Dark Season 2 Episode 7: The White Devil

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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.

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Dark Season 1: Complete List of Characters

Dark S1Ep9 Jonas & Martha Argue

Here are all of the characters, with photos and descriptions, from season 1 of Dark. If there’s anyone you think I should add, let me know. There are spoilers in these descriptions.

Each of my Dark season 1 recaps also has a character list which only shows the characters and their connections up to that point in the season- no spoilers!

Cast from the Episode 1/Secrets Murder Board:

Charlotte Doppler in 1986 and 2019. Granddaughter of HG Tannhaus, the Clockmaker. Married to Peter, mother to Franziska and Elisabeth, daughter-in-law to Helge. High school student and amateur science detective in 1986. She investigates the unusual deaths of birds she finds. Dedicated and thorough Police Chief in 2019.

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Dark Season 1 Episode 10: Alpha and Omega Recap

Dark S1Ep10 Stranger Listens to Clockmaker

In the finale of Dark season 1, Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the season comes full circle. It’s confirmed that Winden is caught in a time loop. Working with Gnostic/Hermetic imagery, Noah is the Demiurge/Old Testament God, who benefits from the control he has over the world that’s caught in a mistake. Claudia is Sophia/Wisdom/Holy Spirit, the completion of a trinity which includes the Clockmaker and the Stranger. She is Noah’s, and now Bartosz’s, arch enemy. Bartosz grows closer to both Martha and Noah, which leads Jonas down a path he’s walked before. Like Ulrich and Jonas, Helge tries to understand the nature of the universe and to fix what’s broken.

Recap

“Everything is fixed and you can’t change it.” -Tim Rice (Jesus Christ Superstar- Jesus to Pontius Pilate)

“Everything is now.” -Dark

It’s the night Mikkel disappeared and Peter is considering breaking his promise to remain faithful to Charlotte. He’s sitting in Benni’s parking lot, watching her from a distance. We haven’t been told if he’s obsessed with Benni specifically or if Benni’s the only one in town providing a particular experience, particularly one which Charlotte can’t provide. Or maybe they are another pair of Winden’s star-crossed lovers. The photographic evidence suggests the latter.

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Dark Season 1 Episode 9: Everything Is Now Recap

Dark S1Ep9 Jonas & Martha

“Humanity has always puzzled over our true origin. Our genesis. Were we created by God? Or are we a product of evolution? If we could somehow see yesterday and tomorrow at the same time, the origin and the end, if we could feel the entire universe in a single moment, then we might finally find answers to the biggest questions of all. What is humanity? Where do we come from? What is it that drives us? And what, ultimately, is our purpose?” -HG Tannhaus

In this episode of Dark, Everything Is Now, the Clockmaker’s opening voiceover suggests that the initial time travelers were exploring the mysteries of the universe and using reality as their laboratory. Humans are not particularly willing lab rats, so later time travelers have been trying to fix the timeline which was broken by earlier experiments, whether they want to get themselves home or to right wrongs committed by people outside their normal time. So far, their efforts seem to either have a neutral effect, or to help create what they’re trying to prevent.

Episode 9 brings us as close as possible to seeing the entire universe in a moment, by showing what’s happening simultaneously in all three time periods (1953, 1986 and 2019) and allowing the cause and effect loop play out between the three. After the Clockmaker and Stranger expressed their beliefs about the nature of time and the universe in episode 8, Noah finally has the chance to speak for himself, as he shares his worldview with Helge. And we reach the point in the timeline where several of the events that have been referred to, but so far left unseen, now occur on screen.

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Dark Season 1 Episode 8: As You Sow, So Shall You Reap Recap

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In this episode, Ulrich follows Helge from 2019 back to 1953 and we’re introduced to a generation of new characters. Most shows wouldn’t introduce an entirely new cast just 2 episodes before the season finale, but most shows aren’t Dark. I love this show so much. It takes no prisoners.

The new characters are an intriguing bunch, including middle school Helge, Jana, Ines, Claudia and Tronte, and some of their parents. Tronte’s mother, Agnes, who comes to town as a single mother, wearing a red dress and a confident, flirtatious air, is particularly worth noting. She’s hiding something.

This episode also begins to explore Helge’s origin story and to explain why Egon has always been suspicious of Ulrich. But, while he’s had some good reasons to dislike Ulrich, he’s also always been an incompetent investigator.

1953 Winden alternates with the Stranger and the Clockmaker in 1986, having a physics discussion that starts with wormholes and proceeds through time loops and the creation of time machines.

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Dark Season 1 Episode 7: Crossroads Recap

Dark S1Ep7 Ulrich Visits Helge

In episode 7 of Dark, Crossroads, people, locations and time periods begin to converge and interact that both deepen the mystery and begin to solve it. Our three lead characters, Charlotte, Ulrich and Jonas, are the focus for much of the episode. Jonas explores Winden in 1986 and makes a decision about Mikkel the boy vs Michael the man. Ulrich continues to investigate Mads’ disappearance and death, using Egon’s botched 1986 investigation as a starting point. Charlotte is granted the long awaited search warrant for the power plant, which leads her to some suspicious findings. Both Charlotte and Ulrich find new connections to Helge, his cabin and the cave.

At the end of the episode, we get a cameo by Noah and the infamous back tattoo of the Emerald Tablet. Mikkel is also connected to the framed version of the Hermetic/Alchemic text. 

It’s all connected.

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Dark Season 1 Episode 6: Sic Mundus Creatus Est Recap

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In Dark episode 6, the Nielsons sink deeper into grief over the loss off Mikkel, with each expressing it in a different way. Jonas goes deeper into the caves than he ever has before. Regina and Alexander get some bad news. And Ulrich does the thorough investigation into Mads’ disappearance that Egon failed to do in 1986, answering more than one question in the process.

Recap

Episode 6 opens on a flashback to 1986, when Ulrich and Katharina tied Regina to a tree near the cave and left her there for hours, long after it was dark. She sees something that frightens her enough to scream.

Regina wakes up in bed in the present day. Alexander wakes up too, and comforts her that it’s only a nightmare.

The next morning, Charlotte instructs the entire police department that they’re intensifying their search. She wants them to knock on every door, question everyone, coordinate with other agencies in the area, search the records for similar cases going back 50 years, search every basement. They’ll be working double shifts until they solve this case. They just have to find the one clue that breaks the case.

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Dark Season 1 Episode 5: Truths Recap

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In episode 5 of Dark we meet the mysterious Noah in two different time periods. After the relative calm of episode 4, Truths increases the intensity, as it switches between 1986 and 2019, sees one character falsely accused of rape, and investigates the disappearance of a third boy in 2019. After Elisabeth’s near miss in episode 4, it seems safe to say that the kidnapper only wants boys. Other truths are revealed in this episode which are much trickier.

Recap

The episode opens with a split screen montage reminding viewers where the story left each character in each time period.

Hannah obsesses over Ulrich in 1986 and 2019. In 1986, they’re friends, but she’s also making a stalkery scrapbook about him. In 2019, she’s called him 22 times, and he hasn’t responded.

Charlotte and Egon, the 2019 and 1986 police chiefs, stare at their missing persons boards in frustration. In 2019, Charlotte has added Elisabeth’s friend Yasin to the board. In 1986, Egon looks for a different case to distract himself from the lack of leads on Mads.

In 1986, Ines looks in on Mikkel in his hospital room. In 2019, she pulls out a children’s book called I Am Not Afraid and smiles, remembering the past with her son.

1986 Ulrich meets Hannah on his bike, while in 2019 he sits in Mikkel’s room and ignores her calls.

In 2019, Martha repeatedly calls Jonas. Jonas lies in bed, ignoring her calls. He stares at the red noose someone left on his bike and looks tragic. Bartosz repeatedly calls Martha, but she ignores his calls. Their love triangle gets a triple screen. Jonas looks even more beautifully tragic. Cue the opening credits.

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Dark Season 1 Episode 4: Double Lives Recap

Dark 104 Jonas as Seen from Inside the Cave

Let’s go deeper into the rabbit hole that Dark is taking us down.

The Clockmakers’ voiceover:

“Black holes are considered to be the hellmouths of the universe. Those who fall inside, disappear forever. But, where to? What is it that exists behind a black hole? What other things vanish there, along with space and time? Or, are space and time tied together as part of an endless cycle? What if everything from the past was actually influenced by the future?”

Helge: “Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.”

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Dark Season 1 Episode 3: Past and Present Recap

Dark 103 Mikkel in 1986 Driveway.

Episode 3 picks up moments after episode 2 left off, with Mikkel having time traveled back from 2019 to 1986. He’s gone back to his family home, where his teenage parents brushed him off the same way his present day siblings do. They left the door to the house ajar, so now he wanders in, looking at the house that is and isn’t his home.

He finds Jana, his grandmother and Ulrich’s mother, lying on the couch. For a moment, they each confuse the other with the family members they’ve lost. Jana hopes he’s Mads, and Mikkel hopes she’s his mother. Jana goes to Mikkel and begs him to give her some kind of news about Mads. She becomes emotional, and scares Mikkel. He runs out of the house.

Nurse Ines Kahnwald works in the community hospital. Since she’s a single woman with no family obligations, the other nurses often ask her to take over their shifts when their schedules become inconvenient. Patient and good-natured, she doesn’t mind the extra work at all.

Young Charlotte Doppler finds a dead bird on the road as she rides her bike to school. She puts it in her bag to examine later.

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