Author: Bilal Mian

August 28, 2015 8:00pm PT by Bilal Mian

 Steve Wilkie/Syf

“In much of the first season the character were reactive, on their heels, whereas in season two they become proactive,” showrunner Joseph Mallozzi tells THR.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the Dark Matter two-hour season finale.]

The crew of the Raza just can’t catch a break.

In the first hour of the Dark Matter finale, the mercenary group found themselves held at gunpoint thanks to Alexander Rook (Wil Wheaton), the man responsible for creating Two (Melissa O’Neil).

Rook corroborated that Two is not human, and revealed that Two was “created” in his lab using nanite technology far more advanced than seen anywhere else. Two, whom Rook calls “Rebecca,” had escaped by slaughtering Rook’s team and now that he has her back, he isn’t ready to let her go.

The crew of the Raza had no choice but to hand over Two and leave the planet. After devising a plan, the group returned with a stealth operation, led by the Android (Zoie Palmer), to rescue their lost crew member.

The second hour of the finale centered on a traitor in the midst of the Raza. After Five (Jodelle Ferland) discovered the Android unconscious and missing its chip, the crew went on high alert looking for an intruder. Six (Roger F. Cross)and Four (Alex Mallari Jr.) were incapacitated during the search. As time passed, the remaining mercenaries slowly started to turn on one another as One (Marc Bendavid) tried to turn the remaining group against Three (Anthony Lemke). As tensions escalated to a breaking point, the Raza was shot out of FTL and boarded by the Galactic Authority. In a surprise shock, it is revealed that Six was the traitor working with the GA to capture his shipmates.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with showrunner Joseph Mallozzi to discuss Two’s origin, Six’s betrayal and what lies ahead if Dark Matter receives a second season order.

We are introduced to Alexander Rook and learn that he created Two, whom he calls Rebecca. What was it Rook wanted with Rebecca?

That will remain a mystery until season two. In the case of Rook, however, there’s something very strange going, essentially why he created her. There’s a conversation at the end of episode 12 where he has the chat with the elderly man in the hospital and he asks, “How old is the body?” There’s something up with this guy, clearly. We’ll find out more about that in season two, especially concerning the fact that they’re making a new prototype as well.

Is Two more android or human? Is she something we haven’t seen before?

Two is definitely something we haven’t seen before, but at the same time more human. It’s almost like test-tube designer baby. She’s essentially lab-designed but organic, except for the nanites teeming through her bloodstream that make her stronger, faster, and heal a lot faster. I’ve seen a few people say, “She’s indestructible,” and that’s not true. She’s superior to humans in many ways, but she’s also vulnerable. There’s a line in episode 12 referring to the fact that she’ll age and again, it’s basically why would you create someone who could withstand all of these illnesses and what have you. Presumably she ages because they want her to fit in amongst humanity.

That makes sense, especially because the person lying in the bed at the end of the episode doesn’t seem to be in their first body, does it?

It does not. That is something we will be answering in season two.

How does learning who she is affect Two?

We’re going to see that over time. There’s the shock at first. She talks about it right off the bat with One in episode 12. She has all these thoughts running through her mind. She doesn’t receive any insightful answers, so she’s going to struggle with it, but she’s also going to struggle with how others will view her as the ship’s commander. But she’s also a strong individual and that’s something that she’ll come to terms with sooner rather than later, take it for what it is. It’s something that will help her and help the crew in the long run.

When it comes to Two, she ages, but she also has the ability to regenerate. In episode 11 when Wexler (Ennis Esmer) threatens to put a bullet between her eyes, would that actually kill her or would that put her in a stasis-like effect?

Presumably, that would kill her. She can certainly regenerate and no one’s put it to the test, but the emphasis is on the fact that she is human with nanites in her system to repair damage. However, coming back from death feels like a big ask. Whether that’s put to the task remains to be seen.

The Android has been expressing more emotion as the season progresses. The ship’s analysis, the “red” version of the android says that this “change” is a glitch in her software. Is this more than a glitch or is she perhaps closer to what Two actually is?

Well, she’s definitely not something close to what Two is. She is still an android. The analysis results point to a flaw in her system. Logically, she should wipe and reboot herself. Five, upon learning that, has the analysis wiped. Sooner or later though people will find out. Is it a flaw? Is it something disguised as a flaw? If we take it at face value, if it’s a flaw, it’s problematic because if it’s limited to only an emotion state that’s one thing but if it’s almost like a virus, affecting other parts of her neural interface, that could create other problems down the line. And really, Five’s the only one who knows that there is an issue and right now Five is happy enough to ignore it. Will that come back to haunt her? Quite possibly, like most things do.

Leading into the finale, Five finds the recorder and hears Two, Four, and Three discussing getting rid of someone after they get out of stasis. Is it correct to assume they were talking about Six, that they had learned his identity before going into stasis?

A possible scenario is that other crew members were conspiring to kill someone on board. Why would they kill someone? Well, obviously if they were gunning for them. Six pieces it together and tells Five to check for hidden files and she has one file she can’t open that was made the day they went into stasis. Six puts it together, realizing that she’s one with the savvy hacking ability and says, “You’re the one that wrote the code.” And she’s like, “Why?” and he says, “to protect someone.” If you put together the pieces, that is a very sound theory.

Because he’s the one who saved her from Three from shooting her out of the airlock.

Presumably to return the favor and [that] basically creates that big brother/little sister relationship that is played with throughout season one that presumably pre-existed the mind wipe. It follows that whole characters-falling-back-on-old-ways theme.

Was Six always working with the Galactic Authority?

I set it up with little hints and clues, especially after his episode in episode eight. Your theory that he’s with the GA is a good one. One of the things that was a subtle clue was who he’s flanked by in the corridor. That character is one you’ve seen before. Any case, if we do a season two, it all will be explained.

The only reason why I say he’s with the GA is because I felt he was undercover when he was branded as a terrorist.

That’s an excellent theory and I point to episode eight, after he kills the General and he’s sitting in a chair and a guy comes up and points a gun at him and says, “It was a clone, so shoot, don’t shoot, not going to make much of a difference in the long run.” Then the next time we see Six, he’s alone. What happened in that moment between the break is going to be part of the big reveal in hopefully episode 201.

Does One actually have a connection to his dead wife? He seems to really be holding onto this a vendetta with Three?

He doesn’t have an emotional connection to her, but what he does have is the reality of where he is now, on the ship, on the run, not able to trust anyone. At some point even members of his own crew don’t trust him. He says to Two in episode nine that, “I had a great life but then he put me here,” and her response is, “No, you put yourself here when you assumed that identity for revenge.” So there was a point where he really wanted revenge and went to great lengths to achieve that, but now, for him, the revenge is less a personal connection to his wife and more a connection to the life he had that he feels was stolen. And all of this is if Three did kill his wife. More answers to come.

Have you heard anything about a second season renewal for Dark Matter from Syfy?

Still awaiting word!

What lies in wait for season two that you can talk about?

I said very early on that I had mapped out this five-year game plan. The season two finale will be an even bigger “holy shit” than season one. The first season was about peeling the onion on these characters’ backstories, finding out who they are, and it’s very personal. Season two we blow the doors off, do some world building, the past comes back to haunt and at the same time, the characters wrap up their exploration of their respective backstories. There’s going to be a real driving force early on in the season. In much of the first season the characters were reactive, on their heels, whereas in season two they become proactive. Like I said in the backstory, these are very bad people who are capable of very bad things and I think if we do a second season, it’ll blow you away.

In the unfortunate scenario that you don’t get a second season, would you look to Dark Horse to continue the series in comic book form?

To be honest, I always envisioned it as a TV series. I like that in the end of the Stargate Universe, we ended in a way that essentially closed the chapter on a book and season two would be another chapter but season one would also stand alone. Ideally, we would get a season two but Dark Horse could be a possibility. Like I said, I’ve got a season two game plan, I’ve got our 13 stories. 

April 24, 2015 12:40pm PT by Bilal Mian

 Netflix

The departing showrunner also spills on the mystery of Black Sky and whether or not he’d return for a potential third season.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from season one of Netflix’s Daredevil.]

Netflix’s Daredevil was unafraid to make its own mark on the Marvel superhero.

The first 13 episodes of the Charlie Cox drama about a blind lawyer-turned-vigilante delivered plenty of twists and turns that the series was able to successfully stand on its own while still delivering fresh new takes on its iconic Marvel characters.

With season one in the rearview mirror and a second season already in the works, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with outgoing showrunner Steven DeKnight to discuss the show’s decisions, deaths and what’s next when Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez take over.

Matt is known as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen after the incident in episode six. How did the writers approach revealing the Daredevil name?

We talked about, do we do one of the versions in the comics where when he was a kid people used to taunt him with the name Daredevil, but that didn’t quite feel like our world. At one point we were going to have Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall) give him the name, but the timing wasn’t right from where he’s in his black outfit and then gets his suit, which is after Ben’s untimely demise. There was something technically tricky of somebody actually saying the words, “Hey you’re some kind of Daredevil.” The solution was to play that off-screen and then hit it in the paper that he’s been given this name Daredevil.

I also got asked a lot of questions about why he doesn’t have a “DD” on his chest, but he got the suit before he got the name. We talked a lot about DD on the suit, which is one of the more problematic emblems in superhero-dom. It’s a little wonky. His suit in the comics is very difficult to translate to screen, especially in this world that is grounded and gritty. There are some practical difficulties. The Daredevil outfit in the comics, his mask only covers half his nose. It doesn’t come all the way down to the tip. We discovered when we were trying to design it that if you didn’t bring it all the way down, you could clearly tell it was Charlie. Not only did we have the suspension of belief that nobody would know “hey, that’s Matt Murdock” we also had the practical problem of it becoming almost impossible when it came to switching in and out our stunt double. So we had to make that adjustment.

I don’t think anyone saw Urich’s death coming. What was the decision behind killing such an iconic character from the comic books?

I’ve been known to kill off a character or two in my past (laughs). I wish I could take credit for this, but killing off Urich was decided before I signed on. I want to say it was Marvel’s idea. They really wanted to show that toward the end of the season because we knew we’d get some sympathy for Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), to have him do something truly terrible that would propel Matt into that final endgame in the confrontation with Fisk. And to let the audience know that the gloves were off: just because he was a beloved character in the comics, doesn’t mean he’s safe. It’s one interpretation. It’s like writers doing a new run of the comic. It felt right for the story. Much like episode four where Fisk kills Anatoly, not because he did something to cross him in the criminal world, but because he embarrassed him on a date. Urich gets murdered because he committed the unforgivable sin in Fisk’s mind: he went to Fisk’s mother. The last thing you want to do with Fisk is at all involve, insult, drag through the mud the women in his life he loves. That will be a serious trigger for him.

You also killed off Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore). His death, was it him being careless because of the stress of the situation?

It was a moment of underestimating Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll). We always knew he was going to die; that was decided at the beginning of the season that Karen was going to kill Wesley at some point but the mechanics of “how” were tricky. It’s not so much a moment of carelessness as it was underestimating Karen. He dies because Wilson Fisk is worried about him. That moment when Fisk calls him is the split-second distraction that allows Karen to grab the gun.

Why doesn’t Karen want to divulge what happened with Wesley to either Matt or Foggy (Elden Henson)?

There’s something that happened in Karen’s past — we allude to it, Ben alludes to it — and when she grabs the gun she says, “You think this is the first time I’ve ever shot somebody?” That’s a secret from her past that she doesn’t want anyone to know. The fact that she shot him once, you can explain that as self-defense; but then she pretty much unloaded the gun into him. That crosses a bit of a line. The last thing she would want is for those two to be horrified by what she’s done. She’s a woman with secrets. Deborah had a great response when somebody asked if Karen would be the girl always getting into trouble and she said, “No I’m the girl who makes trouble.” You’ll see that more. At one point we talked about, does Matt find out at the end of the season? And how does that play out? But ultimately we felt with the Netflix model that we didn’t have to resolve everything by the end of the season. There could be loose threads that we explore as we move on to other seasons.

What as the turning point for Fisk to move from aspiring hero to accepting that he’s the villain?

We always planned on getting there and at the end of the season, Matt puts on the mask and embraces that he is the hero — and that Wilson Fisk puts on the suit, or in this case, a nod to his white suit with his white prison uniform and accepts who he is. Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho) has a line earlier on where she tells him, “You can’t be both savior and oppressor. You have to decide which you are.” It was always intended to have these parallel stories, and if you look closely, there’s this religious parallel. Fisk mentions religion a couple of times, like when he’s at Vanessa’s (Ayelet Zurer) bedside and says he doesn’t know how to pray. And then later when he’s recounting the story of the Good Samaritans. It was really important for us to show that this story was the rise of the hero and the rise of the villain.

We only see Matt’s vision in episode five and it’s never implemented through the rest of the series. What was the decision behind that?

We had budgeted in seeing it a few more times and we actually had the effect done at least twice more throughout the season, but when we cut it together we felt it took us out of it. We had it once so you know what it is. It felt like if you go to that well too often you’re like, “Oh here we are, we’re in Matt’s special vision again.” We didn’t want it to be that or for that effect to take us out of the crime drama feel. There were two more instances where we did the effect. One was in episode seven with Stick. You were going to see how young Matt saw Stick when he throws Matt the keys, and his senses were all over the place. Then later when he catches the fighting sticks, his senses had been refined. That was a case purely of we hadn’t locked down the effect but we had to lock episode. The effect wasn’t ready in time. The next time you were going to see it was in episode 12 when Matt sees the blinded Chinese worker and registers that he’s been blinded. The last time was at the end of the season when Matt tells Karen that they can do this together. There’s a push in on Karen as she reacts and originally we had planned on doing it there, but when we put the effect in we were losing all the nuances of her expressions and what was going on with her thought process. We ended up taking it out. I never wanted that to become a schtick.

At the end of episode seven, Stick (Scott Glenn) is talking to a mystery man named Stone but many are overlooking the Black Sky. What is the Black Sky?

It fits into something bigger. There is a mention of Black Sky in another episode that isn’t episode seven. If fans look closely at episode one, you will find a reference to Black Sky. It’s a visual reference to Black Sky and that’s important to Nobu and his people. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “Who was Stick talking to?” You already named who he’s talking to, but I just say, “He’s a character from the comics.” Any fan of the comics will know who he’s talking to. We really wanted to pluck that out of Frank Miller’s Man Without Fear.

Stone’s speech also mentions doors opening, which tends to lead more toward Iron Fist territory and the mystical realm of K’un-Lun. Is this a reference or a tie-in to Iron Fist?

I can’t say anything! Is it literal or metaphorical? It’s very much like a code the same way the MCU does after the credits, which isn’t something we can do with the way that Netflix starts the next episode after the credits. But yes, it’s obviously tying into a bigger picture.

Along with that, Madame Gao and her powerful palm strike for an elderly woman …

There’s obviously something going on there, as well as with the heroin she’s selling, stamped with the symbol of the Steel Serpent. Could that be another tie-in to Iron Fist? Time will tell. There is obviously more to her than meets the eye. I got a message from Ed Brubaker who asked, “Is Madame Gao Crane Mother?” I can’t even tell you!

At the end of the season, Matt gets the name of Daredevil, but Fisk never achieves Kingpin. What was the decision behind that?

I think there is a, dare I say, critical mass where things get a little bit silly. You know if in the last five minutes we went, “Oh they called him Daredevil! Oh they called him Kingpin!” It’s a little too much. Also there was no real natural way to get to Kingpin. It felt a little off. There is a point down the line to get there.

Daredevil is coming back with new showrunners for season two. Could you return for a potential third season?

Who knows. Scheduling permitting, anything is possible. My hope is that Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez hit it out of the park and continue on with the show. They’re great guys and were instrumental in helping me getting this season across the finish line. I would never intrude on somebody else who is having a good run. God knows there are plenty of Marvel characters and plenty of things going on in this universe. My biggest thing is that I would love in some form or fashion to return to the Marvel universe, whether in television or a feature. I love the people at Marvel and grew up reading the characters and it was a real dream come true getting to play with the toys. And I would really love to play with more toys down the line when my schedule opens up.

What did you think of Daredevil‘s first season? Sound off in the comments below.