Dark Season 1, Episode 1
"Secrets"
Writer: Jantje Friese
Director: Baran Bo Odar
Cast: Louis Hofmann, Maja Schöne, Oliver Masucci, Stephan Kampwirth, Angela Winkler, Jördis Triebel, Daan Lennard Liebrenz, Lisa Vicari, Moritz Jahn, Paul Lux, Karoline Eichhorn, Gina Alice Stiebitz, Deborah Kaufmann, Tatja Seibt, Hermann Beyer, Peter Benedict
It's my opinion that Dark is the best written television show of all time. The German Netflix drama is immaculately conceived. Every detail is in its place. Every line of dialogue is deliberate. Over the course of three seasons, everything matters. It's a show that rewards the smallest of details and a keen eye while watching, which is why I am thrilled to be returning to it weekly.
The show begins with an opening monologue over a series of still frames. "We trust that time is linear. That it proceeds eternally, uniformly. Into infinity. But the distinction between past, present and future is nothing but an illusion. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive. They are connected in a never-ending circle. Everything is connected." These words accompany images of the people of Winden, focusing in particular on the interior of a bunker, threads linking faces we've yet to understand. It's a thesis statement, whispered across time. Everything is connected. Just not in the way we expect. Not yet.
The premiere episode does an extraordinary amount of work, setting up the show's central questions while immersing us in its world. What makes Dark exceptional is not just its dense plotting, but the precision of its character work and visual storytelling. Every frame, every object, every interaction feels considered.
We meet Jonas Kahnwald, a teenager returning to school after the suicide of his father, Michael. He wakes up alone, takes his medication, and puts on a bright yellow rain jacket which is instantly iconic and perhaps symbolic of caution, logic, or standing out when he desperately wants to disappear.
We meet Mikkel Nielsen, a young boy practicing a magic trick in a skeleton onesie. His father, Ulrich, asks him how he did it. Mikkel replies, "The question isn't how. The question is when."
Jonas returns to school and is greeted by his best friend Bartosz. But much has changed in his absence. Most painfully, Bartosz is now dating Martha, the girl Jonas harbors feelings for.
Meanwhile, the small town of Winden is reeling from the recent disappearance of Erik Obendorf, a teenage boy who went missing without a trace. The police, led by Ulrich and Charlotte Doppler, are trying to piece together what happened, though speculation ranges from runaway behavior to something darker. For Ulrich, it stirs up old trauma: his younger brother also vanished under mysterious circumstances decades earlier. Elsewhere in town, we meet Regina Tiedemann, Bartosz's mother, who runs the hotel and is feeling the economic strain that comes with bad press. A town with a missing child isn't good for business.
Bartosz, opportunistic in a way that only teenagers can be, speculates that Erik's drug stash might still be hidden in the caves near the nuclear power plant. He organizes a nighttime expedition with Martha, Magnus Nielsen, Franziska Doppler, Jonas, and Mikkel.
The Winden caves loom large throughout the episode. Ulrich jogs past them early in the morning and hears an eerie noise. Later, we see a hooded figure emerging from their depths. And somewhere else, Erik is alive. He's trapped in a wallpapered room with a flickering CRT television blaring "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)." Helge Doppler, an elderly man suffering from dementia, cryptically mutters: "It's going to happen again."
Having been from a small town, a strong point in Winden is the way everyone is connected. But it's not just by proximity, but by secrets, betrayals, and tangled relationships. Hannah is sleeping with Ulrich, who is married to Katharina, the school principal. At the same time, Hannah works as a masseuse for Aleksander, the director of the nuclear power plant. Ulrich, a police officer investigating the town's recent disappearance, works closely with Charlotte, who is married to Peter, Jonas's therapist. Their children are just as interwoven: Ulrich and Katharina's kids, Martha, Mikkel, and Magnus, attend school with Bartosz, Aleksander's son, and are all friends with Jonas, Hannah's son. Again, everything is connected.
That evening, the group of teenagers ventures into the woods, joined by Mikkel, the youngest of the group. The Winden caves have always held an unsettling presence, but on this night, something feels deeply wrong. The atmosphere shifts. Flashlights flicker. Unexplainable noises echo through the trees. Panic sets in, and the group scatters into the rain. In the chaos, Jonas catches a brief, jarring glimpse of his father, covered in what looks like paint or perhaps something more sinister. When the group finally regathers, Mikkel is gone. At the same time, during a tense parent meeting, news begins to spread. Something has happened. Ulrich rushes into the forest calling for his son, retracing the same steps that led to the disappearance of his own brother decades earlier. By morning, the police are searching the caves, but Mikkel has vanished without a trace. What they do find isn't comfort. Deeper in the woods lies the body of a young boy wearing outdated clothes and a Walkman. Back in the mysterious, wallpapered room we've seen glimpses of before, Erik is strapped into a chair as an ominous machine begins to hum. A copper coin is placed around his neck. Whatever is happening in Winden, it's only just begun.
This episode sets the stage for everything that's to come. It introduces the town, the families, the mysteries but more importantly, it begins to unravel the illusion of time itself. If you've seen the show before, you know this is far more than a missing persons case or a small-town crime thriller. Beneath the surface lies a deeply intricate story about time, identity, and the inescapable pull of fate. Dark doesn't just hook you with questions, it dares you to look closer, to rewatch and to remember. Because in Winden, nothing is ever just what it seems and everything is connected.
