![]() A refusal to limit just how strange a series will be can be something of a double-edged sword. ![]() Like its characters, Dark is prepared to embrace its story, no matter how outlandish it becomes. And after the first four episodes it’s clear Dark is ready to get very weird. Abstaining from this practice not only frees up a lot of storytelling space, it also affords Dark the opportunity to get as weird as it wants. In addition to making Mulder proud, the series eschews certain conventions in which a character’s willingness to believe in the extraordinary hamstrings the plot’s progression. The series takes a refreshingly divergent approach with regard to its treatment of Hannah, as well as Katharina and Ulrich’s two other kids, Martha (Lisa Vicari) and Magnus (Moritz Jahn), by pushing them deeper into the mystery - and therefore the answers they seek - and by having them greet those answers with acceptance rather than rote skepticism. A quick glimpse of Katharina’s face as she enters the cave in which her child and husband presumably disappeared is all the series needs to establish her arc for the season, so when she finally turns up later in the season, her torment quickly registers and requires no additional explanations. The show’s approach to both is remarkably economical. It’s been six months since Jonas and Ulrich (Oliver Masucci) disappeared, and the series quickly establishes the emotional weight of those absences, illustrating the desperation of Katharina’s (Jördis Triebel) search for her still missing son and more recently missing husband, while Hannah (Maja Schöne) contemplates ending her life over the loss of Jonas and the man she's been carrying on an affair with. More: Euphoria Review: HBO’s Provocative Series Presents An Apocalyptic Teenage Wastelandĭark’s expansive mythology was built up by the end of season 1, but it is blown wide open at the beginning of season 2. But as the season went on, Dark demonstrated a knack for turning complexity and mystery into satisfying storytelling, parceling out revelations frequently enough that it didn’t turn into a waiting game, or worse yet, a series of meaningless red herrings. For instance, the discovery that the father of Jonas Kahnwald (Louis Hofmann) is the boy who went missing in the series’ premiere episode - whisked away to the mid ‘80s where he would grow up and older and father a child before killing himself - offered some clarity to what up to that point had been the series’ otherwise opaque intentions. That approach amplified the genre elements at its core, making each revelation about the unwitting and witting participants in a destructive time loop all the more shocking. The first season played out like a mystery - both in terms of the overarching narrative and the manner in which Dark revealed its storytelling intentions.
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