Alpha and Omega

Dark 1×10

Claudia Tiedemann: There's a lot I have to explain...

Ines Kahnwald: I didn't know that he would take his own life.
Jonas Kahnwald: But you could have saved Mikkel! Now I have another grandma and she's the principal of my school! Her husband, who's fucking my mom, is looking for his son, who's my father! A few days ago I kissed my aunt. And the crazy thing is... there's nothing wrong with any of them. They're okay. I'm what's wrong.
Ines Kahnwald: I think things... no matter how abnormal or strange they seem to us, happen for a reason. Who are we to play God? What's past is past. But you... live in the here and now. Who knows what the future will bring.

H.G. Tannhaus 1986: It's not just the past that influences the future. The future also influences the past... If you hadn't shown me what the device looks like in the future, I wouldn't have been able to build it. A paradox.
The Stranger: Why did you decide to help me after all?
H.G. Tannhaus 1986: Why? That's a big word. Why do we decide for one thing and against another? But does it matter whether the decision is based upon the consequence of a series of causal links? Or whether it stems from an undefined feeling inside me? That perhaps everything in my life boils down to this one moment. That I'm part of a puzzle. One that I can neither understand nor influence.

H.G. Tannhaus 1986: Will you tell me... what the future's like?
The Stranger: I'm hoping that by tomorrow, it'll already be different from today.

Helge Doppler: Today is the day. The beginning and the end. Don't make the same mistakes I made. Don't make the same mistakes I made. You have to stop. You have to stop!.... I have to stop.

Helge Doppler 1986: What happens after today?
Noah: After today... everything will be new.

Helge Doppler 1986: But if there is no God, then why do we believe in a lie?
Noah: Because we prefer any lie to the pain.

Jonas Kahnwald: Where am I? What is this?
The Stranger: This is a kind of prototype of a time machine. You're the guinea pig. The passage in the cave lies directly under this bunker. If opened, the energy flows through this room. But it needs to be increased. No DeLorean. No hissing or steam. The first time machine is a bunker with four walls. But it still doesn't quite work.

Jonas Kahnwald: Let me out of here.
The Stranger: I can't. It's the only way for things to be normal again.

The Stranger: I am you. My name is Jonas Kahnwald. I sent the letter to you. Or should I say, to me. Everything you're experiencing, I've already experienced. I burned the letter, just like you. I got it back from our grandmother. I've already had this conversation. But I was on the other side then.

The Stranger: We think we're free, but we're not. We follow the same old path. Again and again.
Jonas Kahnwald: That's crazy! It doesn't make any sense! You can decide to let me go now. Come on, let me out!
The Stranger: I thought it was crazy for a long time. That I'm crazy. But I can't let you out because then you won't become what I am today. If I now change my past, I will change who I am right now. And then I won't be able to destroy the hole once and for all.

The Stranger: Why did you kiss Martha? We're not free in what we do, because we're not free in what we want. We can't overcome what's deep within us.

Jonas Kahnwald: I have to bring Mikkel back. I want everything to go back to normal. I want all this sick shit to stop! The Stranger: You still do. Thirty-three years later. I still want that. But Mikkel... Our father is just a small part of a sprawling sickness. I've seen things that no one should ever see.

— WHAT DOES NOAH WANT?

Noah: Everything is about to begin...

Noah: The older Jonas will destroy the hole, but... he doesn't realize that he will be the one to trigger its existence. A paradox.

Noah: Most people are nothing but pawns on a chessboard. Led by an unknown hand. Their lives exist only to be sacrificed for a higher goal. Jonas, Mikkel, the children, they're nothing but unfortunate, yet necessary chess moves in an eternal war between good and evil.
     There are two groups out there fighting to control time travel. Light and shadow. We belong to the light. Don't forget that. Even though some of what we do is of a dark nature. But no victory is ever won without sacrifice.
     As long as we're in this time loop we who know have to make sure that every step will be repeated exactly as it was before. No matter how inhumane it seems to us. No matter what sacrifices it demands of us. But believe me, the others are the ones who are truly inhumane. They have lost all humanity. They belong to the shadow.

Noah: Time is an infinite field. Millions and millions of interlocking wheels. We have to be patient to be victorious. But our time will come. We will free humanity from its immaturity. From its pain. But you must be strong. Can you do that?

Jonas Kahnwald: Who are you? Where am I? What year is this?

Girl from the Future: Welcome to the future.

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Everything Is Now

Dark 1×9

The Stranger: Man has always puzzled over his origin. His genesis.
     Created by God? Or a product of evolution?
     If we could see yesterday and tomorrow at the same time, the origin and the end, the entire universe in a single moment, we might finally find answers to the biggest questions of all.
     What is man? Where does he come from? What drives him? What is his purpose?

Noah: We are all full of sin. No pure human being exists. But no matter what we do, we never fall any lower than into God's hands.
Helge Doppler 1986: And what if they aren't God's hands? What if they are the hands of the devil?
Noah: God sent me to you. Did he not? We don't meet the people we meet by accident. We touch the lives of others and are touched ourselves, and thus God's hands guide us to our true destiny. Let us pray.
     Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil... for you are with me... your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
     You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
     You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
     Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Egon Tiedemann 1953: The two boys? That's impossible. They can't be there. I changed that.
Ulrich Nielsen: What did you change?
Egon Tiedemann 1953: The course of time.

Claudia Tiedemann 1986: Just what might have happened there?
Bernd Doppler 1986: Do you believe that Hannibal marched over the Alps with elephants? There are no truths, just stories. And the story of this city is now in your hands. Is our power plant safe? Can something like Chernobyl happen in our plant? You decide what story you want to tell.

Helge Doppler 1986: Why would God want any of this?
Noah: After looking into hell, as you have, it can never be forgotten. It becomes a part of you. And the idea of God, of Jesus the Savior, becomes a thread of hope you cling to. All of us who know the darkness long for the light, but... there is no God! God didn't make this hole among us. God doesn't have a plan. There is no plan at all. There's nothing but chaos out there. Pain... and chaos!

Noah: People are bad. Malicious, evil. Life is nothing but a spiral of pain. And the world is doomed to be destroyed. But this here... This is our ark. And I'm Noah. If we can harness this energy, we can change everything. Then we decide the world's fate, far removed from all the evil and from all pain. We'll create a time machine that reorders everything, the beginning and the end.

Claudia Tiedemann: I made lots of mistakes back then. Believe me, if I could turn back time, I would do lots of things differently.

Hannah Kahnwald: Why do some people have everything and some nothing? Why do you and Regina have a beautiful home and I can't even pay my electrical bill? Why does fate predestine a good life for some and not for others?

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As You Sow, so You Shall Reap

Dark 1×8

"HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE!"
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

H.G. Tannhaus: Where were we?
The Stranger: The Einstein-Rosen bridge.
H.G. Tannhaus: A passage... between a black hole, the entry, and a white hole, the exit, which... connects time and space. To pass through it is to travel through time. Our thinking is shaped by dualism. Entrance, exit. Black, white. Good, evil. Everything appears as opposite pairs. But that's wrong.

H.G. Tannhaus: Have you ever heard of the triquetra?
The Stranger: The trinity knot.
H.G. Tannhaus: Nothing is complete without a third dimension. There isn't only up and down. There's a center, too. I think Einstein and Rosen overlooked something... "Sic mundus creatus est." A wormhole connects not just two, but three different dimensions. Future, present... and past.

Officer 1953: The coin is from 1986.
Egon Tiedemann 1953: Is this a joke?
Officer 1953: It gets even better. Take a look. The little tag on the collar.
Egon Tiedemann 1953: "Made in China"?
Officer 1953: All their clothes are from China.
Egon Tiedemann 1953: Chinese?

Pathologist: This tattoo is strange. I've seen all sorts of odd things, but this... definitely takes the cake.

The Stranger: You write about the lunar-solar cycle, in which everything repeats itself every 33 years.
H.G. Tannhaus: From a cosmic point of view, yes. Every 33 years, the cycle of the moon is synchronized with that of the sun. But the 33... is more than that. We encounter it everywhere. Jesus performed 33 miracles. There are 33 litanies of the angels. Dante's 33 cantos in purgatory, and 33 in paradise... And it is the age at which the Antichrist begins his rule.

Ulrich Nielsen: You have to defend yourself. Or they'll never stop.
Helge Doppler 1953: But they're stronger than me.
Ulrich Nielsen: Then just bite them next time.

H.G. Tannhaus: Imagine you're standing in an infinitely large, dark room, shining a light to the left. The beam should continue in the same direction forever. There's no reason to assume that it could come back at you from the right. But a wormhole changes the topology of space-time. Bends it... Nothing is where it belongs anymore.

H.G. Tannhaus: Imagine traveling back in time and meeting your father. Before he had you... Would you have already changed things with this encounter? And is it even possible to change things?... Or is time an eternal beast that can't be defeated?
The Stranger: What do you think? Can we change the course of events?
H.G. Tannhaus: Any scientist would tell you no. Causal determinism forbids it. But it is human nature to believe that we play a role in our own lives. That our actions can change things.

H.G. Tannhaus: All my life, I've dreamed of traveling through time, to see what was and what will be.
The Stranger: You don't dream that anymore?
H.G. Tannhaus: Dreams change. Other things become important.

H.G. Tannhaus: My place is not in the yesterday or tomorrow. Rather, it's right here. And now.

H.G. Tannhaus: Why are you so fascinated with time?
The Stranger: I want to understand if I can change it.
H.G. Tannhaus: If everything has a purpose, and if so... who decides about this purpose? Coincidence? God? Or is it us? Are we actually free in our actions? Or is it all created anew, in an eternally recurring cycle? And we can only obey the laws of nature and are nothing but slaves of space and time.

H.G. Tannhaus: Time loops have a significant impact on the principle of causality. On the relationship of cause and effect. As long as a wormhole exists, there is a closed time loop. Inside it, everything is mutually dependent. The past doesn't just influence the future. The future also influences the past. It's like the question of the chicken and the egg. We can no longer say which of the two came first. Everything is interconnected.

H.G. Tannhaus: All our lives are connected. One fate bound to another. Every one of our deeds is merely a response to a previous deed. Cause and effect. Nothing but an endless dance... Everything is connected to everything else... But that's just a theory.

The Stranger: I've seen the future. I know what will happen.

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Crossroads

Dark 1×7

Ulrich Nielsen: Is it possible that he... purely hypothetically, is it possible he's been dead for longer, and was somehow preserved?
Pathologist Edda Heimann: Preserved? You mean, like frozen? If so there would be traces in the tissue. I would've noticed. Frozen steak isn't like fresh steak. ... How long of a preservation period are we talking about?
Ulrich Nielsen: Thirty-three years.

Helge Doppler: I can change it. I can change the past. And the future. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

The Stranger: How little we understand of the world...

Jonas Kahnwald: Is this real? Or am I crazy, just like my father? Do you even exist? Or are you the hallucination of a lunatic?
The Stranger: You're not crazy, neither was your father.

The Stranger: Sometimes it's hard for us to grasp things that go against all we are conditioned to believe. How did people feel the first time they were told the Earth was round?
Jonas Kahnwald: Yes, it is. It's totally insane.
The Stranger: And if it's not?

Jonas Kahnwald: So Mikkel hangs out here until he becomes my father?
The Stranger: Even if you don't want to believe it, that is your father.
Jonas Kahnwald: That means... that Ulrich is my grandfather and...
The Stranger: Martha is your aunt.

The Stranger: Don't you get it? If you take Mikkel back, you'll be meddling in the course of events. Your father will never meet your mother, they won't fall in love or get married. And you won't be born! If you take him back now, you'll be erasing your own existence. The role you play in all of this is much bigger than you think. But every decision for something is a decision against something else. A life for a life. What will you decide?

Ulrich Nielsen: "Why not forest road?" What does that mean? Egon Tiedemann wanted to ask him that. "Why not forest road?"

Jana Nielsen: You can never give up hope. There's as much light out there as there is darkness. Don't forget that.

Ulrich Nielsen: The question isn't who abducted the children, but when. I was right, Helge Doppler. Not now, but in 1986. Call me back immediately when you get this.

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Sic Mundus Creatus Est

Dark 1×6

Katharina Nielsen: I want people to finally understand what's really going on here. We're all so blind. There's a murderer among us. No one actually dares to say it. But it's the truth.
     We cling to the hope that it won't happen here. We all know one another. We think we know everything about each other. But do we really?
     We live right next door to people we know almost nothing about. And behind one of those doors... is my son. It could be anyone's door. The man behind the cash register. Someone we invited for cake on a Sunday, who plays with our children...
     I don't want to look away anymore. And you shouldn't either.
     This city is sick. Winden is like a festering wound. And we're all part of it.

Ulrich Nielsen: I thought I knew you... How easily one can be deceived by people.

Martha Nielsen: Now I stand before you. No king's daughter. No man's wife. No brother's sister. A loose end in time. And so we all die alike. No matter into which house we are born. No matter which gown. Whether we grace the earth briefly or for a long time. I alone tie my bonds. Whether I have extended hands or slapped them.
     We all face the same end. Those above have long forgotten us. They do not judge us. In death, I am all alone. And my only judge... is me.

Martha Nielsen: Do you think things will ever be the same again?

Martha Nielsen: You know what I find weird? You don't actually know your parents, do you? What they were like as kids or teenagers. You're a family, but you don't really know anything about each other.

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Truths

Dark 1×5

Noah: Hello, Bartosz. My name is Noah.

Noah: I'm Noah. I'm a priest at St. Christopher's Church. Ines called me. Do you believe in God?

Noah: How do you believe the world came to be? Who created all the beautiful things?
Mikkel Nielsen: The world came to be through the Big Bang. 13.8 billion years ago. That's how space, time and matter came to be, and Earth as well. The rest is evolution.
Noah: And what was there before the Big Bang? Nothing can arise from nothing. Maybe the Big Bang is nothing more than God's act of creation.
Mikkel Nielsen: My father says religion is the brainwashing of the masses.
Noah: I'm sure your father knows a lot, but he doesn't know everything. It's good that he raised you to question things. But every now and then, it's good to question those who question things. God has a plan for every human being. Including you.

Ulrich Nielsen 1986: ... And then she says, "When you grow up your heart dies." That line hits you, bam! Right in your face, you know? And in the end you think they've become friends because that created a bond between them. But in the end, they're all stuck in their little pigeonholes.

Katharina Nielsen 1986: I'm not joking. No kids. Never.
Ulrich Nielsen 1986: I promise. No kids.

Ulrich Nielsen: Do you know why I became a policeman?.. When my brother vanished back then, they made every mistake in the book. The chief investigator was a drunken moron. And I... I swore I'd do everything differently. That I'd do things right. That I wouldn't become an incompetent asshole pig like him. That was 33 years ago. And now look at me. I'm a joke. I cheat on my wife. My son has vanished. I can't do anything. Thirty-three years. Everything is the same. Just that now I'm the incompetent asshole.
Charlotte Doppler: Have you ever heard of the 33-year cycle? Our calendars are wrong, a year isn't 365 days long. We're always a bit "out of sync," so to speak. But every 33 years everything is just like it was. The stars, the planets, the whole universe returns to the exact same position. The lunar-solar cycle.

The Stranger: Life is a labyrinth. Some people wander around their whole lives looking for a way out, but there's only one path and it leads you ever deeper. You don't understand it until you've reached the center. Death is incomprehensible, but you can make peace with it. Till then you should ask yourself each day if you've made the right decisions.

Mikkel Nielsen: Do you know Houdini?
Hannah Kahnwald 1986: Who?
Mikkel Nielsen: Harry Houdini, one of the world's greatest magicians. There is no such thing as magic, just illusion. Things only change when we change them. But you have to do it skillfully, in secret. Then it seems like magic.

Mikkel Nielsen: I'm from the future.
Hannah Kahnwald 1986: You're cool.
Mikkel Nielsen: No, I'm Mikkel.
Hannah Kahnwald 1986: Hi, Mikkel, boy from the future. I'm Hannah.

Michael Kahnwald: The truth is a strange thing. You can try to suppress it, but it will always find its way back to the surface.      We make a lie into our truth in order to survive. We try to forget. Until we can't anymore.
     We don't know even half of the mysteries of this world. We are wanderers in the darkness.
     This is my truth.
     On November 4, 2019 I traveled through time to the year 1986. The boy from the future stayed, and in time he became a man. Mikkel became Michael, who never knew where he belonged. By the time you read this I'll already be gone. Both as a boy and as a man.
     I hope you can forgive me.
     Everything is connected.

The Stranger: I'd like to talk to you about time...

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Double Lives

Dark 1×4

Charlotte Doppler: I've seen spots like that on feathers before. Thirty-three years ago. As if all this has happened before. The children, the birds... Somehow it's all connected. I just don't know how.

Helge Doppler: The beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning. The beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning. The beginning is the end...

Pathologist: It probably died from losing its bearings and crashing into the ground. Cracked skull. It happens often. Electromagnetic fields interfere with their sensory systems.
Charlotte Doppler: High voltage power lines?
Pathologist: No. We're talking voltages in the radio wave spectrum. Electrical appliances.
Charlotte Doppler: And the white spots in the feathers?
Pathologist: The white spots... They started appearing after Chernobyl. It's a kind of mutation.
Charlotte Doppler: Radiation contamination?
Pathologist: I checked, but the radiation levels are normal.
Charlotte Doppler: Interesting...
Pathologist: It sure is.

Franziska Doppler: I'm getting out of this phoney shithole. Behind everyone's friendly smile there's nothing but lies.

Ulrich Nielsen: Understanding is nice, thank you. But it's not enough. My child is gone, okay? This isn't just some file on your desk. It's my child. Why Mikkel? I keep asking myself that. Why him? Why my son? Why not his son? Why not his?... I'm being punished. And all I get is fucking sympathy. Well, you can take that and shove it. ... Why is no one doing anything? Should I tell you why? Because it's not his kid. And because it's not your kid.

Helge Doppler: I have to tell him. He has to stop it.

Charlotte Doppler: Who is Noah?

The Stranger: We're searching for Ariadne's thread, the one meant to guide us along the right path. A beacon in the darkness. We'd love to know our fate. Where we're headed. But the truth is that there is but one path through all times. Predetermined by the beginning and by the end. Which is also the beginning.

The Stranger: You must be Yasin. Noah sent me.

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Past and Present

Dark 1×3

Claudia Tiedemann 1986: In times like these... one must... face one's own fears. Because the future... the future belongs to the bold. Not to the doubters, those forever stuck in the past.

Ines Kahnwald 1986: Don't cry. Everything will be okay.

Bernd Doppler 1986: There are things that are worth knowing and things worth not knowing, because you can't change them anyway.

Bernd Doppler 1986: What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.

Mikkel Nielsen: I come from the future.
Ines Kahnwald 1986: What did you say?
Mikkel Nielsen: I come here from the future.

Hannah Kahnwald 1986: If the world ended today, and everything started anew, what would you wish for?
Ulrich Nielsen 1986: That's easy. A world without Winden.

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Lies

Dark 1×2

Jonas Kahnwald: Do you miss him?
Hannah Kahnwald: I think I miss a notion of him. I don't know who he really was. Maybe we never know that. What a person is really like.

Katharina Nielsen: Whatever happens, you'll tell me the truth. Don't lie to me. Whatever it is.

Katharina: Who is that?
Ulrich: The Grim Reaper. Can't you tell?

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Secrets

Dark 1×1

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
IS ONLY A STUBBORNLY PERSISTENT ILLUSION.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

Narrator: 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.

Ulrich Nielsen: Amazing! How did you do that?
Mikkel Nielsen: Dad, the question isn't how, the question is when.

Jana Nielsen: I saw something in the forest again. This time very clearly. A dark figure with a gigantic head.
Ulrich Nielsen: Mom...
Jana Nielsen: You don't believe me. There are things out there that our little minds will never comprehend.

Jonas Kahnwald: Something up?
Martha Nielsen: I think I'm having déjà vu. The light, the forest. As if all of this has already happened before.
Jonas Kahnwald: A glitch in the matrix.
Martha Nielsen: What?
Jonas Kahnwald: If the world is a simulation, déjà vu is a glitch in the matrix.
Martha Nielsen: Or a message from the other side. I read that somewhere.

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