Apple TV’s Must-See Drama Will Melt Your Mind in Season 2

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Apple TV Dark Matter ’s first season asked, in insanely intricate fashion, if the grass is greener on the other side.

Its answer was a resounding no, as Blake Crouch’s adaptation of his own novel painted a riveting portrait of the byzantine mess made by one man’s attempt to travel from his universe to a parallel one in order to steal his doppelgänger’s life.

A puzzle box that exploited its multiverse conceit to head-spinningly thrilling and touching degrees, it was a harrowing cautionary tale about pursuing the road less traveled.

Crouch’s series concluded on a cliffhanger that promised more unique sci-fi madness, and in its second go-round (August 28), it delivers that in spades.

An exhilarating continuation of a story that’s so elaborate it just about requires a diagram, Dark Matter reconfirms its status as the most mind-meltingly compelling genre series since Netflix’s Dark , and a twisty-turny triumph elevated by performances—led by Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly—that are as multi-layered as the various realities in which they exist.

In its maiden season’s finale, Jason (Edgerton), his wife Daniela (Connelly), and their teen son Charlie (Oakes Fegley) fled their world through the Box, a quantum mechanics-powered portal that was previously used by a second Jason, known as “Jason 2,” who wanted to greedily take Jason’s place.

That identity theft sparked chaos, flooding real Jason’s Chicago with dozens of alterna-Jasons.

Now, as it turns out, one of those interlopers has been captured by Mitchell McNamara (Chris Diamantopoulos), a mysterious agent who’s desperate to make sense of a situation that, from every reasonable angle, defies logic.

Jason, Daniela, and Charlie, meanwhile, have absconded to another world where they’re trying to stay under the radar at a remote woodland home.

Unfortunately, anonymity is hard to come by, as is safety, and after a run-in with another Jason duplicate—and a nosy police officer—tragic events force them to flee once again.

To do this, they inject themselves with a chemical compound which induces a state of superposition and, when in the Box, grants them access to a never-ending corridor whose doors open onto different versions of Earth.

Moreover, Box users control what lies behind the doors, as their thoughts dictate the types of universes they can enter.

If this sounds complicated, it’s nothing compared to the nuts-and-bolts of Dark Matter , whose scripts are full of convincing-sounding scientific mumbo-jumbo that gives its fantastical action an air of realism, not to mention facilitates a limitless number of facsimiles.

Jason, Daniela, and Charlie eventually settle in a tech-free Chicago which their doubles have abandoned for San Francisco.