Dark Season 3 Review: Has Dark's Final Season Proved To Be The Best Series Finale In Sci-fi History?

'What we know is a drop. What we don't know is an ocean.' This is one line from the series that fits perfectly for Dark season 3.

As someone who stepped on to the Dark universe only after the release of the first two seasons, I was totally mind blown while experiencing such out of the world narrative. It didn’t take long for me to get hooked to the show. Also, the cliffhanger of the second season compelled me to gather possible theories while waiting for the show’s final season.

Now, the latest season of the Netflix sci-fi thriller original series Dark from Germany is finally available for streaming. Co-created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, Dark is the story of the four families in the fictitious Town of Winden who become intertwined, often unconsciously, in a time-traveling battle between seemingly good and evil forces. The time-travel in the series also reveals it’s paradoxes like Predestination Paradox and Bootstrap Paradox. The show has accumulated a lot of good word-of-mouth for its depiction of time-travel, multiverse theories, and ahead of time narrative.

In the article, you’d find a spoiler-free in-depth review of the award-winning Netflix series Dark.

Season 3 Starts With The Introduction Of New Parallel Universe

If you have already completed Dark up to its second season, then you’d surely remember season two’s closing scene. The unexpected arrival of ‘different looking yet familiar Martha’ opened up the conversation for the existence of an alternate universe.

Hence, the third and final season of the series Dark resumes from where it had ended previously. The new Martha (played by Lisa Vicari) indeed happens to come from an alternate universe to save young Jonas (played by Louis Hofmann) from the apocalypse of his world. She, then, takes Jonas to her strange new world where ‘some things are quite familiar and others are disturbingly not.’

Young Jonas after reaching in the alternate world (Photo: Netflix India's Twitter)

To come to a point, in the alternate world, Winden exists like the other world too. But strangely the character’s traits are different. For instance, the town therapist, Peter Doppler, is a priest in the alternate world. Likewise, deaf Elisabeth isn’t deaf anymore, instead, her sister Franziska is deaf. Ulrich Nielsen still has an affair but in the alternate world, he has a fling for the fellow inspector Charlotte Doppler. Most interestingly, he cheats on his pregnant wife Hannah - yes, it’s Hannah and she is Ulrich’s wife in the alt world.

The theories of Jonas’ non-existence in the alternate world, before the release of the final season, have proven to be true as well. Hence, nobody recognizes Jonas in the alternate world when he approaches to interact with familiar-looking people.

Eva Controls The Parallel Universe

Another burning fan theory, before the final season, was about the existence of Eva. The theory became, even more, stronger because of the existence of Adam and the show’s constant resemblance to biblical overtones.

Living up to the expectations of fans, the season three revealed Eva, without a due, in its first episode itself. And there is no doubt in guessing that Eva (played by Barbara Nüsse) is the oldest aged version of Martha, just like Adam who is the oldest aged version of Jonas.

Eva (Barbara Nüsse) and young Jonas (Louis Hofmann) in Dark season 3 (Photo: Twitter)

In the alternate world, Eva controls everything, similar to Adam (played by Dietrich Hollinderbäumer) who controls the first world (in which Jonas exists). However, Eva has other sorts of plans for the two worlds, unlike Adam, who desires to destroy the origin of the time-travel knots for a new bright beginning. But Eva believes that the end of the origin is not legit. Hence, she constantly overrules Adam’s plan to end the origin and that somehow manages to keep the cycle repeat itself.

Gripping Contest Between Between Light & Dark

To succeed in their respective plans, Adam (referred to as Dark) and Eva (referred to as Light) battles against each other while living in two different worlds. They use various other characters, including their own younger age versions, to make their plans work.

In that context, the biggest role is being played by the unnamed ‘trio’ characters. The trio takes orders from Eva - thus, they secretively travel from one world to another to reverse Adam’s plan. They also help Eva in initiating the time-travel for the first time in both worlds by dysfunctioning the nuclear substance of the Winden’s nuclear powerplant.

The unnamed trio from the Dark season 3 (Photo: Twitter)

Well, to keep this article spoiler-free, we won’t be giving out the names of the birth-givers of the trio. But their prominence in the series is more than of anyone. That is because the trio is the actual writer of the leather notebook (an ideal guidebook for time travelers that chronicles everything about time travel and the strange events that befall Winden).

Final Verdict: Emotional, Surprising And Satisfying

With each episode guiding towards another constructive battle between Light and Dark (or Eva and Adam), it constantly makes us strongly connected to both sides. Yet, we could not decide whom to stick with and who are the bad ones.

The performances of the cast, especially of the different aged characters of Jonas and Eva, soundtrack, cinematography, and well-written narrative helps the showrunners to hook the audiences on to their screens.

The show throws its triumph card only at the end episodes of the season when the audiences are bound emotionally. The trump card is nothing but the disclosure of ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ or the origin of everything, so to say, that bamboozles everyone.

The biggest truth is, thus, revealed by the oldest version Claudia Tiedemann (played by Lisa Kreuzer) to Adam. She explains how everything is connected and the origin of everything is beyond the two parallel universes. Plus, the unfolding of reality gives out the way to destroy the knot, once and for all, to make peace.

The final twist in the tale stuns the audiences but it does not let fans down. The surprising event, in the end, manifests that the paradise lies when we understand our loss, pain, suffering, and betrayal is a part of our life that cannot be changed. The ‘Dark’ is a place when someone tries to correct their mistakes by punishing others.

The completion of Dark also gists the odds like human destiny, life and death, and attachment with beloved ones - and how these odds can lead up a man to create Darkness beyond one universe.

Final Verdict: Seconds before the final end credits show-up, you’d have a smile and satisfaction of watching the best series finale in sci-fi history. All episodes are available on Netflix globally in various languages including English and German.