Well here we are. The last episode, ever. And ever. Forever…..
We see Michael at the very start of our long journey through the labyrinth. He is licking the envelope that contains the shocking letter that will lead Jonas to search for the truth and his origin. Michael hangs himself and Jonas wakes up, now. Everything is connected. We hear Claudia telling Adam that she is here to end the journey, once and for all. Adam is in disbelief as he had her killed. But I destroyed the origin he tells Claudia. No. The origin does not connect both worlds it exists outside of both those worlds she explains. We only think in ”dualities” she tells him but that is wrong for there is a third dimension. ”The triquetra?!” Adam responds. Martha nods. ”There is a third world?” he asks. We see Tannhaus working on his strange device and Claudia reveals that this is the origin of the knot. A mistake, motivated, by the loss of a loved one. Tannhaus split and destroyed his world and created two new branches of space and time. But there is a way to stop the creation of this eternal knot. Tannhaus must be prevented from attempting to travel through space and time.
Adam and Claudia enter the ‘Sic Mundus‘ sacred place and all is burnt to black ash. Claudia explains that Adam has been trying to stop the origin an infinite number of times with no success. But this time it will be different as she now knows the true origin. This, now, is happening for the very first time. You and Eva are perpetuating the infinite cycle by your actions. We cut to Eva with Martha as she introduces her to her triquetra of sons which she still believes is the origin. We now know this is untrue. Everything you and Eva have done has been because of love, Claudia explains. What mother would not want to protect their son(s) from annihilation? What father would not want to bring back their dead son killed in an accident? ”And yet you have brought nothing but pain and suffering” declaims Claudia and rightly so as we revisit the scene where a distraught Martha kills Jonas because of Eva’s emotional blackmail. ”You and Eva should never have existed’‘ Claudia declaims. (It is noticeable that she says Eva and not Martha otherwise she would be contradicting herself).
Then we see middle Claudia at the grave of Regina with Tronte as we are informed that he is not the father of Regina. The voice-over from Claudia explains that she was motivated to repeat the endless cycle of pain and suffering because of Regina and wanting her to live again. She has been searching in both worlds for a way to stop cause and effect. But she realised it is only in the origin world that Regina can exist. Once I knew this I had to ensure that you and Eva continued to repeat each cycle in each world, as we see both Ulrich’s confront young and middle-aged Helge in both worlds and smash his face with a rock. As long as both worlds exist we are all damned, Claudia continues. You can say that again. And again.
Then we see Ulrich from the parallel world drag Helge into the bunker. Suddenly the old Helge appears and kills him with an iron bar. Claudia appears. She looks at Helge who is still alive and at the old Helge who holds both pfennigs and Ulrich who is now dead. We cut to Claudia and Adam. I know how to cut this (Gordian) knot she tells him. There is a loophole in time which occurred when time stopped for a fraction of a nanosecond on the day of the Apocalypse. You must use this to send Jonas to the origin world.
We see Jonas and the dead Martha in the Red House and Adam enters. Jonas thinks he has returned after shooting Martha but this is the new Adam. He opens the portable device given to him by Claudia and they jump together to the other world. The device is like a smaller portable version of the huge device Tannhaus has built. We can change everything but you must trust me, Adam tells Jonas. You must save the ”other” Martha as you are both part of the same whole and only together as one, can you travel to the origin world. This is the day of their Apocalypse and there will be a loophole created that will open the door into the origin. Find Martha.
Old Claudia tells the younger Claudia that if Jonas succeeds then Regina will live. We see Martha and Bartosz again cycling towards the power plant but they are stopped by Magnus. Jonas is too late, but hold on. He opens the quantum globe and runs towards Martha grabbing her just in time and they jump. She is in shock. Jonas is dead. And Martha. The scene is brilliantly acted. The dead have returned to life. Paradise? No. ”When are we?” an angry Martha shouts after realising that Jonas does not know her, again. Emotions are running high. Jonas answers her, ”Today is June 21st 1986. The day our two worlds were created.” They are now in the origin world where Tannhaus will create the Gordian knot of repeating cycles of space and time. They must stop him for they are the result and the reason for everything repeating, over and over again, Jonas informs Martha. ”They are the glitch in the matrix”. Their creation is an error. Not the error of a creative and loving God but the creation of a clock maker, grieving over the loss of his loved ones, who believes he can control time and space. Such hubris.
Adam opens his portal and jumps. We see him enter Eva’s sacred space and walk to where she stands looking at the diptych. She is expecting him. Adam is meant to kill her. Yet this time he does not. She is completely surprised as something has interfered with the cycles that repeat over and over again. Adam explains that there are many paths inside a labyrinth but only one that takes you deeper inside as we see Martha and Jonas moving inside the passage and opening the ‘Sic Mundus Creatus Est‘ door but finding the tunnel has no exit. Adam tells Eva that it was the pain of losing his loved ones that made Tannhaus want to find a way to bring them back from the dead as it was the pain of losing their loved ones that has created not ‘Paradise‘ but eternal damnation for Adam and Eva and their followers, in both worlds. Jonas explains to Martha (and us) that Tannhaus in attempting to travel back in time split the origin world and created ”the knot’‘ and ”us”. For a brief moment in time there will be a ”bridge between all the three worlds”(An Einstein-Rosen bridge?). We must go back and stop the pain from ever beginning.
Tannhaus looks at the photo and once again powers his time machine (and time splitting machine) up. Particles move inside the passage towards the power source as a white beam of energy erupts inside the bunker. We see Adam and Eva hug each other as light and shadow become one and a blinding light (‘Erit Lux‘) cascades inside the labyrinth. We see Jonas alone inside a pathway illuminated by tiny particles. Where is Martha? He calls. No answer. Then we see Martha. She is experiencing the same thing as Jonas. Where are they? Suddenly (and for both Jonas and Martha) a door opens and they see each other when they were small children. The younger versions can see them too. (We are not in ‘Narnia‘). They meet (moving backwards) and Jonas looks up and there is a third way. He opens the quantum globe and they walk slowly into a golden light. Time seems to have literally slowed down.
We are in the shop and home of Tannhaus where he is arguing about the future with his son. All the clocks show different times. You know more about ”Einstein-Rosen bridges” then you do about me, Malek tells his father. Malek leaves. His wife carrying Charlotte comforts Tannhaus telling him that Malek will ”cool off”. It is raining outside. She leaves. Malek continues to criticise his father in the car as they are driving. His father only ever looked up for the stars and galaxies in the sky and never for me, Malek declaims. You cant choose your family his wife responds. ”I chose you” he answers. She repeats the line with a smile on her face. I am sure that this whole scenario is very familiar to many. Suddenly Jonas and Martha materialise in the road. Malek swerves to avoid them and just for a moment I thought they were going to be the cause of the accident that kills the family. An angry Malek jumps out of his car and in more pouring rain confronts these two strangers in the road. Jonas tells him not to go across the bridge. Malek is not listening. Until Jonas quotes Tannhaus: ”What we know is a drop. What we don’t know is an ocean.” It stops Malek, dead. Sonja, his wife, joins him with baby Charlotte. Looks are exchanged and Malek finally says to her that the bridge is closed. You were right he says to Sonja and tells her that they can leave tomorrow. For there will now be a tomorrow for them.
They return home to a surprised Tannhaus. Sonja tells Tannhaus that Malek believes he met two angels. ”Don’t mock me” he responds. The anger has now gone. Act in haste repent at leisure. I suddenly had ”this feeling” he tells his father and at that Tannhaus hugs his son. A feeling of premonition should never be ignored. ”I am glad you are back” his father says. Tannhaus obviously has difficulty in expressing his emotions and he makes a joke to lighten the tension. Yet we all know how much he loves his son and his family. ”Charlotte already missed you too” says his daughter-in-law and hands baby Charlotte to her grandfather. Alls well that ends well.
We see the full moon and then, Martha. ”Do you think it worked?” she asks Jonas. Well the perpetual rain has stopped. They look at each other with tears in their eyes and recount seeing each other inside the light. Martha needs to know if it was real or was it a dream? A very simple question that has occupied most, probably all, of the great Western and Eastern philosophers. I have referenced many in my reviews. But there are plenty more. Suddenly and fittingly by the bus stop, they begin to slowly dissolve, as Jonas repeats their love refrain, ”We’re a perfect match. Never believe anything else.” And accompanied by the song ”Its A Wonderful World” all iterations slowly and mercifully dissolve into nothingness. Genesis 3 : 19: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Our final scene is of a very uncanny and eerie dinner party in the middle of a storm in an immaculate Red House. It reminds me of a similar stormy night when Lord Byron challenged those at the Villa Diodati to write a ghost story and ‘Frankenstein‘ was born. The lights go out and a joke is made about the apocalypse. Then the shows ongoing joke is continued with another unexplained injury to Wollers eye. Hannah is now with Woller. She is having a feeling of deja vu and we have already seen a yellow coat lying over a chair. She remarks that she dreamt last night (Mary Shelley?) of exactly this moment and that the world had ended in darkness. But it felt good, being, without any desires. Just, nothingness. Regina seems affected and asks if the world was to end and you had a last wish, what would it be. Regina’s existence now is due to exactly that, a wish made by Claudia. Katherina immediately responds, ”A world without Winden”. And they all drink to that. The lights come back on and Hannah is asked if she has decided upon a name for her baby. Time seems to stop. We see her face and she seems to be trying to remember, something. Finally she answers, ”I think Jonas is a beautiful name”. There is something not quite right here. Where exactly are we? Another world in the multiverse? Or could it actually be ‘Paradise‘? Or could it be the exact opposite? An endlessly recurring night of vague recollections and memories, being shared interminably, with the dead, in Limbo? Dark? Dark, indeed.
Marc Barham
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