Dark Season 2, Episode 2
"Dark Matter"
Original airdate: June 21, 2019
Writer: Jantje Friese, Ronny Schalk
Director: Baran bo Odar
Cast: Sandra Borgmann, Karoline Eichhorn, Winfried Glatzeder, Sylvester Groth, Louis Hofmann, Moritz Jahn, Julika Jenkins, Stephan Kampwirth, Deborah Kaufmann, Lisa Kreuzer, Ella Lee, Bela Gabor Lenz, Daan Lennard Liebrenz, Lydia Maria Makrides, Christian Pätzold, Andreas Pietschmann, Anne Ratte-Polle, Peter Schneider, Maja Schöne, Gina Alice Stiebitz, Nele Trebs, Lea Van Acken, Carlotta Von Falkenhayn, Mark Waschke
By the end of Dark Matter, we’ll see that Jonas has potentially discovered a way out of the future, but not without tacking on a few scars. In the beginning of the episode, Jonas continues to listen to Claudia’s tapes about The God Particle. If it can be stabilized, you can travel through it, she says. Jonas realizes he is out of fuel and will need to find more.
In the 1980s, Mikkel has become accustomed to his new life, mostly by rocking some sweet 1980s neon. Ines, his adoptive mom, tells him there’s just one more week of school until vacation.
Egon visits his daughter Claudia and granddaughter Regina. She’s pretty busy running the power plant (and looking like a boss, I must say). Egon notices that their dog Gretchen bears an awful resemblance to the dog they had when she was a kid. Weird!
In 2020, Charlotte looks at the photo found in her dad’s house. She does what I do when I need the answer to literally any question and googles it. “Sic Mundus Creatus Est” means “Thus the world was created”. Clausen wants to question Regina Tiedemann first. Charlotte thinks it’s an odd place to start, but obviously she was missing the fact that Aleksander took his wife’s last name when they got married and thus, must be the first person questioned in a police case about missing kids!
Magnus confronts Franziska about Benni. Turns out Peter used to sleep with Benni, and the money would help her pay for hormone replacement therapy. Now that Peter has abandoned his mistress, Franziska supplies the hormones. She’s pretty furious with Magnus for not trusting her.
While Hannah looks through old family photos, adult Jonas shows up to show her something pretty sweet: a time machine! They can use it to travel 33 years into the future so long as they have some God Particle. Later in the episode, they do travel back to the '80s.
Mikkel is on his way to school in the '80s where he spots Hannah (his future wife) and Katharina (his mom). He does what any normal boy would do if they were accidentally stuck in the past and had to go to school with their mom: he plays hooky and heads for the caves. There, he’s greeted by Noah (creepy). Mikkel questions if Noah was right about God having a plan for everyone. The priest/child kidnapper/general weirdo insists that Mikkel has to have faith.
At the power plant, Claudia is informed that someone has come to claim the dog as her own. We get something we’ve now seen at least three times in the show, a future version of oneself talks to a younger version of oneself. She knows Gretchen is hers because she is from the future.
Meanwhile, Egon gets a call and learns his cancer has spread. Surely one would get this news in person, no? Alas, Egon feels like there are still questions he doesn’t have answers to and makes some calls. First, he visits Helge Doppler. The man is recovering from his car accident (in which he was hit by his future self) and is making pinecone figures. He drops some sinister clues about the man who attacked him all those years ago and how no one can trust The White Devil.
Egon is reminded of the man he arrested all those years back, so he visits him. There, an old Ulrich sits and seems to be awakened by the visitor of his arch-nemesis. Ulrich tells Egon that his fate is always to be clueless. For a man who got stuck in the past, Ulrich is at least right about this!
Jonas sets off a sneaky plan to steal some gasoline by distracting some guards and siphoning it from their tank. Extra credit for using Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds” to make the guards extra suspicious!
In 1987, Regina and Aleksander have fallen in love. While Aleksander says Regina has the best qualities of her mother, Claudia, Regina isn’t so sure her mom has any great qualities. She did hire Aleksander to run the power plant, but we’ll learn that it will eventually close down. So you win some, you lose some!
Clausen’s instincts prove right when Regina reveals to Charlotte and the special investigator that The Stranger stayed in her hotel and left behind many clues. Charlotte lays them all out on the table, including a copy of her grandfather’s book A Journey Through Time. Charlotte is becoming increasingly convinced that everything is connected, but the book raises more questions for Charlotte about who her parents are.
Meanwhile, Claudia brings herself to the caves where she shows her the time machine. She tells her younger self that she is now on a quest to stop Adam and gives her some sage life advice that “life is full of missed opportunities”. She activates the time machine and leaves.
As Jonas tries to leave with the diesel, he’s caught at gunpoint by Elisabeth. He’s brought into the field to be tried. Before he is, he’s shot in the leg. That just seems extra cruel. Elisabeth kicks out the beam holding him up. Just as he looks like he’s about to die, she shoots him down, saving his life.
Mikkel returns home and Ines was worried sick about him. She makes him Hawaiian Toast, her favourite as a kid, to cheer him up. She tells him that there are some days you have to forget. Adult Jonas and Hannah arrive at the Kahnwald home in 1980 and watch Ines and Mikkel dance together in the living room to Elvis.
Having been saved, Jonas is placed in a cage. Elisabeth’s interpreter arrives and asks why she saved him. He takes her to the restricted area where he shows her The God Particle. Using the fuel he retrieved earlier, he uses it to power up the generator and stabilize the orb. Believing it’s his way of getting home, he uses it to time-travel.
Back in the 1980s, Claudia uses a map given to her by her older self to uncover a time machine in her backyard. Meanwhile, at the same time, older Claudia buries the machine in the same place 33 years in the past. The cycle continues.
The thing I’m most fascinated by as I rewatch is how engrossing this whole story is. Every thread, every symbol, every glance means something. Watching Dark unfold is like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. Each scene is a stroke that may not make sense up close, but step back and the whole picture is staggering. The show asks for patience, for attention, for trust that it’s all going somewhere. And it is. Even moments that seem minor now… a photo, a coin, a song choice… are placed with intent. The more you notice, the more the show gives back. It all matters.
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