NOTE: This review is for the second hour of the Dark Matter finale.

For a review of the first hour, check out Dark Matter Episode 12 Review – Meet Your Maker

For our finale broadcast interview, check out The Dark Matter Finale Interview-O-Rama with Two, Four, Five, Six & Joe!

Poor Android … She seems to have spent a fair amount of season one in an incapacitated state and that is again how we find her as the last hour of Dark Matter’s first season opens. When Five and Two find her, she’s got a Volkov-Rusi patch in her hand and her neural chip is missing. Without it, Android can’t be brought online again. Since the chip is programmable, whoever has it can pretty much make her do anything they want by reprogramming the chip.

Assuming there’s a Volkov-Rusi stowaway on the ship, Two has everyone pair off to do a search. She hands Five a gun and says, “you know how to use it” referring to when the kid shot Cain and saved Two. It marks even more progress for Five in being accepted as an equal. Both she and Android have had to deal with the crew seeing them as somehow less important/useful, but these last couple of hours have seen huge steps in the right direction. This is a family now, but just as every family has a ne’er do well, this family has a traitor.

One and Four are paired off and having a discussion about killing while searching the ship. Four makes it very clear that he’s not trying to start over, but is instead embracing his past with the intention of one day taking the throne in his family’s empire. Judging by this exchange, he’s not planning a peaceful coup.

“I don’t know. Enemy or not, the lives I’ve taken weight pretty heavily on me.” – One

“I can’t allow them to affect me, because I have so many more to take.” – Four

The topic of Five’s acceptance comes up again when she and Six have a conversation about her using a gun. She feels it makes her useful in a fight, but Six states she’s never needed a gun to be useful. He’s right, but she’s got a point. If she’s truly a part of the crew there will come times when she will need to defend herself with deadly force.

“Well, here’s the irony. All this time you’ve been trying to be more like us, we’ve actually been trying to be more like you.” – Six

After searching the entire ship, Two says they’ve searched everywhere, but Five disagrees. They haven’t searched her little Habitrail network of air ducts, so she again proves her usefulness by patrolling the ventilation. I think she just has the goggles because she loves them so much.

Five makes a thorough, but fruitless search of the airways. There’s no one to be found on the ship other than the crew. Because of the way Android was disabled, Two has a hunch to check the vault and there they discover the shock stick missing. Knowing only they have the code to open the Big Damned Door she concludes the person who took down Android must be one of them.

Suspicions begin to run high amongst the crew. Not surprisingly, One and Three suspect each other and believe they should be locked up until they get to a space station. Five is convinced it’s Two and she tells Six she’s certain that Two is capable of harming a member of the crew. After hearing that recording, who can blame her?

Everyone gathers in the commissary where One and Three begin sniping at each other and everyone looks tense. After drinking some water that Two had poured, Four collapses. At first, I suspected Two had drugged the water, but she looked and acted genuinely surprised, even going so far as to tell everyone not to drink anything that wasn’t in a sealed container.

Still fighting like a couple of children, One and Three insist on searching the other’s quarters. To keep the peace they all agree to search everyone’s quarters. Nothing dangerous was found and the only thing remotely suspicious was found in Three’s room. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t pose a threat to the safety of the crew.

“A little something I picked up at the last space station … from a little something I picked up at the last space station.” – Three

When Five asks Six if he would stay in her quarters for safety he asks her why she’s so wary of Two. Five lets him listen to the secret recording she’d made of Two and Four talking about someone having to die. After hearing this, Six has an idea. He gets Five to look over the list of deleted files on her computer and they discover one that was created on the day they went into stasis. Six figured out that Five wrote the program to wipe everyone’s memories, but she did it to try and protect someone, not hurt anyone.

The pair hear a sound in the hallway, so Six goes to investigate telling Five to stay in her room. Naturally, she doesn’t stay in her room, but in this case it was a good thing because she finds Six out cold on the corridor floor.

Her screams are heard by One and Three who run down to find that Two is also there. In the med bay they find that Six was injected with the same drug Four ingested in the water. Right at that moment, the ship lurches like something exploded. After getting to the bridge they discover all the engines are down – both FTL and sub-light. Again, they leave Five behind, telling her to lock herself in the bridge, but this time Three gives her a gun. They’ve believe in Five enough now to let her in on a gunfight if needed, and deciding to leave her on the bridge was probably more of a decision based on her tech skills and not on the fact that she’s “just a kid.”

“Someone comes through that door that ain’t us … you shoot ‘em.” – Three

Two and Three go in search of the saboteur, but when they split up One sneaks up on Three and holds him at gunpoint, both boys still suspicious of the other. Focused on Three, One doesn’t see Two sneak up behind him and she knocks him out. They lock him in his quarters to eliminate one variable then head down to check on the engine damage.

Due to the level of damage and Android being out of commission, HoloDroid comes online and surprises Five. She explains how she was created by Android to observe her unusual behavior and goes on to reveal her analysis discovered a glitch in her personality matrix. Android is technically defective, but Five is adamant that she likes her with her just fine with her flaws.

“I need you to do something for me.” – Five

“Of course.” – HoloDroid

“Shut the hell up.” – Five

Five’s not at all happy with HoloDroid advocating a complete reset for Android and since she can’t control the ship, such as opening the door, she’s pretty much useless. Five orders her to erase all files she’s created relating to her diagnostic findings on Android, then delete her own active programming. This is the AI equivalent of ordering her to commit suicide and Five has no problem with it since HoloDroid poses a threat to our Android.

Two gets the engines back online, but when they try to call Five on the bridge they get no answer. Arriving at the bridge, they discover the slippery kid has crawled out through a floor panel. Two checks the controls and discovers some good news and some bad news. Good news: Sub-light engines are back online. Bad news: Long range sensors picked up a Galactic Authority ship headed straight for them.

The only explanation for the GA ship finding them in the middle of deep space is that the traitor sent a subspace communication relaying their position. Their first instinct is to fight, but the controls have been locked with a passcode. Three has had enough and storms off to beat the passcode out of One, whether he has it or not. One was waiting for something like this and soon the two are pointing guns at each other again.

Tensions and suspicions reach a fever pitch when Two shows up behind One and levels her gun on him. As they’re arguing about who should lay down their weapon, Five rounds the corner with her gun leveled at Two and begins to explain why she suspects their leader of mole-ish behavior.

Five says Two is the one who poured the drugged water and was the last one to see the shock stick in the vault. It also explains why the traitor didn’t bring Android back online to control the ship – Two has the skills to do it herself so she wouldn’t need Android. Her case is certainly compelling, but before anything can be agreed upon, they’re taken out by gas grenades which render them all unconscious. All except Two, who was apparently faking, because when the traitor, whose face isn’t shown, walks in she jumps up to fight only to be taken down by that shock stick.

Galactic Authority troops storm the ship and remove our crew one by one, in numerical order, no less. As they’re taken past the camera, bound and unconscious, we see the last person in line is very much awake and able to move about freely. It’s our moral compass – Six.

What could Six’s motivations be for apparently selling out the crew? These are people he’s shown he really cares for, especially Five. That’s the hardest part to comprehend, that he made any deal where Five gets taken into custody.

During our pre-finale interview earlier in the week, we talked about this shocking scene and were given a hint we couldn’t reveal until after the finale had aired. Now that it has, I can share this information so you can use it to form your own conclusions while we wait for season two to be announced.

Take a close look at the uniformed guy to Six’s right. You may recognize him as Lieutenant Anders from episode 8. He was one of the General’s men who could’ve taken out Six’s clone when he attacked the General’s base, but instead let him leave. I can only surmise from that that Anders is one of the “good guys” and that he’s helping Six with some plan that will strike at the Galactic Authority without endangering innocent lives. How getting the crew captured figures into this is only known to Joe Mallozzi and maybe a few others for now, but after Syfy does the right thing and renews Dark Matter we’ll all find out when season 2 begins airing.

For the rest of our extensive coverage of Dark Matter, CLICK HERE.

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The Dark Matter 2-part finale airs Friday, August 28 at 9/8 central on Syfy



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