Welcome to this week’s installment of the Summer TV Binge of Netflix’s Dark, analyzing the second chapter of the twisted German time travel series, released December 1, 2017.
“Lies (Lugen)”
Written by Jantje Friese and Ronny Schalk
Directed by Baran bo Odar
November 5, 2019: the Nielsens are reeling from the disappearance of Mikkel. As Ulrich leads the police and the town in the search for his son, he runs into interference from the nuclear power plant, who refuse to let them search their grounds. Jonas Kahnwald is still suffering from nightmares about his father, and birds across Winden are dying as the power continues to fluctuate.
1. An Eerie Kaleidoscope
I should’ve talked about the opening credits last time, but while we’re here, I have nothing but praise for the choice of “Goodbye” by Apparat (feat. Soap&Skin), which always sets a cold, melancholy atmosphere for every episode, as well as the hallucinogenic, kaleidoscope imagery (designed by Lutz Lemke), which takes shots from the series and reflects them infinitely, like we’re seeing them in each and every timeline. Sometimes the textures give an unsettling effect as we see disembodied body parts — otherwise they’re quite baroque and beautiful.
While we’re on the subject of music, I should acknowledge how evocative Ben Frost’s Ligeti-esque score is: while there haven’t been any moments where it becomes as intense as it does yet, there are already certain sounds getting under my skin. This episode also weaves in Julia Wolfe’s orchestral piece “Anthracite Fields: IV. Flowers,” which blends in as well with Frost’s music as the chosen songs.
2. It’s Never Blood
When Jonas saw his father’s ghost in the first episode, I assumed the visage was covered in blood. The cold open’s nightmare establishes that that’s not the case, that it’s an oily black substance he’s imagining pouring down from behind his ear.
Similarly, we see Ulrich’s father Tronte putting a sweater in his washing machine that seems to bear bloodstains. However, during a police briefing, it’s established the body of the boy found that morning is (among other things) covered in red soil. Presumably, Tronte is not sneaking out in the middle of the night to go to the store (as he tells his wife), so why has he also got red on him?
3. If Only It Were So Simple
Ulrich discovers a locked door to the nuclear power plant in the caves, but he’s denied permission to search the area by its director Aleksander Tiedemann (Bartosz’s father). It’s so easy to start assuming Tiedemann is the villain, kidnapping kids for some nefarious experiment: we return to Erik being strapped into the chair, and a video playing of scientist H.G. Tannhaus (not a real person, for the record) asking, “Will we ever be able to travel through a black hole to see what lies beyond? And what price would we pay? How far would scientists go?”
Ulrich soon learns Erik’s father Jurgen works for the plant, and suspects of him being involved. He enters his shed and retrieves a black bag, which we suspect contains bones, only it turns out to be drugs. Jurgen admits he supplied the drugs Erik sold: he may be a criminal, but he’s not pure evil — he’s just as desperate to find his son as Ulrich. “Where is my son?,” he asks, hoping for news.
The next scene shows Erik’s corpse, with burned out eyes, being dragged into the forest.
4. Drama
As much as Dark’s lasting impact comes through its complexity, its thoughts and ideas, it’s still an affecting piece of drama television. We observe the impact Mikkel’s disappearance has on his family: Magnus is angry and frustrated, and gets into an argument with Franziska. Martha has to be comforted by her mother, because her boyfriend Bartosz retrieved Erik’s phone from his stash, and is too busy trying to crack the password instead of being there for her (aside from a hastily recorded message).
Ulrich, on seeing a call from Hannah, feels ashamed that he was more interested in her than his family. His father Tronte (who’s part of the search party) is comforted by a woman, who recognizes his grandson’s disappearance must also bring back the trauma of losing his younger son Mads. There’s another very touching moment when his wife, Jana, visits Mads’s grave, and swaps the action figure he had as a child on the headstone with another.
Continued belowWe also see Peter Doppler weeping in his car, and Hannah eventually showing up in person at the police station to comfort Ulrich, a gesture he reluctantly accepts. Jonas, still haunted by his loss, investigates his father’s studio, and discovers a map of the cave network. He asks his mother if he might’ve had any secrets, and if she misses him; she replies she misses “a notion of him,” and that she never felt she really knew him. Jonas further asks if she loved him, but the lights start to flicker across town again, meaning she leaves that question unanswered.
5. Time Travel Confirmed
Charlotte Doppler is told during the autopsy of the unknown boy that his eardrums were destroyed along with his eyes. The coroner points out those can be ruptured during intense rotation, which causes them to be unable to help us determine up from down: now what can you think of that can cause intense rotation, or a flock of birds to suddenly drop dead?
Meanwhile, we see the hooded Stranger from the cave, paying for a room at the hotel, where we see him unpack all manner of research, and an enormous, elaborate machine from his briefcase. At the end of the episode, while observing a newspaper clipping about Mikkel, he amusingly corrects “Wo ist [where is] Mikkel?” to read “Wann ist [when is] Mikkel?”
The boy finally re-emerges out of the cave and walks home, but all the vehicles are wrong. A teenage Ulrich opens the front door after he tries to gain access, tells him to get lost, and hops on a bike with his girlfriend Katharina. As they drive off, Mikkel spots a newspaper lying in front of the door. The main story is about the Chernobyl disaster, and the date reads 5 November, 1986.
Other Observations:
– It may be a time travel show, but it appears there’s more than one hooded man coming out of the cave entrance, as it would be a lot of effort to return to and from there after paying for a hotel room.
– The Stranger stays in Room No. 8, which happens to resemble the infinity symbol.
– The eye injury Charlotte’s colleague Torben Woller has appears fresh, with him sporting a bandage instead of an eye patch.
See you all next week for “Past and Present (Gestern und Heute).” By the way fans: a reminder that this week marks the events of season 2 — be safe until then.
