Netflix’s Dark
Season 2, Episode 5: “Lost and Found”
Directed by Baran bo Odar
Written by Jantje Friese & Ronny Schalk

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “The Travellers” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “An Endless Cycle” – click here
Again, a memory we’ve already seen. Except it’s the older Jonas (Andreas Pietschmann) in bed with Martha (Lisa Vicari). It’s a memory that’s never happened. Suddenly the God Particle’s orb grows from her stomach. Jonas is awake again. No telling the damage done to him psychologically. He’s travelled across time a lot. He isn’t as scarred as Adam a.k.a his future self. All the same, each timeline affects the other in a cyclical loop, so all that psychological damage is there, in every version of himself.

In 1921, Jonas (Louis Hofmann) is told by Adam that a person “lives three lives.” The first ends with a “loss of naivety.” The second with “loss of innocence.” The third with “loss of life itself.” Everyone must go through these three phases of life. Jonas doesn’t care. He wants to stop everyone he knows from dying. Well, he has 99 years to get the job done. Adam explains to Jonas he knows when wars will end and when they’ll begin. He doesn’t necessarily know what his counterpart will do.In 1987, Claudia (Julika Jenkins) is looking at the article on her father she found from the future. She goes to see Egon (Christian Pätzold), telling him she’d like it if he moved in with them. At the same time, we see the aged Ulrich (Winfried Glatzeder) thinking of escape from the psychiatric ward. An orderly comes to bring food to his room, chatting about Ronald Reagan as “a first–rate guy” and “a visionary.” Thank the lord Ulrich knocks him the fuck out. The patient takes his key and heads for the ward’s locked gate. He goes to the house where Mikkel stays. He’s frozen by the sight of his little boy. The kid feels the old man is familiar to him. They soon embrace as Mikkel recognises his father. Simultaneously, Ines (Anne Ratte-Polle) hears about the escaped patient.

June 25, 2020. Two days before the Apocalypse.
Katharina (Jördis Triebel) tries to tell her kids about what she’s discovered. Martha is angry with her, and Magnus (Moritz Jahn) isn’t particularly sympathetic. The mother goes to Hannah (Maja Schöne) asking about her future son. She hears about the time machine. Despite what she knows it isn’t easy to believe. That’s a great aspect to Dark. There’s a hesitance in people to accept all the crazy sci-fi stuff. Makes the characters feel so real. There’s also Katharina and Hannah’s personal issues getting deeper, more disturbing with the time travel. Across town, Jonas is in the Nielsen home. He goes to Martha’s room and leaves that necklace on her bed.

In 2020, Charlotte (Karoline Eichhorn) explains to Jonas that Tannhaus wasn’t her real grandfather. He says Claudia used Tannhaus, like she used many others. He takes out the time machine to show Charlotte. At the caves, Martha, Magnus, Franziska (Gina Stiebitz), and Elisabeth (Carlotta von Falkenhayn) go back to Bartosz (Paul Lux). They threaten to leave him again if he won’t tell them about the machine. So he tries to explain. Martha wants him to show them. They all gather around and get sucked through the portal.

“Everyone’s trying to hide something”

In ’87, Claudia seeks answers about the incident the summer prior. She isn’t satisfied with the report she was originally given. She gets a full report and sees strange results. They correspond somewhat to calculations from 1964 by Englert, Brout, and Higgs (read more here) involving “the God Particle.”
Problem is, they’ve got to keep this quiet. Yeah, right.

In ’21, Jonas asks Adam if Sic Mundus is a religion. The scarred man says they’ve “declared a war on time” and they’re the opposite of a religious sect— they rage against God, similar to the fallen angels, like Lucifer, who rebelled against their maker (this is the connection the painting, The Fall of the Damned, we see frequently this season). He says God “is time,” not an all-knowing entity. The universe is a cycle of cause and effect, of “light and shadow.” To live is to exist in paradox.

Charlotte comes face to face with Noah. She knows the things he’s done. He tries to tell her it’s all been for the greater good. He’s there for her. He shows her a photograph— he’s holding her as a baby. She refuses to believe he’s her real father. Noah tells her of the coming Apocalypse. He says Adam’s known everything all along and must die so everyone else can live.

The teens come out of the caves. Bartosz tells the others about Noah and his predictions. They don’t yet believe any of what he’s saying and they leave, with no idea they’re in an entirely different decade. Looks like they’re in ’87, soon confirmed when they see posters and different vehicles. Meanwhile, Ulrich and Mikkel are on the run while Ines calls Egon, getting the police on their trail. The old copper knows they’re heading for the caves. The police stop Ulrich and take him into custody. Sad to see him treated like he’s insane, especially as he rolls past his kids after they show up in the ’80s. Heartbreaking!
Prediction: Egon’s ultimate inexplicable death is because old Ulrich will kill him.

“Some moments change us forever.
Some pain you never forget.”

Does Adam really have a way to change things?
Or, is he manipulating his younger self, like he’s done to Noah?

Soundtrack note: “May the Angels” by Alev Lenz plays during the last montage

Back in 1921, Jonas is taken to a room where he sees a “twin” of the God Particle from 2053, “part of the infinite.” It’s also known as dark matter and the “Higgs field” (a.k.a the Higgs boson). The one in the future is due to the apocalyptic disaster coming. This one was created by Sic Mundus. Adam says it’s a way to bring the 33-year cycle to a finite end. They must stop the beginning to stop the end. But where does it begin? And what will they have to sacrifice to stop it? Jonas believes it ties to when his father kills himself in 2019. So, he has to prevent Michael from suicide to save everyone / everything.
Jonas must enter the God Particle once more, to cross the layers of time again.

Not a coincide Dark‘s Season 2 premiered June 21, 2019—
the exact day Michael commits suicide.
Maybe Father Gore’s favourite episode of Dark to date. Many intense things going on, but the main plot concerning Jonas is headed into spectacular directions. One of the GREATEST SHOWS EVER. No doubt.

“An Endless Cycle” is next.