WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Season 2 of Netflix's Dark.

Dark's second season picks up a year after its first, where young Jonas (Louis Hofmann) is going through several periods in time -- 2052, then 1921 and 1987 -- in order to stop the inevitable nuclear meltdown on June 27, 2020. However, one of the series' most obscure figures, Winden police chief, Charlotte Doppler (Karoline Eichhorn), finally gets her time in the limelight after initially being shaped as a supporting figure.

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In the final few episodes, we discover she's just as important as Jonas when it comes to the events that lead to this nuclear holocaust and the post-apocalyptic future which ensues. As the truth is revealed about her lineage -- something Season 1 deliberately kept hidden -- Dark produces not only the newest addition to Winden's secretive web of families, but also, the most mind-blowing paradox in the franchise to date.

All we knew about Charlotte so far was that she was the adopted granddaughter of H.G. Tannhaus, the clockmaker and scientist. Nothing else was divulged about her history, other than she had a rocky marriage with the closeted gay character, Peter (Stephan Kampwirth) and mothered two daughters, Franziska (Gina Stiebitz) and a deaf youngster, Elisabeth (Carlotta von Falkenhayn).

However, when Charlotte investigates the nuclear plant and her missing colleague, Ulrich (Jonas' grandfather who got dumped in 1953 after a wrong turn in the show's temporal cave), she starts knocking over big dominoes. One of them turns out to be Elisabeth actually meeting the priest, Noah (Mark Waschke). It gets even worse when Charlotte and the girl discover a picture Tannhaus has in his store in 2020, which shows Noah looking the same way with a mysterious group in the '50s.

Eventually, with this knowledge of time-travel -- something Charlotte gains through Peter (after Claudia, aka the White Devil, educated him), as well as the Stranger and his mom, Hannah (Maja Schöne) -- she digs deeper and gets closer to her parents' identities.

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Shockingly, Noah meets her a few days before the apocalypse in Tannhaus' shop, and reveals he's Charlotte's father. His entire role in this, working under a shady group called the Travelers, was to prevent her death in the 2050's. Charlotte's stunned and doesn't believe him until he presents her a picture with him and her as a baby. She asks about her mom, who's cropped from the image, but he admits he can't tell her and departs, begging her to understand he's been killing kids and acting as a villain to save her from death.

It comes to a head in the season finale, "Endings and Beginnings," when we witness an adult Elisabeth (Sandra Borgmann) in 2053 abandoning her leadership role with the survivors of the apocalypse. In the first half of the season, she almost kills Jonas, deeming the derelict power plant off-limits, but after he eventually escapes. It seems she wants to unlock a secret of her own.

Elisabeth ends up unearthing old family heirlooms, and this is when Dark blows our minds by revealing she's actually Noah's wife, with the complete image showing them holding baby Charlotte. That's right: Elisabeth -- Charlotte's daughter in 2020 -- is actually Charlotte's mom in 2053.

It takes some time to sink in that Charlotte and Elisabeth are both mother and daughter to each other, but ultimately, it's a biological causal loop with no origin -- something the show hinges on. There's no beginning and no end, there's just existence and cycles perpetuating its flow.

In the finale's closing moments, when Charlotte tries to stop her boss from opening up the radioactive canisters hidden in the power plant in 2020, Elisabeth simultaneously activates the wormhole at this plant in 2053. A rift opens and Elisabeth recognizes her mom/daughter and they reach out to touch, signing at each other. However, all the pieces have fallen into place as the Travelers themselves (including an older Franziska) activate their own wormhole in 1921, causing a massive explosion to take out Winden in 2020, thus creating the wasteland Elisabeth was in.

Now, we don't know if Charlotte went over into 2053, or if both got thrown into other timelines as they touched, but the ending validates everything Noah said. The picture he painted is complete when Peter takes young Elisabeth into this bunker Noah used for his experiments to hide from the apocalypse. There, they're joined by a time-traveling Claudia from the '80s (Julika Jenkins), as well as her cancer-ridden daughter Regina (Deborah Kaufmann).

This refugee spot proves to be one of Dark's most integral cogs moving forward, because bunkering down in this spot leads to Claudia becoming the White Devil who goes on to oppose Sic Mundus. More so, this paves the way for Elisabeth to become that soldier from 2053.

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The final brick falls into place as another figure enters the room just before the meltdown -- none other than young Noah (Max Schimmelpfennig) himself from 1921. He was sent there by the Travelers to kickstart his path as their pawn, and as we see young Elisabeth looking at him, it's confirmed that this point, draped with death and destruction, is what inspires the beginning of his family tree.

Created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, Dark stars Oliver Masucci, Karoline Eichhorn and Jördis Triebel. Season 2 is streaming now on Netflix.