Constellation – Season 1 Episode 4 Recap & Review

The Left Hand of God

Constellation Episode 4 begins with Alice and Magnus trudging through the snowy woods in Sweden. They reach a house and Magnus assures Alice they aren’t going to see ‘her’ again.

Back in the present, Jo receives a surprise belated Christmas and birthday celebration from Magnus and Alice. After dinner, Magnus tells Jo they should talk about how things were before she left. He says she didn’t look him in the eye when she left but she doesn’t remember it that way.

The next morning, Jo wakes up from a nightmare. She then goes to the European Space Agency where she receives a round of applause. At night, Jo brings up the issues with Magnus again. He admits he was suspicious about Jo having an affair with Frederic. Magnus admits he met someone and they shared a kiss. Jo is very troubled by this but Alice calls Magnus away and the conversation ends.

Henry is making some notes in his office. Meanwhile, Bud wakes up on the ship. There is a commotion on board due to the debate host’s death. Elsewhere, Michaela calls Henry and tells him they are shutting the CAL project down since it doesn’t seem to have worked.

In a therapy session, Jo tells her therapist that she’s misremembering things. She says there’s a piano in the house but she doesn’t play. The therapist diagnoses her with PTSD and suggests that Lithium can help calm her. Jo claims this can be career-ending.

After her session, Henry approaches her to talk about her research. He shows her the CAL and talks about the effect of space travel. He describes the different hallucinations pilots and astronauts have faced. As the CAL runs in the background, Jo feels a sudden pain in her left eye. She has a look at the CAL reactor.

On the ship, Bud calls his daughter Connie and says things aren’t working. He wants to get in touch with someone but Connie dismisses him and tells him to take his pills. At school, Alice’s teacher tells Magnus and Jo about the girl’s tendency to hide in cupboards. She says Alice must feel distant from her mother and Jo gets annoyed that Magnus agrees with her.

At home, Jo finds Alice hiding in a cupboard with her necklace tacked on the door handle. Jo talks to Alice, who admits she thought Jo’s return would be different.

Henry speaks to a Professor Louis about the CAL. He says the machine picked up a state of being in which one particle was in two states at the same time. A pathway to a different universe. But Louis doesn’t believe it. Henry wonders if the experiment is having an effect on him, affecting his brain chemistry.

At home, Jo tries playing the piano and seems to get the hang of it. But she suddenly stops and looks at her fingers. Meanwhile, Agent Bright from the FBI speaks to Bud about the missing debate host. Bud makes several excuses to pass himself off as innocent.

At home, Jo compared the contents of the Lithium tablets with the vitamin tablets she was given when she returned to Earth. She goes to the ESA where a machine confirms what she thought — they’re both Lithium.

She searches the database in her office to find that astronauts who had hallucinations were all given this tablet, including Henry Caldera. Just then, two men enter the office and start packing up things in boxes but they can’t seem to see her. The light looks different from the two men’s perspective. Suddenly, they disappear.

Jo goes to Henry’s office where he seems to be talking to his own reflection, which turns out to look a lot like Bud. He makes a comment about curiosity to Jo and she leaves.

Sometime later, Frederic approaches Jo in her office and talks about how they had planned to be together and even leave to go work privately. This shocks Jo, who can’t recall anything.

While giving a talk to Alice’s class in school, Jo suddenly asks Magnus if Sara is the woman he met with. She does so in front of everyone. Jo then storms out and drives the family towards home but nearly causes an accident. She puts a hand over her left eye, which seems to be hurting.

Back home, Frederic tells Magnus that Jo needs rehab for astronaut burnout. He also admits that he and Jo did have an affair. Jo enters the room and tells Magnus she has no memory of the affair. She sends Frederic out but Magnus is convinced she’s lying. Jo then finds a package from a marine observatory in Denmark which has sent her two tapes. They say they heard her on the ISS.

Agent Bright looks at the CCTV footage on the ship and watches Bud walking with the debate host. The video is then covered by two pulsing circles, similar to the ones on Henry’s CAL results.

Jo listens to the tapes and hears her own voice trying to connect with the station. The second tape is from 1967 that records an accident in space where a woman’s voice is heard.

Meanwhile, Alice wakes up and goes downstairs to see a room full of people in her living room. They’re dressed in black and it seems to be Jo’s funeral. She then sees another Alice in the room, also dressed in black.

Alice screams and the vision fades. Magnus tucks her inside a cupboard because it makes her feel safe. He says she’s scared of Jo. Jo and Magnus argue with Magnus heading to call Frederic and have Jo sent to rehab. She tries to take the phone and ends up pushing Magnus, who hits his head on a table as he falls down.

The final scene of Constellation Episode 4 shows the painting from the cabin in Sweden, which shows a skeletal creature.

The Episode Review

Constellation Episode 4 makes things a lot more interesting with the existence of and connection between parallel universes becoming more and more clear. Bud and Henry are two versions of the same person and the two Alice’s from the future section of the show are from the different universes as well. Despite the reveal, there is plenty of mystery and twists and turns to keep the story on a high momentum.

Leaning into the idea of parallel universes also allows the show to highlight its stylistic factors. The use of the two pulsing circles, the visual flashes Jo has, and the editing play well into this idea. Certain scenes stand out, like the one where Jo comes across the two ESA workers who can’t see her or the scene where Alice sees her mother’s funeral. Overall, the higher stakes and tension of Jo’s mismatched memory are making things a lot more interesting.