Welcome back aboard the Raza for Part 1 of the two-part season premiere of Dark Matter where all systems are down and our little family of anti-heroes is broken apart even further. With Ryo off leading his people and betraying his crew, the rest of the team is left trying to safely get away from the station-wide explosion he caused and reunite with each other, hopefully on a still functioning ship. All of this while trying to stay out of the Galactic Authority’s cross-hairs. “Being Better Is So Much Harder” was written by Joseph Mallozzi and directed by Ron Murphy. Here’s what happened.
THE GIRLS HAVE GOT THIS | When last we left our crew, the station they were on was seconds away from exploding thanks to Ryo (Alex Mallari Jr.) and his desire to start a war. Five (Jodelle Ferland) manages to escape with the help of Commander Truffault (guest star Torri Higginson) and her vast connections while Two (Melissa O’Neil) and Six (Roger Cross) manage to make it to the Marauder in time to almost get out unscathed. They make it but the ship is damaged so badly that they are sitting ducks. Five and Truffault are dropped off on the Raza where they meet up with a very emotionally raw Android (Zoie Palmer). Five is delighted to see her friend again but that joy is short lived when the Android tells her how she has lost contact with the other crew members, Ryo stole the Blink Drive, and to top it all off, Nyx (guest star Melanie Liburd) died from her injuries during her fight in the finale. To add insult to injury, the ship comes under attack from an equally damaged Ferrous Corp ship.
On the Marauder, Two and Six still think they are the only ones who made it out and Two fills Six in on Ryo’s betrayal that she learned of while he villain monologued his plan to her before the explosions started. Six manages to get the comms back up and they get ahold of the Raza who are a touch busy defending themselves from the Ferrous ship and have no engines at the moment to mount a rescue pick-up. They tell the Marauder to sit tight while they try and repair their own engines and maybe don’t breathe too much as the Marauder’s oxygen levels are going to be cutting it close as is. Just then, Ferrous sends a shuttle to the Raza to take them out that way but through a game of “Funnel the Bad Guys”, Five and Truffault trap the Ferrous soldiers in a room with a very angry, very trigger happy Android who explodes from a box with duel semi-automatics and lays waste to the lot of them, even taking a moment to blow the smoke from the barrels because she can. They then use the Android’s neural link capabilities to sync to the shuttle and send it back to the Ferrous ship and blow it and the main ship up in one go.
On the Marauder to conserve oxygen, Two locks Six in a separate compartment and hopes her nanites will be able to keep her alive without oxygen long enough for the Raza to rescue them. Two starts hallucinating from lack of oxygen and her hallucination takes the form of Nyx who tells her not to blame herself for any of this and to be strong for the crew. Two knows it is all in her head so she asks Ghost Nyx why she is here and Ghost Nyx utters five words to shatter my heart and soul, “Why else? To say goodbye.” Ghost Nyx then leans forward and kisses her as Two passes out from lack of oxygen. Thankfully at that exact moment, the Raza swoops in and scoops them up to safety. Later, after everything has settled, Five initiates an uplink and puts the sensors on her head which send her to a silo-esque thing where Sarah is waiting looking about as confused as I am.
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PLANET SADNESS | Before the station blew up entirely, Three (Anthony Lemke) was greeted by a familiar face of Lieutenant Anders (guest star Jeff Teravainen) from the Galactic Authority before passing out. Anders rescued Three from the station and brought him to a supposedly deserted planet and outpost where he hailed the Galactic Authority to pick him and his new prisoner up. Three wakes up and tries to convince Anders that he and his crew had nothing to do with the explosion but Anders isn’t having any of it and keeps Three cuffed to a pipe for safe keeping. Unfortunately for them, the planet wasn’t as deserted as they thought and a robot designed for “threat eradication” arrives at the outpost to do just that. Anders thinks it’s his GA buddies but instead is greeted by gunfire. Three saves him twice and Anders returns the favor when the GA arrives and pretends he was there all alone, giving Three a chance to elude capture once again. He then calls the Raza and gives them Three’s coordinates so they can go rescue their buddy. Once he is safely back on the ship, Three joins in the discussion of what to do next. Six wants to go after Ferrous Corp, Three wants to stay out of it, and the Android just wants everyone to enjoy her casserole. They turn to Two for the official plan and she tells them first things first, they are getting their Blink Drive back and then they are going to kill Ryo Ishida.
TRAITOR CORNER | After betraying his crew, stealing their Blink Drive, and blowing up the station, Ryo returns home to continue making changes from his brother’s rule. He releases an old mentor, Teku (guest star Andrew Moodie), from prison and promises his half-brother and step mother won’t be a threat to him anymore. Ryo makes it clear he is less of an “imprison my enemies” kind of leader and more of a “slit their throats and call it a Wednesday” kind. Misaki (guest star Ellen Wong) doesn’t like the idea of Teku being so close to Ryo and the court as he was locked up as a traitor. Ryo reminds her that his traitor status was because he remained loyal to Ryo the whole time. Ryo offers Teku a retirement property in the countryside if and only if he renounces his past actions against the crown but Teku refuses to. He maintains his loyalty to Ryo which forces Ryo to take that offer off the table. He replaces it with an offer for Teku to be his Royal Advisor which he happily accepts much to Misaki’s displeasure.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
• Four will henceforth be referred to as Ryo. He has lost the privilege of his number name.
• I know you thought you snuck it in there subtly, Anders, but I heard that little something about being Six’s best man. I need details. Now.
• Line of the night is bestowed upon the Android for, “The secret ingredient is basil…and love…but mostly basil,” and for the simple fact that she has enacted Spaghetti Saturdays.
So what did you think? Will Ryo be able to see reason or have his past memories completely cancelled out the Four we once knew? Is the Android okay or is Nyx’s death going to affect her more than she is letting on? Is Anders going to stand by his decision to let them be free of the Galactic Authority for now? Let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments below!
Dark Matter airs Fridays at 9/8c on Syfy!