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Review: Dark (Season 2) (2019)
I think this season was a bit busier than the last, but it still kept me interested enough in the story and I'm going to start season 3.
Spoilers.
Story
This season got more technical with regards to the time travel stuff. In the show, the time travel phenomenon was explained as being a side effect of all of the nuclear waste. Honestly, that's as much as I care to know. The strength of this show isn't in the technical aspects, but of how events affect one another, and that's where I've had to pay more attention. I also had to look up articles to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Namely, this one helped me.
This season had a lot more information being dumped onto us, and I felt that it would've been nicer if we'd had some more clues hinting towards certain facts before they were revealed. For example, Charlotte being Noah's child and Adam being an older Jonas were all kind of sudden. I think the show should've built up more suspense by hinting towards these facts before the reveal.
In general, this season was more about understanding the various characters (and what experiences shaped them), and that we'll see a lot more action to change history in the next season.
I think that I preferred the overall story telling of season 1, but this season had a lower episode count (10 eps vs. 8 eps) and a bit more technical information to convey, so I'll let them off the hook.
Production
I felt that the feel of this season was a little flashier and techier, compared to last season that was more about the grim setting of Winden.
I thought that the casting and styling of the different versions of characters were well done. What I mean is that though the adult and teenager versions of characters might not look the same, their styling gave off the same vibes so I could feel that they were the same people. For example, adult and teenager Magnus and Franziska definitely gave me the same vibes.
I did think there were certain types of shots that were a bit overused. For example, we've had so many characters waking up suddenly from dreams, panting. So many of them. That was my major concern. The rest can be forgiven, such as the same shots of the Kahnwald house or the school.
Characters
Again, there are a lot of characters, so I'm going to try to keep things brief (lol).
Jonas Kahnwald
Jonas was stuck in the future for a bit, went back to 1921 and met Sic Mundus, and then went back to 2019. The big reveal of his time back in 1921 was that he'd eventually become Adam. While we vaguely know of the events that'd turn teenage Jonas to adult Jonas, we still haven't understood what experiences would lead an adult Jonas to become Adam, so that is probably going to be revealed next season.
Jonas did a lot of thinking this season. When Katharina wanted to bring Mikkel back, Jonas told her that it wouldn't be possible, not because he was afraid that he wouldn't exist, but because the fact that he already existed wasn't something that couldn't be undone.
I know I'm talking about Jonas as one person, but teenager and adult Jonas were actively carrying out different things by the end of the season. Adult Jonas seemed more focused on protecting the other teenagers. Teenage Jonas met up with adult Claudia and showed her what was actually in the caves, and then later met a Martha from another world.
I'm not sure I totally understand the philosophies of teenage Jonas, adult Jonas, and Adam yet. I think teenage Jonas and adult Jonas just wanted to close the time portal and I don't think they'd mind giving up their lives to do it, but as mentioned, adult Jonas figured that it wasn't possible. They also seemed to think that Adam wanted to destroy their world instead of returning things back to their normal state. I'm going to need to do some thinking about this, but I wonder if destruction is the only way to unravel the time paradoxes because as adult Jonas implied, what's done cannot be undone.
Jonas is one of the more important characters in the story as his existence itself was only possible due to time travel. We're definitely going to continue learning about him in the next season.
Hannah Kahnwald
In this season, it was confirmed that Hannah was a more selfish/petty person. She went to the past to help Ulrich, but after speaking with him, she realized she wasn't his number one, and seemed to turn her back on him out of bitterness, with no sympathy for him.
I also think that Hannah was maybe flirting with Egon a bit so I wonder if she's going to stay in the past. In any case, she does have one of the time machines, and I think someone will seek her out to use it.
Ines Kahnwald
Ines didn't have a bit role in this season. She continued her role as Michael's caretaker, but it's clear that she just wants him to live a normal life, and to forget his "past life."
Ulrich Nielsen
Ulrich was stuck in the past. We saw that he was admitted to a mental institution and after receiving a visit from old Egon, he discovered that young Mikkel was in his timeline.
Ulrich broke out of the mental institution to see Mikkel and tried to take him back to their original timelines, but was caught.
Katharina Nielsen
Katharina was a very goal-oriented person, focusing on how to bring back Ulrich and Mikkel. She didn't believe Charlotte, Peter, Hannah, and adult Jonas when they tried to tell her about time triavle, but she looked up an old class photo of Michael Kahnwald and saw that it was in fact her son.
Katharina was too focused on bringing back Ulrich and Mikkel that she blocked out Magnus and Martha, who were pretty upset with her.
I think learning about the time travel made Katharina even more skeptical and aggressive towards the other people in Winden, maybe because now she realized there was a way to bring her husband and younger son back. Katharina revealed to Martha that Jonas was actually her nephew, likely to keep Martha away from Jonas, because she saw him as an unnatural being (which is technically true).
At the end of the season, Katharina demanded that adult Jonas tell her how to use the time machine, but as mentioned, adult Jonas didn't think it would work.
Magnus Nielsen
Teenage Magnus didn't have a big role in this season, but as an adult, we saw that he was helping Adam. My guess is that adult Jonas protected the teenagers and they ultimately ended up working with him.
Martha Nielsen
When teenage Jonas returned to his regular timeline, he briefly visited Martha and kissed her, likely as a goodbye. Eventually, Martha returned his affections, but to another version of Jonas.
Martha and adult Jonas were confronted by Adam, and Adam eventually shot Martha. Adam said something about memorable pain, so I guess shooting Martha was supposed to ignite a fire within Jonas.
Like Magnus, Martha's involvement was a bit limited for most of the season. After Martha died, however, teenage Jonas encountered a Martha who was apparently from another world. She didn't confirm that she was from another time, so I wonder if she's from a parallel universe where things were different.
Mikkel Nielsen/Michael Kahnwald
In the 80s, Mikkel met old Ulrich, but old Ulrich was captured and Mikkel returned to Ines' care. I think that Mikkel didn't say anything simply because he was scared, which is fair. I don't think that Mikkel would've minded going back to his normal timeline with his dad (as he was running away with him), but as soon as Ines and the authorities showed up, I think he kind of froze up and was scared to reveal anything in case it would lead to further questioning.
I'm glad we got to see more of Michael in this season because I was pretty curious about him. He seemed to avoid a lot of social gatherings with the Nielsens, which makes sense. He'd met Mikkel once when Mikkel was borrowing their washroom. However, they didn't say anything. Michael was tearing up, and I think Mikkel felt odd too.
Later, Jonas (who'd been to the future and the past and back) tried to convince his dad not to commit suicide, thinking that the suicide was the trigger to all of the time travel. However, old Claudia showed up and convinced Michael that he had to die because Jonas was important to the big story. Michael decided that he was just going to play his role in this play of writing the letter to his son and then committing suicide. After doing some reading, I think the interpretation was that Michael actually would not have committed suicide if Jonas had not asked him to (it had not even occurred to him to do so), so Jonas had been tricked by Adam into keeping the status quo.
Tronte Nielsen
Trone was Ulrich and Mads' father. We mostly saw him as a child in 1953 when he first moved to Winden and befriended Claudia. Last season, I think we saw that Tronte and Claudia had an affair, and I guess we saw hints of that in this season when young Claudia wanted young Tronte to show her his willy.
Agnes Nielsen
I wasn't sure if Agnes was Tronte's real mother because I think Tronte had mentioned growing up in an orphanage, but he's listed as her son in the Wikipedia family tree so I'll just assume that they're biologically related for now.
Agnes moved to Winden, where she worked with Claudia. However, it's revealed that she betrayed Claudia because she wanted to return to Sic Mundus. Noah was also her brother. Agnes was also having an affair with Doris Tiedemann, but I wonder whether that's something we're going to see expanded.
Charlotte Doppler
It was revealed that Charlotte was Noah's daughter, and more importantly, she was both Elisabeth's mother and daughter. This is super trippy and obviously one of those time paradox things that are just too mind-bending to analyze.
Anyway, Charlotte got deep into the time travel sleuthing, independently of the police. I think Charlotte's still kind of piecing things together, but I think she understands that they have to handle everything carefully in case they change the past or the future.
At the end of the season, Charlotte went to the nuclear power plant to stop Clausen from accessing the time portal but was unsuccessful. In the time portal, she saw an older Elisabeth.
Peter Doppler
Peter Doppler worked together with Charlotte to piece together the happenings. In the last season, he was estranged with Charlotte because of his homosexual extramarital affairs, but it seems the investigation brought them back together.
By the end of the season, Peter was getting anxious so he and Elisabeth fled to the bunker, despite not really knowing whether Charlotte and Franziska were safe.
Franziska Doppler
Franziska didn't have a big role in this season. We mostly saw her in the context of her romantic relationship with Magnus. She also led Elisabeth into the cave with Magnus and Martha, and we also saw an adult Franziska helping Adam.
Also, am I just being a prude, or did we saw a lot more nudity from Franziska than was necessary? Even though the actress is an adult, Franziska is supposed to be a teenager, so I felt that the nudity was kind of unnecessary. Or again, maybe I'm just a prude.
Elisabeth Doppler
Young Elisabeth also didn't have a huge role in the story, but she did tell her parents when she saw Noah in an old photo from 1921. Adult Elisabeth was seen in the future as the leader of a group of people. At first, I thought that maybe Elisabeth had survived because she didn't have hearing. The dead boys and animals that were discovered last season had ruptured ear drums, so I thought that maybe they'd heard something harmful. However, at the end of season 2, we saw Elisabeth and Peter go into a bunker, so I guess she survived because she'd hid there.
At the time that we saw Elisabeth in the future, she already had Charlotte. However we never saw the actual baby so we don't know how Charlotte came to be taken care of by H.G. Tannhaus. I guess we might also see how Elisabeth and Noah came to fall in love in the next season (presumably in the bunker).
Helge Doppler
Young Helge Doppler was taken by Noah (while still injured), and months later, walked back into the Doppler household like nothing happened. Egon Tiedemann tried to get more answers out of Helge, but he was either manipulated or intimidated by Noah into not revealing anything.
In the 80s, Claudia visited Helge to get some answers. Apparently Helge had given her the book on time travel by H.G. Tannhaus, but she wasn't able to get much from Helge because he wasn't very communicative.
In my review from last season, I actually thought that Helge was going to play a much bigger role but we didn't see too much of him in this season. That makes sense now, since this season was more about understanding characters and we generally already knew what was up with Helge. But I still think we're going to see him in the next season because as I said, he was a character who carried out a lot of legwork despite not totally understanding why.
Greta Doppler
Greta was Helge's mother. We saw that she had a close relationship with Noah, but it's not quite clear how close they were, and whether Greta trusted him more than as a religious authority.
Last season, it was also suggested that Helge might not have been Bernd's son, but that was not explored in the current season, so for now we can still assume that Bernd is Helge's father, though Bernd wasn't really relevant in this season.
H.G. Tannhaus
H.G. Tannhaus' role was still mostly related to building the time machine. We saw him at different ages, before and after he'd built the time machine. He also did some philosophizing about time travel, and how events in the past and future might affect each other.
H.G. Tannhaus was also Charlotte's adopted grandfather (not related by birth), so I guess either Elisabeth or Noah had given her to him to be raised.
Noah
Noah apparently used to work with Claudia but they parted ways and that's how he came to be allied with Adam.
At the end of the season, Noah tried to kill Adam because he thought that Adam had manipulated him. Noah was unsuccessful because his gun was jammed, and in the end, he was shot dead by his sister Agnes.
A few times, Noah told Charlotte that everything he'd done was for her, so we're definitely going to be seeing more of Noah next season when we really see how things came to be between him, Elisabeth, and Charlotte.
I'm not sure whether Noah's parentage was important, but as of now we still don't know who his and Agnes' parents are.
Regina Tiedemann
In this season, Regina was slowly dying from cancer. Otherwise, she didn't have a big role in the story, other than showing the stranger's possessions to Claudia and Clausen.
Aleksander Kohler/Tiedemann
Aleksander's past came back to haunt him this season. All we knew was that he was not actually Aleksander Kohler, and this cover was blown by Clausen, who was actually the real Aleksander Kohler's brother.
In any case, Clausen was going to take down Aleksander with the evidence he had, which was relating to the nuclear waste at the power plant.
I'm excited to find out more about Aleksander as he seems to be one of the few characters that we still don't know much about.
Claudia Tiedemann
Adult Claudia was just learning about the truth of time travel and the time portal, through mentoring from her older self and Jonas as well. Claudia and her father had an argument as she was trying to prevent his death, and he brought up the time portal. Claudia didn't want anybody to know about it, and Egon accused her of wanting to cover it up to be used for personal gain. The result of that accudent was Egon falling over and hitting his head. Claudia was going to call for an ambulance but changed her mind.
The older Claudia was travelling through different timelines filling in the holes and such. Like Jonas, I'm still trying to piece together her philosophies.
Claudia asked Agnes to help her, but Agnes betrayed her, and later Noah killed her. However, Claudia didn't seem afraid, and it was implied that "Claudia hadn't even started yet," though I think that might've been semantics due to the time period that events were happening in.
In any case, this is definitely no the last we'll see of Claudia.
Bartocz Tiedemann
Bartocz and his friends got into an argument because he'd been hiding the time machine from the others. He showed them how to use the time machine, and then they took it away from him.
Franziska theorized that Bartocz's only role in the cycle was to show them how to use the time machine.
Egon Tiedemann
In 1953, Egon was still trying to investigate Ulrich and the deaths of the boys. He also led Hannah (posing as Katharina) to see if Ulrich was her husband, but she claimed that he wasn't, so that was a dead end. Again, it felt like Hannah was flirting with Egon a bit so I wonder if that goes anywhere.
In the 80s, and old Egon finally had the time to follow up on cases he just never finished up. He questioned Helge about why he took an alternate route, but not much came from that conversation. He also visited an old Ulrich in the mental institution, showing him a photo of Mikkel. He had also listened to a record that had the lyrics of a song that Ulrich had said many years ago. However, their conversation didn't go anywhere because Ulrich was frustrated that Egon didn't understand anything (i.e. the time travel).
Egon eventually figured out that time travel was happening but he died before he could call the authorities about it.
Doris Tiedemann
We saw Doris engage in an affair with Agnes, but that was the extent of her on-screen story.
Woller
Woller was a policeman but apparently Aleksander had some dirt on him, which was why he'd helped Aleksander hide some of his dirty work.
Benni
Benni, the transgender prostitute was actually Woller's sister. I don't think she has a huge role in the story other than for the sake of advancing personal relationships though (e.g. Franziska revealing that she was just providing hormone drugs to Benni.
Clausen
Clausen was the police consultant sent to Winden to help Charlotte. Later in the season, we found out that he had an ulterior motive to coming to Winden, which was to investigate his brother's death. He'd received an anonymous letter stating that all of his answers would be answered in Winden.
Clausen was intent on unconvering the shenaniganery at the nuclear power plant because he wanted to take down Aleksander. In doing so, he opened the time portal at the end of the season.
Silja
Silja was Elisabeth's interpreter in the future. Though she followed Elisabeth's lead, she was curious about what Jonas was saying about the outside world. While Silja didn't follow Jonas through the time portal, she confronted Elisabeth about it, and Elisabeth said that it was the God particle.
Themes
Secrets
One of the themes of this season was that secrets were killing the people of Winden, so that was why this entire season was about unmasking them. By the end of the season, I think most of the main characters were aware of the time travel, so the next season would just be about characters' individual motivations (i.e. not using lack of knowledge as a plot point anymore).
Undoing
Jonas said that Katharina bringing back Mikkel wouldn't work and that he wouldn't disappear because he'd already existed once and had a future. In a way, it makes sense, but I think it also applies to our normal linear lives.
What I mean by that is that after knowing something, it can't be taken back. If Mikkel returned to his real story line and Jonas cased to exist, would people still remember his existence?
Biblical references
There are a lot of religious references that I just haven't had time to unpack (also because I'm just not that knowledgeable about the Bible).
Adam and Noah are likely the more obvious ones. Last season, Noah portrayed himself as the leader of the ark that would bring people to a new era.
Adam himself wanted to create a new reality in which humans were not slaves of time anymore. With Adam being the first man, I think the interpretation was that people unbounded by time would basically be a new, higher race.
Other references
In other articles, I remember reading about a reference to Martha's role in a play about Ariadne. One interpretation that I read was that as Ariadne, Martha would guide Jonas into the labyrinth, implying that Martha would have a role helping Adam create his new world. However, seeing as how Theseus eventually abandoned Ariadne, Martha may be subject to the same fate.
Overall
This was the second of three seasons so obviously I can't say much for the story in terms of beginning and end. I will say that it ramped up and now I do feel like this show has more of a typical science fiction feel than the first season, which was more about the setting the stage. Between the two seasons, I felt that the first season was more engaging because of the atmosphere.
But I will still keep watching because I do think the story's done enough to keep me intrigued.
Spoilers.
Story
This season got more technical with regards to the time travel stuff. In the show, the time travel phenomenon was explained as being a side effect of all of the nuclear waste. Honestly, that's as much as I care to know. The strength of this show isn't in the technical aspects, but of how events affect one another, and that's where I've had to pay more attention. I also had to look up articles to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Namely, this one helped me.
This season had a lot more information being dumped onto us, and I felt that it would've been nicer if we'd had some more clues hinting towards certain facts before they were revealed. For example, Charlotte being Noah's child and Adam being an older Jonas were all kind of sudden. I think the show should've built up more suspense by hinting towards these facts before the reveal.
In general, this season was more about understanding the various characters (and what experiences shaped them), and that we'll see a lot more action to change history in the next season.
I think that I preferred the overall story telling of season 1, but this season had a lower episode count (10 eps vs. 8 eps) and a bit more technical information to convey, so I'll let them off the hook.
Production
I felt that the feel of this season was a little flashier and techier, compared to last season that was more about the grim setting of Winden.
I thought that the casting and styling of the different versions of characters were well done. What I mean is that though the adult and teenager versions of characters might not look the same, their styling gave off the same vibes so I could feel that they were the same people. For example, adult and teenager Magnus and Franziska definitely gave me the same vibes.
I did think there were certain types of shots that were a bit overused. For example, we've had so many characters waking up suddenly from dreams, panting. So many of them. That was my major concern. The rest can be forgiven, such as the same shots of the Kahnwald house or the school.
Characters
Again, there are a lot of characters, so I'm going to try to keep things brief (lol).
Jonas Kahnwald
Jonas was stuck in the future for a bit, went back to 1921 and met Sic Mundus, and then went back to 2019. The big reveal of his time back in 1921 was that he'd eventually become Adam. While we vaguely know of the events that'd turn teenage Jonas to adult Jonas, we still haven't understood what experiences would lead an adult Jonas to become Adam, so that is probably going to be revealed next season.
Jonas did a lot of thinking this season. When Katharina wanted to bring Mikkel back, Jonas told her that it wouldn't be possible, not because he was afraid that he wouldn't exist, but because the fact that he already existed wasn't something that couldn't be undone.
I know I'm talking about Jonas as one person, but teenager and adult Jonas were actively carrying out different things by the end of the season. Adult Jonas seemed more focused on protecting the other teenagers. Teenage Jonas met up with adult Claudia and showed her what was actually in the caves, and then later met a Martha from another world.
I'm not sure I totally understand the philosophies of teenage Jonas, adult Jonas, and Adam yet. I think teenage Jonas and adult Jonas just wanted to close the time portal and I don't think they'd mind giving up their lives to do it, but as mentioned, adult Jonas figured that it wasn't possible. They also seemed to think that Adam wanted to destroy their world instead of returning things back to their normal state. I'm going to need to do some thinking about this, but I wonder if destruction is the only way to unravel the time paradoxes because as adult Jonas implied, what's done cannot be undone.
Jonas is one of the more important characters in the story as his existence itself was only possible due to time travel. We're definitely going to continue learning about him in the next season.
Hannah Kahnwald
In this season, it was confirmed that Hannah was a more selfish/petty person. She went to the past to help Ulrich, but after speaking with him, she realized she wasn't his number one, and seemed to turn her back on him out of bitterness, with no sympathy for him.
I also think that Hannah was maybe flirting with Egon a bit so I wonder if she's going to stay in the past. In any case, she does have one of the time machines, and I think someone will seek her out to use it.
Ines Kahnwald
Ines didn't have a bit role in this season. She continued her role as Michael's caretaker, but it's clear that she just wants him to live a normal life, and to forget his "past life."
Ulrich Nielsen
Ulrich was stuck in the past. We saw that he was admitted to a mental institution and after receiving a visit from old Egon, he discovered that young Mikkel was in his timeline.
Ulrich broke out of the mental institution to see Mikkel and tried to take him back to their original timelines, but was caught.
Katharina Nielsen
Katharina was a very goal-oriented person, focusing on how to bring back Ulrich and Mikkel. She didn't believe Charlotte, Peter, Hannah, and adult Jonas when they tried to tell her about time triavle, but she looked up an old class photo of Michael Kahnwald and saw that it was in fact her son.
Katharina was too focused on bringing back Ulrich and Mikkel that she blocked out Magnus and Martha, who were pretty upset with her.
I think learning about the time travel made Katharina even more skeptical and aggressive towards the other people in Winden, maybe because now she realized there was a way to bring her husband and younger son back. Katharina revealed to Martha that Jonas was actually her nephew, likely to keep Martha away from Jonas, because she saw him as an unnatural being (which is technically true).
At the end of the season, Katharina demanded that adult Jonas tell her how to use the time machine, but as mentioned, adult Jonas didn't think it would work.
Magnus Nielsen
Teenage Magnus didn't have a big role in this season, but as an adult, we saw that he was helping Adam. My guess is that adult Jonas protected the teenagers and they ultimately ended up working with him.
Martha Nielsen
When teenage Jonas returned to his regular timeline, he briefly visited Martha and kissed her, likely as a goodbye. Eventually, Martha returned his affections, but to another version of Jonas.
Martha and adult Jonas were confronted by Adam, and Adam eventually shot Martha. Adam said something about memorable pain, so I guess shooting Martha was supposed to ignite a fire within Jonas.
Like Magnus, Martha's involvement was a bit limited for most of the season. After Martha died, however, teenage Jonas encountered a Martha who was apparently from another world. She didn't confirm that she was from another time, so I wonder if she's from a parallel universe where things were different.
Mikkel Nielsen/Michael Kahnwald
In the 80s, Mikkel met old Ulrich, but old Ulrich was captured and Mikkel returned to Ines' care. I think that Mikkel didn't say anything simply because he was scared, which is fair. I don't think that Mikkel would've minded going back to his normal timeline with his dad (as he was running away with him), but as soon as Ines and the authorities showed up, I think he kind of froze up and was scared to reveal anything in case it would lead to further questioning.
I'm glad we got to see more of Michael in this season because I was pretty curious about him. He seemed to avoid a lot of social gatherings with the Nielsens, which makes sense. He'd met Mikkel once when Mikkel was borrowing their washroom. However, they didn't say anything. Michael was tearing up, and I think Mikkel felt odd too.
Later, Jonas (who'd been to the future and the past and back) tried to convince his dad not to commit suicide, thinking that the suicide was the trigger to all of the time travel. However, old Claudia showed up and convinced Michael that he had to die because Jonas was important to the big story. Michael decided that he was just going to play his role in this play of writing the letter to his son and then committing suicide. After doing some reading, I think the interpretation was that Michael actually would not have committed suicide if Jonas had not asked him to (it had not even occurred to him to do so), so Jonas had been tricked by Adam into keeping the status quo.
Tronte Nielsen
Trone was Ulrich and Mads' father. We mostly saw him as a child in 1953 when he first moved to Winden and befriended Claudia. Last season, I think we saw that Tronte and Claudia had an affair, and I guess we saw hints of that in this season when young Claudia wanted young Tronte to show her his willy.
Agnes Nielsen
I wasn't sure if Agnes was Tronte's real mother because I think Tronte had mentioned growing up in an orphanage, but he's listed as her son in the Wikipedia family tree so I'll just assume that they're biologically related for now.
Agnes moved to Winden, where she worked with Claudia. However, it's revealed that she betrayed Claudia because she wanted to return to Sic Mundus. Noah was also her brother. Agnes was also having an affair with Doris Tiedemann, but I wonder whether that's something we're going to see expanded.
Charlotte Doppler
It was revealed that Charlotte was Noah's daughter, and more importantly, she was both Elisabeth's mother and daughter. This is super trippy and obviously one of those time paradox things that are just too mind-bending to analyze.
Anyway, Charlotte got deep into the time travel sleuthing, independently of the police. I think Charlotte's still kind of piecing things together, but I think she understands that they have to handle everything carefully in case they change the past or the future.
At the end of the season, Charlotte went to the nuclear power plant to stop Clausen from accessing the time portal but was unsuccessful. In the time portal, she saw an older Elisabeth.
Peter Doppler
Peter Doppler worked together with Charlotte to piece together the happenings. In the last season, he was estranged with Charlotte because of his homosexual extramarital affairs, but it seems the investigation brought them back together.
By the end of the season, Peter was getting anxious so he and Elisabeth fled to the bunker, despite not really knowing whether Charlotte and Franziska were safe.
Franziska Doppler
Franziska didn't have a big role in this season. We mostly saw her in the context of her romantic relationship with Magnus. She also led Elisabeth into the cave with Magnus and Martha, and we also saw an adult Franziska helping Adam.
Also, am I just being a prude, or did we saw a lot more nudity from Franziska than was necessary? Even though the actress is an adult, Franziska is supposed to be a teenager, so I felt that the nudity was kind of unnecessary. Or again, maybe I'm just a prude.
Elisabeth Doppler
Young Elisabeth also didn't have a huge role in the story, but she did tell her parents when she saw Noah in an old photo from 1921. Adult Elisabeth was seen in the future as the leader of a group of people. At first, I thought that maybe Elisabeth had survived because she didn't have hearing. The dead boys and animals that were discovered last season had ruptured ear drums, so I thought that maybe they'd heard something harmful. However, at the end of season 2, we saw Elisabeth and Peter go into a bunker, so I guess she survived because she'd hid there.
At the time that we saw Elisabeth in the future, she already had Charlotte. However we never saw the actual baby so we don't know how Charlotte came to be taken care of by H.G. Tannhaus. I guess we might also see how Elisabeth and Noah came to fall in love in the next season (presumably in the bunker).
Helge Doppler
Young Helge Doppler was taken by Noah (while still injured), and months later, walked back into the Doppler household like nothing happened. Egon Tiedemann tried to get more answers out of Helge, but he was either manipulated or intimidated by Noah into not revealing anything.
In the 80s, Claudia visited Helge to get some answers. Apparently Helge had given her the book on time travel by H.G. Tannhaus, but she wasn't able to get much from Helge because he wasn't very communicative.
In my review from last season, I actually thought that Helge was going to play a much bigger role but we didn't see too much of him in this season. That makes sense now, since this season was more about understanding characters and we generally already knew what was up with Helge. But I still think we're going to see him in the next season because as I said, he was a character who carried out a lot of legwork despite not totally understanding why.
Greta Doppler
Greta was Helge's mother. We saw that she had a close relationship with Noah, but it's not quite clear how close they were, and whether Greta trusted him more than as a religious authority.
Last season, it was also suggested that Helge might not have been Bernd's son, but that was not explored in the current season, so for now we can still assume that Bernd is Helge's father, though Bernd wasn't really relevant in this season.
H.G. Tannhaus
H.G. Tannhaus' role was still mostly related to building the time machine. We saw him at different ages, before and after he'd built the time machine. He also did some philosophizing about time travel, and how events in the past and future might affect each other.
H.G. Tannhaus was also Charlotte's adopted grandfather (not related by birth), so I guess either Elisabeth or Noah had given her to him to be raised.
Noah
Noah apparently used to work with Claudia but they parted ways and that's how he came to be allied with Adam.
At the end of the season, Noah tried to kill Adam because he thought that Adam had manipulated him. Noah was unsuccessful because his gun was jammed, and in the end, he was shot dead by his sister Agnes.
A few times, Noah told Charlotte that everything he'd done was for her, so we're definitely going to be seeing more of Noah next season when we really see how things came to be between him, Elisabeth, and Charlotte.
I'm not sure whether Noah's parentage was important, but as of now we still don't know who his and Agnes' parents are.
Regina Tiedemann
In this season, Regina was slowly dying from cancer. Otherwise, she didn't have a big role in the story, other than showing the stranger's possessions to Claudia and Clausen.
Aleksander Kohler/Tiedemann
Aleksander's past came back to haunt him this season. All we knew was that he was not actually Aleksander Kohler, and this cover was blown by Clausen, who was actually the real Aleksander Kohler's brother.
In any case, Clausen was going to take down Aleksander with the evidence he had, which was relating to the nuclear waste at the power plant.
I'm excited to find out more about Aleksander as he seems to be one of the few characters that we still don't know much about.
Claudia Tiedemann
Adult Claudia was just learning about the truth of time travel and the time portal, through mentoring from her older self and Jonas as well. Claudia and her father had an argument as she was trying to prevent his death, and he brought up the time portal. Claudia didn't want anybody to know about it, and Egon accused her of wanting to cover it up to be used for personal gain. The result of that accudent was Egon falling over and hitting his head. Claudia was going to call for an ambulance but changed her mind.
The older Claudia was travelling through different timelines filling in the holes and such. Like Jonas, I'm still trying to piece together her philosophies.
Claudia asked Agnes to help her, but Agnes betrayed her, and later Noah killed her. However, Claudia didn't seem afraid, and it was implied that "Claudia hadn't even started yet," though I think that might've been semantics due to the time period that events were happening in.
In any case, this is definitely no the last we'll see of Claudia.
Bartocz Tiedemann
Bartocz and his friends got into an argument because he'd been hiding the time machine from the others. He showed them how to use the time machine, and then they took it away from him.
Franziska theorized that Bartocz's only role in the cycle was to show them how to use the time machine.
Egon Tiedemann
In 1953, Egon was still trying to investigate Ulrich and the deaths of the boys. He also led Hannah (posing as Katharina) to see if Ulrich was her husband, but she claimed that he wasn't, so that was a dead end. Again, it felt like Hannah was flirting with Egon a bit so I wonder if that goes anywhere.
In the 80s, and old Egon finally had the time to follow up on cases he just never finished up. He questioned Helge about why he took an alternate route, but not much came from that conversation. He also visited an old Ulrich in the mental institution, showing him a photo of Mikkel. He had also listened to a record that had the lyrics of a song that Ulrich had said many years ago. However, their conversation didn't go anywhere because Ulrich was frustrated that Egon didn't understand anything (i.e. the time travel).
Egon eventually figured out that time travel was happening but he died before he could call the authorities about it.
Doris Tiedemann
We saw Doris engage in an affair with Agnes, but that was the extent of her on-screen story.
Woller
Woller was a policeman but apparently Aleksander had some dirt on him, which was why he'd helped Aleksander hide some of his dirty work.
Benni
Benni, the transgender prostitute was actually Woller's sister. I don't think she has a huge role in the story other than for the sake of advancing personal relationships though (e.g. Franziska revealing that she was just providing hormone drugs to Benni.
Clausen
Clausen was the police consultant sent to Winden to help Charlotte. Later in the season, we found out that he had an ulterior motive to coming to Winden, which was to investigate his brother's death. He'd received an anonymous letter stating that all of his answers would be answered in Winden.
Clausen was intent on unconvering the shenaniganery at the nuclear power plant because he wanted to take down Aleksander. In doing so, he opened the time portal at the end of the season.
Silja
Silja was Elisabeth's interpreter in the future. Though she followed Elisabeth's lead, she was curious about what Jonas was saying about the outside world. While Silja didn't follow Jonas through the time portal, she confronted Elisabeth about it, and Elisabeth said that it was the God particle.
Themes
Secrets
One of the themes of this season was that secrets were killing the people of Winden, so that was why this entire season was about unmasking them. By the end of the season, I think most of the main characters were aware of the time travel, so the next season would just be about characters' individual motivations (i.e. not using lack of knowledge as a plot point anymore).
Undoing
Jonas said that Katharina bringing back Mikkel wouldn't work and that he wouldn't disappear because he'd already existed once and had a future. In a way, it makes sense, but I think it also applies to our normal linear lives.
What I mean by that is that after knowing something, it can't be taken back. If Mikkel returned to his real story line and Jonas cased to exist, would people still remember his existence?
Biblical references
There are a lot of religious references that I just haven't had time to unpack (also because I'm just not that knowledgeable about the Bible).
Adam and Noah are likely the more obvious ones. Last season, Noah portrayed himself as the leader of the ark that would bring people to a new era.
Adam himself wanted to create a new reality in which humans were not slaves of time anymore. With Adam being the first man, I think the interpretation was that people unbounded by time would basically be a new, higher race.
Other references
In other articles, I remember reading about a reference to Martha's role in a play about Ariadne. One interpretation that I read was that as Ariadne, Martha would guide Jonas into the labyrinth, implying that Martha would have a role helping Adam create his new world. However, seeing as how Theseus eventually abandoned Ariadne, Martha may be subject to the same fate.
Overall
This was the second of three seasons so obviously I can't say much for the story in terms of beginning and end. I will say that it ramped up and now I do feel like this show has more of a typical science fiction feel than the first season, which was more about the setting the stage. Between the two seasons, I felt that the first season was more engaging because of the atmosphere.
But I will still keep watching because I do think the story's done enough to keep me intrigued.