Camestros Felapton

FELAPTONL

Dark Debrief

I’ve finished watching the German Netflix show Dark and it was indeed Dark. I also bought and ate a Twix today without thinking. Spoilers below as this post is for me to take stock and make notes of the twisty turns – particularly if there is a second season as the ending implies.

A fold and then don’t continue unless you like spoilers or have watched it all already.

To make life easier, characters get a year after their name so you know who is when. If I’ve got names wrong please correct me!

Loose ends:

  • We still don’t know who Noah is us or where and when he is from. However, I don’t think we saw him in 1953 and I think we’ve only encountered one version of him.
  • Two bodies were found in 1953, one I assume was Erik2019 – a character we’ve only seen briefly near the start of the series trapped in the wallpaper dungeon place. The other was described as being ‘foriegn’ by the police in 1953 with the implication that they were of middle-eastern descent. The ‘Made in China’ clothes (that so puzzle the police in 1953) suggest they are from 2019 also.
  • Mikkel2019’s whole time line is tragically accounted for but quite how he went back in time is unclear. In 2019 he was running away from the cave, so how he got sucked back in is unclear. As he was unhurt, Noah wasn’t responsible I assume.
  • Jonas2019 is now in some post-apocalyptic future – presumably 2052. That implies a more SF plot if there is a sequel.
  • Mads Nielsen1986 is also tragically accounted for. Kidnapped by Noah and Helge, presumably and used as a subject in Noah’s time machine. Found by Peter Doppler2019 and Tronte Nielsen2019 in the bunker/dungeon and then told by Claudia Tiedemann2019 to put him the woods so he can be found. I assume to set events in chain.
  • We don’t know how Claudia1986 goes from nuclear power plant manager to Claudia2019 scary time-lady/Noah-nemesis.
  • Poor Helge is completely in 1986. Helge1953 has travelled through a wormhole and is in the 1986 wallpaper dungeon. Helge1986 has just escaped from a traffic accident and Helge2019 is dead in the same traffic accident. We don’t know how he got mixed up with Noah though.
  • Charlotte Doppler2019 has all the pieces of the puzzle including a phot of Ulrich Nielsen2019 in Egon Tiedemann1953’s gaol, the cave where the nuclear plant used to be hiding the post-accident waste, and now her husband has presumably explained the bunker.
  • The police officer whose name I don’t know but who spent the whole series with a bandage around his head and on his eye is working with the 2019nuclear power plant guy, whose identity I’m completely confused about now. I was doing quite well except for him.
  • Speaking of which, his 1986 version was the person who sealed the full sized door between the nuclear power plant side of the caves and the rest of the system. The door was previously open in 1986 which is how the lost dog (Gretchen? Can’t remember the name now) got through from 1953. That also implies that random timeslips happen in the cave without going throught the iron-hatchways.
  • The iron hatchway(s) to the trio of tunnels look older – possibly Victorian or maybe 18th century. Also the tunnels look worked rather than natural.
  • The 2019 plot has a chain of people plotting Ulrich’s downfall which is an odd set up for a sequel given that Ulrich seems to have completely lost the plot, attempted to murder a child (Helge1953) and is being beaten up in Egon1953’s gaol. It is hard to see how, even if he got back to 2019, he’d get back to a normal enough life for anybody to destroy.
  • Future Jonas had an older version of the time device and has also appeared in 2019 and 1986. Has he appeared in 1953? I’m not sure.

Comments welcome 🙂

camestrosfelapton

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17 responses to “Dark Debrief”

  2. I’ve finally finished watching Dark. On the whole I liked it, but I had some problems.

    One was the huge cast of characters. By about the fourth episode I was lost and confused — who was whose mother/father/child? Who was married to who? Was that woman the police chief or the principle? And in what year?

    What year everyone belonged to was also hard to keep straight. I could have used a playbook, frankly.

    I do like the general idea — a time-travel tunnel in this cave. And I liked the cliff-hanger ending. And I really liked Claudia going from this ambitious business leader to a war-leader (or whatever she’s become).

    Pacing could have been picked up. Though the moody bleakness did lend a certain feel to the show.

    A question that didn’t occur to me until I read Camestros’ notes — if these tunnels have always been here, or been here for a long time, have time-slips been happening every 33 years? Where are all the other time travelers/missing children/missing people?

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    • There was a point where the watchmaker (I can’t remember their name) was saying that a wormhole would connect past, present and future – implying that 1986 was *the* present for the wormhole. The nuclear accident in 1986 also being pointed at as a cause.

      Yet, the small iron doors are there in 1953 – implying the route has been their for longer. So two things? A way through via the special tunnel that has been there for a long time plus an instability that has sucked other people (and a poodle) through at other times plus whatever the scary chair thing is.

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  3. The deaf girl ( who stole the lipstick) had a muslim boy as best friend at school. I thought he was the second child in 1953. He did meet Noa once in 2019; maybe his abduction to 1953 is yet to happen in 2019?

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  5. Did Noa till the truth about two groups fighting across time, or was it just something he said to get Bartosch on his side.

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  6. There was also a mother with a child (who I think was Ulrich Father) in 1953, who had left an abusive husband. And think she mentioned her husband was a clergyman. Noa?

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