In the second hour of the two part season premiere of Dark Matter, the team of the Raza goes after Ryo and the Blink Drive but finds themselves trapped inside a void of nothingness that is also trying to kill them. Ryo learns of the consequences of his betrayal and of bringing Misaki along while Five learns that her field trips to the land of memories have affected her brain permanently. “It Doesn’t Have to be Like This” was written by Paul Mullie and directed by Bruce McDonald. Here is what happened.
WALL OF NOTHINGNESS | By tapping into Ryo’s (Alex Mallari Jr.) memories, Five (Jodelle Ferland) is able to figure out where he took the drive after he stole it; a super secret research facility in the middle of nowhere space. They head for it, prepared to do a smash-and-grab and second on Two’s (Melissa O’Neil) priority list, enact a little revenge on Ryo while they are at it. Of course this super secret station has good security so the second the Raza gets anywhere near it, Ryo is alerted on Zairon and he uses a transfer clone to go to the station himself. Six (Roger Cross) pilots the Marauder in and sends Two and Three (Anthony Lemke) into the station where they take out the guards waiting for them. Ryo meets with the head scientists and tells them to use the Blink Drive on the whole station to up and move it back to Zairon where it will be well defended. They advise against it but he’s adamant and just as the Android (Zoie Palmer) picks up the tell tale signs of a Blink Bounce (that’s what I’m calling it sue me), she and Five watch as the station poofs out of space. On the station, they realize that the Blink Bounce didn’t go quite as planned and instead of ending up near Zairon, they ended up nowhere at all. They managed to Blink Bounce themselves into a void in space created by the Bounce itself. To make matters worse, the void isn’t actually a real void at all and the walls of the nothingness are quickly collapsing in on themselves destroying everything they touch. Two and Three realize their only chance is to get the drive back to the Marauder and use it to get out of there but Ryo puts the whole station on lockdown making getting to the drive near impossible. They run into Ryo in the hall where he’s come to gloat but Two and Three are having a bad day and even on a good day they want him dead now so when they realize he isn’t going to budge, Three shoots him repeatedly. They didn’t realize he was a clone so are genuinely surprised when his body turns back into clone dust. They use the comms to make a deal with the scientists that they will get the other people trapped on the station out too if the scientists find a way to lift the lockdown and give them the drive. Dr. Borsin (guest star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) agrees but Dr. Hajek (guest star Jean Yoon) sees that as treason and stabs him in the neck with scientific knitting needles. Two and Three, not knowing this, go to help the other people but are too late as the wall of nothingness has already eaten them. They head back to the lab as the power goes down and lifts the lockdown for them but they find Dr. Borsin dead and the Blink Drive gone. They chase Dr. Hajek to a hall that is halfway eaten by the void and when she threatens to destroy the drive, Three shoots her and they take it back themselves. They quickly get back to Six in the Marauder and using a beacon the Android had been sending out, Blink Bounce out of the void and back to the Raza with her shuttle bay doors open wide and welcoming. Even though they have the drive back, Two isn’t about to plug it back into the Raza until they know it can safely Blink Bounce again and not end up in a tear through space time.
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MEMORY ON OVERDRIVE | Five has been frollicing around in memories in the past but it was mostly under her control or using the sensors. This time, she flashes into one of her old memories and meets a guy, Baines, who feels like the father figure she never had. He teaches her about tinkering and supports her fully. She wakes up from the first memory and finds she passed out on the floor. She keeps that little bit of information to herself when the android asks but it isn’t long before she passes out again and into her memories again. This time Baines tells her he wants her to go to college and that he would even help her pay for it and wants her to take over for him someday. She wakes up again on the floor and again doesn’t tell the Android but it isn’t long before she faints a third time. In this memory, a friend comes and finds her and tells her that she saw Baines talking to the GA and that he must have been reporting them. The friend wants Five to come with them when the leave the planet forever. The Android notices Five’s state and wakes her up with a stimulant. Five tries to play it off like she’s fine but the Android isn’t buying it and wants to scan her for any issues. Five agrees and they find that the fugue state she’s in when she memory flashes is becoming more and more frequent and the time she is away is getting longer and longer. The Android fears the very soon that state will become permanent and Five will be lost to her memories forever. When they get their crewmates back, Five has passed out again and the Android fills them all in on what happened. She tells them that she and Five agreed to do a procedure similar to the one that wiped all their memories in the first place to keep her from being lost. Inside her current past memory flash, Five packs her bags and confronts Baines about meeting with the GA. He tells her that he was trying to get information on her family. Five doesn’t care; her family died in an accident, but he tells her that she wasn’t given the whole story. She has a sister she never knew about that was adopted by a wealthy family. Because Five can’t have nice things, Baines is cut off before he can tell her anymore by the Android performing the procedure to wipe her memories. When she wakes up she still remembers learning about her sister and Two promises her that she will find her someday.
LOYALTY DOESN’T MEAN FRIENDSHIP | On Zairon, Misaki (guest star Ellen Wong) is still at odds with Teku (guest star Andrew Moodie) and makes sure he knows she is a force to be reckoned with. She tells him a story from her training days where some fragile masculinity boy she beat in training came after her with some buddies. They beat her badly but she never told anyone. She tells Teku she waited until she graduated and then she was the one waiting for them and nearly killed them. One of the guys came after her again and she grins when she tells Teku that his body was never found. She tells Teku she looks forward to working with him in a way that suggests she is already planning where she is going to hide his body. During the attack on the science base, Ryo learns from a very pissed off Android that Nyx is dead and that she died when he was on the ship. He immediately puts two and two together and goes after Misaki. She regrets exactly zero of her actions and tells him Nyx was a distraction. She reminds him that while the Raza was like a family to him for that time, Zairon is his real family and they are the ones requiring his loyalty no matter what. She leaves him with a foreboding promise that someday he will have to deal with the Raza crew whether he wants to or not.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
• I am seriously worried about the Android’s mental health right now. Maybe someone needs to scan her. Or just ask her if she’s ok. Please.
• I really hope the sister plot line isn’t dropped or shoved to the back. I understand it’s not the main plot by any means but they have my curiosity on lock with it now.
• Also still really curious about what Five was doing in Three’s memories of Sarah and if that will come back.
So what did you think? Is Five really cured? How much will she remember of her time on the Raza before or is it going to slip away? How long until Ryo snaps and locks up Misaki or worse? Is the Android really okay? Let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments below!
Make sure to catch Dark Matter Fridays at 9/8c on Syfy!