Apple TV ‘Dark Matter’ Season 2 Episode 3 Review - The Box Always Comes Back

The third episode, titled “Everything Beautiful, Everything Terrible,” opens in a bar with Jason 2 (the successful physicist who built the Box) and a group of old professors. They debate the ethics of his invention. Every transformative technology, they argue, carries both beauty and horror: ships bring discovery and colonization; the internet connects minds and spreads cruelty and isolation. The consensus is grim and familiar: if something can be done, it will be done. Humans cannot help themselves. The scene intercuts with Blair Caplan preparing to step into the Box for the first time—the original “Neil Armstrong” moment that tore the fabric of reality.

Jason 1, Daniela, and Charlie have settled in a world stuck in analog technology (Nixon won; NASA was defunded; the microprocessor was never invented). They are trying to live quietly. Charlie uses VHS tapes. Daniela shoots film. Jason works menial bar jobs. They have not even replaced their wedding rings yet.

Jason cannot leave the Box alone. While supposedly dismantling it in an abandoned school, he studies its internals, takes notes, and even considers building an on/off switch. The machine still fascinates the version of him who never got to invent it. Daniela finds out and is furious. After everything they have already lost — including the trauma of another Jason living in her bed and her having to shoot a version of her husband — she sees this as him choosing the science over the family again. They implement safety measures: daily passwords and matching compass tattoos on their forearms, with the cardinal points replaced by family initials (J, D, C, and M for Charlie’s deceased twin, Max). Daniela still nearly shoots Jason one night when he forgets the password.

Daniela runs into this world’s Blair (Blair 3) at the DMV. Blair 3 has become a nomad. They make dinner plans. Later that night, Jason, triggered by the fight with Daniela, finally strips the Box down to an empty metal cage. After dinner with Blair 3 and a woman named Theresa, Jason returns to dispose of the leftover parts. A brand-new, fully formed Box has materialized right next to the dismantled wreckage. He races home. No one new has appeared that day. The new rule of the multiverse: destroying the physical Box does not disconnect a world from the Corridor. If someone in the Corridor focuses on a person (or that reality), a new Box simply respawns. Charlie immediately suspects a version of Leighton.

Amanda has a key realization while they travel the Corridor: the Box takes you to the world of the person you are thinking about. They emerge into Ryan’s original world — the one now occupied by Jason 2, another Ryan (Ryan 4), piles of dead Jasons from Season 1’s massacre, and Agent Mitchel MacNamara plus DARPA. The government thinks the Jasons are clones. Ryan 1 punches Jason 2 in the face. A chaotic car chase follows. The four of them (the two Ryans, Amanda 2, and Jason 2) pile into the Box like a clown car and jump again. DARPA cannot follow without the drug.

Separate from the family plot, versions of Leighton are sharing technology across realities like a multiversal aid operation. One Leighton delivers a vaccine to a plague-ravaged world. In the Dessens’ analog world, “their” Leighton suddenly invents the microprocessor and is about to launch portable phones — almost certainly leaked from Leighton 2’s growing council of Leightons. This world’s Mitchel (a private investigator whose family runs MacNamara Tech) and his sister Sheila are already investigating the sudden technological leap and the two sets of Dessens.

Jason 1 now understands he cannot wall his family off. The Box will keep coming back as long as someone wants to reach them. The most likely visitor is a Leighton — probably Leighton 2, who has been assembling other versions of himself and collecting scientists. He appears to want Jason 1 specifically. The quiet life is already over. The title is not subtle: everything beautiful about the Box is also everything terrible.

Final Score - [7/10]