Dark Matter
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We need to talk about cold opens.
Forty-nine years later,Skyfallwould repeat the gag of having Bond appear to be killed before the opening credits.
Some chapters ofDark Matterhave featured cold opens; Episode eight, Jupiter, inexplicably does not.
At long last, the Schizoid Man/Superman III/Terminator 2/Star Trek VIdoppelganger dustup we have somewhat impatiently been waiting for!
The guy weve spent seven hours of television rooting for is now dead.
If that gasp-inducing moment doesnt belong before the title sequence, I dont know what the hecking heck does.
Dont you dare touch that Apple TV remote, True Believers!
Its a whole bunch of Jasons A (a flock of Jasons?
A school of Jasons?
All the Jasons A have been wronged by Jason B.
The stakes have been raised!
Wait, didnt we just see him get killed while attempting to cut Jason B with that same knife?
Well,oneof him, yeah.
Stepping into the hallway, he finds himself face-to-face with himself.
One Jason flees, the other gives chase.
The Jason hes pursuing eludes him by slipping into the Village Tap, where tattooed barkeep Matt welcomes him.
I need a drink, Jason says.
That was quick, Matt retorts.
Thats when Jason A-1 spots Jason A-2 in a booth.
Matt clocks him, too.
Hes wearing a watch cap, which doesnt completely cover a big stitched-up gash on his forehead.
I guess this was inevitable.
That different versions of us would spawn in the box., Jason A-2 muses.
Every choice I made in there created a different Jason, Jason A-1 says, picking up the thread.
And every choice each ofthoseJasons made, and so on, and so on.
Jason A-2 reveals that the Amanda who helped him escape from Velocity Labs perished in a very dark world.
Hes relieved to hear that Jason A-1s Amanda found a welcoming world and chose to stay there.
Theyre both out of ampules.
The talk quickly turns to murder.
(Or suicide, technically?)
You must have thought of Kankakee, right?
We dont know what that is, but the Jasons A agree they know about that first reserve huh?
Which means that Jason Two thats what I call him doesntknow about it.
This is Jason A-2 talking now.
He declares his intention to make Jason Two pay.
We all think of ourselves as Jason One, he says.
Cant all be Jason One.
I dont want to hurt you or anyone like us, Jason A-2 declares.
But Im not gonna let anyone get in the way of me being with Daniela and Charlie.
He does his selves a solid and pays for their beers before excusing himself.
Jason A-1 wakes up on a park bench before buying himself breakfast at a diner.
He uses them to fire up a stogie, right in the middle of the diner.
Being a nice guy, he looks uncomfortable to be engaging in such poor behavior.
You are a very rude man, another patron tells him.
His server tells him he cant smoke inside, as does her manager.
How did you become a detective?
Jason A-1 asks her as she puts him in the back of her cruiser.
Jason B had planned on unloading that body after dropping off Charlie at school, I guess?
This one has what looks like a substantial burn scar on the right side of his face.
Jason B is trying to keep ahead of this letter-unknown Jason without tipping off Charlie that something is wrong.
Daniela, meanwhile, has used a pair of bolt cutters to break into Jason Bs storage unit.
Youd think those places would have measures in place to prevent this.
and unsecured cell phones full of photos of what looks like her husband being surreptitiously observed.
The most intriguing clue is a pair of overalls with a name patch that reads Ryan over the breast.
The Ryan she thought to be crazy had insisted that hes a mechanic.
At the university library, Charlie is alarmed by his dads odd behavior.
You definitely get points on your license for that, and Charlie doesnt evenhavea license yet.
That man isnt me, Jason A stammers.
Hes another version of me.
Its a lucky thing Jason B picked up.
Without promising shell definitely come, she names the Bean in Millennium Park.
(If shed used this beloved reflective sculptures formal name,Cloud Gate,wed have cried foul.)
Hes also clever enough to ask her to think of a safe word.Jupiteris what she chooses.
I dont understand this choice.
Inside, she finds Jason B in a state of alarm, telling her they all need to flee.
He keeps telling Daniela to get a suitcase.
The final moments are unhinged.
Just then, their car collides with another one, this one driven by still another Jason A!
Arriving at the Bean, Daniela demands that the Jason A waiting for them there speak their safe word.
He does, and then wraps their son in his arms, keeping his eyes on his wife.
Its a cathartic reunion.
This is a story wherein the losers are going to outnumber the winners by a lot.
