Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Episode 7 of Constellation.

The Big Picture

In the latest episode of
Constellation
, Jo is faced with a heart-wrenching choice between her two daughters in a gripping and emotional moment.
The episode suffers from repetition and lack of development, feeling like an unnecessary epilogue.
While the Coleman twins excel at portraying fear, their limitations impact the overall quality of the episode.

There’s a moment in “Through the Looking Glass,” the seventh episode of Apple TV+’s Constellation, in which the parallel version of Magnus (James D’Arcy), upon noticing that Alice (Rosie and Davina Coleman) has once more left the cabin to look for Jo (Noomi Rapace) in the snow, exclaims: “Oh, Christ, not again!” Unbeknownst to him, Magnus sums up our feelings while watching the newest entry in a series of episodes that seems to have already told their story. “Through the Looking Glass” is full of little twists and turns, particularly in how it presents the whole Ericsson-Taylor family drama unraveling in two (or three) versions of the same cabin. However, its meandering plot isn’t enough to help us shake the feeling that we have seen it all before, from the premiere scenes of Jo finding her actual daughter in the woods to Paul continuously screaming for his child, no matter what reality he is in. By the end of the episode, there is just one turn of events that seems significant, and it’s not even all that related to the main storyline.

The focus of “Through the Looking Glass,” as the episode’s title suggests, is on Alice. Throughout the episode, both versions of Jo’s daughter come in contact with one another and learn about what happened to their mother on the other side of the veil. This could make for an interesting watch, but there are several problems with making Alice the center of the episode. First and foremost, there’s the fact that she doesn’t add much to the story’s general stakes — stakes that aren’t even clear to viewers to begin with. Then there’s the fact that Alice isn’t all that well-written. In “Through the Looking Glass,” Magnus reveals that his daughter is 10 years old, but Peter Harness’ writing makes her seem anything between the ages of 6 and 12.

Constellation Jo returns to Earth after a disaster in space and discovers that there are missing pieces in her life, so she sets out to expose the truth about the hidden secrets of space travel and recover what she has lost.Release Date February 21, 2024 Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 1

Rosie and Davina Coleman’s limitations as performers only add to this overall issue. It feels cruel to criticize the acting of two prepubescent children, but the people behind Constellation should’ve recognized what they were working with before giving an entire episode to them to carry. After all, it’s not like they’re bad — they have room for growth, but they can’t sell many emotions besides fear. Furthermore, they seem to have been instructed to act as a caricature of a child instead of like an actual kid, with exaggerated puppy eyes and repetitive screams of “Mamma/Mummy.”

‘Constellation’ Episode 7 Shows Both Alices Are Completely Petrified

Thankfully, though, “Through the Looking Glass” has the two Alices expressing nothing but fear, and this is precisely where the Coleman twins shine. It’s when their characters are scared that we realize that they do have a lot of raw talent that can be polished into something great as they grow up. Both Alices are properly terrified as they are either coming to terms with the realization that their mother might not be their mother at all or that they’re seeing and even interacting with their dead mother who was supposedly left to rot in space. And that’s not to mention the moment in which the two versions of the same girl finally learn of the existence of one another, confirming their worst suspicions about what has gone on during the ISS mission.

The story starts around the events that we see in the premiere’s flash-forward, with Jo finding Alice B – as we’ll call her, for convenience’s sake – in a derelict version of their cabin, locked in a wardrobe and freezing to death. She takes her daughter — her real daughter — back to her version of the cabin and puts her in a hot bath. But as Alice A wakes up, Alice B disappears: she’s returned to Magnus B in his version of the cabin, while Magnus A has Henry (Jonathan Banks), Frederic (Julian Looman), and the Swedish police by his side as he makes his way into the woods.

32:58 Related ‘Constellation’s Noomi Rapace Explains Why Apple TV+ Is Dominating Sci-Fi Rapace and EP/director Michelle MacLaren also talk about practical, life-size sets, working with astronauts, filming in extreme conditions, and more.

We see a lot of people running around in this episode, to the point where it’s even hard to relay the entirety of its events. Magnus A runs after Alice A and Jo, while Magnus B runs after Alice B. Jo keeps looking for her daughter, seemingly indecisive about who her daughter might be. Alices run away from their respective parents and eventually run into one another in the derelict cabin. Finally, Henry Caldera searches for the CAL and is greeted by his other self.

Perhaps it’s best to concentrate on what matters here. Now, the CAL, which Jo has taken into the woods with her, seems to have opened up a portal to a third dimension, in which our two known realities can coexist in the same space – though not necessarily at the same time, as evidenced by the presence of a cat that is sometimes dead, sometimes alive. (Changelings, Schrödinger’s cat… This show is really doing an alternate universe’s greatest hits, huh?) In this completely wrecked cabin, that is both cabin A and cabin B, as evidenced by the pictures hanging on the walls, the two Alice’s manage to communicate with one another through the portable Fisher-Price recorder that Jo was using to listen to the tapes given to her by the Skagerrak researchers. Inside the wardrobe, the girls also manage to see glimpses of each other through — you guessed it — the looking glass.

Jo Is Forced to Choose Between Two Versions of Her Daughter in “Through the Looking Glass”

Through said mirror, Jo is also able to take a look at her real daughter after finding Alice A hiding in the wardrobe in the derelict cabin. Indirectly, she also manages to send Alice B some messages and explains that she doesn’t know if she can return home. This interaction is brought to a halt when the connection between both cabins begins to dwindle, and a fire that has started in cabin A starts to take its toll on Alice A. Meanwhile, Alice B is once again freezing to death. Jo is forced to make a choice, and she runs outside carrying Alice A in her arms.

Now, while this is happening, Magnus A, Frederic, and the police are searching the snowy woods for Alice A and Jo. Henry should be with them, but he senses the CAL calling out to him through the voice of Bud and immediately runs towards the cabin. As he reaches it, Jo pushes Alice A into his arms and goes back into the cabin to find Alice B. This coincides with the moment in which Henry and Bud swap places, with Henry now forced to deal with a severely wounded Paul Lancaster (William Catlett) and Bud carrying a child he has never seen before. Confused, Bud drops Alice A in the snow and walks a few steps before collapsing due to the cold.

Unable to find Alice B inside the cabin, Jo goes back outside, where she finds Alice A unconscious in the cold. Alice B runs towards her and, for a split second, the veil between both realities is so thin that even Magnus B can see Jo. However, feeling that Alice A needs her and might just die if she’s left to fend for herself, Jo tells her daughter to go to her father in an emotional moment that does succeed in making us wonder if she will ever be reunited with her real family.

‘Constellation’ Still Hasn’t Established Its Stakes
Image via Apple TV+

“Through the Looking Glass” ends with Magnus B unsure about what has happened to his wife, and Magnus A sitting by his daughter’s side in a hospital, telling her that Jo has been taken by Irena (Barbara Sukowa) to get help. In Alice A’s dreams, The Valya tries to get her to follow her to her mother, a kind of obvious representation of death. Alice A, of course, refuses. And thus concludes another chapter in a dramatic, intimate story about astronauts being forced to cope with a life that isn’t exactly the one they left behind. It’s a story that already seems to have wrapped up and that is yet to present us with any higher stakes.

There’s nothing wrong with using sci-fi elements to tell small-scale stories that serve as a metaphor for death and change. And, so far, Constellation has proven to be great at this. However, the story that the show looks like it’s telling seems to have already ended with last week’s Paul episode, with the two Alices coming in touch with each other serving as nothing more than a way too long epilogue. However, the series frequently indicates a bigger conspiracy trying to keep numerous astronauts from revealing the truth about parallel universes. Who is behind this conspiracy? Who benefits from it? Does it go beyond Henry Caldera and Irena Lysenko? Viewers are given nothing when it comes to these questions, so it’s hard to keep our interest going.

As it stands, “Through the Looking Glass” is a dragged-out post-scriptum that, once more, doesn’t give us anything to latch onto. The best we can say for it is that it advances the Henry/Bud plot, but that seems more like another story, another entry in an anthology, than part of whatever is going on in this universe. Well, these universes.

Constellation Despite its twists and turns, “Through the Looking Glass” cannot avoid the air of repetition.ProsThe episode features an emotive moment in which Jo is forced to choose between her two daughters.Despite some obvious imagery, ‘Constellation’ never fails to be creepy. ConsDavina and Rosie Coleman lack the maturity to carry an episode on their backs.”Through the Looking Glass” feels like an epilogue to a story that has already ended.The episode feels samey, repeating a lot of beats from previous episodes and even previous scenes.It is still unclear what the higher stakes are in Constellation’s story.

Episode 7 of Constellation is available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

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