The Paradise

## *Dark*

**"The Paradise"** is the eighth and final episode of Season 3 of *Dark*. It premiered on June 27, 2020, and is the 26th and final episode overall.

## Summary

Claudia reveals to Adam how everything is connected — and how he can destroy the knot.

## Plot

### September 26, 2053

The elderly Claudia Tiedemann tells Adam that every journey has a beginning, but his has no end, going on forever. She has come to finally bring his journey to an end. Adam tells Claudia that he had her killed: she should be dead. She tells him he still has no idea how this game is played, that every effort he makes to destroy the knot just continues its existence. Adam is in shock because he killed Martha and The Origin within her, but Claudia tells him that his and Eva's World should never have existed. The origin does not bind the two worlds but lies outside them. She explains that the concept of dualities is wrong, and says there is a third dimension. Adam realizes she means the triquetra: A third world that gave birth to this knot, where everything originates. In this world, H.G. Tannhaus committed a single mistake: he tried to bring his family back from the dead but instead destroyed and divided his world, creating their two worlds. However, Claudia tells Adam that there is a way to destroy the knot: by preventing the travel of space and time in the Original World.

Claudia tells him that his path has to remain unchanged, that every step has to be taken as before, up until this very moment. He has tried to destroy the origin an infinite number of times. Everything he and Eva have done has maintained the knot for eternity. They create themselves forever anew. But this is the first time she has come to him.

### Unknown date (alternate world)

Eva tells Martha that everybody must die, so they can be reborn correctly. Eva holds Martha's pregnant belly and tells her she carries both worlds inside of her: her son will be The Origin, who gives everybody their lives in the two worlds. The three Unknowns enter, and Eva tells her that he has waited a long time for her. The youngest version walks up to Martha and hugs her.

### September 26, 2053

Claudia tells Adam that while he wants to destroy his son and the knot, Eva wants him to live and maintain the knot. She will do anything she can to keep her son alive. Everything he and Eva have done has been because of love and yet this has brought nothing but pain and suffering. They have done this because they can't let go of their deepest desire. Their two worlds should never have existed. He and Eva should never have existed.

### Unknown date (alternate world)

Eva tells Martha that if she wants Jonas to live, she has to do what has always been done. Middle-aged Martha gives her a gun. She goes to her younger self, apologizes, and shoots Jonas (episode Life and Death)

### September 26, 2053

Adam asks Claudia how she knows about the Origin World. Claudia tells him she has spent 33 years looking for answers in both worlds, how everything can continually be reborn until she realized both worlds must have grown from something else. Those worlds can be removed while keeping alive the origin world. She also had to preserve everything in order to become what she is today. Claudia admits to Adam that she has brought pain and suffering to others- as he has again and again- so that she could come to him now. Everything she has done has been for Regina. She has been looking for a way for her to live, trying to understand how everything is connected, how Regina always dies in both worlds, until she understood that Regina could only live in the Origin World.

Claudia and Tronte stand in front of Regina's grave. Tronte tells her he always thought she was his daughter. Claudia tells him she wished he was but it's better that she is not tied to the knot, so will live. She tells him he knows what has to be done. Tronte must do it quickly so she does not suffer. She is hardly living a life anyway. The two hug.

She lied to both Adam and Eva, so the knot stayed tied, and everything happened the way it always had in both worlds. An infinite chain of cause and effect that repeatedly leads to the same fate in both worlds. No one has free will but will always do what they have always done. Every act of suffering will happen repeatedly. There is no difference between the two worlds. Things may not happen in the same way or at the same time, but they always happen. No one can escape their fate.

### November 8, 2019 -November 8, 1953 (Alternate World)

Ulrich in one world travels to 1953 and in the other world travels to 1986. Both find Helge. Ulrich tells him he can change the past. If he doesn't exist then none of this will happen. Ulrich takes a rock and bashes Helge in front fac in the alternate world and on the side of the head in Adam's World and then drags him into the bunker- decorated in one world, bare in the other. The elderly Helge tells Ulrich in 1986 "It was you" and bashes him repeatedly with a crowbar. He removes the coins from Ulrich's jacket as Claudia enters, explaining she moved pieces around the chessboard, just as Adam did.

### September 26, 2053

Claudia tells Adam she finally knows how to untie the knot and where the loophole he has searched for is, because during the apocalypse, time stands still for a fraction of a second, which momentarily breaks the chain of cause and effect. Eva knows about it and uses it to send her younger self in different directions so as to maintain the cycle. Claudia has used it to be there today. He must use it to send Jonas on a different path to break the cycle. Jonas and Martha are to blame for everything happening over and over. He must send them to the Origin World so they can finally put an end to everything. She gives him an orb.

### June 27, 2020 (First world, day of apocalypse)

On the day of the apocalypse, Jonas promises the shot Martha that he will make everything right. Adam comes in. Jonas yells at him: "She's dead. What do you want from me?", grabbing him. Adam tells Jonas he will tell him everything, but they have to get out of there. He places an orb on the ground, which he tells Jonas is their last hope. The orb activates and they disappear.

### September 26, 2053

Claudia tells her older self to tell her father she is sorry for what she had to do. The elderly Claudia tells her that if everything works, Regina will live.

### November 8, 2019 (alternate world, day of apocalypse)

Adam and Jonas reappear in Eva's World, in the cave. Jonas asks him what time it is. Adam tells him the question is not what time but what world. He tells Jonas that there is a way for him to avoid becoming Adam, but he must trust him.

They emerge from the cave. Adam tells Jonas he does not have much time left. He must save the alternate world Martha, since he realized it was not only him who had to change everything, but he now knew that Martha had to as well, because they are two parts of the same whole and, together, must return to the Origin World. What they know is a drop, what they do not know is an ocean. Today is the day of the apocalypse in her world. For a moment, time will stand still. He must get Martha before Magnus and Franziska do- before everything happens again. Adam hands Jonas the orb and tells him this is their last hope.

Just as the older Magnus and Franziska stop Martha riding behind Bartosz on a bike to convince her to go with them, Jonas jumps at Martha with Adam's orb activated and disappears with her.

### June 21, 1986

Martha and Jonas appear on the road in front of the bus stop. Martha asks Jonas what's going on and is surprised to see him alive. He tells her he looks exactly like her. Martha wonders if he knows who she is. She asks him for the date, to which he replies on June 21, 1986: the day their worlds were created. Watchmaker Tannhaus will open the passage for the first time that day. They must prevent this from happening.

They walk to the cave. She asks him where they are going. He tells her they are returning someone from the dead and must get to them before they die. He explains that they are the reason everything happens over and over because they both cannot let go of what they want. They are the glitch in the matrix. Martha asks if he wants their worlds and them to never exist. They go into the caves.

### November 7, 2052 (alternate world)

Adam goes to Eva's study and burns the paintings of Adam and Eva. He stabilizes the God Particle.

Eva rubs the St Christopher's medal, as Adam walks in. She tells him she has been expecting him and knows why he is there. She looks at the gun he has in his hand and tells him that every death is a new beginning. She takes his hand and puts the gun to her heart, telling him he cannot win, as her demise is just another step of the cycle. She knows he is going to kill her, that Martha will find her body, just as Eva herself once did, which turned her against Adam once and for all. She asks Adam what he is waiting for. Instead of firing the gun, Adam removes his finger from the trigger. Eva puts her own hands on the gun and pulls the trigger herself. The gun just clicks, but does not fire. Eva is perplexed and tries again, to no avail. Adam reveals the bullets are all in his other hand. Eva says "This isn't right" and is confused how her death by Adam's hand isn't happening as it always has. Adam tells her that she will die, as will he and everything that has grown out of them. Eva asks him what he has done. He tells her death is incomprehensible but one can reconcile with it. Everything they have done is ultimately forgotten. They are responsible for the never-ending deja-vu and have to end it. They are the mistake, as Eva begins to sob. Tannhaus lost everything that meant anything to him in the Origin world when his son and family died in a car accident. Jonas and Martha must remove his pain so he no longer tries to undo anything. They must go to the Origin world and prevent their two worlds from being created. Adam and Eva hug.

### June 21, 1986 (all 3 worlds)

Jonas and Martha reach the door marked with Sic Mundus and Jonas opens it, as Tannhaus (from the Origin World) activates the time-machine. Jonas and Martha wait as the time-stream begins to form due to the malfunctioning time-machine, connecting all 3 worlds for a brief moment.

Jonas and Martha then separate as they begin to watch their alternate counterparts as children watching them in the time-stream, as they get together and travel to the Origin World.

### November 8, 1971 (Origin world)

Marek gets into an argument with his father regarding his father's wish for the former to inherit his business. Angered, Marek states Tannhaus only cared about science, time and the universe and not for his family, as Tannhaus weakly tries to defend himself. Enraged, Marek leaves the house as Sonja promises Tannhaus they will be back once Marek cools off.

Marek argues with Sonja regarding Tannhaus's obsession with science, and notes he's glad to choose Sonja, as Martha and Jonas appear in front of them. They divert the car to avoid them. Marek gets out of the car, berating Martha and Jonas. He asks them if they are okay. Jonas replies that the bridge is not open because there has been an accident. Jonas tells him "what we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean". Martha tells Marek that his father loves him and would do anything for him. Marek asks Jonas what he said. Sonja comes out and tells Marek they should go. They get back into the car and Marek tells her they will leave the next day and drive back, back to HG Tannhaus's shop. Sonja tells Tannhaus that the bridge was not open, her son thinks he saw a pair of angels. Marek says he had a feeling. His father hugs him and says he is glad they are here, he hadn't stripped the beds yet. Sonja thanks him and asks him if he would like to hold his daughter: Charlotte while she helps Marek.

Martha tells Jonas she is not sure if what they did worked. Jonas tells her he saw her as a child, looking at him. Martha asks him if it was he she saw in her closet: not a dream. She wonders if any part of them will remain or if they were just a dream that never really existed. Jonas does not know. As they begin to fade away, Jonas tells Martha they are perfect for each other, and to never believe anything else as he holds out his hand for her. The two hold hands as they fade away. Adam and Eva look at each other, hold hands and also fade away. Stranger/Jonas looks at the St Christopher medal as he, too, begins to fade away, while middle-aged Martha does the same. The family tree joined by the infinity symbol also fades. Claudia also, along with all the photos of the Winden people on the wall of the bunker.

### Origin world (present day)

At the Kahnwald home (Jonas' original home), a dinner party is taking place. A photo is shown of Claudia, Regina and Bernd Doppler (who is Regina's father). Present are Katharina, Hannah, Regina, Peter, Bernadette, and Wöller. Regina is being celebrated by her friends. Peter is with Bernadette Wöller and Hannah is with Torben Wöller, joined also by Katharina. Bernadette looks at Torben's eye and comments it is looking a lot better. They ask him to tell them the story behind how his accident had happened, and as he began to tell it, a loud thunder bolt startled the group, also turning off the lights. Bernadette jokingly asks if it is the apocalypse, but Hannah is staring at a yellow rain jacket (like the one Jonas had). Katharina asks her if she is okay, and Hannah mentions she had a deja-vu. She mentions it might sound absurd, but she had dreamt about that very moment the night before, except the world had ended, leaving everything dark forever. However, she mentions that it had felt good suddenly being free of everything in the unending darkness. Bernadette jokes that Hannah should get checked, and Hannah blames it on hormones. Regina asks them if they had one wish due to the world ending what they would wish for. Katharina wishes for a world without Winden, and they all say cheers. As they do, the lights turn back on, and Peter mentions maybe Winden does not want to leave. Torben says it could be a good thing while holding Hannah's stomach, which revealed she was pregnant. The couple kisses, and when they ask what they think the name could be, Hannah says she does not know, but states that she thinks Jonas would be a good name.

## Analysis

* We are now introduced to a third world- the Origin World, which was split in two by Tannhaus.
* In Eva's world, Ulrich is bludgeoned to death instead of being arrested. That means that Hannah would not go back to the 50's to see him, so she would not have met Egon. Therefore Silja would not exist in this world, and neither would Silja's children Agnes and Noah. That means that both of their family lines would be disrupted, so Noah's decendents (Charlotte, Franceska, and Elisabeth) along with Agnus' decendents (Tronte, Ulrich, Mads, Magnus, Martha, Mikkel, and Jonas) would cease to exist. We know that Jonas does not exist in Eva's world, but Magnus, Martha, and Mikkel do. So that means that somehow, in a scene that we never see, Hannah finds her way to Egon even though Ulrich is never imprisoned.
* We now understand when, by whom, how and why the order is given to Tronte to suffocate Regina in her sleep in the episode The Survivor. The famous "someone" is Claudia, who has already prepared the cross at the cemetery. Regina is not part of the knot and what she is doing is not life. She is right that she dies in both knots and she lives outside of them
* While Jonas meets alternate world Martha when she saves him in Endings and Beginnings and is taken to the alternate world where he dies, this Jonas (who remained in his world) has never met alternate world Martha. So she is surprised he is still alive (having seen him killed by the Martha with Big Scar in the other world) and he observes that she looks just like his Martha. This also explains why the Stranger did not remember having met this Martha. In The Origin, Martha tells Jonas she had a feeling they knew each other from a dream- which appears to be the vision they had. This might also explain why they made love even though they were from different worlds and did not know each other. Jonas asks Martha if the Jonas in her world was different, but Jonas did not exist in her world. Adam has stopped the Quantum entanglement in his world and hence only one Jonas is possible but since Eva’s loophole was created previously, Martha is surprised to see Jonas Still alive since she left him dead. Otherwise Why Martha is surprised to see Jonas alive on 21 June 1986?
* Jonas tells Martha they are returning someone from the dead and must get to them before they die: Tannhaus' son and family. They succeed in preventing them from dying so Tannhaus does not try to travel through time and create the two worlds. This means that Jonas, Martha and Claudia cease to exist. In Alpha and Omega Jonas told young Charlotte he was bringing someone back from the dead. The same question about bringing back somebody from death before he dies is discussed between young Charlotte and young Peter (just arrived in Winden in 1987) in the episode Life and Death.
* Adam repeats to Jonas at the caves the same sentence that Martha from the alternate world says at the end of Ending and Beginning: "The question is not what age we are in, but what world we are in". It also says the sentence: "What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean" which is the sentence said by the unknown before killing Gustav Tannahus in the Adam and Eve episode and which is the same sentence that Bernd Doppler when first takes Claudia to see nuclear waste in the cave in 1986 in Past and Present. This sentence is Also repeated by Marek to his father Middle age Tannhaus before slamming the door and exiting from the shop. Finally is Also repeated by Jonas to Marek just come out from the car: this is a signal to Marek that Jonas in some way can read the past and in some way could know the future.
* While Martha and Jonas have no versions of themselves in the Origin World and so no longer exist, there are many strong hints of a connection to Sonja and Marek:
	+ The first strong clue is the way Martha stares and Sonja and Jonas stares at Marek on the road, and the way the camera itself stares at the parallel, in a show where nearly every second of film has meaning. You then notice their similar physical appearance/style.
	+ Sonja and Marek's death gave existence to Martha and Jonas, then Martha and Jonas's sacrifice brought them back to life.
	+ Sonja and Marek are the last two people besides each other that Martha and Jonas see before they fade away.
	+ Marek got a strange feeling Martha and Jonas were two angels, in a show where characters having strange feelings are very meaningful.
	+ Marek telling Sonja "I chose you" parallels Jonas telling Martha "We are a perfect match."
	+ "Sonja" as an anagram of "Jonas", "Martha" is in "MARek TannHAus".
	+ These connections might be pure symbolism rather than representing something more literal within the mechanics of this universe, but the fact that *only Martha and Jonas together* could save Marek and Sonja hints at the latter.
	+ Finally the story places great emphasis on trinities, such as the Triquetra, the passage connecting three points in time 33 years apart. We had Adam's world where Jonas and Martha could not be together and Adam ultimately kills Martha, Eva's world where they also could not be together and Martha kills Jonas. Can we view the Origin world as the third, where *in some fashion* Martha and Jonas can be together and happily?
* Tannhaus created his time machine to bring his son back, which he ultimately achieved, albeit indirectly.
* Jonas always showed a willingness to sacrifice himself to make everything right and prevent the apocalypse.
* 1986, 21 June : Both Martha with the scar and Jonas have memories of the sexual intercourse they had but in two different worlds and times and each cannot have memory of the other: Martha of the alternative world with Jonas who traveled to the other world on November 6, 2019 in alternate world in the episode Adam and Eve. Jonas remembers the sexual relationship he had with Martha of the world of her on June 20, 2019 (the day before her father's suicide) in the episode An Endless Cycle
* We have evidence that even in the world of Eva there is the chair for time travel in 1986 in a yellow bunker while in the world of Adam it is blue.
* Claudia also sacrifices herself to allow Regina to live a normal life, as we see in the final scene.
* Now we know who tells old Claudia to tell Egon in 1954 that she's so sorry in the Ghosts episode. She is the youngest Claudia because she is closer in time than her to her death in 1987.
* Jonas and Martha save their mothers: Hannah and Katharina, as Hannah killed by the Stranger/Adam and Katharina killed by her mother. Katharina, Peter, Hannah and Regina were killed in the previous world but are alive in the Origin world. They are at the final scene dinner party, along with other characters that were not part of the two worlds time travel knot, who no longer exist (Katharina but not Ulrich, Peter but not Charlotte, Hannah but not Mikkel/Michael). Ulrich no longer exists, so Hannah does not have an affair with him, Peter's father is not beaten up, Katharina is not cheated on, Regina is not tortured (and does not meet Aleksander). Peter is with his secret lover Bernadette.
* In the alternate world, Helge kills Ulrich in 1986. He was not looking for Mikkel and does not end up in a psychiatric institution. Helge is clearly driven by Martha/Eva in the alternate world.
* There is no power plant in the Origin world, as the Unknowns did not exist to ensure it was built. Hence no time travel.
* Everyone in the 2 alternate worlds cease to exist, and the people specifically dependent on the time knot don't exist in the Origin World.
* Regina's father appears to be Bernd Doppler. There was no power plant so what became of Bernd and how did he and Claudia become intimate? Answer ; whatever you want , maybe he was the responsible of a Coal plant. That's life, which is not determinstic in reality.
* The yellow jacket seems to trigger a deja-vu moment for Hannah similar to the way it did for Michael in An Endless Cycle. She says she wants to call her soon to be born son Jonas. Will he be someone who follows a new path without all the misery that led him to become Adam?

## Cast

* Sebastian Rudolph as Michael Kahnwald
* Louis Hofmann as Jonas Kahnwald
* Dietrich Hollinderbäumer as Adam
* Lisa Kreuzer as old Claudia Tiedemann
* Christian Steyer as old clockmaker
* Lisa Vicari as Martha Nielsen
* Hans Diehl as old unknown
* Jakob Diehl as adult unknown
* Claude Heinrich as young unknown
* Nina Kronjager as female stranger
* Julika Jenkins as adult Claudia Tiedemann
* Christian Pätzold as old Egon Tiedemann
* Oliver Masucci as adult Ulrich Nielsen
* Hermann Beyer as old Helge Doppler
* Peter Schneider as adult Helge Doppler
* Tom Philipp as young Helge Doppler
* Paul Lux as Bartosz Tiedemann
* Wolfram Koch as adult Magnus Nielsen
* Carina Wiese as adult Franziska Doppler
* Arnd Klawitter as adult clockmaker
* Andreas Pietschmann as Stranger
* Deborah Kaufmann as adult Regina Tiedemann
* Anton Rubtsov as Bernadette Wöller
* Leopold Hornung as Torben Wöller
* Maja Schöne as adult Hannah Kahnwald
* Merlin Rose as Marek Tannhaus
* Svenja Jung as Sonja Tannhaus
* Luna Arwen Krüger as child Martha Nielsen
* Jonas Emilian Gerzabek as child Jonas Kahnwald

## Deaths

* Ulrich Nielsen (from Eva's world) - Bludgeoned by Helge Doppler (from Eva's world) - November 8, 1986 (in Eva's world)

## Soundtrack

* **"Partita: III. Courante"** by Roomful of Teeth
* **"What A Wonderful World"** by Soap & Skin
* **"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"** by Dead or Alive
* **"Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann"** by Nena

## Navigation

 Season 3 | "Deja-vu" **·** "The Survivors" **·** "Adam and Eva" **·** "The Origin" **·** "Life and Death" **·** "Light and Shadow" **·** "Between the Time" **·** "**The Paradise**"