'Dark' Season 3 Episode 1 'Deja Vu': A brave new world turns out to be an almost exact copy of Jonas' world
Spoilers for Netflix's 'Dark' Season 3 Episode 1 'Déjà vu'
Netflix's first and most popular German show finally arrived to its conclusion in the third season. The final season of the mind-bending science-fiction thriller created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese begins with an enticing first episode that foretells the beginning of the end. Season 3 of 'Dark' begins immediately after the events of the previous season.
After Adam (Dietrich Hollinderbäumer) kills Martha (Lisa Vicari), Jonas (Louis Hofmann) is grieving the loss of the love of his life when the Other Martha (also Vicari) arrives. It was predicted early on that the universe of 'Dark' is made up of multiple worlds and with Other Martha's appearance in the finale of the last season, it was only a matter of time that this would be revealed.
Other Martha transports him to another world and without any explanation, leaves him there. Jonas is no stranger to trying and figuring out things at different times. But now in this new world, he is left stranded. This new world is not all that different from Jonas' own world but it is still very different. 'Deja vu' mirrors the events that occurred in the first season in Jonas' world.
There are several callbacks to the previous season — the beginning of the cycle — that are immensely intriguing to watch as the focus is now on Other Martha and not Jonas. This world too is reeling with the recent loss of a boy named Erik Obendorf (Paul Radom) and the police here too are chasing the nuclear power plant for answers. Here as well, Aleksander Tiedemann (Peter Benedict) is trying to cover up an accident with the help of Jürgen Obendorf (Tom Jahn).
Some things, however, remain the same. Like Ulrich Nielsen's (Oliver Masucci) propensity to infidelity. In Other Martha's world as well he heads the police department of Winden. Here too he has issues in his marriage with Katharina (Jördis Triebel). Only here, he is divorced and now married to Hannah (Maja Schöne) who is very pregnant.
Ulrich works with Charlotte Doppler (Karoline Eichhorn) in the police station and is cheating on Hannah with her. Their affair is not entirely a secret as Hannah soon starts becoming suspicious of his words and actions. A confrontation between her and Katharina is also a callback to previous seasons only this time around, the tables are turned — like a mirror.
There is one big difference in this world — Other Martha is not romantically involved with Jonas but with a boy from her school named Kilian Oberndorf (Sammy Scheuritzel), Erik's brother.
The viewer is soon sucked into Jonas' world — the world that we began our story with. Here, on September 21, 1987, Unknown played by three actors seemingly 33 years apart — Claude Heinrich as Young Unknown, Jakob Diehl as Adult Unknown and Hans Diehl as Old Unknown — threaten Bernd Doppler (Michael Mendl) for the Master key to the plant. When he refuses, he is killed in a very eerie sequence that will give you chills.
Back in Other Martha's world, when the gang goes to the cave looking for Erik (and not for stealing his stash), the passage is opened and the town is terrified by supernatural happenings. It is also at this point that in Jonas' world, pigeons start falling down from the skies. When fleeing the woods, Other Martha sees a vision of herself covered in dark matter just as Jonas.
Everything in Episode 1 of Season 3 of 'Dark' is a haunting deja vu that you can't shrug off. When the gang escapes to the bunker, there a split in space and the dead, disfigured body of Mads Nielson falls on the ground leaving the whole group horrified. Just then Eva (Barbara Nüsse) first meets Jonas and foretells their future — "everything will fall apart in this world and Yours. Again and again. Because of you. And because of me." Jonas doesn't exist here in this world because Mikkel never goes back in time through the passage to become Michael Kahnwald.
Back in Jonas' world, Other Martha appears in 1888, where the survivors of the apocalypse transported to. Here, she meets Stranger (Andreas Pietschmann) working on the machine. In this world too, she has a message for him. 'I came here to help you find the origin - the one thing that is the beginning of everything. In your world and in mine."
Season 3 of 'Dark' begins on a very explosive note. As Jonas is desperate to try and uncover this new world and why he is thrown into it, the viewer too becomes extremely restless in knowing more. Eva's meeting with him foreshadows a dark, haunting season ahead.
All episodes of 'Dark' are currently streaming on Netflix.