Dark Matter has carved out its own space in Apple TV's sci-fi lineup. It has its own fanbase and its own appeal. After an eerily fantastic first season, viewers have been waiting for more and at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, the full trailer for season 2 finally dropped in Hall H.
From two minutes of footage, it's clear the show is going somewhere bigger and more ambitious than season 1. There seemingly will be more worlds, more characters, higher stakes and threads running in multiple directions at once. You can watch it below:
Here are the things we noticed in the trailer that have us completely hooked.
1. Chris Diamantopoulos' new character is not messing around
The trailer opens with someone we've never seen before. He's seen throwing a ball against the wall of what looks like a glass containment cell, interrogating Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) with the question: why do people walk into the Box and disappear?
This is Chris Diamantopoulos, known from Silicon Valley and Invincible, and he seems like some kind of authority figure or investigator in the story. What's interesting is, whoever he's playing doesn't seem to be another version of Jason. season 1's central conflict was Jason versus Jason. This feels like something else, which opens up a lot of questions about who else knows about the Box and what they want with it.
2. The Dessen family has found a home but it's already fragile
The Dessens are living in "World 26," the name Dark Matter creator Blake Crouch gave the universe they settled in at the end of season 1. And for a moment, it actually looks like things are okay. There's a glimpse of a normal-looking life in what appears to be a pretty clean and functioning version of Chicago.
But the trailer also makes it clear that Jason's obsession with the Box hasn't gone away. His son Charlie even says outright in the trailer that finding a perfect world is pointless because other versions of Jason will always track them down and it gave us chills.
3. Daniela is more frightened than ever of her own husband
At some point in the trailer, Daniela tells someone that she's scared of what she sees in Jason. And that is very different from what we know of Daniela. In season 1, Daniela was the person Jason was trying to get back to. But now she's looking at him and seeing something that frightens her, and the show might be leaning into what extended exposure to the multiverse does to a person psychologically. There is also a line where she says, "How did I not see who you were?" Jason has seen too many versions of his own life and maybe that is changing him?
4. Someone finds a pile of dead Jasons
We see this very eerie moment when Diamantopoulos' character discovers multiple bodies in the trailer. All of them Jasons. Dead versions of Jason Dessen, apparently scattered across whatever location he's investigating.
Creepy as the cut was, it also raises obvious questions. Who killed them? Were they alternate Jasons pursuing the main family and eliminated by someone? Did they kill each other? Is this what happens when the same person keeps crossing into the same dimension? The show hasn't answered any of this yet, but the visual alone signals that season 2 is not pulling back on the more disturbing implications of the multiverse concept.
5. The season is running three storylines at once
Season 2 looks structurally different. Based on the trailer and what the cast shared at the SDCC panel, there are three separate threads running in parallel. The Dessen family is in World 26, trying to hold together while being hunted. Amanda (Alice Braga) and Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) are lost somewhere in the multiverse trying to find their way back. And Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi) is using the Box to chase his own vision of a perfect world, with Blair (Amanda Brugel) trying to stop him. It seems like the competing storylines will give season 2 more of a multiverse-spanning ensemble than season 1.
6. Jason wants to destroy the Box and that's a real problem
At some point in the trailer, Jason suggests that the only way out of all of this is to destroy the Box entirely, so no more alternate Jasons will find them. Blair's response is that the consequences of that can't be predicted or contained, which is actually a fascinating conflict because she's probably right.
Other versions of him built other versions of it. You can't unring that bell. The idea of destroying it is understandable from Jason's perspective as a father, and he says in the trailer that he just wants his family safe. But as a solution it's probably either impossible or catastrophic and only time will tell how it goes about for them.
7. Nothing of the trailer was in the book
Season 1 of Dark Matter notably adapted Blake Crouch's 2016 novel closely and did it well. Now, season 2 has no source material to work from because no sequel novel exists. But Crouch is back as showrunner, creator and lead writer, co-writing every episode this season with executive producer Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry.
So this is a very, very new story and definitely so for readers of the book. None of the sequences shown in the trailer can be traced back to events in the original novel, so we will basically be seeing Crouch extending his own characters and universe in a different medium.
Dark Matter season 2 premieres August 28 on Apple TV+, with new episodes every Friday through October 30.
Add us as a preferred source on Google