They finally did it! After staying cooped up inside cramped spaceship corridors for more than an entire season, The Ark and its crew at last ventured outside for more than a mere space walk in this week’s new episode. That's right, Cpt. Sharon Garnet (Christie Burke) and the Ark One gang at last got the chance to stretch their legs this week, touching down and planting their feet on the rocky terra firma of, y’know, an actual planet.

Coming right near the midpoint of the show’s ongoing second season, this week’s episode — aptly titled “A Pretty Big Deal” — actually was a big deal, and not just for giving the crew the long-awaited chance to at last go exploring. As it turns out, one of our favorite characters discovered there’s been much more to his life’s larger story than even he could’ve guessed, and it all sets the stage for intriguing new plot twists as Season 2 of The Ark heads deeper into its second half.

Which key character on The Ark just found out he’s actually a clone?

Things were looking pretty stable for the Ark One and its crew at the start of this week’s episode, as the ship at last returned to full function after refitting its damaged pieces with leftovers from the abandoned Ark Three. But just as everyone seemed to be getting into a (mostly) tranquil groove, a distress signal beams out from the enigmatic Ark 8, a previously-unknown Earth vessel that set off into space after the Ark One had lost contact with Earth.

That signal points to a rocky red planet known as Raynick-J, a radiation-soaked orb with a breathable Earth-like atmosphere. It might just be the final resting place of the Ark 8 crew, too, if Garnet and the rest of the Ark One squad can’t stage a super-timely rescue. As it turns out, the Ark 8 team is very much alive on the surface — though they’re hiding a huge twist that promises to turn life totally upside down for the ever-twitchy Lt. Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie).

It’s wild to watch Lane’s staggered reaction as a guy named Ian — one of the stranded Ark 8 crew members — peels back his face cover to reveal that (surprise!) he looks exactly like Lane himself. Yep, Lane discovers that he has a clone, and — perhaps more importantly — that he’s even a clone himself! And while Ian seems giddy to discover his long-lost lab brother (after all, he’s had an entire lifetime to come to terms with his own clone status and he’s getting rescued, woohoo!), Lane immediately enters what can only be described as a complete existential state of shock.

“What struck me with [Ian], as soon as he meets Lane, he seemed to be very lighthearted and very jovial,” Ritchie shared on this week’s After the Ark aftershow webcast. “…If I met a clone of myself that I didn’t know existed, [I] would be very shocked and very heady and serious about it… [but] for Lane — I mean, Lane practically has a panic attack when he sees that Ian is there!”

Better still, The Ark doesn’t kill off Ian or leave him behind, which would’ve been a super-easy episodic story move. Nope, he and the rest of the Ark 8 crew (well, the non-violent ones, at least) actually come aboard the Ark One as grateful refugees, forcing Lane to confront the long-term prospects of adjusting to life as a clone himself.

Clones they might be, but the differences between buttoned-down Lane and chatty-and-carefree Ian couldn’t be more distinct. As writer/co-executive producer JP Nickel confided on this week's webcast, Lane “is sort of in the clone-closet,” whereas Ian is simply happy just to have a roof over his head. “It was a lot of fun as a [writers’] room, figuring out who Ian was going to be that could kind of get under Lane’s skin a little bit without really trying to,” Nickel explained.

Of course, Ritchie had to play both Ian and Lane in this week’s episode, including numerous scenes that use VFX to place both characters into the same scene all at once. “I just jumped in and just made [Ian] the complete antithesis of Lane,” Ritchie told After the Ark, adding that “it was fun to shake everything up a little bit… As long as [Ian’s] got the clothes on his back, he doesn’t really care for much. As long as he’s got food, drink and clothes, he’s cool… he’s just happy!”

Time to explore: More about Raynick-J, The Ark’s first planet

Raynick-J would probably be a pretty hospitable place if it weren't for all that danged radiation, which limits human survival there to a week or two, maybe. It’s got red rock, like Mars, but with an atmosphere that allows everyone to shed their life support long enough to freely move about and breathe in the wind-whipped air. Granted, besides the ruins of the crashed Ark 8, there’s hardly anything there worth investigating except for the starkly gorgeous scenery.

That’s just what Lt. James Brice (Richard Fleeshman) does in an early scene that captures the impact of The Ark’s very first visit, after all this time, to an actual alien surface. “It was really cool, and I do remember writing the line of like, ‘Can we all just stop a moment and realize — we’re on another frickin’ planet?!’” recalled Nickel, who also teased that the sky is the limit now that The Ark has finally broken past one of its biggest story holdouts.

“It was like, ‘This is setting a new tone for the series,’” he teased. “And it felt like, if we can pull off this episode, what we will be able to do for the rest of the season and in future seasons — I think we’ve set a bar for ourselves, now, that post production is gonna hate us for in terms of big swings we’re now gonna be able to take!”

Hmm… with the amped-up Season 2 special effects that The Ark is making use of, where could the story swing next? This week’s episode also came with plenty of side intrigue, as Kelly (Samantha Glassner) at last had a literal ticking time bomb removed from her brain, while the entire gang unearthed a sweet treasure trove of nostalgic Earth artifacts (like Brice’s new acoustic guitar!) that had been secretly stashed aboard the derelict Ark 3. And there’s definitely something fishy about the ship’s new Ark 15 crewmates taking an unwelcome interest in Eva (Tiana Upcheva) — a subplot that's sure to erupt as Season 2 keeps rolling along.

Oh — and there’s also the matter of this week’s minor cliffhanger, as the Ark One watches in horror while a nuclear-sized blast goes off right where their rescue mission was set to touch down for a second time on the surface of Raynick-J. Could anyone survive that — and if so, are the genetically demented remnants of the remaining Ark 8 clones even safe to keep at arm’s length? Will Lane learn to get along with his clone — or will he forever remain, uhm, beside himself with angst?  And what’s next for Angus (Ryan Adams) and Alicia (Stacey Read), now that the show’s cutest couple has officially sealed their romance with an actual kiss?

Tune in to SYFY Wednesdays at 10/9c to watch each new Season 2 episode of The Ark. To catch up on the full series, dial up Peacock here, where all 12 Season 1 episodes are now streaming.