This was a very intense and mind bending episode that dove deeply into Six’s past. Thanks to Anders and newly resurfaced memories, Six now knows more about his past than any of the others. It should come as no real surprise that Kal had been married and has a son. His paternal instincts, especially with Five, have been strong since the very beginning. He has a big heart but is obsessed with always doing the right thing by the whole Universe. That cost him his family and this time it quite nearly cost him his life.
It is an intriguing twist to add a tangible family into the picture for one of the characters. Two was manufactured and therefore has no biological relations. Three’s family was murdered. Four had the remainder of his family killed. Other than Six, Five is the only other character with known family out there in the universe somewhere. It ups the stacks for Six as it surely will for Five when she finds her missing family. Having this personal connection outside of the crew could potentially force the characters to choose between the family they had and the one they’ve made. Five has made it very clear that his place is on the Raza, so when the time comes for her to find some blood relatives her choice will almost certainly be to remain that choice wasn’t quite so obvious for Six. He has struggled to understand his place so no one would have been surprised had he stayed behind to try and win his family back. Had he not seen that they had built a new family of their own he may have, but it was pretty obvious that he had to let them be for now. The best thing he can do for them now is to make sure that the universe stays safe for them. Though, knowing this show, this is far from the last time we’ve seen Six’s family. This was a very interesting and unique way to incorporate Six’s family into the story and the flashbacks worked really well with the way the episode was structured.
One must give Ferrous Corp some credit, they are a clever bunch, but trying to outsmart any member of the Raza crew will never end well. Even before the ploy was revealed it was pretty obvious that things weren’t as they seemed. There is no way in that any of the crew would pressure Six for such sensitive information. As Six would later point out, Three simply doesn’t care that much about others. He looks out for himself, Sarah, and the crew of the Raza and that’s about where his interest in other people ends. Three is fiercely protective of those that he cares about, but the rest of the universe is no concern of his. It was that fact that tipped off Six as well as the audience that something very wrong was going down. The scientists do deserve some credit because they did create an extremely realistic environment in which to try and trick Six. What they underestimated is how well he knows his crewmates.
The fabricated rescue was quite clever to bring Six back in line with this plan. Though once again, they underestimated Six and it ended poorly for them when he turned the tables on them. While this whole situation was awful for Six at least it freed some of his memories so that he could learn about the life he once had. Thanks to Anders he knew a fair bit of his past, unfortunately, Anders withheld some pretty big bits of Kal’s past. Though, there is an argument to be made that he was just trying to protect everyone involved. Despite his past actions, Anders really does immensely care about his friend and he knew that knowing he’d lost his family because of his job would have destroyed him. He actually did everyone a favor by not telling him when they were on Hyperion-8 because that was not a distraction that he needed when he was trying to undo what he’d done to get his Raza family in trouble.
Anders has proven to be a very complex and complicated character. He is a proud man who takes pride in doing his job very well yet at the same time he’s also got a bit of a soft spot when it comes to Kal and his rogue criminal friends. This now marks the second time this season alone where he took an active role in helping to save a member of the crew. He has put himself in compromising positions for both Three and Six and there is little doubt that if the others ever need help that he’d be there to have their backs out of loyalty to Kal. He’s not someone the crew is going to immediately trust, but he is gradually proving himself a valuable friend to have. He had no obligation to contact the Raza crew and alert them to Kal’s capture yet he did.
His timing also couldn’t have been better. He kept Two from risking her own life going down to the planet and he gave Five a small bit of relief by telling them Six was alive. In this moment it was sweet how Two realized how worried Five was and went to her. Two knows what Six means to Five and that was sort of her silent way of reassuring her that everything would be okay. As long as Six was alive there was no question that they would keep looking for him until they found him. Though Six did end up pretty much self-rescuing himself, it’s the thought that counts. That’s one of the greatest things about this crew is that they are very self-sufficient and each one of them alone is a force to be reckoned with. They can’t always save themselves, but they always put up a hell of a fight and that’s what Six did in this episode and it worked out well for him. From the moment he realized what was going on the fight was on and he prevailed.
This episode rested very heavily on the shoulders of Roger Cross and he was an absolute powerhouse throughout. Everyone knows how insanely talented he is and it is always an immense joy to watch him work. He has been missed during this brief absence, so it’s nice to have Six back with the crew so that Roger Cross can keep treating the audience to his incredible acting gift. Hopefully, that is the only time he’ll be absent for any length of time this season. It was also terrific that this episode saw the return of Jeff Teravainen as Anders. Which allowed these two powerhouse performers to work together to deliver some terrific scenes.
While it was so much fun to watch Anthony Lemke and Jeff Teravainen work together in the season premiere there is just something special about the chemistry that Teravainen has with Cross. They have such a natural ease with each other that all of their scenes are incredibly believable. When they shared the flashback scene where Anders was trying to talk sense into Kal it really felt like two long time friends talking and not performers working. The knowledge that they were working from a script vanished and all that was left was this passionate moment where one friend was desperate to get his best friend to listen before he could lose everything. These two are incredibly believable as best friends and perhaps if the G.A. ever falls or Anders decides to change sides he can go and join the Raza crew. Hopefully, after what he’s done recently, they’d at least be willing to entertain the idea of him on their ship. After all, Anders even met up with Six and went to the planet with him to see his family. He could have arrested the fugitive yet chose to instead just be a friend. That speaks volumes to his character, so you never know what could happen one day.
Once all the chaos was over, Three took the time to go and visit with Sarah. That moment yields another interesting bit of information. It has been hinted that there are some very dark things in Three’s past, but very few of those moments have been shown. This episode brought his past up again and eluded to the fact that Ryo might know about one of those dark moments. It’s not surprising that he kept those secrets to himself, but what is surprising is that Sarah seems to know exactly what Ryo was avoiding telling Three about. She had a chance in that moment to tell Three and clear his mind and since she didn’t that does not bode well. For Sarah to keep this from him whatever happened must be truly dark. Yet, despite it, she still loves him with all her virtual heart, so much so that she too is trying to protect him from his own past. Sadly, when the truth comes out, it’s sure to shatter him that she knew all along and didn’t tell him.
Sarah also got another visit, but this time from Two. Looks like the busy captain finally found some time to check on her additional guest. She was perhaps prompted by the troubling news she was watching about how things in the universe are spiraling out of control. Two had previously shared a nice scene with Three where it appeared that Two may have begun to accept that the universe is more screwed up than them. No matter the reason for the visit, it’s always nice to see Sarah get to interact with other characters and given her unfortunately confining situation she needs all the visitors she can get. That virtual existence has surely got to be feeling quite claustrophobic by now even with the upgrades she’s been able to do. At some point, the crew is going to have to do something with her and find a far more permanent solution to her situation. While Sarah is a nice sweet woman a human mind can only handle isolation for so long before snapping. She could potentially snap and put any one of them in danger. For the time being, hopefully, they’ll at least be able to find some way to better connect her to the outside world like Two suggested. It’s not a permanent solution, but better than nothing.
While that needs to be addressed for the sake of Sarah, it would appear that the crew is going to have a more pressing situation to deal with first. As the episode came to an end the Android emerged from her charging station and in a very ominous way looked in on Five and Six before pulling a gun on a sleeping Three. Thankfully something stopped her, but that is very concerning. It seems like she’s glitching or something has seriously gone wrong with her. Worth noting is that of all the crew the only one the Android didn’t intrude on or pose any threat to was Two. That was a curious omission, but at least she didn’t seem to pose any threat to Five or Six when she visited them. Still, even on Three’s worst day, she’d never ever hold a gun on him let alone when he’s defenseless. This ending is quite concerning.
Dark Matter has been on a roll this season and they just keep turning out these incredible episodes. This one was a little extra awesome since it saw Roger Cross return after a diminished role in the past several episodes. His return couldn’t have been done any more perfectly and Cross can always be counted on to carry an episode with immense charisma and talent. This episode gave Six a renewed focus and drive that he has been missing. He knows where he belongs now and has fully recommitted to his Raza family. There were lots of surprises and a couple big shocks that ended the episode. The next episode seems like it’s going to be wildly intense as the crew deals with whatever is going on with the Android.
Be sure to tune in next
Friday, July 21st on SyFy in the US and Space in Canada to find out what in the world is going on with the Android.
Hit the comments with your thoughts about this episode. Were you happy to see Six back? Did his previously unknown family surprise you? Did you like that Anders went out of his way to help? What is Sarah hiding from Three? What in the world is going on with the Android?
