Well, I got my wish. I said I wanted more focus on the main arcs of the season, and here it is. “Hot Chocolate” puts galactic politics and the conflict with Ryo front and centre.

Led by Six, the crew of the Raza attempts to mediate the fractious delegates of various independent worlds, but when one of them turns up dead, suspicion is everywhere. At the same time, the Raza‘s systems begin failing, and soon the forces of Zairon are closing in.

I am running out of ways to say “Dark Matter is really fun and exciting,” but for whatever it’s worth, this episode is fun and exciting.

It has many of the things I love about Dark Matter. It’s got action, reversals, and twists. It’s got Six being the voice of reason when everything else seems to be falling apart. It’s got Five playing the hero. Even Sarah gets to help out; it seems my suspicions of her taking a sinister turn were unfounded (at least for now…).

However, my favourite part of “Hot Chocolate” by far was the fight between Two and Ryo. It may seem shallow to praise a simple fight sequence, but then, it’s not just a simple fight sequence.

Firstly, the choreography and cinematography are fantastic. It’s a beautiful sequence to watch. Two peerless fighters at the top of their game.

And then you factor in what it means within the context of the story, what it means to the characters. Once, they were friends, companions. Now, they’re bitter enemies. You feel Two’s rage and grief at Ryo’s betrayal, her pain at Nyx’s loss and all else Ryo has cost them. The tension between these characters has been building all season, and it just erupts.

It’s magic.

I do have two complaints about this episode. Neither is huge, but they are worth mentioning.

One is that it’s a little disappointing Sally the android doesn’t get to do much here. There was the potential here for her to have a real moment of triumph, but she’s basically just powerless and reliant on the crew to rescue her instead. Her character deserves better.

The other is that, entertaining as it was, this episode doesn’t really advance the plot that much. I really loved getting a meaty confrontation with Ryo finally, but in the end things haven’t changed much. There’s the usual cliff-hanger ending, but it had nothing to do with the rest of the episode.

It was an enjoyable episode, but not an important one.

Overall rating: 7.8/10

I think the radio has been playing the Revivalists too much, because I keep wanting to type “Wish I Could Believe You When I Was Young.”

Anyway.

After hoodwinking us all into thinking Six was gone, this episode is pretty much all Six, all the time. After a ruthless chemical attack by Ferrous, Six is the only survivor, and while he makes it off the planet in one piece, he’s far from out of the woods.

Things start to get weird as he experiences flashbacks to his previous life — before the Raza, before the memory wipe — triggered by exposure to the neurotoxin.

To be honest, I was able to see where this was going pretty early on. I’ll avoid spoiling it, but if you’ve watched enough sci-fi, you probably will, too.

So it’s a very predictable episode, but otherwise it’s not bad. A focus on Six is always welcome, especially after we thought we were losing him, and he gets to turn the tables on the bad guys in some spectacular fashion.

On the downside, there’s little room left for meaningful development of the other cast members, but that’s really only noticeable because Dark Matter usually goes above and beyond to give everyone something to do. One episode where that’s not the case isn’t the end of the world.

My one real complaint is not so much about this episode as it is the rest of the season up until now. If Six was never going anywhere, why fake us out like that? What was the point of that whole tangent? I suppose we’ve now made Ferrous into an even scarier threat than they already were, but did it need to take so much time?

We’re seven episodes in, and it feels like the season is just getting started. It feels overdue for us to get some serious development with the corporate war and the conflict with Ryo.

And I don’t think the next episode will solve that, either. It looks like Sarah’s story is going to take centre stage (bringing back the dead never has a happy ending — a good nerd like Five should know that). And I think that will be interesting, and I’m looking forward to it, but again, when do we return to the main story?

But hey, at least Six is back.

Overall rating: 7/10