Were you expecting things to get clearer as we get closer to the end of the Netflix original series DARK? Well, we’re still very much in the dark and episode 6 pretty much melted our brains!

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SPOILERS AHEAD!

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Episode 5: Life and Death

After their night together, we see Jonas & Martha-B getting dressed the next morning. They go downstairs to find a furious Katharina asking where she’d been. Martha hugs her, tears rolling down her cheeks, then tells her she has to go. This scene was dumb. What kind of mother would just accept that and not ask more questions?

In World A 1986, teen Charlotte is talking to her “grandfather” Tannhaus. He shows her a photo of a young family – his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. He tells Charlotte that two women showed up in the shop the night his son died (car went off a bridge). They brought baby Charlotte to him.

He mentions that his granddaughter was never found… Will she end up being someone significant?

Can we pause for a moment and take note of how freaking amazing the casting is in this show? Huge props to casting director Simone Bar! We’ve never seen anything so perfect. All the younger/older versions of the characters look eerily alike.

In post-apocalypse, World A 2020, Claudia-A meets Claudia-B. Claudia-B tells her other self about Eva and says she shouldn’t trust Jonas. She says everything must repeat, not be changed as Jonas wants. Later in the episode, she gives Claudia-A the trinity book and tells her she must lead Jonas to keep everything the same.

On World B, Martha & Jonas head to the power plant to try to stop the apocalypse. Martha cuts her face going into the power plant. Jonas sees the scratch and realized Badass Martha also had that scratch. He says, “If you turn into her, everything stays the same.” He wonders if Eva is lying to him about being able to save his world. “Maybe it’s us who make it all start?” Jonas decides he’s not going to play their game anymore and he heads back to confront Eva.

In 1986, we see young Peter Doppler arriving in Winden. He says his mom died and his father lives in Winden, and that he didn’t know who is father was until a few days ago. Is there more to this than meets the eye??

Post-apocalypse Elisabeth goes back to the trailer after telling her Dad she doesn’t want to search for Charlotte and Franziska anymore. There is a guy in the trailer stealing their food. He knocks Elisabeth out. When she comes to, he tries to rape her, Peter comes back, the guy kills Peter, then Charlotte kills the guy. This brutal, intense scene sets up Elisabeth to go to Noah and to become the hardened leader we’ve seen in later years.

Martha-B and Jonas head to the caves. Martha knows Jonas wants to return to his world. “I didn’t want any of this,” he says. He wants HIS Martha – not her. Jonas tells her, “I am wrong here.” She kisses him but he’s unaffected. RUDE.

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Katharina-A, September 1987, has a plan to help old Ulrich escape from the mental hospital. She knows her mother, Helene, will walk home through the woods and she tries to steal her keycard, pulling a knife on her. Katharina’s desperation shows.

She yells “Mama stop it!” and Helene is shocked. But Helene is stronger and knocks Katharina down, hitting her in the head with a rock. As she fights her, she says, “I killed you!” She thinks Katharina is some evil form of the child she aborted years ago! Katharina dies and Helene’s St. Christopher necklace ends up on the shores of the lake where Martha & Jonas find it years later.

Jonas & Martha-B go to Eva’s HQ. She says, “And so it begins, all anew.”

Jonas tells her wants to go back to his world and Eva tells him it’s impossible. She says, “A person lives but three lives. The first ends with the loss of naivete, the second with the loss of innocence, the third with the loss of life itself.”

Badass Martha comes in and shoots Jonas!

Episode 6: Light and Shadow

This episode opens in World A where we see Jonas and dead Martha. This time, Badass Martha does not come to take him to World B. But it turns out to be a dream of older Jonas.

He wakes up and reads the letter from Martha which says, “You must never lose hope that there is a way out of this maze, a way to save me and yourself.” The letter is telling Jonas he needs to let her go and make sacrifices. Jonas burns the letter.

Next we see Martha-B being locked up by Silja in a future world where Adam is there. This seems like it’s probably 2052 based on Silja’s age, but it’s hard to tell because, you know, time travel! This might be Badass Martha, but just before she became badass.

In the next scene Martha-B is back home just after Jonas was shot. She cleans the blood off her as Magnus comes in. She tries to tell him about the impending apocalypse and he tells her she’s crazy.

She gets cleaned up and cuts her hair. I was confused by this. After just seeing what her future self does to Jonas, wouldn’t she want to be LESS like her? Maybe she thinks she can change things, the same way Jonas always thinks he can?

Meanwhile, Charlotte comes to show Ulrich the results of the forensic tests on Helge’s pennies. Hannah is there and tells her, “Ulrich belongs to me.” Charlotte plays dumb, and she is really distracted by the pennies, so she doesn’t much care what Hannah says. She tells Ulrich the penny she found in the bunker is identical to the one Helge has had his whole life – “as if it traveled through time.”

Claudia-A in post-apocalypse 2020 is reading the trinity book Claudia-B gave her. She goes to the power plant to look for the God Particle and finds it. Just as she is reaching for it (is she gonna just grab it with her hands? Lol!) Jonas yells for her to stop.

Jonas tells Claudia that the passage/cave was destroyed but if he can figure out the God particle, he can return and save them. It seems like this is a version of Jonas that has NOT gone to World B.

Claudia tells Jonas she has the device, but it’s not working. She tells him she can help him save them all – they can work on it together.

Next we see Badass Martha, just after she shot Jonas. (A different Martha than the one Adam/Silja locked up???) Eva instructs her to write the letter to Jonas. Eva then explains something important!

At the moment of the apocalypse, there are two realities. On one path Jonas lives. On the other, he dies. These realities are quantum entanglements – they are linked and affect each other. They repeat endlessly, and trigger each other.

My head hurts.

Meanwhile, Ulrich-B goes to see the body of the boy they found in the bunker and recognizes it as Mads from the scar on his chin. But the coroner says he died just before he was found, which should make him 33 years older.

Ulrich goes to see Helge. Helge says, “She said I must send him to the future. To fill the gaps.” (I don’t understand about the gaps at all!) Helge also syas he has to stop Ulrich, so Ulrich sets him free with the intent to follow him.

Alexander has confessed to Bartosz that his real name is Boris Niewald and he accidentally killed someone 33 years ago. He also calls Charlotte to come to the plant. Does he want to cleanse his conscience for some reason?

Martha goes to see Bartosz. She tells him his Dad covered up the substance in the caves and that it’s going to cause the apocalypse today. Bartosz and Martha bike to the power plant, but are stopped by the older Magnus and Franziska from World A. They want her to go save Jonas from the apocalypse in World A.

Silja takes Martha to Adam. We noticed that she is dressed in her 1888 clothing, so after Adam locked her up, that must have been when he sent her back to 1888 to give older Jonas the God Particle. Now he wants to kill her because she is pregnant with “the origin.”

Her tells her the baby is born in both worlds (how??), so it demands the energy of both worlds to destroy it. The energy of the apocalypse in both worlds will destroy it. Adam wants everything to be annihilated. Both worlds will erase one another.

Then we see Eva with her minions assembled! She gives them a big send-off speech…

• Badass Martha must preserve the knot/baby.
• Older Martha has to deliver the letter to keep Jonas on track. (She also gives him the “For Charlotte” pocket watch.)
• Bartosz must “save yourself to save our lives.” (He saves his World-B younger self from the apocalypse.)
• Claudia must “guide yourself to be our eyes in Adam’s world.”
• Egon (what is Egon even doing there – we’ve never seen him involved in this before?!) “must create your past to preserve the family tree.”
• Noah must “bring love to make everything new.”

The youngest and oldest of the Lip Trio enter the God Particle. The