Dark Season 3, Episode 3 recap: Is Martha the season’s villain?

More tumultuous drama awaits in Dark Season 3, Episode 3.

While Jonas and old Martha discuss saving their worlds, and alt-Martha is in 1888, we’re back on Earth-2 in Dark Season 3, Episode 3. The rest of the Winden folk are unaware of their impending doom and deal with their own personal drama.

Ulrich is faced with the dead body of a boy who has the personal belongings of his long-lost brother Mads. In this episode, it seems that he isn’t convinced that the body found in the bunker actually is his brother’s but Ulrich decides to be a better man and police officer than he has been.

He breaks off his affair with Charlotte, which comes a little too late. Hannah has caught on that the ‘other woman’ is Charlotte and now she’s out for blood. Just like on Earth-Prime, young Hannah had squirreled away personal belongings that revealed Aleksander Tiedemann’s real origins. She uses these to coax Aleksander to ‘destroy’ Charlotte. That woman is not to be messed with!

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The Dopplers are always in the midst of drama. Charlotte finds Helge Doppler’s pendant in the bunker, but old Helge still possesses this pendant, so how it did it get there? Charlotte also finds Peter in close contact with a young ‘parishioner’. We still don’t know what Peter’s sexual orientation is – he could be pansexual or bisexual, but suffice to say, he seems to be interested in people other than his own wife.

To top it all of, old Helge confesses to the murder of a boy, but he never reveals which boy – Erik or Mads.

Dark Season 3: There’s Something About Martha

Old Martha had informed Jonas that her world would be ending in three days. In Dark Season 3, Episode 3, Martha asks Jonas to choose the ‘light’ in order to save both their worlds. Jonas and Martha are connected, which is why he’ll always choose to save his Martha, and to do this Jonas needs to turn Earth-2 Martha into a traveler like himself.

Jonas finds Earth-2 Martha and is able to convince her to go to the future with him. The Earth-2 future looks different from Earth-Prime. Winden is a desert wasteland and young Martha meets her middle-aged version (Nina Kronjäger).

Meanwhile, in 1888, Martha’s revelation that Jonas is Adam causes a fracture among the survivors. They’re so busy fighting that they don’t find out about their benefactor being killed by the murdering trio. Martha convinces the Stranger to trust her by giving him her ‘last’ dark matter ball. The Stranger briefly gets his time machine to work but they don’t have enough electricity to keep it running.

Of course, Martha lied. She has spare dark matter and gets out of 1888 before the others can confront her. Does this iota of dark matter keep the Stranger hooked to his experiments? Does the constant failure then turn him into Adam? I cannot wait to find out.

Martha travels to Earth-Prime’s 2053 to report to her boss – Adam (Dietrich Hollinderbäumer). Looks like he set this plan in motion, but to what end? Maybe destroying one world isn’t enough for him, and he wants to destroy two.

So, if alt-Martha is working with Adam, what about old Martha? She is Eve and is also duping young Jonas into believing his action will save his Martha. Eve doesn’t want Earth-Prime Martha to be saved – her death will ensure all other Marthas remain alive. For this, she has deceived Jonas and sent the trio to kill and retrieve the master keys and documents she needs for her experiments with the nuclear power plant.

I quite like the idea that Jonas and Martha are two sides of the same coin, and it’s a bold move to suggest that the show’s protagonists will both be revealed as the series villains in Dark Season 3. I think placing so much importance on Martha is an afterthought by the creators, though. But so far, it’s working to create an even more compelling story.

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Do you think Martha real is the villain in Dark Season 3? Let us know in the comments.