3x01 Deja-vu

"Ein Fehler in der Matrix"

Dark. The show that will make you use your brain more than you've done in years. I really missed the feeling of confusion this show gives. If my mind had subtitles when watching the show, I don't know if I'd even understand what I thought.

Let's try to recap. So, mirror universe, Martha is Jonas, Mikkel is alive, Franziska changed places with Elizabeth, Ulrich is still cheating, Katharina has a new look and divorced Ulrich, Bartosz has long hair and looks like the kid of a wealthy family, Erik's still missing, Kilian is dating Martha, Regina is dead and Jonas' more confused than he's even been before.

Also, I couldn't help but laughing with the long shot of two-eyed Wöller and that slow zoom out showing he's missing a limb. Over my laughter, all I thought was "damn, writers! I want to know the story behind his eye". I always thought it was supposed to be important for the plot and, at that moment, I thought it was gonna be nothing. And then they showed us Helge missing an eye instead of his ear and I thought that the eye, somehow, is still important.

Also, if Mikkel doesn't travel back, Ulrich doesn't, so, who destroys Hemge's eye, in this case?

Now, one thing I loved was the weird generation trio. Traveling together with yourself from different generations and killing people in the process with choreographed gestures sounds like a nice trip. The trio crepped me out but somehow I was drawn to it. Like I need to see them more often. The kid freaked me out. He doesn't even blink! And I loved how he and the old version just made the same gesture at the same time.

I just recall that Noah said the same exact words to Helge as middle-aged trio said to Bernd. "Nothing is in vain. Not a single breath. Not a single step. Not a single word. Not pain. An eternal miracle of the One"

I loved that the ending confirmed my suspections last season. Young Jonas was given two choices: stay with Martha or follow Adam. He chose the former and Alt-Martha brought him to Alt-World. Buuuuut Fremder Jonas doesn't know she's not the real Martha because he's never been to Alt-Wolrd soooo, we've got two different timeliness with one Jonas traveling and meeting Alt-Martha (which will turn out to be Eve) and Fremder Jonas traveling supposedly following Adam. And this is only the first episode.

Do you know what's sad about Ulrich and Hannah? That no matter the universe, Ulrich never says "I love you" back to her. I get that Hannah was a manipulative bitch in our universe, but she seemed sweet in this one. I can't believe I just said that. Also, instead of rich and Hannah I want to know more about Egon and Hannah. I really need to know what happened then.

I'm no expert on pregnancies but Hannah looked very pregnant. Maybe it's twins? Agnes und Noah? I don't know. My theory that everyone is a Nielsen will still be real until they tell me it's not. But after Elizabeth being her own grandmother, I can believe anything. Well, that or that she gives birth to the creepy trio.

Overall, great episode. Quiet for a change but it's just the beginning and the mirroring is just so compelling to me. I'm not so sure about the whole whoosp thing to tell us when the worlds change. But let's see. I could be talking for hours and hours but I've made a commitment with myself to just watch an episode a day. Otherwise, I'll feel guilty once I finish it.

In other shows, I would be more hesitant when they brought in multiverse stuff considering it's the hot thing these days. In Dark, I have more faith that what we're seeing probably has a good deal of purpose and sense that will come from it in the long run. That said, I can't help but feel as though we're jumping the shark slightly--similarly to how it felt when LOST decided to introduce time travel. These big, mysterious, sci-fi shows love their side-steps, whether to add meaning and sense onto the conundrum or just to complicate things further. And I can't help but feel like some of the shot design in this episode is heavily hinting toward the former because of how much it held your hand (arguably out of place in the context of the show as a whole, but when adding on such a massive layer I get it) even though I found that to be a little shallow--the way it's revealed that Hannah is pregnant in this timeline felt a bit like being hit over the head with it. But you don't do things like that if you just want to be complicated, you do things like that if you want to say "I know this is a lot to handle, but just stick with it and it'll all make sense."

But, all that being said, the base of the series is still here and it's still compelling as ever. I'm exceedingly curious as to how we continue with this season because I'm extremely invested in what happens in the A reality and it will inevitably have to lead to a conclusion there primarily if the series wants any sort of satisfying conclusion.