Apple TV
How do you follow up a season of television that already adapted everything from the source material? Not easily, as it so happens. "Dark Matter" mastermind Blake Crouch finds himself in the unusual position of being the author behind the original 2016 book and, remarkably enough, the lead creative on the Apple TV adaptation of his own work. So when news first broke that another season had been greenlit to continue the story beyond the pages of the book, many fans (us included) wondered the same thing: What the heck could "Dark Matter" Season 2 be about?
If that was tough for us fans to wrap our minds around, it was nothing compared to the struggles Crouch and writing partner Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry experienced while figuring out where to take the multiverse-traveling journey of Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) and his family next. "We had originally pitched the show as a three-season show, although we didn't know — obviously, you don't know that it's going to be great," Crouch told me during a recent Zoom interview. "And we knew the first season was going to be the full book, then we would see what happened."
But, as he went on to explain, it wasn't until he was neck-deep into the process that it finally clicked into place:
"We had ideas about what would happen after the events of [the Season 1 finale], and we'd set characters along on certain journeys. And then Apple was like, 'Well, why don't you guys write the first five scripts [of Season 2] and we'll take a look, we'll see what happens.' And even then, even writing the first handful of episodes, I wasn't 100% convinced."
What made the difference, according to the showrunner, was writing one of the most inspired hours in all of Season 2.
Episode 5 convinced Blake Crouch to make Dark Matter Season 2
Apple TV
Blake Crouch has spoken often about both the challenges and the freedom of crafting a full season of "Dark Matter" without any preexisting text to rely upon, but one nearly dialogue-free episode in particular underlines that point more than any other. Standing apart from all the rest due to its self-contained nature in an otherwise-serialized plot, Season 2's fifth episode (evocatively titled "Love and Be Loved") provides a side story focused on another version of Jason who picks himself up after the Season 1 finale and, in time, learns to move on and build another family. That, as Crouch pinpoints, was the storyline that revealed just how essential Season 2 could truly be:
"It was really the fifth episode, which is one of the first ones that we wrote, the silent episode of Season 2. That really kind of broke it open for me and made me want to do it. It was almost like, 'I'll do the whole season just to make that episode.' Because it was exciting to me to be able to tell a story within the 'Dark Matter' universe that was a completely isolated, almost a movie-like feel."
To hear the novelist and showrunner tell it, he didn't want another season that felt like "more of the same." Instead, the goal was to keep improving on what came before and do "some really challenging stuff we've never done." The result was an eye-opening one, according to Crouch. "And once we started on that path, then the rest of the season really opened up and it became, 'Let's just have fun and swing for the fences on this one.'" Mission accomplished.
The "Dark Matter" Season 2 finale streams on Apple TV on October 30, 2026.
English (US) ·