Apple TV’s sci-fi thriller Dark Matter gets even trippier in season 2

Apple TV 科幻惊悚剧《暗物质》第二季剧情更加烧脑

Things aren’t getting easier for Jason and his family — or viewers, for that matter. 对于杰森（Jason）和他的家人来说，事情并没有变得简单——对观众而言亦是如此。

Confusion is a generally accepted side effect of mystery box shows. They slather on secrets with the promise of a satisfying payoff in the end, and sometimes the cast and crew even have a hard time following what’s going on. But even by the standards of the genre, Dark Matter is extreme. Its multiversal premise, which involves a man kidnapping a version of himself from another world, can be hard to wrap your head around, and as the first season went on, things only got harder to follow. With the return of the show for season 2, I have both good and bad news: The show is more dramatic and thrilling than ever, while also being ever so much harder to follow. 困惑是“悬疑盒子”类剧集公认的副作用。这类剧集堆砌秘密，承诺最终会给出令人满意的交代，有时连演职人员自己都难以理清剧情。但即便以该类型的标准来看，《暗物质》（Dark Matter）也显得有些极端。其多元宇宙的设定——涉及一个男人绑架了来自另一个世界的自己——本身就很难理解，随着第一季的推进，剧情也变得愈发扑朔迷离。随着第二季的回归，我有一个好消息和一个坏消息：这部剧比以往任何时候都更具戏剧性和惊悚感，但同时也变得更难看懂了。

Spoilers follow for the first season of Dark Matter. 以下内容包含《暗物质》第一季剧透。

First, a reminder of where the story left us. Based on the novel of the same name, Dark Matter follows Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), a physics professor in Chicago who is living a relatively normal and contented life with his artist wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) and teenage son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). In another world, a different version of Jason decided to forgo that family life in pursuit of his dream, which was apparently to build a gigantic box that allowed people to travel to other parallel universes. But that alt version of Jason ultimately wasn’t satisfied with the life he had, and used the box to travel to a world where he and Daniela were together. He then kidnapped himself, abandoned that version in another world, and proceeded to take over his life. 首先，回顾一下故事的起点。该剧改编自同名小说，讲述了芝加哥物理学教授杰森·德森（乔尔·埃哲顿饰）的故事，他与艺术家妻子丹妮拉（詹妮弗·康纳利饰）及十几岁的儿子查理（奥克斯·费格雷饰）过着相对正常且满足的生活。在另一个世界里，另一个版本的杰森决定放弃家庭生活去追求梦想——显然是建造一个能让人穿越到平行宇宙的巨大盒子。但那个版本的杰森最终对自己的生活并不满意，于是利用盒子穿越到了他和丹妮拉在一起的世界。随后，他绑架了自己，将原本的杰森抛弃在另一个世界，并接管了他的生活。

Things did not go as planned for alt Jason. Daniela eventually realized that something was wrong, Jason prime fought his way through multiple worlds to get back home, and by the end of the season, an army of Jason variants had descended on the same version of Chicago in hopes of reuniting with Daniela. At the end of the finale, the original Jason, Daniela, and Charlie had made their way into the box in hopes of finding a new world where they could live out a normal life in peace. 对于那个“替代版”杰森来说，事情并没有按计划进行。丹妮拉最终察觉到了异样，原版杰森历经多个世界艰难跋涉回到家中。第一季末尾，一群杰森的变体降临到同一个芝加哥，都希望能与丹妮拉团聚。在季终集结尾，原版杰森、丹妮拉和查理进入了盒子，希望能找到一个能让他们平静过上正常生活的新世界。

Still with me? Well, good, because things only get more complex from here. Dark Matter is obviously a high-concept sci-fi thriller, but in season 2, it really pushes further into its premise, exploring all of the wild possibilities. Jason and his family are living like multiversal nomads, traveling to different worlds in search of a home, and this lets the show get into the nitty-gritty of how the box works and the rules for traveling between worlds. It’s an inexact science: You can’t just go wherever you want. Instead, your destination is dependent on your mindset when you open the door. So if you’re scared or stressed out, get ready for a postapocalyptic version of Chicago. 还跟得上吗？很好，因为接下来的剧情只会更加复杂。《暗物质》显然是一部高概念科幻惊悚剧，但在第二季中，它进一步挖掘了其核心设定，探索了所有疯狂的可能性。杰森一家像多元宇宙的游牧民一样，在不同的世界间穿梭寻找家园，这让剧集得以深入探讨盒子的运作机制以及世界间旅行的规则。这是一门不精确的科学：你不能随心所欲地去任何地方。相反，你的目的地取决于你打开门时的心态。所以，如果你感到恐惧或压力巨大，那就准备好迎接一个末日版的芝加哥吧。

This premise leads to some really great moments. The Dessens, for instance, are going through a situation that no family has ever gone through, which puts all kinds of strain on their relationships. But the show is often at its best when it moves away from the main story. One episode explores several years in the life of a random Jason variant who simply tries to build a life for himself in a quiet world. It’s a melancholy short story that reminds me of the “Long, Long Time” episode of The Last of Us. It doesn’t try to push the story forward or inundate you with revelations; instead, it shows you the human impact of this technology. There’s a similar episode that introduces a sort of waystation that various multiverse travelers visit over the years, and one that involves Charlie seeking out a long-lost family member in another world. 这一设定带来了一些非常精彩的时刻。例如，德森一家正在经历任何家庭都未曾遭遇的困境，这给他们的关系带来了各种压力。但该剧往往在脱离主线剧情时表现最佳。有一集探讨了一个随机的杰森变体在安静世界中试图建立生活的几年时光。这是一个忧郁的短篇故事，让我想起了《最后生还者》中那集“长久时光”（Long, Long Time）。它没有试图推进主线或用大量揭秘轰炸观众，而是展示了这项技术对人性的影响。还有类似的一集，介绍了一个多元宇宙旅行者多年来会造访的中转站，以及查理在另一个世界寻找失散已久的家庭成员的故事。

But getting to these moments means being okay with being confused, and that’s because season 2 really ratchets up the complexity primarily by introducing a whole bunch of new characters, most of whom are variants of existing ones. That means a lot of Jasons, Danielas, and Charlies, of course — the original alt Jason who started this mess features prominently — but also their friends and coworkers like chemist Ryan (Jimmi Simpson), psychologist Amanda (Alice Braga), and the well-off Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi) who is bankrolling the whole thing. There are multiple versions of each, spread across different worlds, all of which are involved to some degree in the larger story. It’s a lot to keep track of, and the show often doesn’t help much in differentiating the variants so that it’s clear who you’re actually watching. At one point, the main Jason and Daniela get tattoos so they can clearly identify each other. On top of this, season 2 jumps around in time quite a bit, further putting a strain on your ability to follow narrative, threads. 但要看到这些精彩时刻，你必须接受“困惑”的状态，因为第二季通过引入大量新角色（其中大多数是现有角色的变体）极大地增加了复杂性。这意味着会有很多杰森、丹妮拉和查理——最初引发这场混乱的那个“替代版”杰森戏份吃重——此外还有他们的朋友和同事，比如化学家瑞安（吉米·辛普森饰）、心理学家阿曼达（艾莉丝·布拉加饰）以及资助这一切的富豪莱顿（达约·奥杰尼伊饰）。每个人都有多个版本分布在不同的世界，且都在某种程度上卷入了更大的故事中。要理清这些关系非常困难，而且剧集在区分这些变体方面做得不够清晰，让你很难分清到底在看谁。剧中有一幕，主角杰森和丹妮拉甚至纹了纹身，以便能清楚地辨认出对方。除此之外，第二季的时间线跳跃频繁，进一步考验了你追踪叙事线索的能力。

That kind of knotty storytelling is perhaps unavoidable with a premise as convoluted as Dark Matter’s, but season 2 shows that series can also do a lot when it slows down and explores human-level stories, as opposed to racing toward the next big set piece. The second season attempts to balance both kinds of storytelling — it even ends with what feels like some Christopher Nolan–inspired action — which means that in order to experience the show at its best, you’ll have to resign yourself to not understanding everything. 对于《暗物质》这样复杂的设定，这种纠结的叙事方式或许是不可避免的。但第二季也证明了，当剧集放慢节奏去探索人性故事，而不是一味奔向下一个大场面时，它同样能展现出强大的魅力。第二季试图平衡这两种叙事方式——甚至在结尾处呈现了一些带有克里斯托弗·诺兰风格的动作戏——这意味着，为了获得最佳的观剧体验，你必须学会接受自己无法完全理解所有剧情的事实。

Dark Matter season 2 is streaming on Apple TV on August 28th. 《暗物质》第二季将于8月28日在 Apple TV 上线。