But for all its plot density, for all its tangled family trees and multiple timelines and now multiple worlds, it doesn’t feel like boring sci-fi bullshit for a second. It’s too warm towards its characters for that. And no, warm in this case does not mean kind or soft—it means respecting their essential humanity and putting that at the forefront of the story, not the mind-teasers.
Katharina is a terrific example of this. As played by Jördis Triebel, she’s embittered and worn out from suffering, and that can entail lashing out, as it does when she practically assaults the teenaged Hannah. But the tenderness with which she greets Ulrich is heartbreaking, as are the tears in her eyes when she meets her mother, a nurse at Ulrich’s psychiatric facility. Like Jonas and Martha and Elisabeth and Claudia and Regina and everyone else, she’s a person, not a plot device.
This mentality has a ripple effect on the filmmaking as well. You see it in throwaway establishing shots, even, like when a nurse lights a cigarette and you can see the orange glow of the ember outside the psych hospital. There’s no reason for that to be there; it just is, because sometimes people step outside for a smoke. Dark never loses sight of what people do by virtue of just being people. The time traveling doesn’t change that. To borrow a phrase from another spacetime-warping show, humanity is Dark‘s constant.
I reviewed episode 2 of Dark Season 3 for Decider.
Tags: dark, decider, reviews, TV, TV reviews