Tag: Mystery

Emergence Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot Recap

~ Metacrone

emergence-episode-101-pilot-promotional-photo-08_full

Emergence is my favorite of the four new dramas I watched this week (also Prodigal Son, Stumptown and Evil). It has a compelling mystery with its own twist, characters I already care about who aren’t dark and cynical and a diverse, gender-balanced cast.

I really like the philosophy the show exhibited in the pilot. It’s not overly sweet or dark, but there’s a certain warmth and optimism. I get the sense that Piper is the main clue to a larger mystery, not a unique magical child who’s meant to save the world by herself. Hopefully the characters and mystery plot will stay in the forefront, while shoot outs and gore will be kept to a minimum.

And I love this new mother-daughter team of soft-hearted, unlikely bad*sses, who are part of a family of flawed but caring people. Real moms with good judgement for the win. I was so proud of Jo for being the one with the gun who could protect her family when an intruder broke into their beachhouse, but also for getting the family out without firing a shot. She put the safety of her family and solving crimes and mysteries first, as she should.

Recap

Emergence begins late at night in the sleepy Long Island, NY town of Southold, when there’s a town-wide power outage at the same time that a plane crashes on the beach. Police chief Jo Evans (Allison Tolman) is awakened by the outage. She and her family go outside to see what’s going on and notice an ionized glow, similar to the Aurora Borealis, rising from the site of the plane crash. Jo gets a call about the crash and says she’ll be right there. She tells her young teen daughter, Mia (Ashley Aufderheide), and her father, Ed Sawyer (Clancy Brown), that she’s leaving and sends them back to bed.

Continue reading “Emergence Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot Recap” →

Dark Season 2: Complete List of Characters with Histories and Analysis

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Dark S2Ep1 Adam's Family Tree Board

Adam’s Family Tree Board: All individual photos are young versions of the characters. Left Panel: Hannah, Jonas; Doris; Egon, Claudia; Regina, Aleksander/Boris; Bartosz. Center Panel: Hannah, Jonas, Michael/Mikkel, Ines; Peter, Charlotte, Franziska, Elisabeth; Aleksander,Bartosz, Regina; Ulrich, Magnus, Martha, Katharina, Mikkel; Silja, Noah, Agnes. Right Panel: Noah?, Charlotte; Peter; Franziska, Elisabeth; Tronte, Jana, Mads; Katharina, Ulrich; Magnus, Martha; Mikkel.

Adam uses the youngest version available for his individual photos in his version of Claudia’s Winden Family Tree board. While Claudia’s board doesn’t cover the entire town, it covers most of the characters who play a significant role in season 1, and shows them in each of their phases of life. Adam’s is much more exclusive- he’s only interested in narrowing down the survivors of his apocalypse and their immediate predecessors.

Season 1 Character Board

Dark101MurderBoard19
Dark Season 1: Complete List of Characters

Continue reading “Dark Season 2: Complete List of Characters with Histories and Analysis” →

Dark Season 2 Episode 8: Endings and Beginnings Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 3 Comments

Dark S2Ep8 God Particle 3

Bring on the apocalypse. In season 2 episode 8, Endings and Beginnings, it’s June 27, 2020. We spend the episode counting down to the fateful moment as the key players are moved around the board one more time, so as to be in the proper places when Adam’s plans come to fruition.

This is an episode about death and salvation. Personal salvation, the salvation of the world, and the fight to save Time as an entity. The death of individuals and the apocalyptic death which engulfs Winden, which bring about the death of hope and idealism. Not everyone who dies is really dead, and not everyone who’s saved realizes they’re being saved. The episode is a shell game, as frequently happens on Dark.

The entire season has been about beginnings and endings, and whether they really exist at all in Winden. This episode brings an end to the second cycle, but it brings up the question again of exactly what game is being played and if anyone can really win.

Continue reading “Dark Season 2 Episode 8: Endings and Beginnings Recap” →

Dark Season 2 Episode 7: The White Devil

~ Metacrone ~ 10 Comments

hbuddDark S2Ep7 Stranger & Martha Discovered

Dark season 2 episode 7, The White Devil, grants the wishes of some of the characters, but some dreams come true as nightmares. Old Claudia’s body is found in 1953 and identified by Child Helge as the White Devil. Hannah takes a trip to 1953 to visit the other White Devil, Ulrich. She meets the Young Adult version of Egon while she’s there.

In 2020, Katharina goes full warrior goddess. She remembers she has a daughter to protect from incest and sketchy boyfriends who have become old men. Plus, she decides she’s ready to become a time traveler.

Martha meets Stranger Jonas and learns the truth about their relationship. Thanks, Mom.

Adult Claudia puts off the French delegation again, then takes the day off to prevent Egon’s death. It’s her turn to learn that the past/time can’t be changed, even if the events she’s focusing on feel to her like they are in the future.

If you are into drinking games, taking a shot for every apology given during this episode could be fun. Or it might be necessary to help you get through the episode.

Continue reading “Dark Season 2 Episode 7: The White Devil” →

From the Horned God to Dionysus: The Men and Mythology of Netflix’s Dark

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments

800px-gundestrupkedlen-_00054_28cropped29

This Seems Like a Good Time to Talk About Ulrich as a Horned God (Who Is Tied in Knots)

**Spoilers through Season 2 Episode 8**

Okay, let’s give this a whirl. As you might imagine, Horned Gods aren’t my specialty, so I’ve done some research. But also, by the end of season 2, everything metaphorical in Dark is twisted and tangled together, just like the storylines. In season 1, we had nice, neat metaphors presented in ways that couldn’t be missed, with deeper meanings there if you wanted to search for them.

But, before we go any further, a warning. I can’t ignore current events while I’m writing this, and that’s not what I’m about, anyway. This piece was always going to examine the characters, mythology and their connection to the real world. Then the real world didn’t give me a choice. The creators of Dark didn’t choose to have boys be the ones to disappear simply to give women a break from victimization. The boys of the real world are making themselves disappear, and they’re often doing it while armed to the teeth.

They set the show in a town which was losing its main source of employment and then put that town through a slow dystopia which led to a fast apocalypse. This is what Western culture has put itself through since the 1970s, when corporations began moving manufacturing jobs from their traditional bases, and the towns whose original farming and small business economies were destroyed by the factories in the 19th century were now destroyed by the factories leaving.

Continue reading “From the Horned God to Dionysus: The Men and Mythology of Netflix’s Dark” →

Dark Season 2 Episode 6: An Endless Cycle Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 7 Comments

Dark S2Ep6 Jonas & Martha with Medal1.png

Episode 6 of Dark, season 2, An Endless Cycle, answers questions which have lingered since the beginning of the series. The episode follows Young Jonas back to June 20, 2019, the day before Michael Kahnwald hung himself, and gives us a baseline for normal Winden life in 2019. The theme of the episode is betrayal.

On the time travel side, as expected, Jonas’ visit with Michael doesn’t go the way he wants. But he makes the most of his time in 2019 before he meets with his father, and has some unexpected encounters.

Recap

The episode begins with a voiceover by Adam and a visual showing the highpoints of the series, in reverse chronological order, ending at the beginning, with Michael’s suicide. Adam is, as usual, focused on beginnings as endings and looking for the ultimate terminating point, the end of the beginning, the exact moment where it all began, so that he can pull the plant out and get its entire root. With nothing left of the root, the plant can’t grow back. The time loop is extinguished. Or so he hopes.

But the beginning of the narrative is the moment I’ve been waiting for. The iconic, unaltered, Jonas Kahnwald morning routine, viewed in its natural state. The one we should have been comparing all of his other mornings to, for the last 15 episodes. And that one morning of Martha’s, too.

Ready?

Continue reading “Dark Season 2 Episode 6: An Endless Cycle Recap” →

Dark Season 2 Episode 5: Lost and Found Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 5 Comments

Dark S2Ep5 Road Warriors

In season 2 episode 5 of Dark, Lost and Found, Young Jonas and Adam have a long fireside chat, while Bartosz spills the beans and the rest of the teenagers become time travelers. Old Ulrich and Young Mikkel are reunited, but Egon and Ines tear them apart again. Katharina and Clausen continue to look for answers.

Recap

It’s Stranger Jonas’ turn for a sex dream with Martha, but his doesn’t go so well. Martha develops black veins in her abdomen, which lead to the God Particle bursting forth from her belly to envelop him like it’s The Blob.

Stranger Jonas startles awake. He turns and sits up, still in his childhood bedroom in June, 2020.

Love hurts, y’all. 34  years later, at home again, with Mama Hannah sleeping in the next room, he’s still having nightmares. Specifically, time travel nightmares about time consuming the love of his life and then himself, as soon as he finds her again. He must hate the God Particle and what it’s done to his life and family.

I believe that everyone who has been born would have been born even if the God Particle had never been created. Time in Winden has become twisted and warped, warping the relationships of the people who live there. Dark may go darker than that, but I believe in the power of Martha and Jonas. They are Ariadne and Dionysus, saviors who each have their own story but are meant to end up together.

Dark is the story of Sic Mundus, a possibly sinister mystery cult created by a desperate man who wants to change the laws of physics. It’s the story of Winden, a small town with a nuclear power plant and a history of mysterious deaths and tangled, often sordid, interactions between the townspeople. It’s the story of the evolution of time travel and how it affects the people who use it. And it’s the story of a series of star crossed pairs and trios, separated through space, time, and the circumstances of their own births.

The last one might be the most important.

Continue reading “Dark Season 2 Episode 5: Lost and Found Recap” →

Dark Season 2 Episode 4: The Travelers Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments

Dark S2Ep4 2 Noahs Escort Jonas to Adam

In S2 Ep4, of Dark, The Travelers, Jonas wakes up in 1921 and meets both younger and older versions of characters he’s seen before. We discover that Sic Mundus really is part of the Underworld and Agnes was always a fashion maven. In the 21st century, the secret of time travel finally comes out.

Some well deserved justice is served up on Bartosz, who’s known the secret of the caves since a few days after Mikkel disappeared, but kept it to himself, among his other, smaller, betrayals.

Katharina is also forced to confront the past. If she and Ulrich had been less harsh and more patient with Mikkel the day he arrived in 1986, could things have been different?

Everyone gets what they deserve.

Continue reading “Dark Season 2 Episode 4: The Travelers Recap” →

Dark Season 2 Episode 3: Ghosts Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

Dark S2Ep3 Older Claudia & Agnes

Dark season 2, episode 3, Ghosts, follows some of Winden’s living ghosts across two time periods, 1954 and 1987. As a police officer, Egon has dealings with the missing who are still alive: Helge, Ulrich and Mikkel. He’s a dying man who is trying to solve a mystery while he still has time. Claudia, the white devil-witch, is trying to save her daughter and her father, and in doing so sacrifices her own life.

Death magic is powerful magic, which Adam, who orders Claudia’s death, surely knows. But I don’t think he understands the difference between taking another’s life in order to achieve the murderer’s goals and a willing sacrifice of one’s own life for the sake of love. There’s a reason Claudia remains above ground at the end of the episode and Adam is buried deep in the underworld.

Adam’s long-term accomplices, Helge and Noah, grow more conflicted about the time war. We learn that Agnes is Noah’s sister and has been on both sides of the war, most recently siding with Claudia. In Ghosts, Claudia asks for a huge favor From Agnes, which will surely take an emotional toll. Agnes is somewhat of a ghost herself, since she usually projects the Femme Fatale image and keeps her true self in hiding.

Continue reading “Dark Season 2 Episode 3: Ghosts Recap” →

The Rook Season 1 Episode 1: Chapter 1 Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 3 Comments

mv5bntmzmjk4ntm4nf5bml5banbnxkftztgwmjq2ntcwodm40._v1_sy1000_cr006661000_al_

The Rook is a new series from the premium cable network Starz, home of Outlander and the recently cancelled Counterpart. It’s loosely based on the 2 book series of the same name by Daniel O’Malley, about a woman who wakes up with amnesia and secret powers, surrounded by bodies, then discovers she works for a secret government spy agency in London. Myfanwy (rhymes with “Tiffany”) has unknown enemies who continue to hunt her, and probably have supernatural abilities of their own. It’s not the most original concept in today’s TV landscape, but I’m always up to try another dark, gritty scifi series with female leads, so let’s check it out.

The TV series is veering away from the books, so for the most part, I’m going to write about The Rook as its own separate entity. Before I do that, though, let me say that this show is crying out for a Greek chorus or narrator to provide 1940s noir style sardonic commentary. Myfanwy’s inner voice provided that point of view in the book, and you can feel the loss all through the pilot. (I haven’t even read the book, I could just tell something was missing and went looking. Check out the difference in the Amazon book sample.) Hopefully she’ll find her voice again in the show, because otherwise, the characters’ intense seriousness could start to drag the show past darkness and into dullness before long.

Continue reading “The Rook Season 1 Episode 1: Chapter 1 Recap” →