Who Dies in the Netflix Series ‘1899?’
Netflix recently debuted 1899, a new mystery box show from Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, the creators of Dark. The series follows a group of immigrants from Europe as they travel to New York aboard a ship called the Kerberos. During their trip, they stumble upon another ship from the same company called the Prometheus that went missing four months prior. However, not all is as it seems aboard the Kerberos.
[WARNING: This article contains detailed spoilers for the Netflix series 1899.]
The main characters in ‘1899’ all have harrowing backstories
1899 features an ensemble cast of characters aboard the Kerberos. Each episode gives the audience a look into their history and what lead them to make the move to America. For Maura Franklin, played by Emily Beecham, she’s unsure of what exactly happened to her before getting on the ship. She recalls being inside a facility when her father forces men to strap her to a chair and inject something into her neck. Maura believes her brother was aboard the Prometheus when it went missing.
The captain, Eyk (Andreas Pietschmann), lost his wife and daughters in a mysterious fire. A few passengers on the ship committed murder, one woman runs a brothel, and another deserted the military. Regardless, all of them have somewhat of a shady background, and it appears as though they’re trying to escape their pasts. When a group of passengers discover the Prometheus and decide to investigate, they discover one person left alive – a little boy holding a strange device. It doesn’t take long for the passengers of the Kerberos to turn on one another and quickly divide into sides.
Who dies in ‘1899?’
Things take a turn for the worse in 1899 when a few members of the crew discover the body of a little girl on the deck. With no visible wounds or injuries, the doctor aboard can’t determine how she died. Eventually, other passengers begin to drop dead (literally) with no rhyme or reason. As Maura, Eyk, and others rush to find the cause behind all of the mysterious events, a Polish woman rallies several people on the ship to hunt down the little boy. She convinces the group the boy is the devil, and they attempt to hunt him down and kill him. In the midst of their search, a strange ticking sound causes most of the passengers to fling themselves overboard and into the sea. Later during a violent storm, most of the main cast dies.
So, who else dies in 1899? Olek gets tossed overboard by the waves. Franz, Anker, and Iben drown from the water rushing into the ship. Àngel gets crushed when part of the ship’s structure collapses while in the coal room, and Lucien dies after having a seizure.
Is anyone really dead, though?
Audiences later learn that everything happening in 1899 is due to a simulation created by an unknown person. (We’re told it’s Maura, but she says it’s her father. Ultimately, we can’t trust anyone’s word.) During an altercation, the First Mate from the Kerberos kills Eyk with a handheld device, and just when we felt like our heads may explode from confusion, we learn that it’s not the year 1899 at all. Instead, it’s 2099, and Maura is on a ship in outer space. We see several of the passengers, even the ones we thought died, hooked up to some headgear which likely means they’re also in some sort of simulation as well. So, this leaves everyone’s death up in the air. Was it all part of a simulation? Were some of the people we saw just NPCs created for the simulation? We don’t have the answers yet, but we can’t wait to learn more if 1899 gets a second season.
Check out the Netflix series 1899 streaming now.
