DARK MATTER – Season 2 Episode 13 – SPOILERS

Commander Nieman and his thugs beat the crap out of Three for double crossing Ferrous Corp in Episode 1.2 (even though it was Two who actually engineered that double cross). Fittingly, the bomb that Ferrous Corp planted in the handsome android Arrian in an attempt to destroy the Council of Corporations was, in the words of The Android, “some kind of tarium device”. (At the beginning of Season One, it was a tarium mining colony that the Raza crew saved from destruction.) The bomb inside Arrian must have generated a lot of radiation to shake such a large station after it detonated a short distance away in the vacuum of space.

But the conference was not to be saved. Believing that its demise will help Zairon win the war with Pyr, Four (Alex Mallari, Jr.) blows it up, shuts down The Android, and steals the blink drive. He also warns the Raza crew so they can get off the station in time. (The Android’s reactivation code is DGE 009.) Four makes the mistake of trusting Misaki (Ellen Wong), who takes the opportunity to kill Nyx with a poisoned blade. She will not get away with that. It will be simple for the Raza crew to figure out that Ryo/Four would not use poison and that only he and Misaki had opportunity. They will tell Four, and Misaki is intelligent enough to know that this will happen. It is a reasonable assumption that Misaki thinks she has enough support to depose the Emporer, and possibly even take control herself.

To be a guest on The Raza is deadly dangerous, unless you’re one of the original seven (including The Android). Derrick Moss (who masqueraded as One) was murdered. Three’s girlfriend Sarah died when her stasis pod failed. Wendy the Pleasure Droid went rogue and was dismantled by the crew. The young fellow who stowed away with Five bled to death in a storage room. Wexler and Tash were killed by Two after trying to take over the ship. Devon was stabbed in the gut by Hamsmeed. Milo killed himself with a weapon provided by Four. And now Nyx, who joined the ship after the prison break at the beginning of Season Two, falls victim to the ambitious Commander of Zairon‘s Royal Guard.

Eos 7, where the corporate conference took place, is surrounded by a geodesic sphere of security satellites with a radius of 7 light minutes. That’s a big sphere. For comparison, the radius of Earth’s orbit around the sun is about eight light minutes. The satellites are able to generate an “Aslanov exclusion field” which disrupts FTL drives. (In our universe, Aslanov is a brand of vodka, and tarium is an anagram for Atrium.)

Five‘s blonde wig with bangs makes her look old enough to be working for Truffault, and also makes her look like an entirely different person. Putting Three and Six in futuristic suits makes them fit into the crowd on the station. But one wonders why Truffault, who provided the disguises, dressed Two in evening wear.

At the end, it looks like Kierken (Kris Holden-Ried) is almost certainly dead. He was at blast center when the station blew. Five is with Truffault, so she is probably safe. A beaten and bloodied Three is with Lieutenant Anders (Jeff Teravainen) , who apparently has recovered from wounds suffered during the Raza crew’s prison escape, and pops up out of nowhere. Six and Two are unaccounted for, but Six used to work for the GA and should be able to find an escape route, and Two has nanites that enable her to float in space for a while if necessary.

Looking ahead to Season Three, Kierken knew that Zairon was responsible for blowing up the station, but he didn’t survive (unless that was another clone, and in that case he wouldn’t retain the memory). The only ones that know the truth of what happened are the crew of The Raza. Truffault is likely to be an ally of Two and her crew now that they saved her life, and will be inclined to believe what they tell her. In the absence of a more convenient explanation, the Galactic Authority will blame The Raza for the station’s destruction, so Truffault may be helpful in shifting the GA’s attention to Zairon. Two will want the blink drive back and The Android might want revenge over the death of her friend Nyx.

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NOTES

David Richmond-Peck (Commander Nieman) is a detective in the Alan Gilsenan film UNLESS, which is based on Carol Shield’s 2002 novel about a successful writer who struggles with her daughter Norah’s decision to drop out of college and live on the streets as a mute in some form of protest. (One of Norah’s sisters is played by Chloe Rose, who appeared in the first two episodes of DARK MATTER.) Here’s a quote from the novel that one hopes is included in the film: “Happiness is the lucky pane of glass you carry in your head. It takes all your cunning just to hang on to it, and once it’s smashed you have to move into a different sort of life.” UNLESS had its premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on 11 September.

Kyle Mac (Arrian) will be Moore in the political thriller MISS SLOANE, the story of a ruthless and highly successful political strategist, Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain), who exposes the cutthroat world of Washington D.C. lobbyists on both sides of the gun control debate. The film will be released on 9 December in the US (well after the American presidential election).

Torri Higginson (Commander Truffault) will be Commander Eugenia Pikeman in NOBILITY, a science fiction mocumentary in which the Confederate Alliance decides to make a film about their flagship Nobility (on which Commander Pikeman serves) and it becomes apparent that the crew of that vessel are not the sort of heroes the Alliance is looking for. (PIkeman does sound a bit heroic. According to her character bio, she joined the Confederate Alliance Military Services after spending her youth protecting her brothers and sisters from an abusive father.) Also in the cast are Star Trek’s Walter Koenig, Cas Anvar of THE EXPANSE, and Xena’s Adrienne Wilkinson. NOBILITY‘s first two seasons will initially be released online. Later, they will be combined into a feature-length movie and distributed on DVD and
Blu-ray with extras. A trailer is available on YouTube.