Charlotte Doppler is chief of the Winden Police in 2019. She is married to Peter Doppler with whom she has two daughters, Franziska and Elisabeth.
History
2041
Charlotte was born to Noah and Elisabeth in the woods surrounding post-apocalyptic Winden. Shortly after her birth, she is kidnapped by an older version of herself, and an older version of Elisabeth.[1]
1971
The older Charlotte and Elisabeth bring the infant Charlotte to the clockmaker H.G. Tannhaus in 1971. The same night, Tannhaus loses his son Marek, daughter-in-law Sonja, and granddaughter Charlotte in a car accident. He decides to take the baby in and raise her as his granddaughter.[2]
1986
As a student at Winden's high school, Charlotte takes an interest in the growing numbers of dead birds she came across, with white spots on their feathers. She documents them in a sketchbook and takes specimens home to put in the freezer. The recurrence of this phenomenon in 2019 — also coinciding with missing children — troubles her greatly.
Young Charlotte drawing dead birds.
On November 12th, while Charlotte is drawing a dead bird in her sketchbook on the edge of the forest, Jonas Kahnwald (from 2019) comes out of the cave and asks her what year it is. She answers 1986 and the boy goes away.
2019
Charlotte has a very serious, all-business personality. She shows this when she is questioning her Elisabeth about her missing friend Yasin, and again when she questions Peter many times about his whereabouts and Helge's cabin. She does not have a good relationship with her husband or her older daughter Franziska. Her marriage to Peter is in trouble — he has been visiting a transgender[3] prostitute, Benni — but they remain married without addressing their estrangement, to the frustration of Franziska.
Charlotte is not known to time travel, but her grandfather was H. G. Tannhaus, the author of "Eine Reise durch die Zeit" ("A Journey through Time"), and she remembers him telling her about the 33-year solar-lunar cycle, black holes, the big bang, and other such things. Towards the end of season 1, she begins to understand that people are time traveling. She finds Ulrich's picture in a newspaper from 1953 in an article describing the missing boy Helge Doppler.
2020
At the police station, Charlotte examines the photo with Noah that Elisabeth had found. She does a web search on "Sic Mundus Creatus Est" and finds it translated as "Thus the world was created."
She asks Clausen why they are starting their interviews with Regina. Clausen suspects a connection between the power plant, the caves, and the fact that Aleksander took his wife's name when they married. While investigating, Charlotte looks through papers and recognizes some from her grandfather's book. She relays this to Peter. She asks him why her grandfather never told her who her parents were.
June 24
Charlotte calls in sick to the police station, but she is really in H.G. Tannhaus' clockmaker's shop, where she finds blueprints for the time machine. She receives a call from Hannah. She is asked by Hannah to go to her house because an older Jonas is at. Charlotte realizes he is the man who Regina mentioned stayed at her hotel. She shows him the photo she found of Noah from 1921, whose identity he confirms, from Sic Mundus- the Travelers. Hannah is shocked that Charlotte seems to know about this.
They go to the bunker and meet with Peter. He tells them that Claudia knew what would happen and told he and Tronte what to do. Hannah cannot believe they knew about Michael, Mikkel and Ulrich. He shows her the notebook which has all the information about the missing children but the last few pages were ripped out. She asks whether Katharina knows about this. Charlotte agrees to tell her.
Charlotte informs Katharina that Ulrich and Mikkel are still alive, but that they are not "here." Katharina is confused. She takes her to the bunker, but she becomes angered when she sees Hannah there. She scoffs when she sees (older) Jonas, who tells her he is Hannah's son and her grandson. She finds it impossible to believe that Ulrich and Mikkel have traveled back in time. Hannah tries to assure Katharina she travelled back and saw Mikkel. She tells them they have all lost their minds and leaves.
Jonas tells Peter, Charlotte and Hannah that everything is going to happen the way it always does. Adam, the leader of Sic Mundus, wants the last cycle to begin in three days, but Jonas has come to stop it. Claudia tried to do it, but in the end, became what she was fighting against.
June 25
Older Jonas visits Charlotte, who asks him who Noah is. Jonas says he is a traveler and Adam's puppet—who killed Mads, Erik, and Yasin. Charlotte asks him if he knows who her parents are. He says he does not, but that he knew H.G. Tannhaus, her grandfather, though Charlotte admits that Tannhaus was not her real grandfather, even though he raised her. She asks if he was also a traveller, but Jonas says he was just a pawn, like everyone else. Claudia used him, just like she had used Jonas, Peter, and the others, to have him build the time machine, which he opens. Charlotte tells him he knows what will happen in the future, which he affirms.
Charlotte returns to the clockmaker's shop and finds a picture of her as a child with Tannhaus, as well as the blueprints to the time machine. The door opens. Noah enters and introduces himself. Charlotte says she knows who he is and that he has killed the children. He tells her he hopes she will one day understand that he is only acting to try to put a stop to everything once and for all, so she won't be taken from him again like her mother was. He shows a photo of him with her as a baby, saying she had been premature but had a strong will to live. He tells her that her mother had taken the picture, and he had promised to bring Charlotte back. He had been searching for her, but she had been there the whole time—and Adam had known. He says the apocalypse is going to happen in two days, and he knows that he must end Adam so that everyone can live, not just those in the bunker. Charlotte asks him who her mother was. Noah says she loved her very much, and still loves her, then leaves, causing Charlotte to burst into tears.
June 27
Charlotte returns to the police station and Torben, surprised to see her, warns her that Clausen has arrested Aleksander and obtained a search warrant for the power plant. Torben admits that he helped Aleksander hide a secret stash of radioactive waste on the grounds of the plant. Charlotte realizes that the waste is what triggers the apocalypse, as Jonas had told her.
Clausen arrives at the plant. He is told he cannot go further due to the radiation, but Clausen insists. The yellow drums of waste are dug up, as Charlotte and Torben arrive. Charlotte tells Clausen to stop, that opening the drums is a mistake. She says this is not about the missing people, but about the past, the future, and all their interconnections. Clausen brushes her aside and orders the drum to be opened. In it are rocks covered in an oily black substance which coalesces into a throbbing mass from which a god particle forms.
Meanwhile, in 2053, Elisabeth activates the generators in the God particle lab, and a wormhole opens up in the power plant, showing Elisabeth on the other side. Elisabeth and Charlotte walk towards each other from their respective times, Elisabeth signing Mom. As they greet each other, a massive time portal opens above the entire plant. As Elisabeth and Charlotte touch each other, the sky goes dark. At this moment she get to the future.
2053
September 22
Charlotte looks at a picture of her mother, Noah, and herself as a baby. Grownup Elisabeth walks up and sits next to her, but Charlotte gets up. Elisabeth tries to comfort her, telling her everything would be okay, so Charlotte grabs her and presses her face against her daughter's.
Charlotte joins forces with Adam. He sends her on an important mission to the past with Elisabeth. Together, they kidnap Charlotte as a baby and bring her to H.G. Tannhaus in 1971.
Charlotte is erased from existence after the cycle is broken by Jonas and the alternate Martha.
2019 (alternate version)
November 4
An elderly Helge Doppler with his left eye destroyed mutters "it will happen again" repeatedly, while holding a coin, as Peter looks at him. Charlotte walks in, and Peter tells her he had not said anything all morning. He asks Charlotte how the doctor's appointment had been, and she says it was the usual, and leaves. Helge starts saying "Ticktock" instead of his other phrase, visibly agitated.
Ulrich mentions to the rest of the police station that Erik Obendorf had been missing for nearly two weeks. Torben is present in the meeting, with both eyes intact, but missing his left arm. When Ulrich asks for ideas, Charlotte mentions they had not received the shift schedules from the power plant yet. Ulrich nods and asks her to check with Tiedemann.
Charlotte talks to Aleksander, and tries to get him to give her the schedules his employees had the night of Erik's disappearance. Aleksander asks for a court order, but Charlotte does not have any. However, Aleksander tells her he would have the schedules sent to her. Charlotte asks how he had been, and Aleksander coldly states he was alright. She gets up to start leaving, but she turns around to ask him if he thought it was possible for Erik to have made his way onto the grounds. Aleksander mentions that this was impossible because the access points had been sealed.
Charlotte returns to the police station, where she is called by Ulrich. In there, Ulrich begins kissing her, and she says they need to stop. Torben walks in and gives them information which Ulrich finds irrelevant, but Charlotte tells him they can work with it. Ulrich later tells Charlotte he is going to the parents meeting and offers her a ride, which she accepts.
November 5
Ulrich had to inform all of his colleagues that his brother's body had been found.
At the police station, Ulrich lets everybody know that Bartosz, Magnus, Kilian, Martha, and Franziska had found a body at the Doppler's bunker. Crying, he mentions that the clothes are from the 80's and that they found a card that identified the body as his brother Mads Nielsen. Charlotte pulls Ulrich away, and tells him he does not have to be there at such a difficult time for him, as Wöller could do briefings and she could do forensics. Ulrich reminds her that he spent 33 years looking for his brother, and mentions the body had all of Mads' things, which were kept until the moment the body was "placed" in the bunker. Charlotte asks him if he believes the killer was connected to Mads, Erik, and the boy in the bunker. Ulrich does not give a direct answer, and reminds her that he became a police officer because when his brother went missing, the detective was a moron and did every mistake the could have possibly made. However, Ulrich is now looking at himself and believes he is becoming worse, as he cheated on his wife, and cheated on Hannah as well. After he comes to this realization, he leaves.
Later that day, Hannah brings sweets and asks Charlotte and Torben if Ulrich was there, as she had been wanting to contact him all morning. Charlotte is confused and told Hannah that she thought Ulrich had gone home. Hannah tells Charlotte she looks very different and asks if she got a haircut, but Charlotte says that she had not. Hannah grows suspicious of Charlotte and hugs her, while smelling her hair, which makes Charlotte uncomfortable.
Charlotte approaches the bunker as she leaves Ulrich a message saying that she hopes he is alright and asks him to call her back. She enters the bunker and shines a flashlight around until she finds a necklace which has a coin just like the one Helge had. Charlotte drives to the church, where Peter, who is a priest is at with another man. The young man thanks him, and leaves. Peter tells Charlotte that he had been trying to reach her, but she tells him she was in the bunker, and asked him why he was not home with Franziska to which he is not able to reply. Charlotte asks him where Helge was last night because Peter had said that they had had dinner together, and asks where he was after that. Peter asks why she is asking this, but Charlotte proceeds to ask if when Peter got to Winden in 1987 Helge still lived in the cabin. Peter did not understand the questions, but responded negatively, and added that after the accident, Helge moved to the nursing home. She asked about 1986, and wondered if he ever used the bunker. Peter stops her, and asks her what she wants from him, so Charlotte shows him the necklace and tells him she found it in the bunker. Peter tells her that she could not be right, as Helge was with them all night. Charlotte looks suspicious as Peter gets a call telling him that Helge was at the police station confessing.
When Charlotte and Peter get to the police station, Peter asks Helge why he was confessing because it made no sense to him. He remembers Helge never left the house, but Helge reiterates that he killed the child. Peter begs him to stop, but Charlotte points out that all the things they found on the child were from 1986 on Mads Nielsen.
Notes and references
- ↑ Dark Season 3 Episode 7: "Between the Time"
- ↑ Dark Season 1 Episode 4: "Double Lives"
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5753856/characters/nm5120306?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t46