Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the classical Greek alphabet and a title of Christ and God in the Book of Revelation. It is clarified with an additional phrase: ‘‘the beginning and the end’’ (Revelation 21: 6). This is the last episode of Season 1.
The prologue begins on the day of Mikkel’s disappearance. Feels like a lifetime ago. Or 3? Peter is watching the transvestite prostitute. He drives off and goes to the bunker where he begins to chant the Serenity Prayer. Suddenly a tear appears in the fabric of the space-time continuum and a body falls through. It is Mads. He tries to revive the boy, but he is dead. He calls Tronte. Tronte arrives and cannot understand what is happening: ‘‘That’s impossible’’ he says and is overcome with grief. Claudia appears and greets both men, telling them that she has much to explain but they must first move Mads to the correct location. (?)
On the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ house we see the date: November 12th, 2019 superimposed. Jonas is asleep, and a hand crosses his shoulder and he turns to see Mikkel. Then he wakes. Dream or memory? Impossible to tell. Bartosz is now comforting Martha but his look is odd. He knows something. What did Noah tell him? Jonas confronts his grandmother. She shows him the letter: ‘‘That’s impossible’’ he says to her ‘‘I burned it.’’ (Lesson 1 in time travel Jonas & Tronte: Nothing is impossible). He is angry at her for not preventing the bizarre situation he is now in. Ines answers that it is not for us to play God. Jonas wants his life the way it was, but it is way too late as we cut to Mikkel with Ines back in 1986 where he is showing her his magic trick. She asks if he is still having the same dream. He is. Ines then tells him about Master Zhuang’s paradox. She asks Mikkel: is he a butterfly or a man dreaming he is a butterfly? This philosophical puzzle or dream argument received serious attention in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy with an archetype in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Mikkel poignantly answers her: ‘‘Both’’ and his response reminds us of his dual status in the unfolding narrative.
Ulrich is being processed at the station. Tiedemann wants to know where Helge is. Ulrich is close to losing his mind and sings part of an 80’s song to him. As he is being taken away shouting that he can change everything we are reminded of the same words old Helge said to him. Ulrich knows what will become of Tiedemann as his impending drink problem will cause his wife to leave him. Jonas is heading into school where Bartosz is waiting outside for him in the pouring rain. They fight after Bartosz mentions his father. Martha rushes out and stops them. Bartosz tells Jonas to: ‘‘Get the hell out of here’’, Jonas turns and walks away, much like the Theseus of Greek legend did to Ariadne on the shores of Naxos.
The stranger returns to see H.G and finds two, time machines; one is well used the other brand spanking new. H.G. shows how his device will only work when Ulrich’s smartphone is switched on next to the first cylinder commenting that the past influences the future as much as the future influences the past; without seeing the strangers time machine he could not have finished the one he had. (A bootstrap paradox) H.G. shows him a part that has an empty chamber and the stranger takes from his pocket a capsule containing Cs-137 (a radioactive isotope of Caesium) required to power the machine. H.G. explains that the device generates a Higgs field which increases the mass of the Caesium and the EM pulse causes this to implode into a black hole and the same thing probably took place when the explosion occurred at the power plant. H.G. asks him what the future is like and the stranger responds that by tomorrow he is hoping it will be different. Different from what?
Charlotte calls Peter to ask when his father was kidnapped was it ‘53 or ’54? He wants to talk but she isn’t listening now. He answers her with ’53. That’s ”33+33 years ago” she says. She is now on the same page as Ulrich. Next, we see Helge arrive at the lodge where his older self is waiting for him. Helge doesn’t recognise his older self until he starts talking about Noah: as an evil liar, that neither of them have been chosen by God and that he must stop now before it is too late. Old Helge touchingly embraces his younger self begging him to stop but it is too much for his younger self and he flees.
Jonas returns home, looks round the attic where his father committed suicide and speaks to his mother. She is sitting at the table with the box. She notices he is cut. It is nothing to worry about he tells her and has a very distant look in his eyes. He tells her he is going back to school but that’s unlikely. Peter and Tronte are waiting in the bunker. Tronte has that brown book which was given to him by Claudia. The book contains details of what has happened over the last eight days in Winden. Peter is very nervous and tells Tronte he does not trust Claudia. Tronte answers his doubts: ‘‘After today everything will be new’’ as we cut to Helge and Noah in the cemetery where Helge is still expressing his grave doubts about acting in a world where God is a lie. Would he rather believe a lie or live with the painful truth, Noah admonishes him, and he tells Helge about a man from the war (WW2? WW3?) who one day unexpectedly stood in Noah’s home and forcefully stated that nothing we do, or experience is in vain because of: ‘‘an eternal miracle of the One.’’ The pain made you, Noah explains as he grips Helge’s face tight in his hands and Helge answers, now pacified: ‘‘Who is next?’’ Noah looks in his book and answers: ‘‘Jonas Kahnwald’’ as we see Jonas exit the caves. But when is Jonas?
Nurse Ines wants to adopt Mikkel and then in the woods we see Jonas meeting young Charlotte. She is drawing dead birds. He asks the year. She answers ’86 and asks what he’s doing. Bringing someone back from the dead is his answer. She asks if he can do that with her birds. He tells her to find them when they are younger but, they will still die. ‘‘You are crazy’’ is Charlotte’s response and that’s exactly what Jonas called the stranger when they spoke on the perils of time travel. We cut to 2019 and Charlotte is looking through old microfiche and comes across the police photo of Ulrich taken in 1953 and here we witness Ulrich being beaten up by police to divulge where Helge is.
Jonas arrives at the hospital and enters Mikkel’s room. Noah is there. ‘‘Who are you?’’ Jonas asks, but before he receives an answer Helge grabs him and drugs him. Jonas wakes up in the killing room and begins to look around when the door hatch opens, and he rushes towards it demanding to be let out. It is not Noah or Helge. It is our stranger and he informs him the chair is a prototype of a time machine operated by opening the passage in the caves. But the energy is not enough the stranger informs Jonas and Jonas finally asks him the question we have been waiting for: ‘‘Who are you?’’ Had you already guessed? The stranger replies: ‘‘I am you’’ and then tells himself everything that has occurred and that he cannot let him out otherwise he will not become who he is in the future and he will then not be able to destroy the wormhole. Young Jonas is distraught and shouts out that he is crazy and that he can change the now. But older Jonas asks why he kissed Martha and explains free will is an illusion as we are controlled fundamentally by our desires. Jonas wants it to be the way it was, but Older Jonas explains that it’s too late as he has seen things no one should see, and that this sickness must be stopped and with that, he shuts the hatch.
Helge is in his car at traffic lights (red) listening to the song that ended Episode 1. The lyrics are an echo of Helge’s doubts. As he drives on he is hit by another car. Injured, he makes his way slowly to the other driver. It is Old Helge. Charlotte is looking at a cutting of this accident on her board as she receives a text from Peter to go to the lodge to talk. Noah is in his car with Bartosz and tells him that Jonas will destroy the wormhole but by doing so actually create it. ‘‘A Paradox’’ he says gleefully. The caesium in his machine will open the wormhole and Claudia has lied to him he tells Bartosz. He explains that most people are pawns in a chess game moved around by an unknown hand to be sacrificed when necessary in an eternal battle between good and evil. Time travel is being fought between light and shadow and we are part of the light.( I am reminded again somewhat of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave) Furthermore, Noah affirms: it matters not the dark deeds that will have to be carried out and tells Bartosz not to trust Claudia as she is part of the shadow, as we are shown her younger-self reading the book by H.G. We see Helge being taken to hospital but Old Helge has died from their own collision of light and shadow. ‘‘Time is an infinite field’’ Noah declaims as he hands his brown book over to Bartosz telling him to be patient and victory will be assured when they can release humanity from its immaturity and pain. (The belief in God?)
Noah looking at his watch says: ‘‘It’s time’’ and we see older Jonas/stranger enter the passage, open the triquetra door and start the time machine using Ulrich’s smartphone. We see the lights flash randomly in each 33-year period and our cast of characters busy themselves on their squares of the chessboard. The device is not destroying anything it is creating something dark that is growing. In the killing room a singularity is opening in front of Jonas and Helge and as it widens they put out their finger and touch; so reminiscent of the near-touching hands of God and Adam from ‘The Creation of Adam’ by Michelangelo a fresco painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Suddenly, reborn Helge returns to the killing room with his blood-stained face and Jonas wakes up in the bunker with that wall covered with those photos and connected with cord. He is bemused, and we hear gunfire outside and an unusual hovering sound. Outside it is snowing or is that radioactive fallout? Jonas finds the road littered with destroyed and burnt-out army vehicles with a sign warning the area is dangerous due to radiation. As he wanders through this post-Apocalyptic landscape a truck appears full of heavily armed masked fighters who stop and force him at gunpoint to his knees. A young woman defiantly stands in front of him. Jonas asks her: ‘‘Where am I?’’ but more importantly and more tellingly he asks: ‘‘What year is this?’’ (2052? Or 2087?) She looks to the sky and we see a long scar diagonally across her face and then a futuristic helicopter/aircraft flies over. It is certainly not Kansas. But, it is a battlefield. The last words are hers and to Jonas she sarcastically says: ‘‘Welcome to the future’’ and then knocks him out with her gun and there ends Season 1. Or is this, the beginning of Season 2? Alpha and Omega.
Marc Barham
Latest posts by Marc Barham (see all)
- ‘Dark’ Season 3 Episode 8 ‘Paradise’ - August 25, 2020
- ‘Dark’ Season 3 Episode 7 ‘Between the Time’ - August 19, 2020
- ‘Dark’ Season 3 Episode 6 ‘Light and Shadow’ - August 12, 2020
Great reviews. They have been a great help. I would like to see you review some other time travel series.
When is the next season of Dark out? And will you be reviewing these too?
Keep up the good work.
Louise
Hi Louise
Hope you are well.
Reviews of Season 2 start this Thursday (26th)
Have you been watching? What do/did you think?
Regards
Marc Barham