‘Dark’s Best Storyline Was Katharina’s

If there’s a time traveling character in Dark, you better believe they have a good story. From being manipulated by their former selves to landing in jail in the past for trying to murder a child, there’s always a lot happening in this German sci-fi thriller. Yet few characters, past or future, have a more interesting arc than Katharina Nielsen.

Though Katharina was first introduced in Dark as a victim, at her youngest she was the bully. The teenaged Katharina (Nele Trebs) was a major character throughout Dark‘s 1986 timeline, and for lack of a better word she was a pill. She was cruel and cutting to Hannah long before the other woman accused her boyfriend of rape, a charge which landed him to jail. Later, when Ulrich (Ludger Bökelmann) was released from jail on her testimony, the pair targeted the woman they thought was responsible for this lie, Regina Tiedemann. And who was leading the charge on this hapless loner? Katharina.

As a teenager Katharina was every high school’s typical mean girl queen bee. She was pretty, biting, and smug with a smoking boyfriend. But her cruelty was always more that just typical teenage hormones. As Dark later revealed Katharina’s own mother, Helene Albers (Katharina Spiering), was emotionally and verbally abusive to her daughter, presumably as a reaction to the abortion she had to get at such a young age. In short, Katharina came by her mean streak honestly.

In many ways Katharina’s younger self was a victim just as her older self became one, too. No matter what timeline you’re talking about, Katharina (Jördis Triebel) was introduced in Dark as someone in pain. She was the harried mother of the ever-difficult Magnus, Martha, and Mikkel. Katharina was the one responsible for the bulk of their parenting and she was doing that while her husband was having an affair with Hannah. In the first alternative timeline, Ulrich (Oliver Masucci) was sleeping with Hannah Kahnwald at the time of his son’s disappearance. In the second he took things a step further, actually divorcing Katharina for Hannah Krüger and later cheating on Hannah with Charlotte Doppler.

That’s who Katharina was, a tired woman with a cheating husband and a missing son. While Ulrich leaned into his pain and made his quest for truth about his missing family his sole goal in life, Katharina was left with the rest. She alone was forced to deal with the pain of a missing son and later a missing husband while also caring for her two other children.

As a teenager Katharina had to practically raise herself. As an adult the one person she thought was in her corner left her, once again leaving her alone. If Katharina were to throw up both middle fingers and write off the disappearance of her unfaithful husband as a net win, she would have been completely justified. And yet Katharina walked the higher road.

At the end of Dark Season 2 Katharina, Charlotte, and a handful of others were taken by Jonas to hide in a bunker to avoid the apocalypse. Katharina and these others weren’t given the intense explanations about the knot and time travel like Jonas and later Martha were given. No one held their hands. But Katharina took the little bit she did know about alternative timelines and tried to use it for good.

Katharina’s quest to find Mikkel didn’t lead to violence or attempting to murder a child, the route Ulrich took. It led to her attempting to free an older Ulrich (Winfried Glatzeder) from jail. Even in that Katharina approached her task with caution and near kindness. Several times Katharina tried to reason with Ulrich’s jailer, her own mother in the past Helene, to help her release this old man. And where did that confrontation leave her? With Katharina being murdered by her own abusive mother. That’s Shakespearean right there.

Like everyone in Dark Katharine was not perfect. She was a hard woman who channeled her own pain to her friends in high school. But she was also someone who broke the cycle of abuse in her own life. She was a loving and supportive mother, and when the man who betrayed her needed a savior she tried to be there. In the end Katharina wanted to be the hero. She was just never allowed the opportunity. That’s as sad as everything else in her life.

Watch Dark on Netflix