Dark: Netflix's Time-Bending German Mystery Series {Spoilers from page 5}

[drawkcabi]

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

OK, regarding Jonas in the last few episodes of season 2

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Was there a deliberate time skip, or did I miss something? The Jonas who takes Claudia 87 through the cave, and lastly goes to his house where he meets Martha only for Adam to come and kill her is not the same Jonas, who earlier had gone to his house and talked to his dad. The final Jonas is no longer wearing the yellow coat, and looks even worse for wear than yellow coat Jonas. I think after old Claudia came and got him, he did a bunch more stuff, including the big reveal regarding Mikkel's disappearance, possibly went to the future again, and then came back just before the apocalypse.

 

Spoiler

 

You may have missed the part where Jonas tells "middle-age" Claudia he'd been with "old" Claudia for 12 months.

Jonas was taken by old Claudia to...train I guess, for lack of a better word. That was the day before Michael killed himself, in June 2019. I assumed old Claudia and Jonas spent 12 months in 2019-2020 and is also when he did what his dad said he would do - in November 2019 Jonas found Mikkel and led him into the cave and to 1986. 

In 2020 after 12 months with old Claudia Jonas goes back to 1987 and picks up middle-age Claudia, then they both go back to 2020. Jonas goes to his house meets Martha and Adam, Claudia goes and gets Regina.

 

 

[karaddin]

10 hours ago, Corvinus said:

OK, regarding Jonas in the last few episodes of season 2

  Hide contents

Was there a deliberate time skip, or did I miss something? The Jonas who takes Claudia 87 through the cave, and lastly goes to his house where he meets Martha only for Adam to come and kill her is not the same Jonas, who earlier had gone to his house and talked to his dad. The final Jonas is no longer wearing the yellow coat, and looks even worse for wear than yellow coat Jonas. I think after old Claudia came and got him, he did a bunch more stuff, including the big reveal regarding Mikkel's disappearance, possibly went to the future again, and then came back just before the apocalypse.

 

Yeah its as drawkabi said.  I think the thing that throws the viewer off quite easily is that 

Spoiler

We're already bouncing around through time as it is, but the 6th (I think its the 6th) episode where Jonas tries to talk his Dad out of the suicide is functionally a 'flash back' as far as the "present" of the show is concerned which is structured around the 33 year sequence.

Season 1 starts in June 2019 then we have a time skip in the first episode to November (?) 2019 and the reset happens in the November period of 1953/1986/2019. Season 2 is mostly set in June 1921/1954/1987/2020/2053, however Jonas is transported from June 1921->June 2019 (outside the multiple of 33 travel that is the norm). To get back to the 33year period of season 2 he needs to live through another 12 months which he does learning from old Claudia

 

[drawkcabi]

One more thing...

Spoiler

When Jonas went from 2053 to 1921 did anyone else get a Back to the Future vibe? He was in the radiation suit in the power plant and then he was in a field in the middle of nowhere and had to ditch the suit before he went into the town proper. Felt like a little bit of an homage.

ETA:
Of course old Egon even talked about the movie...that was either in the same episode or a later one, I can't remember for sure, but I believe it was after Jonas went to 1921, so I was definitely thinking BTTF before Egon brought it up.

 

[Heartofice]

10 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

One more thing...

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When Jonas went from 2053 to 1921 did anyone else get a Back to the Future vibe? He was in the radiation suit in the power plant and then he was in a field in the middle of nowhere and had to ditch the suit before he went into the town proper. Felt like a little bit of an homage.

ETA:
Of course old Egon even talked about the movie...that was either in the same episode or a later one, I can't remember for sure, but I believe it was after Jonas went to 1921, so I was definitely thinking BTTF before Egon brought it up.

 

Spoiler

I think there are quite a few references to time travel movies throughout Dark, however subtle. I think the yellow radiation suits do have a hint of BTTF about them. There is also a photo in episode 1 of S2 that looks suspiciously like the photo where Martys family start disappearing. 

 

[Heartofice]

Overall thoughts, fantastic second season. Was worried after the end of season 1 that the jump to the future my ruin the whole show and turn it into some dumb sci fi romp. But it never went there and always stayed grounded.

There were some totally gut wrenching moments in this season. There is something about time travel that really hits me, last season seeing Mikkel and knowing he will spend the rest of this life trapped in the past was a moment that 'hung' with me for days. Its so unusual for events in Time Travel stories to have actual consequence as there is usually a way out, or a way to clean the timeline and go back to normal. So for a show to say 'NO, this is how things are' really hurts. 
 

Spoiler

This is a reason why Martha's appearance at the end of the season was pretty disappointing. It hinted at alternate realities, something that makes everything that happens in this reality seem far less important. If you can just do a Rick and Morty and jump to a better reality every time you screw things up then who even cares any more.
 

 

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Overall thoughts, fantastic second season. Was worried after the end of season 1 that the jump to the future my ruin the whole show and turn it into some dumb sci fi romp. But it never went there and always stayed grounded.

There were some totally gut wrenching moments in this season. There is something about time travel that really hits me, last season seeing Mikkel and knowing he will spend the rest of this life trapped in the past was a moment that 'hung' with me for days. Its so unusual for events in Time Travel stories to have actual consequence as there is usually a way out, or a way to clean the timeline and go back to normal. So for a show to say 'NO, this is how things are' really hurts. 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

This is a reason why Martha's appearance at the end of the season was pretty disappointing. It hinted at alternate realities, something that makes everything that happens in this reality seem far less important. If you can just do a Rick and Morty and jump to a better reality every time you screw things up then who even cares any more.
 

 

I'm not sure what to think of that last scene, really, but imo, we need to be patient. Because you're right, this show tells you how things are. As I was watching, I kept making little predictions, until I realized most of them were wishful thinking, and this show is ruthless.

[Heartofice]

19 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I'm not sure what to think of that last scene, really, but imo, we need to be patient. Because you're right, this show tells you how things are. As I was watching, I kept making little predictions, until I realized most of them were wishful thinking, and this show is ruthless.

I'm prepared to give this idea a chance, they might be able to make it work. Am quite scared they will go down some sort of multiverse route as a solution, which I think is a bit of a handwave. I think back to Endgame and the headaches that stuff causes, and its not satisfying at all. Dark has an interesting position on predetermination and the cycle of time, it is its most powerful storytelling device and its what has drawn me in. Multiverses kind of kicks all that into the garbage. 

[DaveSumm]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

 

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This is a reason why Martha's appearance at the end of the season was pretty disappointing. It hinted at alternate realities, something that makes everything that happens in this reality seem far less important. If you can just do a Rick and Morty and jump to a better reality every time you screw things up then who even cares any more.
 

 

Spoiler

I’m hoping that in Dark’s universe “different world” means “different loop”. So far we’ve seen people travel through time, but this seems distinct from Sic Mundus talking about the next loop. Maybe the explosion creates an apocalypse, but it also jolts the record back to whenever season 1 began and a new loop starts. Adam’s gang and maybe Claudia seem to know how to survive to the next loop (or at least send information through), but we haven’t seen anyone travel to wherever they want - maybe alt-Martha is the first real curveball for Adam and Claudia, the first event that they couldn’t predict as she’s from a loop long in the future (if future is still a term we can use).

 

[Heartofice]

Just now, DaveSumm said:

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I’m hoping that in Dark’s universe “different world” means “different loop”. So far we’ve seen people travel through time, but this seems distinct from Sic Mundus talking about the next loop. Maybe the explosion creates an apocalypse, but it also jolts the record back to whenever season 1 began and a new loop starts. Adam’s gang and maybe Claudia seem to know how to survive to the next loop (or at least send information through), but we haven’t seen anyone travel to wherever they want - maybe alt-Martha is the first real curveball for Adam and Claudia, the first event that they couldn’t predict as she’s from a loop long in the future (if future is still a term we can use).

 

I really hope its something like that.

I'm still a little unclear on how exactly the loops and 33 year cycles work. Did I miss or forget that? Is there a relationship or mirroring between what happens each 33 year cycle and.. I dunno, I still am unsure exactly what it means.

[DaveSumm]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I really hope its something like that.

I'm still a little unclear on how exactly the loops and 33 year cycles work. Did I miss or forget that? Is there a relationship or mirroring between what happens each 33 year cycle and.. I dunno, I still am unsure exactly what it means.

I don’t think you missed anything, they just haven’t made it clear yet. We know that the cave can take you forward or back 33 years from 2019/20, but we don’t know how long the loops actually are. I’m thinking that maybe they’re a year and half, which would take you through the events of both seasons. So that Season 3 could potentially open exactly as Season 1 did, and we see a replaying of events that we’ve seen but with an added alt-Martha curveball.

I still don’t really know how I feel about their version of time travel, with everything happening because it has to happen because it’s already happened. On the one hand, it’d be so easy to test if you had a mind to. Who’s alive in the future? Jonas? Great, kill Jonas. Theory disproved. Or less drastically, make a mark on the cave entrance that you can see isn’t there in the future. What happens exactly to prevent you from doing that? Secondly, if those were indeed the rules, why is anyone putting any effort into anything? If everything is preordained, then just fuck off down the pub and let things be. But Adam and Claudia obviously have agendas, they clearly take actions for some reason, which implies that things can go wrong if they didn’t.

Which is why I’m clinging to my ‘multiple loops’ thing - that things can be different, but there’s so many iterations of the loop that certain people know what can happen and how to manipulate things. Sadly, the Charlotte-Elisabeth-Charlotte lineage puts pay to it I think. I don’t see how there can be a ‘first loop’ in that scenario. Unless once upon a loop Charlotte had a different mother but same father, then had Elisabeth, then Elisabeth went back in time and had a kid with that father, and by staggering coincidence passed on the exact 50% of genes that she’d received from her mother, thus producing the exact same person. Strongly doubt they’ll go that route.

[drawkcabi]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I don’t think you missed anything, they just haven’t made it clear yet. We know that the cave can take you forward or back 33 years from 2019/20, but we don’t know how long the loops actually are. I’m thinking that maybe they’re a year and half, which would take you through the events of both seasons. So that Season 3 could potentially open exactly as Season 1 did, and we see a replaying of events that we’ve seen but with an added alt-Martha curveball.

I still don’t really know how I feel about their version of time travel, with everything happening because it has to happen because it’s already happened. On the one hand, it’d be so easy to test if you had a mind to. Who’s alive in the future? Jonas? Great, kill Jonas. Theory disproved. Or less drastically, make a mark on the cave entrance that you can see isn’t there in the future. What happens exactly to prevent you from doing that? Secondly, if those were indeed the rules, why is anyone putting any effort into anything? If everything is preordained, then just fuck off down the pub and let things be. But Adam and Claudia obviously have agendas, they clearly take actions for some reason, which implies that things can go wrong if they didn’t.

Which is why I’m clinging to my ‘multiple loops’ thing - that things can be different, but there’s so many iterations of the loop that certain people know what can happen and how to manipulate things. Sadly, the Charlotte-Elisabeth-Charlotte lineage puts pay to it I think. I don’t see how there can be a ‘first loop’ in that scenario. Unless once upon a loop Charlotte had a different mother but same father, then had Elisabeth, then Elisabeth went back in time and had a kid with that father, and by staggering coincidence passed on the exact 50% of genes that she’d received from her mother, thus producing the exact same person. Strongly doubt they’ll go that route.

They kind of did that.

Spoiler

 

Noah was going to kill Adam, Adam told him go ahead, he wouldn't be able to because he knew he stayed alive past that point. Noah tried to shoot him and his gun jammed. Then Agnes took the gun and killed Noah with it.

They (Adam, Claudia, Jonas) also said a few times that little things can be changed though, but not the main flow of things. So I guess that's what Adam is trying to control or maybe he as well as Claudia and Jonas are still trying to fight against time to see if they can change it if they only try hard enough.

 

 

[Astromech]

Didn't the 33 year intervals have to do with the planetary alignment opening a rift in the cave? I was under the impression one could travel to any time with the time machines and god particle.

[drawkcabi]

3 hours ago, Astromech said:

Didn't the 33 year intervals have to do with the planetary alignment opening a rift in the cave? I was under the impression one could travel to any time with the time machines and god particle.

With the god particle, yes. However I thought the machine was also limited to the 33 years. I thought that's what the three cylinders symbolized (past present, future...33 years back, right now, 33 years forward) and they were jumping all around this season with the machines but not much the caves and still seemed limited to the 33 year intervals. 

[Corvinus85]

Middle-aged Jonas explains to someone that the suitcase time machine only operates on the 33 year intervals. It's more effective if used in the caves.

The caves tunnel is an uncontrolled time portal created by the addition of the dark matter in the radiation residue, which simply makes that space vulnerable to a wormhole opening. And this affects the bunker, too.

 

[Astromech]

8 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

With the god particle, yes. However I thought the machine was also limited to the 33 years. I thought that's what the three cylinders symbolized (past present, future...33 years back, right now, 33 years forward) and they were jumping all around this season with the machines but not much the caves and still seemed limited to the 33 year intervals. 

 

8 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Middle-aged Jonas explains to someone that the suitcase time machine only operates on the 33 year intervals. It's more effective if used in the caves.

The caves tunnel is an uncontrolled time portal created by the addition of the dark matter in the radiation residue, which simply makes that space vulnerable to a wormhole opening. And this affects the bunker, too.

 

Ah, ok. They were jumping around so much this season, with the 33 year intervals overlapping so much that it didn't appear to be a condition for the machines. Was the upgraded 2.0 version of the original time machine still limited to 33 years? Obviously the world jumping one Martha has at the end is another case entirely.

(The designs of the time machines are damn cool.)

[red snow]

Only 2 episodes in. Took a while to finish rewatch and it's definitely not a show that can be watched without 100% attention (stranger things fits the light hearted viewing better).

I was going to say the show is missing a bit of heart with the focus more on plot but the second episode, focusing on Egon definitely got to me with the whole "too good for this world".

The actor playing vicar noah is excellent. His entire body language screams villain and the way he walks is so at odds with that of a clergyman. I've no idea how good his English is but someone should be snapping this guy up for any upcoming villain roles in shows.

The casting is impeccable to the point i often wonder whether actors are related in some cases it's so plausible they are younger/older incarnations of characters.

[red snow]

5 episodes into season 2 now. Excuse my stopping to throw down thoughts which may be answered in next two episodes.

Things are getting twisty with the reveal of Charlotte's dad. I'm not sure that makes her like Jonas (trying to do the maths and i think she has to be with just noah as her dad. She'd have to be born in the 40s and she isn't 80 i think the implication is Noah took her to the future to survive premature birth?). And that's before we discover who her mother is.

But this means Adam's plan of fixing things by stopping Jonas from ever existing is flawed or at least misleading. Removing Jonas may remove charlotte (and any others from the knot) from existence too so it would not be the case that everything would otherwise be as is.

That said I have very little trust in Adam. First of all I'm not fully convinced he is Jonas. An easy way to manipulate someone is to make them think you are their future self and with his mangled face adding a scar to the neck isn't a big deal. Plus, Adam should know/remember exactly what jonas does so unless Adam knows he's some leftover paradox he knows it doesn't work - or more accurately he's lied to Jonas to achieve whatever his real goal is. In fairness Adam did tell Jonas upfront about losing his naiveté but Jonas really should have questioned him a bit more. But he's a bit desperate having discovered he's 99 years in the past with 33 years to wait prior to escaping via the caves.

What did stink of "tv plot over-riding character believability" was Charlotte accepting Noah's cryptic non-answer about her mother's Identity. I'm sorry most people, particularly a detective who has spent her life wondering who her parents are, would scream "cut the bullshit and tell me who my mother is" . It's not like Noah said he couldn't tell her. Probably the only occasion in the show where i feel it has done this but it irks me.

Poor Ulrich. He's a shitty guy but episode 5 put him through the ringer. 33 years in a psychiatric prison before finally finding his son. Then being stopped metres away from achieving some kind of resolution before being dragged back to prison. And then seeing your other two kids at the side of the road. That's tough.

[red snow]

Spoliers for all of season 2. I know this is a spoiler thread but just in case.

I can see why Noah didn't want to tell Charlotte who her mother was now!

Great second series, managing to expand the scope without ever becoming incomprehensible.

Noah's ultimate fate seemed anticlimactic given the role he has played but i guess with this show his past actions might be the most important and have yet to be seen. Although i didn't like the implication that "fate" intervenes and prevents actions that would stop the chain of events eg the gun firing. That feels like it removes any notion of free Will and means things like mikkel going back in time, Michael killing himself, etc would have to happen irrespective. I think.

The last reveal was very WTF? And means season 3 will be even more complex. Although it was hinted in an earlier episode when Claudia said she's seen a world without Jonas and it wasn't a good one.

Maybe the world we've seen is a bubble stuck in a loop while other timelines exist normally?

I like how season 2 expanded it so that it isn't just about Jonas. Claudia and charlotte (arguably noah) appear to have roles that are just as important.

This is easily this decade's "lost" - and with only one season remaining I'm hoping it doesn't fuck it all up.

Still deeply suspicious of "adam". I'm also wondering what role bartosz still has? I'm guessing he's in 1920 with the others in his group but i don't think we've seen him. Although now i think i need to rewatch the start of episode 1 in case he was the one killed!

[red snow]

10 hours ago, Triskele said:

When S1 ended with the jump to the future I was worried it was going to expand too much to the point of being incomprehensive, but S2 kept it pretty much in the pocket which was great.

But then S2's end hinted at a similar jump like the end of S1 did, so we'll see.  

Yeah, there were already a lot of Lost comparisons that jumped out but the Adam and White Devil story lines that developed more this season very much echoed something that emerged in Lost.  We'll see where they take it.  

I really love the adage about the three deaths one dies in a lifetime.  

The adage you mentioned might even apply to the shows 3 act structure. 

[Heartofice]

11 hours ago, red snow said:

This is easily this decade's "lost" - and with only one season remaining I'm hoping it doesn't fuck it all up.

That the writers have limited themselves to 3 seasons makes me suspect it will all be ok. With Lost you got the sense it was being made up on the fly, and they never expected to get that far. With Dark it feels like a story that someone has been thinking about in great detail for a very long time, with each strand tightly plotted. 

Thats what I'm hoping anyway.