Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six (and Android, of course) are back on your screens, having all-new adventures and getting into all-new pickles! This week, we find out what happened to the Raza and its crew after their ill-fated test of the blink drive. We’ll see what might have happened had Five not stowed away on their ship, and encounter some characters we thought we’d never see again. Here’s what you missed on Dark Matter: Stuff to Steal; People to Kill.
“Guys. We could have walked.” | At the end of episode 2×07, the Raza tested out the blink drive and vanished. Episode 8 opens on them reappearing, with sparks flying and alarms blaring in the ship. The engines, both FTL and sub-light, are damaged. Android reroutes power, and they manage to stabilize things. Then Android (Zoie Palmer) tells them that they only moved 1.2 miles, instead of the 160 light-years they’d been aiming for.
The Raza picks up a distress signal coming from Regulus 12, where Devon (Shaun Sipos) and Nyx (Melanie Liburd) are. They approach the station, and find that it has been attacked and badly damaged. They see three ships battling out in space. Two are Mikkei Destroyers, and the other—what? It’s the Raza! As they watch the other Raza, it suddenly winks out of existence—it has a functioning blink drive. Just then, another Mikkei Destroyer drops out of FTL and opens fire on our Raza. Their FTL engines are still down, so Two (Melissa O’Neil) tries to contact the Mikkei Destroyers, telling them that the Raza is allied with Delany Truffault (Torri Higginson), a commander of the Mikkei Combine, and that they don’t want any trouble (remember, Truffault is the one who transferred a map of the layout of Hyperion-8 to Four’s mind, so that they could escape).
“We’re attacking you because we’re at war!” | Truffault, who is on one of the Destroyers, tells our Raza that they’re attacking them because they’re at war. When Two asks what on earth she means, Truffault tells them that they’ve decimated a dozen Mikkei outposts, and destroyed three of their ships. She knows by the fact that they’re still there that their blink drive isn’t working (how does she know about that?), and orders them to stand down and be boarded, or else be blasted to rubble. Two agrees to stand down and hand over the blink drive, on the condition that Truffault guarantees the safety of the Raza crew.
Down in the control room, Five (Jodelle Ferland) and Android discover that one of the plates in the blink drive has melted and warped, and tell Two that it’ll take about 30 minutes to reroute power to the FTL drive.
Two closes all the doors on the ship, and the men ready their weapons. Their goal is to buy time to make repairs. The Destroyers have threatened that if they pick up any signs of the Raza preparing to jump, they won’t hesitate to destroy them, but Two is hoping that they won’t do that with their own people on board.
“We may have inadvertently traveled to a parallel universe.” | Android enters the bridge and tells Two that she’s made a discovery—evidence points to the Raza having jumped into a parallel universe. It would explain all the strange things they’ve encountered since jumping. But Truffault doesn’t care about that. She just wants the blink drive. Two and Android give it to her, but now she says that she guarantees the crew’s safety…until their delivery to Central, at which point, their fates will lie in the hands of her superiors. Two informs her that they’re not going anywhere without a fight, and that the ship is on lockdown, with her men armed and hidden. She tells Truffault to have her men withdraw, and that after they jump to FTL, they’ll drop her at the nearest space station. Just then, Truffault receives an urgent call, stating that the Raza has just launched an attack on a Traugott research facility over 300 light-years away. Truffault then says to Two, “You mentioned something about us being allies?”
“We’re about as popular in this reality as we are in our own.” | The crew of the Raza decides they must go after the other Raza, because the blink drive might be able to get them home to their universe. Meanwhile, they try to learn what they can about this universe. Six (Roger Cross) learns that in this universe, Kal (I’m just gonna call the parallel-universe-versions by their given names, since they never went by numbers) worked for the Galactic Authority, but that he has died. When he looks into his death, he finds that, just as in his own universe, Kal was undercover on the Raza, but that Portia had found out, and shot him.
Two finds that in this universe, Portia and Marcus are wanted for terrorism and mass murder, while Four (Alex Mallari, Jr.) has found that Ryo is the Emperor of Zairon in this universe, and thinks that they can lure the other Raza in if they think they’re meeting with Emperor Ryo.
Now we get a glimpse of the other Raza crew. Portia shoves Marcus onto a chair and straddles his lap, kissing him. Just then, a call comes in, from Emperor Ryo, who is actually Four, dressed in robes, with a fancy, Japanese-looking backdrop (how handy they had those things on the Raza, right?). He tells the two that he has an opportunity he thinks they’ll be interested in, but that they have to meet in person, because he doesn’t want anyone to intercept the transmission. Marcus says that they’re busy, that they have “stuff to steal; people to kill,” but Four convinces them that they’ll want to make time for this. Portia agrees, and Four sends the coordinates of the meeting location.
“I’m a little curious about other me’s gun collection.” | Portia and Marcus go to the meeting location, an area on the destroyed station that still has life support, and are captured by Four, Three (Anthony Lemke), and Two. Two and Three steal their outfits and take their Marauder back to the other Raza, in order to steal the blink drive. But just as they’re about to steal it, it engages, and the other Raza jumps! Two and Three head to the bridge, where they encounter Wexler (Ennis Esmer) and Tash (Jessica Sipos) (a mercenary in Wexler’s group in season 1, who Two killed), along with—is it Derrick Moss or Jace Corso (Marc Bendavid)? Wexler tells them that they’ve been ordered to clear up a misunderstanding on a mining colony, and Two and Three have no choice but to play along.
On the mining colony, Wexler grows impatient of Two’s negotiating with the miners’ leaders, and shoots them all through the head. As Two and Wexler prepare to leave the colony in the Marauder, Wexler mentions a nuke that the rest of the crew is prepping to send down at the colony. Two orders Derrick/Jace to stand down and not fire the nuke, but he ignores her and fires anyhow, while the Marauder is still there. Wexler starts to question Two’s unusual behavior, so she knocks him out and takes control of the Marauder.
“You hit like a super-fit, well-trained, scary scary girl.” | Three encounters this Raza’s Android, who says that it is her duty to inform everyone of imminent danger to the crew, and tells him that a nuke is heading for the colony where the Marauder is still docked. And she is unable to override any of the nuke’s navigation systems. Now in space, the Marauder fires at the nuke to try and keep it from hitting its mark, but it sails past unhindered. As it hits, we see Derrick/Jace smile and say, “Good night, Portia.” Just then, Three enters the bridge and confronts Derrick/Jace, who in turn attacks him. Three manages to knock Derrick/Jace out, but then Tash appears and, in turn, knocks Three out. Two arrives in the nick of time, and she and Tash take their turn tumbling around the bridge. Two has a short spell of dizziness and trembling hands, like she did at the end of 2×06, and falls to the ground. Tash raises her knife, and Three staggers to his feet to try and stop her, but before he can, Tash is hit by a knock-out bolt from a gun, fired by Android. Android explains that as the ship’s service Android, it is her duty to protect the crew from harm, whether from others or from one another.
Back on our Raza, Android informs Five and Six of an incoming Mikkei shuttle, which bears Truffault. She asks Four and Six if they’ve heard from Two and Three, and upon hearing that they have not, she taps her temple, turning her eyes silver, and activates a green light on a stick that knocks Four and Six unconscious. She taps her temple again, her eyes turn back to normal, and a handful of guards run into the ship. Moments later, they barge onto the bridge, and Truffault commands Android to shut down, threatening to shoot Five if she won’t comply, so, of course, Android shuts down.
“This is just a preemptive double-cross!” | The two Razas meet up near a Mikkei ship, and when Two contacts our Raza, Truffault answers. Truffault tells them that if they want their people back alive, they’ll have to hand over the blink drive, which will trap them in the wrong universe. Unbeknownst to Two and Three, Truffault tells one of the guards to take Four, Five, and Six to the airlock as soon as Truffault has the drive. The Raza that Two and Three are on, the one from this universe, sends their Marauder to the original Raza. But Truffault is in for an unwelcome surprise—instead of bearing the blink drive, the Marauder is piloted by the other Android, who takes control of our Raza. Truffault has no choice but to surrender, and the crew sends her and her guards back to the Mikkei ship. Portia, Marcus, and their Android also return to their Raza, sans blink drive.
Five hooks up the blink drive, Android does the calculations, and Two pilots them off to (hopefully) their universe. They arrive with none of their first attempt’s sparks and alarms, but Android senses a vessel detaching from the Raza. They look back, and find that it’s the Marauder—but not theirs. The Raza moves to intercept it, but it jumps to FTL, which their Marauder isn’t capable of. Who on earth did they bring with them?! But that’s a problem for another day. They set off for Regulus-12, and find that they did indeed jump to the correct universe. They contact Nyx, and find that she hasn’t seen Devon anywhere, and that his coms aren’t working. (As you’ll recall, we last saw Devon bleeding out in a service alley.)
The last shot of the episode shows Two waking up in her bed, dizzy, with blurred eyesight, and worse tremors in her hand. She staggers to her door before collapsing onto the floor.
Who do you think tagged along with our Raza? My money’s on Emily, Five’s alternate-universe self. She’s the only one who we didn’t see anything about in this episode, and we know she’s good at stowing away. Comment below who you think it was!
Dark Matter airs Fridays at 10pm on Syfy.
