‘Wonderful, mad chaos’: Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly talk Season 2 of Dark Matter

Joel Edgerton does not mince words when asked what fans can expect when Dark Matter returns.

“There’s so much at stake for everybody, it just feels like Season 2 is this wonderful, mad chaos,” he says, in a joint Zoom interview with co-star Jennifer Connelly.

Fans of the trippy sci-fi series have been waiting more than two years for a second season. It doesn’t take long into Episode 1, which launches Aug. 28 on Apple TV+, to get a taste of the chaos. The first segment, in fact, offers a buildup of corpses that all resemble Edgerton’s Jason Dessen, a physicist whose life entered some serious chaos in Season 1 when he was abducted into a parallel universe and had to fight to get back home. His abductee is an alternate version of himself who regretted abandoning his pregnant wife Daniella (Connelly) in a different universe and wants to take back what he lost. Dessen soon discovers there are multiple versions of himself in multiple universes.

Based on the bestselling novel by Blake Couch, Dark Matter explores complex scientific concepts that delve into quantum mechanics and the notion of superposition, which posits that every possible outcome from every event creates another universe. The duplicitous second Dessen was able to infiltrate his other self’s more domesticated life because in his world he is an ambitious scientist who helped create The Box, a groundbreaking device that is capable of transporting people across the multiverse into different realities.

The first season introduced mind-bending what-if scenarios, but at its heart were universal themes about regret, roads not taken and the journey home.

“Season 1 is a very simple kind of diagram of one person trying to get back to their family while another person is taking over the same family, a two-timeline kind of situation,” he says. “Season 2 is intertwining roads of various characters that deal with the aftermath of this awareness of technology and characters looking at their choices and being aware they have the ability to explore, escape or terminate their journey.”

Season 1 ended with Jason being reunited with Daniela and their teenage son, Charlie (Oakes Fegley), escaping into a parallel world they hope will be safe and stable. Needless to say, it proves not to be and the three finds themselves on the run again. They also discover that a safe and stable world may not exist, which puts a good deal of stress on the Dessen’s marriage and their relationship with their son, who has become tired of searching for a perfect world that may not exist.

As always, there are a number of subplots that course through the second season. We meet Mitch McNamara, a new character who’s played by Toronto actor Chris Diamantopoulos and who’s a member of a murky government agency determined to pursue Dessen and unlock the secrets of the box.

Meanwhile, Amanda Lucas (Alice Braga) and Ryan Holder (Jimmi Simpson), who were both duped by Jason No. 2 and left stranded in a different world, work together to find their way home.