Dark vs. Kingdom: Two Kinds of Dread

Comparison · Contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 1 of Dark and Season 1, Episodes 1–2 of Kingdom.

A group of teenagers in Dark heads to a cave looking for something a missing boy left behind. By the time they get away from the cave, another boy is missing. In Kingdom, a crown prince looking for a physician reaches a clinic where something has already gone terribly wrong. Both series send people looking for one thing and give them a more frightening problem. What differs is the direction they make you look once they’ve found it.

Dark makes you go back over what you saw

In “Secrets,” the missing teenager Erik is already part of life in Winden. His absence is a police matter, a subject at school, and an opportunity for the kids who think his drug stash might still be near the caves. That last possibility is what brings Jonas and the others into the woods. When the group scatters and Mikkel disappears, the search for Erik stops feeling like the backdrop to a separate story. Winden suddenly has two disappearances for the viewer to hold together.

The first episode gives you the evidence of a connection without telling you what kind of connection to expect. You can remember where the kids were headed and why, but those facts can’t yet tell you what happened. This is where Dark gets its peculiar hold on a viewer. The cave is frightening while everyone is running. It gets more frightening afterward, when you realize how little you can account for in a scene you’ve just seen.

A pause between episodes can help. Think about why each person went to the cave, and what each of them could have seen once the group broke up. That gives you more to work with than trying to solve the entire town at once.

Kingdom asks what can happen before anyone acts

In the first episode, rumors that the king is dead circulate while Crown Prince Chang is denied access to his father. His search for the royal physician leads him and his bodyguard, Mu-yeong, to the clinic at Jiyulheon in Episode 2. They find bodies there. Seo-bi, who worked at the clinic, can tell them something the bodies alone can’t. She has seen the dead come back to life.

That makes the next decision urgent. Chang needs information about his father, but Seo-bi’s account also concerns people who may be in danger before anyone in authority accepts what she says. Her warning has to travel through a world in which a prince can be kept from seeing the king and a medical worker can know more about a crisis than the people empowered to respond to it.

Kingdom has mysteries of its own. In these early episodes, though, knowing a little more can make a scene worse. Once you’ve heard Seo-bi’s account, you can look at a room full of bodies and worry about how long anyone has to get out.

Which should you start tonight?

Choose Dark if you like returning to a conversation or a location with a new question. Give the premiere a little room to settle. Choose Kingdom if you want a historical thriller in which getting information to the right person is as urgent as getting to safety. If the first episode leaves you curious about the palace, the second shows what that secrecy looks like outside it.

Sources & Further Reading

• Winden and the cave search — Netflix’s Dark episode guide and The Beat’s recap of the opening episodes.
• Chang’s investigation and Seo-bi’s account — Netflix’s Kingdom episode guide and ComingSoon’s Episode 2 recap.