes Fegley) escaping into a parallel world they hope will be safe and stable. Needless to say, it proves not to be and the three finds themselves on the run again. They also discover that a safe and stable world may not exist, which puts a good deal of stress on the Dessen’s marriage and their relationship with their son, who has become tired of searching for a perfect world that may not exist.

As always, there are a number of subplots that course through the second season. We meet Mitch McNamara, a new character played by Toronto actor Chris Diamantopoulos who is a member of a murky government agency determined to pursue Dessen and unlock the secrets of the box.

Meanwhile, Amanda Lucas (Alice Braga) and Ryan Holder (Jimmi Simpson), who were both duped by Jason No. 2 and left stranded in a different world, work together to find their way home.

Leighton Vance (Dayo Okeniyi), a tech entrepreneur who runs the laboratory that gave birth to the Box, continues to harbour ambitious plans to use the technology to better humanity on various worlds.

So, yes, while it may centre on universal themes, there are plenty of “intertwining roads.” This season, however, there is also a more intimate focus on the family and dynamics of the Dessens. Jason can’t shake his obsession with The Box, while Daniella becomes increasingly paranoid about what it may further unleash.

“They are really taking stock of what it means and who they are now and how they can stay together,” Connelly says.

“It’s kind of pulling them in different directions for a while. While they are looking for a literal world that they are safe in, increasingly they are struggling to be in the same world together. Because the way that The Box has impacted them and pulling them in different directions. He is going into his obsession with The Box and I am retreating into my terror and paranoia and trauma of my history and what that means, how I receive the reality of all these different versions and all the things that I’ve done. It becomes a real challenge to figure out how they can be together in any world and make the marriage work.”

The mix of high-concept sci-fi and family drama benefits from down-to-earth performances from the two leads. Both Connelly, who won an Oscar for her role in 2001’s A Beautiful Mind, and Edgerton, an Australian actor who recently won rave reviews for his performance in the Netflix film Train Dreams, bring subtlety to their roles as real people facing extraordinary circumstances. In Dark Matter, the different versions of Jason are not Orphan Black-like clones with wildly different personalities, but characters who are similar but carry different degrees of regret, fear and desperation.

While Season 2 offers nuanced character studies, it also acts as a cautionary tale. As with many sci-fi stories, it asks timely questions about technology and how we use it.

“On one hand, you’ve got these really personal quests going on: inter-personal relationships, the exploration of a marriage, characters trying to find their way home and so on,” Edgerton says. “There is also this feeling of ‘why should something like this exist?’ Why should the brilliant creation of a handful of people or one person be sprayed over our entire lives and injected into our day-to-day life without question?

“This obviously draws great parallels to what we’re dealing with right now: the world being completely infiltrated and taken over by AI. It’s like who asked for this? Is it going to make our lives better? Is it ultimately going to ruin us all? Have we even asked the right questions before we released the hounds? I think Dark Matter 2 does a little bit of delving into that question on a background level, too.”

Dark Matter Season 2 debuts Aug. 28 on Apple TV.