We see a coach and horses travelling through a dark wooded landscape with the rain pouring down and the Gothic horror and horror filmic resonances are everywhere. For a moment are we not in Transylvania with that infamous coach transporting Jonathan Harker to his date with the living death? As I mentioned in my last review there are clear parallels now in ‘Dark‘ with another great horror story ‘Frankenstein‘ (1818) by Mary Shelley both from the book and the subsequent films. Adam is strikingly similar to the look of the Creature in his portrayal by Robert de Niro, and the Creature reads Milton’s epic ‘Paradise Lost‘ to educate himself. Speaking to Dr Frankenstein, the Creature says: “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel“. This also brings in Lucifer (fallen angel) and the battle between light and shadow that has become increasingly referenced and presented in Season 2 and Season 3 of ‘Dark‘.
We are inside that coach and a middle-aged man is reading from the play ‘Ariadne‘ and as he finishes the lines remarks: ”That was your mother’s favourite play”. The boy lifts his head up and we recognise him as the blind prophet Tiresias/Tannhaus. The father looks at a silver pocket watch and it is the same watch we have seen before, inscribed inside with, ‘For Charlotte‘. How does he have this watch? Is this the same watch that Noah gives to Charlotte? Did it belong to his wife and mother? Young Tannhaus asks ”Why do we die?” The question he asks must we feel be prompted by his mothers’ death. The father answers that we live forever in the ”eternity of time”. Is Tannhaus and son on their way to a time travel experiment?
We jump forward to the same coach but Tannhaus is now as ancient as Tiresias. The coach stops abruptly. The mature Fury enters the coach. Tannhaus was on his way to send a telegram informing the world that time travelers from the future were in Winden. The mature Fury is here to stop him doing that. Cryptically he tells Tannhaus: ”What we know is a drop. What we do not know is an ocean.” He takes out the cheesecutter and we know what is next. Another connection severed.
Old Martha is still talking to Jonas. She explains that we should think of ourselves as not discrete units of being but as fractions of a greater whole and that the alternative world he has just experienced is: ”a glitch in the matrix”. His task is to save them as she looks at the painting. His task is to save everyone and everything in existence. We cut back to 1888 and Bartosz confronts Jonas about the truth of Martha’s death and reveals in front of the others, that Jonas, is Adam. They are shocked. We immediately cut back to old Martha who explains that Adam has been and is trying to sever their ”impossible‘‘ relationship but he will not be successful because–as she takes out her St Christopher that Jonas gave her and he takes out the one from his dying Martha–they are: ”Black and white. Light and shadow”. They are the eternal dialectic of opposites that cannot exist without the other. Jonas responds that he has had enough. But Martha then asks him what is it that he wants: ”Do you want her to live? Your Martha.’‘
Ulrich in the ‘glitch‘ world is investigating the murder of his brother (Mads) whose body materialised in the bunker 33 years after he went missing. He doesn’t believe the story given by his own children. He is having an affair in this world with Charlotte now and Hannah begins to suspect it is her. At the police station she hugs her in a very strange way. Is this her confirmation of the guilty party? With the time travel and the now increasing elements of horror within ‘Dark‘ we have forgotten much of the sexual betrayal at the very heart of the show. This is our reminder.
We return to old Martha who is still talking to Jonas. She explains that we cannot let go of our past so we are doomed to repeat it. Yet he, Jonas, has seen what he will become in Adam. This is the key. He must show Martha what she will become in the future and Jonas must be her guide. She hands him a strange piece of equipment.
Back to 1888 and Jonas queries with Martha his journey to her world: ”Why can’t I remember it?” She does not know. But she tells him that she did not write that letter. She asks him who ‘Sic Mundus‘ are. He tells her that the father of old Tannhaus tried to bring his wife back from the dead (‘Frankenstein‘?) and create ‘Paradise‘. But it did not bring salvation it only brought damnation. As we have certainly all witnessed. An agitated Martha tells him that they are all dead in her world. What no survivors? She wants Jonas to trust her so she reveals her portable device for time travel (in the pouring rain, again) and gives him her last globe of the substance that makes it possible. Has the cataclysm in the future affected the weather in 1888? It certainly looks like it.
The Furies enter the room where old Martha is. They present her with the play ‘Ariadne‘, the ‘For Charlotte‘ watch, the blueprints for the ‘Volume Control System’ at the power plant and the two safety master-keys. The mature Fury tells Martha that she should have told Jonas the path he was really on. She responds that he will never stop trying to ”break this circle” and that they must ”preserve the knot” and Martha must die. Oh perfidy. Thy name is woman. (My misquote of ‘Hamlet‘). Old Martha opens the plans and pronounces: ”The beginning and the end” to a slow, ominous, metallic, beat. Like the heart of a soulless, empty, machine.
We see Jonas exit the Winden caves in the parallel world as Charlotte enters the bunker where the dead Mads Nielsen was deposited. She searches the bunker and finds the coin that Helge Doppler was given when he was a boy. Elder Helge is in a nursing home and keeps chanting ”tick-tock” over and over again. Helge is like Cassandra, again from Greek myth, a priestess of Apollo, who warns of approaching catastrophe but is cursed, because, although her prophecies are true, nobody will believe in her enough, to act upon them. So Helge must act on his own.
Charlotte goes to the church to question Peter. Having found the coin she is suspicious regarding Helge, Peter’s father. ”When did you come to Winden?” and ”Did Helge use the bunker?”. The coldness between them is palpable. Peter receives a phone call that Helge is at the police station and has confessed. But he was with Peter and Elisabeth? Ulrich arrives and angrily grabs Helge. Helge responds: ”You’re alive” and then: ”It was him”. Helge then shows Ulrich the coin. Charlotte is dumbfounded as she unveils the (same) coin she has found in the bunker.
Martha is walking through the woods after visiting Kilian and Jonas is waiting for her. He describes some of the memories he has about growing up with her in his world. She is still not convinced until he mentions that she saw her (bloody) self in the woods last night and that her older self told him. ”Who are you really?” she asks him. I will show you that everything is connected, Jonas responds.
Meanwhile in 1888 Jonas is attempting to open a portal by charging the substance that Martha gave him. It begins to work but will not stabilise enough to open, as the power needed is beyond the equipment Jonas has built and the power available in late 19th century Winden. Martha heads to her room and using another globe (she has lied to Jonas) exits from 1888. Jonas is taking alternative Martha into his world via the caves but in the opposite direction. We see another man-made door which Jonas opens. It is inscribed this time with a different Latin legend: ‘Erit Lux‘: ‘Let There Be Light‘ which is from the third verse of the ‘Book of Genesis‘. It has here a double meaning (as most things do in ‘Dark‘) for it is Jonas’s task to reveal the truth to Martha as he travels in space and in time with that light, given to him by old Martha, and it stands in a literal sense, for the light of good shining into the shadow world that God had also created.
Martha has jumped from 1888 to 2053 where we see her inside the destroyed power plant. She enters the operational control room and a voice asks if she ”gave it to him”. It is Adam. We assume he is referring to that letter. Martha turns her head and we see another portal being maintained. But for what? As we look into its blue glowing orb it suddenly transforms into the sun that greets Jonah and the parallel Martha as they exit the caves. Winden has become a desert. It is a desolate and seemingly deserted landscape. Nothing is growing. No woods. No buildings. No incessant rain. No people. ”Why are we here?” asks Martha. ”She wanted me to bring you” Jonas answers. ”Who?” Martha replies. Jonas looks into the distance and we see a women walking towards them. She arrives and unwraps her face covering and says to both: ”Welcome to the future.” The irony is blindingly obvious in the scorched landscape of Winden. What future? The apocalyptic future.
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