Article contributed by Isabella Haberstock
After the success of its first season, Netflix released season two of the German show Dark. This season introduces two new timelines, many new characters, and a new storyline as characters try to stop the threat of an oncoming apocalypse. Season two of Dark remains just as in-depth and complex as the first season, with the makers of the show themselves even acknowledging the enormous number of characters and plotlines featured in the show on their Instagram. For anyone who missed what’s happening in the apocalypse-bound town of Winden, here is a recap for each episode of season two of Dark!
Episode 1: Beginnings and Endings/Anfänge und Enden
The premiere episode opens in Winden in 1921 where two men are mining a passageway that would later become the portal between time periods. One of the men is a younger Noah, who killed the other man for losing his faith in a time travelling group called Sic Mundus. Sic Mundus is led by an old and disfigured man named Adam, and adult Noah is also a member. Adam and Noah are working to find the missing pages in a diary previously owned by Claudia Tiedemann. Adam tells Noah that the pages are necessary for understanding the apocalypse that occurs in Winden on June 27, 2020.
The episode shifts to June 21, 2020, where an investigator named Clausen goes to Winden to help the police with the disappearances that happened six months prior. The adult Jonas reveals his identity to his mother Hannah and also tells her about Michael’s true identity as Mikkel Nielsen. Aleksander Tiedemann decides to bury barrels of nuclear waste with concrete so that no one would be able to find it.
In 2053, younger Jonas is still in post-apocalyptic Winden, and he wants to travel through time to stop the apocalypse from happening in 2020. An older Elisabeth Doppler is the leader of the survivors, and she has killed everyone who tries to enter the nuclear power plant, which was the origin of the apocalypse. Jonas goes into the power plant anyway and finds a swirling black mass inside the plant’s particle reactor.
Episode 2: Dark Matter/Dunkle Materie
In 1987, elderly Claudia visits her younger self to tell her about time travel in Winden and where to find the time machine. Egon Tiedemann, despite being retired and in an advanced stage of cancer, finally interviews Helge Doppler, who is now in a mental facility. Helge is in the beginning stages of his dementia and doesn’t really give Egon any answers regarding Mads’s disappearance the year prior. Egon then goes to a psychiatric ward to find Ulrich Nielsen, who has been imprisoned for the past 34 years for the murders of Erik and Yasin and the disappearance of a young Helge Doppler. Ulrich is very cryptic, and Egon suspects that he made incorrect assumptions about the events from 1953.
In the year 2020, Clausen and Charlotte interview Regina Tiedemann. Clausen seems to be fixated on the fact that Regina’s husband, Aleksander, took Regina’s last name. Regina tells them about the man (adult Jonas) that stayed in her hotel during the disappearances, and she turned all of his belongings over to the police. Charlotte finds pages from her grandfather’s book in Jonas’s belongings, which makes her suspicious of her upbringing. Meanwhile, adult Jonas brings Hannah Kahnwald back to 1987 to find Mikkel. Hannah now knows about time travel and the true identity of her husband Michael.
In 2053, Jonas is caught sneaking into the power plant by Elisabeth. He is publicly hanged, but Elisabeth saves him at the last minute and imprisons him. Another survivor named Silja frees Jonas because she wants to know what Elisabeth is hiding. Jonas and Silja go into the power plant and find the swirling black mass, known as the God Particle. The episode closes with Jonas disappearing inside the God Particle.
Episode 3: Ghosts/Gespenster
In 1954, young Helge Doppler is sent back to his home by adult Helge and Noah using a new time machine. Helge refuses to speak to anyone except Noah, who visits him and his mother. Elderly Claudia finds Agnes Nielsen, who used to be a member of Sic Mundus. It initially seems like they are in alliance, but Agnes quickly betrays Claudia to Noah in hopes of rejoining Sic Mundus. Noah finds Claudia to get the missing pages of her diary back, and kills her in the process. In 1987, Ulrich finally tells Egon his true identity.
Episode 4: The Travelers/Die Reisenden
Jonas wakes up in 1921, where he meets young Noah. Young Noah takes Jonas to meet older Noah and Adam. Adam reveals himself to be an elderly Jonas. Adult Claudia uses the time machine to travel to 2020, where she uses a library computer to look up herself and her father. She finds out the date that Egon dies and the date she will disappear. After this, she travels back to 1987. Clausen interviews Aleksander and finds out that his surname is Köhler, but it is still not clear why this information is important. Martha, Franziska, Elisabeth, and Magnus take the time machine from Bartosz.
Episode 5: Lost and Found/Vom Suchen und Finden
In 1921, Adam tells Jonas that he can change the future and the past if he prevents his father, Michael Kahnwald, from killing himself. Adam shows Jonas another God particle that was man-made, and Jonas transports himself to the day before Michael committed suicide. In 1987, Ulrich finds out that Mikkel exists in that time period. He breaks out of the psychiatric ward and finds Mikkel, but they are caught by the police before they can reach the caves. In 2020, Charlotte reveals to adult Jonas that HG Tannhaus is not her real grandfather and that she doesn’t know who her parents actually are. After Jonas leaves, Noah finds Charlotte and reveals that he is her father, but he won’t say who her mother is.
Episode 6: An Endless Cycle/Ein unendlicher Kreis
In 2019, the day that Michael kills himself, the Nielsen family is throwing a big party to celebrate Katharina and Ulrich’s wedding anniversary. While younger Jonas and Hannah go to the party, older Jonas talks to his father. Michael claims that he has not considered suicide and that Jonas led him into the caves and took him to 1986. Elderly Claudia finds them and tells Jonas that Michael must kill himself so everything happens the same way that it always has. Jonas believes Claudia, and the following events still occurred.
Episode 7: The White Devil/Der weiße Teufel
In 1954, the police finds elderly Claudia’s body in the woods. Egon thinks that she may have been an accomplice in Helge Doppler’s kidnapping. He asks Helge about her, but Helge only responds by calling Claudia “the White Devil.” Meanwhile, Hannah steals the time machine from adult Jonas and travels to 1954 to find Ulrich. Instead of breaking him out of prison, she leaves him there.
In 1987, Claudia realizes that it is the day of her father’s death. She tries to prevent his death, but she accidentally reveals to him that she knows about time travel. He tries to call the police to tell them what he knows, and in Claudia’s efforts to get the phone away from him, she pushes him through a table. As he dies, Egon calls Claudia the White Devil. Claudia goes back to her house, where Jonas finds her and convinces her to come with him to change the future.
In 2020, adult Jonas tells Martha who he is and what happened to Mikkel. Clausen confronts Aleksander Tiedemann about his identity, saying that he had a brother named Aleksander Köhler who went missing in 1986.
Episode 8: Endings and Beginnings/Enden und Anfänge
Jonas explains to Claudia everything that her elder self knew about time travel and the coming apocalypse. Charlotte finds out that Aleksander Tiedemann buried the radioactive waste, and she thinks that Clausen’s investigation will lead him to this cover-up. Until this point, Noah did not share the diary pages with Adam after he killed elderly Claudia. After finding out that Charlotte was his daughter, he decided that he had to kill Adam. According to Adam, however, it was not his destiny to die yet, so Noah was unsuccessful. It was also revealed that Noah’s wife is an older Elisabeth, meaning Elisabeth is both Charlotte’s daughter and mother. Adult Jonas finds Martha and forces her to go into the bunker at gunpoint. He seems paranoid that she will die in the apocalypse and wants her to be safe.
Meanwhile, Clausen gains access to the nuclear power plant and wants to go where the nuclear waste is buried. Young Jonas and Claudia go through the caves and activate the time machine, opening the time portal again. Peter and Elisabeth Doppler go to the bunker to be safe, but as soon as they open the door, Martha runs out to find Jonas. Claudia finds Regina and also brings her to the bunker. Young Jonas finds Martha, then Adam, who traveled to 2020 through the God Particle, shoots Martha and kills her. Adam said that in order for him to exist, Jonas had to see Martha die.
In 2053, Elisabeth goes against her own laws and goes to the God particle while in 2020, Clausen has members of the police force drill through the concrete covering the barrels of waste. Before they can open a barrel, Charlotte tries to stop Clausen, but he still insists on opening the barrel. In 2053, Elisabeth activates the God Particle at the same time that it is activated in 1921. The contents of the waste barrel become the God Particle, and a portal is formed between Elisabeth in 2053 and Charlotte in 2020. They try to touch hands, which triggers the apocalypse across Winden. Before the destruction can reach him, Jonas is saved by a version of Martha from another dimension.
REVIEW
There was so much anticipation leading up to the release of this new season, and it was well-deserved. This season of Dark was full of many twists and turns, with the main characters trying to change the unchangeable apocalypse. Even though the show continuously pushes the narrative that everything in the past and future will happen as it always has, there is still so much hope for change. This hope keeps the audience’s attention, makes the show so much more compelling, and gives the audience heroes to root for. Even though the creators of the show were able to weave together five different timelines for this season, it was not as seamless as in the first season. With the additions of new timelines and characters, the story was hard to follow at times and character development was lacking for some of the characters. This was to be expected with the number of characters in this season, but it caused a lot of smaller plotlines to get lost in the overall story. Aside from this, season two of Dark is intense and extremely entertaining, and it gets an 8/10.
