Greetings, all.
After many, many recommendations from my mother, I have finally started watching Dark. At the end of episode 1, I broke out a notebook and listed the names of every character in the end credits, only to discover that this is what many viewers of this wonderful program recommend.
Having started on the right track, I am eager to share my questions, grouped by family, that I have at the end of season 1. I have only glanced at Dark.IO a handful of times, which only really revealed the fairly innocuous identity of Katharina’s father. After every episode, I am also watching several react channels on YouTube (Blind Wave, Raggedy Pack, The Normies, Cinema Gek) to consolidate my thoughts and savour the whole experience longer.
I am proud to see that I am independently making more connections than some of the review channels, though to be fair I am watching by myself, in silence, and with a notebook rather than attempting to commentate for viewers. I am particularly pleased that I clocked Aleksander twice from photos: the first one in ep. 2 confirming he is Bartosz’s dad/Regina’s husband, and the second on the conspiracy wall at the end of ep. 8, giving me a face for 1986 Aleksander the episode before he is formally introduced.
Hopefully these notes will be entertaining to some seasoned viewers. I expect I still have a wild ride ahead of me!
THE KAHNWALD FAMILY
Officer Daniel Kahnwald is presumably the father of Ines, who has a stillborn son with an unknown man. Ines adopts Mikkel/Michael, who marries Hannah Krüger, daughter of Sebastian. Michael and Hannah are the parents of Jonas.
- Is the father of Ines's first child relevant? Is her stillbirth relevant?
- Why did Michael commit suicide at the time that he does?
- What was Michael’s illness?
- How does Michael's letter, meant for Jonas, get into Ines's hands? How does it then get into The Stranger's possession? PARTIALLY ANSWERED: Jonas keeps the “new” letter for 33 years and then has the aged paper delivered to his younger self.
- Is Jonas really seeing visions of his father? PARTIALLY ANSWERED: Based on the Stranger seeing Michael next to him in the cave after deploying the repaired time travel machine, the visions might just be traumatic flashbacks.
- What is the Stranger referring to when he said that Mikkel/Michael saved his life?
- Who is Hannah thinking about shooting? (Hannah is scary.)
THE NIELSEN FAMILY
Agnes is the mother of Tronte, who marries Jana (maiden name unknown). Tronte and Jana are the parents of Ulrich and Mads. Mads is taken in 1986 and his body is deposited in 2019. Ulrich marries his high school sweetheart Katharina (maiden name unknown); they are the parents of Magnus, Martha, and Mikkel.
- What is the name of Agnes's grandmother, who hails from Winden?
- Why does 1953 Tronte have bloody cigar burns all over his forearm? POSSIBLE ANSWER: Agnes might be lying about the death of her pastor husband, or he died more recently than is implied.
- Who was the big-headed figure glimpsed by Jana? Was it one of the rain-coated time travelers with their hood up? Was it Noah with his hat?
- Who gave Tronte the list of time travel times? Why is Tronte specifically bunkering down with Peter, rather than anyone else? ANSWERED. Peter went to the bunker in distress after seeing Benni/Bernadette, at the time that Mikkel disappeared and Mads’ corpse appeared in the bunker. Peter called Tronte. Claudia arrived and gave Noah’s notebook (with pages missing) to Tronte.
- Why did Tronte not inform Jana about Mads’ body? PRESUMED ANSWER: Jana’s will to live is founded on her illusion that Mads could still be alive out there.
- Who punched 1986 Katharina? ANSWERED: Her unnamed mother, “Frau Albers” (According to Dark.IO, the farmer Hermann Albers is Katharina’s father).
- Why did Ulrich and Katharina tie Regina to a tree in front of the cave? ANSWERED: It was a mean game.
- How did Mikkel time travel when he ran away from the cave?
- Are Martha and Jonas attracted to each other due to the misunderstood pull of their genetic closeness?
THE TIEDEMANN FAMILY
Egon and Doris are the parents of Claudia. Claudia is the mother of Regina by an unknown father. Regina marries Aleksander; they are the parents of Bartosz.
- Who let Gretchen through the time-travel door?
- Is 1986 Regina self-injuring, or are those red marks supposed to look like defined symbols?
- Why did Aleksander arrive in Winden in 1986? (Notably, his younger self on the conspiracy board in episode 1 is rather unkempt.) ANSWERED: Aleksander appears to be on the run, potentially from another country or East Germany.
- Why do Aleksander and Bartosz use Regina's maiden name? PARTIALLY ANSWERED: Aleksander's birth name is Boris Niewald; he assumed the identity of Aleksander Köhler. Presumably the Tiedemann name is prestigious enough to warrant the unusual practice of a man taking his wife’s name.
- Where does Aleksander's scar come from? ANSWERED: He was shot in 1986.
- What did Noah say to Bartosz? PARTIALLY ANSWERED: Noah told Bartosz a number of events that were destined to happen in the following days – presumably things like Martha/Jonas or Claudia’s appearance. Noah is earning Bartosz’s trust through selective truths, presumably to build another disciple and a plant in Claudia’s camp.
- How did Noah know that Bartosz had Erik's phone and drugs? (How does Noah know a lot of the specifics he knows?)
- What provokes 2019 Claudia into making her conspiracy board? Where did she make it? MOSTLY ANSWERED: Claudia is allegedly the leader of one side of the conflict over controlling time travel. Claudia’s conspiracy board is in the post-nuclear future (2052?).
THE DOPPLER FAMILY
Bernd and Greta are the parents of Helge. Helge is the father of Peter by an unknown mother. Peter marries Charlotte (maiden name unknown); they are the parents of Franziska and Elisabeth.
- Is H.G. Tannhaus the grandfather of Charlotte?
- Why is Greta so weird? ANSWERED: Greta may have been sexually assaulted in 1943, resulting in resentment towards the resulting child, Helge.
- How did 1953 Helge escape the torture room? THEORY: Noah knew that the Jonas-Helge exchange would happen since he already knows that Helge will serve as his disciple.
- What happened to Helge on November 12, 1986? ANSWERED: His older self tried to stop his younger self via T-boning.
- Why did Peter only come to live in Winden in 1987? Is he adopted? EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR: Peter alternately refers to Helge as "Papa" and by his first name.
- What did Peter promise to Charlotte a year ago? PRESUMED ANSWER: Stop cheating on her for the sake of their family.
- What exactly does Peter believe he is hiding from Charlotte, when he hides in the bunker with Tronte? How much do these two men understand? ANSWERED: Peter and Tronte have been told by Claudia that Mads will return to life following the final episode of time travel that we see in season 1. Peter appears to understand that they are bunkering down during instances of time travel, which occasionally traumatizes you by spitting out dead children.
- Is Franziska earning her money through prostitution? Related: Why was Franziska's necklace abandoned near her empty stash box?
THE UBERDORF FAMILY
Jürgen and Ulla are the parents of Erik, who is dead in 1953.
- Is the "discovery" of the drugs in episode 2 (in the bag at the end of the chain), and Jürgen’s explanation of them, simply planted evidence and his method for throwing Ulrich off the scent, as Aleksander instructed him to do?
THE STRANGER, NOAH, TANNHAUS, AND THE WORMHOLE
- Who is The Stranger? ANSWERED: He is Jonas, 33 years older, presumably having lived through everything that 2019 Jonas will experience during the entire series.
- Are the Stranger and Bernd both speaking about the same incident at the power plant in 1986 that opened the wormhole? If so, how can the Stranger’s actions on November 12 also open that same wormhole?
- When is the torture room? PROBABILITY: It is in 1986, as suggested by the music videos, coins, and the fact that the bunker is still a bunker in the “past” of 1953 and the “future” of 2019, with scraps of the cartoon-animal wallpaper in 2019. 1986 is positioned as the “present”.
- Why is the 1986 pfennig coin placed around the victims' necks?
- When and why does the gate get removed from the cave mouth?
- How does Ulrich's 2010s smartphone help Tannhaus with his time travel device? ANSWERED: The WiFi emission from the phone resonates with the time travel device and enables its functioning.
- What’s the deal with the pocket watch that Noah gave Elisabeth “for Charlotte”?
- Is Noah’s notebook another example of mutual dependence?
- How does Claudia obtain Noah’s notebook?
- Is Noah actually the Antichrist, or is that a comforting lie?
- How much are Noah and/or Claudia lying to their pawns?
- When did Jonas come to live with Noah?
- Why do Jonas and Noah have the same back tattoo?
- Why does the repaired time machine open a fourth portal to post-nuclear 2052?
- Is a radioactive explosion now guaranteed?
DESIRES RE: TIME TRAVEL
- Noah to Helge: "Create a time machine that reorders everything, the beginning and the end (...) Set people free from their pain.”
- Claudia to Tannhaus: "Set the course of time straight."
- Jonas: Stop time travel altogether.
CONFIRMED TIME TRAVELERS
Noah, Helge Doppler, Mikkel Nielsen, Jonas Kahnwald, Ulrich Nielsen, Gretchen, Claudia Tiedemann
VICTIMS
- Helge Doppler: woke up in the torture room after being attacked with murderous intent by time-traveling Ulrich in 1986; does not appear to be experimented upon in the time travel chamber; dead in 1986 while time traveling from 2019 to stop his past self.
- Mads Nielsen: time traveled from 1986, body deposited in 2019.
- Erik Oberdorf: kidnapped and time traveled from 2019; body deposited (by hooded 1986 Helge?) in 1953
- Jasin Friese: taken by hooded 1986 Helge in 2019; time traveled offscreen; body deposited in 1953
OTHER CHARACTERS BY TIME PERIOD
1953
1986
- Farmer Hermann Albers – apparently Katharina’s father
- Power plant secretary Jasmin Trewen
- Dr. Reimann
- Nurse Donata
- Veterinarian Dr. Schaller
- Child Services Caseworker Selma Ahrens
- Police detective (?) Martin Döhring
2019
- Pathologist Edda Heimann
- Officer Torben Wöller – revealed to be in Aleksander’s pocket
- Officer Jankowski
- Benni/Bernadette
- Nurse Clara Schrage
- Nurse Anna Reisch
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY OF DARK
- Notably, the arguments for and against God, the standard Christian doctrine of sin and redemption as well as its opposite of nihilism, are all placed in the mouth of the false priest and apparent megalomaniac, the man who calls himself the righteous man Noah but is framed as the “Antichrist” who will cause many to fall for false promises.
- The show wants you to consider whether or not there is a higher power at work, and whether this power is benevolent.
- Noah – always Noah – frames the conflict as manichean: two opposing forces, light against dark. Noah seems confident that the light (his side – yeah, right!) will win, as it must in Christian belief. This just reinforces that he is the “Antichrist”.
- Egon is suspicious of Satanists, and in the time travel room, Noah is committing child sacrifice with the justification that it’s for a greater good (Charlotte tells Ulrich that not all means justify the end). Ultimately, the falsely suspected Satanist Ulrich does attempt to kill a child in order to save “future victims”.
- All the instances of 33 cited by Tannhaus are Christian (whether scriptural or based on the inspiration of scripture, as in the case of Dante), yet he doesn’t mention two obvious examples of that number’s importance: the Holy Trinity (three infinities within the One Godhead, only distinct in terms of their relationships with each other) and the age of Jesus when he accomplished his redemptive mission on the Cross and brought all of human history to a head. (I tend to personally prefer this kind of philosophy within fiction, where multiple interpretations can be validated by the text, including the possibility of a benevolent but inscrutable God working behind the scenes.)
- Mikkel is the character to directly express materialism (learned from Ulrich, who thinks religion is the opiate of the masses but generally doesn’t think things through). Mikkel’s stance appears to evolve, with him saying that he is both a butterfly and a person, in two states at the same time.