Last week the crew of the Raza (sans One) escaped from the prison with a few new “friends.” This episode of Dark Matter “I’ve seen the Other Side of You” opens with Five hiding and then being found by a hostile Four. Pointing a gun at the youngest Raza crew member, he announces, “I’ve found her.” Rather than a flashback, this sequence is the result of a “reboot” of the three Raza members’ brains.
The Elephant in the Spaceship:
Before heading into the storyline proper, so to speak, let us look a a glaring omission. When the neural scan is performed, three brain “backups” are found. Two’s, Three’s and Four’s. This tracks perfectly as Six is: A) In cryogenic sleep and B) One is not there.
However…
At no time, once the previous brain scan is “reloaded,” do any of the three crew members mention One or Six. (Although they would have referred to them by their real names as this scan was loaded prior to Five wiping everyone’s memory.)
Granted, the three were fairly busy; hunting down Five, re-capturing the other three “passengers” on board and trying to establish a neural link to the ships operating system.
But…
Not once did any of the “rebooted” Raza crew mention their other crew mates. (This could be down to their previous “self centered” personalities but really? No one ever questioned what happened to the rest of their little mercenary team.)
(If anyone has an explanation to this apparent faux pas please leave a comment below.)
Back to the storyline.
On board the ship the three newest members of the team are made aware of how little they are trusted and The Android tries unsuccessfully to uplink with the ship. Two sets the ship’s computer to look for neural links for The Android. Soon after the computer accesses the medical files of the ship.
The Android shuts down for a system reboot and diagnostic service to repair the damage done by the prison. Not long after the shutdown, Four and Three suffer from debilitating headaches. Both men cry out in pain and collapse. Five tries to wake them and call Two but all three are unresponsive.
Five gets Arax. Nyx and the intern out and asks for their help. Arax, turns out to be a mole, shades of Six here, who contacts the wealthy woman who is eager to retrieve her asset, and he sets things in motion.
The three crew members awake with no recollection of where 14 months of their time has gone and who any other new Raza occupants are. Two encounters Five and she not only fails to recognize her but threatens to blow off her head. When Two learns that Five knows about the nanites, her tension levels escalate alarmingly.
“I’ve Seen the Other Side of You” is, again, primarily about Five. The youngest crew member has lost her “Pike Bishop” persona and reverted to form; sort of. In her conversation with The Android program, she refers to the other three Raza team as “her crew.” There is still a lot more to be learned about Five, her thought process and role in this series.
This episode of Dark Matter focussed on the narrowed down playing field of crew members. Six is out of commission, One is presumed dead (We still believe that the Jace Corso murder is a ruse.) and the new “members” may not last very long at all.
“I’ve Seen the Other Side of You” Uses the reloaded brain scan to return our intrepid heroes to their previous state of being. This served a dual purpose, it reminds us how truly self centered and unpleasant these mercenaries were and it allows them the conscious choice to become better versions of themselves…again.
An interesting point about Five: She only becomes deadly when “weaponed up.” In season one with a gun she was pretty aggressive. In this season she used The Android as the ultimate weapon and afterward used the gun Anders repaired to shoot first and ask questions later. In this episode she becomes a kid again when her friends “turn.” Her confidence level drops, as does her violence level, and she reverts to persuasion.
It works.
Five does influence the former versions of the crew. She gets to Three, with her remembrance of the doomed Sarah and she manages to almost get Two changed. It seems that the stress connected with linking with the ship contributed to the change.
Two does work out what happened to their memories and what caused the lost time. The brain scans were done because the three did not trust The Android. (Once again there is no mention of the other crew members.)
Five works out that the scan has not obliterated the more recent memories of Two, Three and Four. She has the memories of all three and she plans to upload them via her own neural link.
The three passengers get into a firefight with Three and Four. Two, who is still linking with the ship, steps in and stops the gunplay. She notices that Five is still interfering with the ship’s record and sends Three and Four down to kill her.
Five is struggling to finish her memory upload and Two has set the ship’s computer to decrypt the program. The Android helps by suggesting that Five use Two’s memories against her. Focusing on a time when she felt the most vulnerable, Five overpowers Two who is helpless in the memory.
Five beats Two into submission but stops before it gets too far. “I’m done playing the frightened little girl,” Five says but she stops before finishing Two off. She also says the title line “I’ve seen the other side of you and I want my friend back.” She talks Two into severing the link and the three crew members collapse.
All three are returned to normal and The Android reveals that they could restore the new memories now but it would cause them to revert to their old selves. They decide not to download the old brain scans.
Five brings the crate to Three, that he opened while using his “old brain” and he finds Sarah’s necklace. He also finds a round object that, when touched, turned blue. It is a sub-space transponder and a signal has been sent out.
Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie continue to switch hit this season and shake the story and characters up. Mullie, who wrote this episode, gave us a Five who may still be that kid inside, when it comes to her family; which the Raza crew are, but she also has a rock hard core that will not bend, even as she battles herself.
So many questions… Is One really dead? How long will Six be out of commission? And, more importantly, why did the three crew members, Two, Three and Four, believe that The Android could not be trusted 14 months earlier?
(Note: The Android program always comes across as so humorless, as compared to the real Android, that she disturbs ever so slightly. Great work Zoie Palmer for a range that includes delightfully quirky and scary.)
Dark Matter airs Fridays on SyFy and Space. Tune in and see where the Raza crew end up next.
CAST:
- Marc Bendavid – One
- Melissa O’Neil – Two
- Anthony Lemke – Three
- Alex Mallari Jr. – Four
- Jodelle Ferland – Five
- Roger Cross – Six
- Zoie Palmer – The Android
Guest Stars: Melanie Liburd – Nyx and Mike Dopud – Arax Nero.
It’s not that they believed the Android couldn’t be trusted fourteen months ago. “We were planning our mission to Ellara Six. The only way in was to use the Android to penetrate the bio-field. There was a chance that the Android could become compromised, so each of us uploaded a brain scan to the computer to give it a pattern to recognize and possibly link with.”
Compromised as in damaged by the bio-field or hacked by whomever they were attacking.
What’s really irritating is that they’re not logical enough to presume their past selves must have had a good reason for letting the others onboard and still try to get rid of them, after it becomes obvious Five was telling the truth about the missing time. Although the neural link compromising Portia’s judgement could partially explain that.
Got it! My neural imprint knowledge is pretty shaky. I assumed (yes I know, always a bad thing) that the reason the imprints showed up was that these three were on board and “awake” unlike Griffin in his deep freeze and One who was not on the ship. Hence my confusion… 🙂
No problem. The real clue is in the moment when the computer begins scanning for links. Portia, Boone, and Ryo’s neural imprints flash up – but no one else. IF anyone else had undergone the same process, their neural imprints would have flashed up as well.
I felt that the lack of neural links for Corso and Griffin was down to their not being available to scan, “One being presumed dead” and “Six in cryogenic sleep (stasis).” I never considered the “stasis” question into the equation as the time period, 14 months, and their conversation put the scans before the event in my mind. Once again thanks for clearing that up. 🙂
Hmmm. Makes sense. Elephant cleared out of the spaceship by one who knows. Thanks that really bothered me.
“At no time, once the previous brain scan is “reloaded,” do any of the three crew members mention One or Six.”
This is because their memories were, essentially, “rebooted” to the time when they created the neural link, NOT the time they went into stasis. The fact that they didn’t mention either Corso or Griffin would strongly suggest that, at the time, they were not members of the crew. The fact that the computer only has neural imprints for Portia, Ryo, and Boone would seem to confirm the fact that there were no other crew members with them at the time they created this backstop.