1899' Season 2: How the Mind-Bending Finale Sets Up More Story.

The Kerberos hides many more secrets.

With 1899, creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar have crafted a new mystery series worthy of Dark’s legacy, carefully working the pieces of a mind-bending puzzle that asks viewers to doubt reality itself. The series follows the crew and passengers of the Kerberos, a steamer ship going from Europe to New York, as they are confronted with impossible events and begin to question what’s real or not.

While the series thrives when it leaves us wanting answers, Season 1 of 1899 does a pretty good job explaining what’s happening aboard the Kerberos. That doesn’t mean there are no mysteries left to explore in Season 2, as 1899’s shocking finale teases that the story of Maura (Emily Beecham) is far from over.

What '1899' Should Explore in Season 2.

During the first season of 1899, we learn that the Kerberos is a simulation generated by a high-tech computer placed inside a spaceship as part of Project Prometheus. Every character inside the Kerberos had their memories altered, and they are currently trapped in a loop where their minds are wiped out, and they have to redo the same trip across the ocean over and over again. The real bodies of all these characters are dormant inside Project Prometheus’ escape ship, going to an unknown location in deep space.

In Season 1, 1899 explored the architecture of the simulation and how the memories attributed to each person trapped inside it were filled with pain and misery. We also learn the simulation was originally created by one of its prisoners, Maura, before being taken over by her brother, Ciaran. Inside the simulation, Maura’s husband Daniel (Aneurin Barnard) does whatever he can to force Maura to wake up, which happens at the season finale, when we find out about the whole space setting and that the show happens in the year 2099.

With Season 1 solving the mystery of what was happening in the Kerberos, Season 2 of 1899 needs to tell us why the simulation worked the way it did. So far, we don’t know Ciaran’s motivations, who are the real people whose minds inhabit the simulation, and where Project Prometheus is taking all these people. Inside the simulation, Maura’s father, Henry (Anton Lesser), showed disappointment for watching people fall prey to their emotions time and time while the Kerberos’ simulation looped over. So, it’s not a stretch to assume Project Prometheus was first developed to train humans to be rational so they could thrive on a new planet after a cataclysmic event. The series does tell us the spaceship is part of a “survival mission,” which spells doom for Earth.

Image via Netflix

While Season 2 of 1899 should follow Maura in the real world as she tries to take down her brother, there’s plenty of mystery inside the simulation for the show to explore. For starters, everyone who died at the Kerberos had their memories wiped clean and their consciousnesses ready to be part of a new simulation iteration. However, due to Daniel’s meddling and the re-coding of the simulation’s architecture, some characters were alive when the whole thing was shut down: Clémence (Mathilde Ollivier), Ramiro (José Pimentão), Tove (Clara Rosager), Virginia (Rosalie Craig), Jérôme (Yann Gael), and Jing Yi (Isabella Wei). Since they didn’t die as intended, chances are they will retain their memories when the simulation restart, which might lead to unexpected turns inside the virtual world. Besides, Elliot (Fflyn Edwards), Henry, and the old man’s servants were apparently safe in a different corner of the simulation. Still, they might have been affected by Daniel’s re-coding.

On top of that, Virginia was contaminated by the virus that spread through the simulation before the season’s finale. It’s safe to assume, then, there will be consequences for her infection. On that note, we still don’t know where the virus came from, how it works, and why it is dangerous for people plugged into the digital world. So, while Maura fights to free everyone in the real world, the people inside the simulation will still face dire challenges to ensure their consciousness is not permanently destroyed.

Finally, now that we know most memories people had on the Kerberos were fake, Season 2 needs to tell us who exactly those people are and why their fake backstories were so filled with despair. Henry tells us they are all part of Project Prometheus by choice, but that doesn't tell us much about their condition. And with an international cast so talented, it would be a shame if Season 2 of 1899 didn’t explore their real lives.