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The following contains mild spoilers from the first three episodes of Constellation, now streaming on Apple TV+.
With each of its first three episodes, Apple TV+’s Constellation has more and more shown itself to be the “conspiracy-based psychological thriller” it was billed as. Yet so many questions have been raised thus far, it’s understandable if you feel like you’ve been hit with a few g’s upon reentry.
But series star Noomi Rapace is here to urge you to complete your mission, and watch all eight episodes (now releasing one-per-week).
Created/written by Peter Harness (Wallander, The War of the Worlds), Constellation stars Rapace as Jo Ericsson, an astronaut for the European Space Agency who was at the International Space Station when something — a Skylab garbage bag, or a long-dead cosmonaut?! — collided with the station and set in motion a crisis.
The rest of Jo’s crew made tracks for Earth, while she stayed behind with the one crew member, Paul, who’d suffered a fatal injury during the commotion, until she could jerry-rig her own way home. Once Jo finally, though barely, got back to Earth, she found her accounting of events aboard the ISS questioned. And on the home front, she has slowly noticed that pieces of her life seem… different.
Episode 3, though, really got Jo questioning reality — and in turn perhaps left viewers wondering which way is up, as well.
To name but a few of the third episode’s head-scratchers and jaw-droppers:
And then we saw a group of police cars speeding along a snow-caked highway, headed towards said lake….
That’s a whole lot of weirdness to heap into one episode (on top of the events of the first two), TVLine noted to star Noomi Rapace. So what is the actress’ message to those clamoring for at least a few answers nearly halfway through the season?
“Bear with me. Stay in there with me,” Rapace encouraged viewers, “because it pays off and you will feel slightly more safe.”
As for how Rapace herself kept straight everything in this clearly non-linear tale, she credits “preparation, conversations with my directors, with Peter Harness…. And also, sometimes Jo is not supposed to know. Also, it’s quite nice to not always be in full control and knowing, because you can allow yourself to just discover what’s going on.”
Want scoop on Constellation, or for any other TV show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
Truthfully, I wasn’t picking up that we were seeing two different versions of Caldera. I just thought we were seeing flashbacks, so I’m confused. I did get that the Russian Irene was obviously the Russian astronaut that crashed into the ISS in the alternate reality. This might need a rewatch when the series is over to catch all the Easter eggs.
Interesting to discover that the daughter Alice is played by twins, so I’ll need to keep an eye out for their differences.
This alternate Earth concept has been several times. Many years ago, a friend was asking for help to find a movie where an astronaut comes back to an alternate Earth, turns out that one was, The Stranger. I went through several close matches, though.
Same — I thought they were timelines
This is the kind of story that should be released all at once. One episode a week means everyone is going to get lost, and the show won’t “land.” Me personally, I will check back in a few weeks from now when all the episodes are out.