Here's a Breakdown of the Families on 'Dark'

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 2 of Dark.

If it's at all possible, fans of Netflix's German series Dark are even more confused after the end of Season 2 than they were at the end of Season 1. And because of all the time travel, it's hard to keep the characters straight.  

Especially because the twists are so convoluted! For example, Elisabeth is both Charlotte's mother and daughter, Adam is actually Jonas, and the timelines, which range from 1921 to 2053 are hard to keep straight.

So without further ado, here's what you need to know about the family tree in Netflix's Dark.

At the forefront of the fictional German town of Winden, where the show takes place, are four families — the Tiedemanns, the Dopplers, the Kahnwalds, and the Nielsens — who at the beginning of the series — are searching for two of their missing children.

Throughout their journey, we realize that the families have a lot in common and are interconnected in myriad ways. Not just through the usual friendship and affairs, but also through incest, a cult, and of course, time travel.

In present day, the Tiedemanns are Regina, Aleksander, and Bartosz. We don't know who anyone other than Regina's parents are, and even then, we don't know who her dad is. But her mom is Claudia, Adam's main antagonist, who's killed by Noah/Hanno in 1954.

Aleksander is married to Regina, and they are the parents to Bartosz. But Aleksander is actually Boris Niewald, except he stole Aleksander Kohler's identity after he was involved in Marburg's double murder. In 2020, he's arrested for identity theft.

Claudia's father and Bartosz's only grandfather is Egon Tiedemann, the police officer investigating the disappearance of Helge Doppler in the 1953 timeline. He basically thinks Ulrich is guilty of every crime in Winden, and is accidentally killed by his own daughter, Claudia.

The 2019 Kahnwald family consists of Michael (FKA Mikkel Nielsen), Hannah, Jonas, and Michael's adoptive mother, Ines. Hannah and Michael are the parents of Jonas. Michael is a bit of a confusing character because he's also Mikkel, the youngest son of Ulrich and Katharina Nielsen.  

He goes on a trip to the caves with Jonas Kahnwald and Bartosz Tiedemann, and travels from 2019 to 1986 with the guidance of a future-Jonas. There, he's adopted by Ines, who calls him Michael — which is when he meets Hannah. The two get married and give birth to Jonas, but Michael kills himself in 2019 because future-Jonas tells him that's what's going to happen and shows him the suicide note.

Meanwhile, adoptive mom Ines, was a nurse at Winden's hospital and developed a liking for Mikkel while caring for him. She also drugged him repeatedly and knew that he was coming from the future. Ines is also the grandmother of Jonas and the mother-in-law of Hannah.

Mikkel (who will later become Michael Kahnwald) is Ulrich and Katharina's youngest son. His siblings are Martha and Magnus, who take him to Winden's cave where he is able to travel in time to 1986 with the help of their friend, Jonas. In 1986, he lands in the hospital and is adopted by Ines.

While being treated by her, he meets Hannah, who he falls in love with and eventually weds. Together, they have Jonas, who ends up being the friend of Martha and Magnus who had facilitated his time travel back in present day.

Ulrich is the son of Jana and Tronte, and brother of Mads, who goes missing. Tronte is still married to Jana but had an affair with Claudia. We learn he arrived to Winden in 1953 with his mom Agnes, the daughter of Erna and sister of Noah, though we don't know much about his father. Agnes eventually kills her brother Noah to prove her support for her great-great-grandson Adam, aka Jonas, the friend who facilitated Michael's time travel in the cave.

Last but not least come the Dopplers, who consist of Elisabeth, Franziska, Charlotte, Peter, Helge, and Noah. Elizabeth is the youngest daughter of Charlotte and Peter, and has a hearing impairment. She was dating Yasin, who went missing and was killed in 2019.

One day, Elisabeth meets Noah, who is both her mom's father — Elisabeth's grandfather — and her own future husband. She has one of the wildest plot lines because she is Charlotte's mother and her daughter. 

Meanwhile, Franziska is Elisabeth's sister, who dates Magnus Nielsen and is also probably the woman he was with in 1921.

Noah, we learn, is the mysterious priest who manipulated Helge, Peter's father, and Elisabeth and Franziska's grandpa into kidnapping the kids back in 1986. In present day, he travels back in time to try to stop himself from doing that back in 1986, then kills himself, though his younger self survives.

Noah, meanwhile, is the father and son in law of Charlotte, who's killed by his sister Agnes when Adam finds out the truth about his daughter.

We hope this helped! Stream Seasons 1 and 2 of Dark on Netflix.