“1899” was undoubtedly one of the most anticipated series of 2022. Now season 1 on Netflix is already over – and has left us with many questions, which we want to untangle a bit. Caution, spoilers!
Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese have done it again: Two years after the end of their worldwide mystery hit “Dark”, the German duo delivers us the next Netflix series with mindfuck guarantee with “1899”. The eight episodes of the first season have so many unexpected hooks that in the finale nothing is the same as it seemed at the beginning.
The absolutely open ending presents us with a real bang revelation, but at the same time raises umpteen new questions that make us incredibly hungry for a second season and about which we want to rack our brains for once. But before that we have to review what the hell is going on in “1899” in the first place.
IT’S ALL JUST A SIMULATION
Those who thought they would get mystery entertainment in a purely historical setting with “1899” did not reckon with the genre-mix-savvy Odar and Friese. In the course of the first season it becomes increasingly clear that we are not at all dealing with the simple crossing of numerous emigrants from Europe to America at the end of the 19th century. As in the supposed suburban thriller “Dark”, a good portion of sci-fi finds its way into the story, which pushes itself further and further into the foreground, only to unfold its full surprising dimensions in the last scene.
As it turns out, the alleged ship journey is actually a sophisticated simulation that runs in a continuous loop without the “passengers” being able to remember it. It is structured somewhat like a human brain, in which various memories are stored in different places and traumas are buried deep. Access to these is gained through the mysterious shafts in each individual’s ship’s cabin – although it also looks as if the memories of the different people are interconnected and as if one can enter the other from one.
The fact that this simulation has been restarted dozens of times (apparently after eight days each time) is also clear from the so-called archive, a place to which the ocean liners are shipped after the failure of a simulation and which resembles an endless ship graveyard within the programme, where the remaining people on board who haven’t already passed away anyway usually die as well.
Although the simulation obviously cannot be stopped completely, it can – like other computer programmes – be manipulated to a certain extent, for example by bugs (which are actually visualised as small beetles that can open locked doors, for example), a virus (which spreads as a black structure and deletes things) or by hacks, which can also be used to rewrite the function of objects within the programme (more on this later). This is all achieved with special devices and the input of various codes, with which, among other things, people can be transported from one place to another within the simulation or even “killed” (their real counterparts, however, do not seem to die as a result).
WHAT IS THE REASON FOR THE SIMULATION?
Even after the first season of “1899”, the real reason for the said simulation has not been finally clarified. For a long time it looks like the mysterious Henry (Anton Lesser), father of doctor/scientist Maura (Emily Beecham), is the main culprit of the whole thing and uses it as an experiment to test the functioning of the human brain, the handling of memories and the perception of reality.
Over several screens, he observes again and again how the people on board the ships fail and die several times because they “make their decisions based on their emotions” and thus never reach their destination. And indeed, in a way, Henry also ensures that the simulation runs its course and Maura’s memory is erased again and again so that she also forgets her escape ambitions and remains part of the programme forever.
Henry (Anton Lesser) is also a
However, we eventually learn that Maura herself is probably the creator of the simulation. According to Henry, she designed the advanced programme with her husband Daniel (Aneurin Barnard) to keep their dying son Elliot (Fflyn Edwards), or rather his consciousness, alive. Henry, meanwhile, is as trapped as the rest and tries to escape by waking up with the help of a strange pyramid artefact and a key in Elliot and Maura’s possession.
That the story about Elliot was indeed once the origin of the creation of the simulation may be true. However, we strongly doubt that it is still the reason for its continuous operation – not least because at the very end it is hinted that the matter is even much bigger than first thought…
THE REAL PROMETHEUS
Maura’s husband Daniel, who, like Henry and Elliot, seems to know more inside the simulation than anyone else, has been desperately trying to wake his wife up for some time. The fact that he doesn’t just immediately reveal the complete truth about what happened to her for this purpose is probably related to the fact that she is supposed to remember it herself bit by bit so as not to completely overload her brain and actually accept the situation. In the end, he finally succeeds in freeing Maura by using a hack to ensure that she does not lose her memories this time and has the necessary objects to wake up (and the objects in Henry’s possession previously thought to do so no longer work). And this is where the “1899” makers come up with the next mega-twist.
Unless it is another illusion, Maura is actually on a spaceship that flies through space and – like one of the ships in the simulation – also bears the name Prometheus:
It is named after the Titan of the same name in Greek mythology, who not only created mankind but also stole fire from the gods for them – which was bitterly punished by Zeus, the father of the gods, by tying Prometheus to a rock and having a bird peck out his liver, which kept growing back. The saga of Prometheus is also usually interpreted as a cautionary parable for all too rapid progress and misuse of science and inventions, which might explain the use of the name in “1899” (for the same reason, the titular spaceship from the “Alien” prequel “Prometheus” was also called that).
In a cold room on the real Prometheus, Maura then also sees the other passengers from the simulation, who (like her just now) are connected to the programme via a special device and are apparently also connected to each other. However, there seems to be no trace of Daniel and Elliot. Daniel’s touching words of farewell in the simulation (“I will always be with you”) also lead to the suspicion that both Daniel and Elliot are already dead in the real world and that they only exist in the form of an image of their consciousness within the simulation.
WHEN IS “1899” REALLY PLAYING?
On a screen, Maura and we as viewers then learn that the plot of “1899” is not actually set in the year that gives it its title, but exactly 200 years later, in 2099 (!). We also read that the spaceship is apparently on a “survival mission”. There are no more details yet, but it may be about the survival and future of humanity itself. So the simulation seems (by now?) to serve much more than “just” keeping Maura and Daniel’s son alive, or perhaps Elliot is also to be seen as a symbol for humanity that needs to be saved.
The presence of “Captain” Eyk (Andreas Pietschmann) and all the others, who at first don’t seem to have anything to do with Maura and her son, could also explain that there is much more at stake here. Possibly the 2,000 or so people from different parts of the world (perhaps even the last remnants of humanity) have joined forces for a space mission to change a potentially grim fate for humanity for the better or to search for a new planet for their survival.
The fact that the number of passengers aboard the spaceship exactly matches the number of passengers aboard the ships in the simulation also suggests that one of them is connected to the programme. The full view of the spaceship also makes it clear that it is much larger and that there are probably many more rooms like the one Maura just woke up in.
