Margo Martindale on Her ‘Dark Matter’ Episode, That Handshake & Filming ‘Prison Break’ Reboot

So much of Apple TV’s sci-fi drama Dark Matter focuses on the road not taken — but what about its detours?

In the sophomore round’s eighth episode, “The Basic Oneness of Everything,” the action is paused for a beautiful bottle episode that introduces a way station, a place to sit down and relax when the stresses of the Box become too heavy, and its proprietor, Laurel (Margo Martindale, fantastic as always).

Martindale took a few minutes from her busy filming schedule to chat about the emotional installment, and how she came to be cast. “[Series creator] Blake [Crouch] reached out and said that they would love to have me come and do this episode,” Martindale recalls. “I don’t know that I knew about Dark Matter at the time. I know I knew Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly. We had done a movie together when she was a young girl. And I said, ‘Oh, I would just love to do that and I love Chicago.’ So, that’s how that happened. It was complicated and fascinating, and I enjoyed every moment of it.”

Laurel, who comes from a decimated, bombed Chicago, is alone in her home when the Box crashes into her library. Out of self-preservation, Laurel doesn’t allow anyone into her home and has been mostly alone up until the point where we see her first meet Jason (Edgerton) and Amanda (Alice Braga). They’re, of course, seeking help for Amanda, who is in critical condition after an accident with a tree. Laurel immediately pulls out her shotgun, but it’s her hospital training that rises to the surface as she decides to trust these strange travelers and help Amanda.

“She’s coming from a war, really,” notes Martindale. “She hasn’t had people in her house in a long time. She was a loner. She was afraid of the outside. She was afraid of the things that happened before. And it took her a long time to warm up to anyone being in there. But when she felt people again, I believe there was great joy.”

After weeks, Laurel, Jason, and Amanda bond. Some time after she sends them on their way, however, a new traveler steps into her library: Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi). Laurel knows of Leighton from Jason and Amanda and immediately mistrusts him. However, he assures her that he’s not that Leighton, and the two form an even more beautiful friendship, with late night poker games (no, they were not really playing poker on set, confirms Martindale) and even a secret handshake. It’s Leighton who suggests Laurel turns her home into a way station for Box travelers.

On speaking of that bond, Martindale notes that the handshake took “no time at all,” for her and Okeniyi to come up with. The specifics weren’t written into the script, but as Martindale recalls, “I said, ‘Let’s do this.’ And he said, ‘Let’s do that.’ And then ‘woo’ [waves arms] and all that stuff. It was so much fun. I kinda had a handshake from my childhood that I though might work, and part of that was me and part of it was him.”

Martindale’s favorite scene, however, was the one she shared with Oakes Fegley, who plays Jason and Daniela’s son Charlie. In the final minutes, a lone Charlie wanders out of the Box. Though he doesn’t trust Laurel at first, her joy at seeing him after all this time is like a grandmother welcoming home her lost grandson. “The emotion came flowing out,” recalls the actress.

“I loved doing this part because it’s about life and it’s not about sci-fi. It’s not about different versions. It’s one story in this room,” she concludes. “I would love to return, and I hope it happens.”

Martindale also recently shot the Prison Break reboot, Prison Break: Black Creek, which is set to come out on Hulu with showrunner Elgin James. In it, Martindale plays Warden Jessica Strand, one of the enforcers in the new co-ed setting. “Elgin’s another brilliant writer, and it was a great cast. There was a whole group of women prisoners that were just insanely fabulous, just as a group, you know?” she says. “It’s really, really good. Setting is beautiful. And we did the pilot in West Virginia. It was great.”

She calls her Strand “not quite a good woman, not quite like Laurel.”

We can only imagine what a showdown between those two fierce women would look like! For a look at Laurel, check out the Dark Matter clip above.

Dark Matter, Fridays, Apple TV