At the end of “Into the Night” Season 2, a mysterious submarine, “Yakamoz S-245,” suddenly appeared at the Svalbard global seed vault, aka, the Doomsday Vault, in Norway. When the submarine arrived, airplane captain Mathieu Daniel Douek and his small crew had already lost all hope and were stranded in the ice country because a woman named Gia Snow destroyed the control panels of the Airbus A318, and these parts were beyond repair. A man from the submarine, Arman Kaya (Kivanc Tatlitug), ran into the seed storage facility where he saw Ayaz pointing a gun at a fellow passenger and army officer, Markus, whom he held responsible for the death of his lover, Zara Oblonskaya, and her young son. In anger, Ayaz lost control of himself and pulled the trigger, taking a shot at Arman, and “Into the Night” Season 2 ended without revealing who Arman was or where “Yakamoz S-245” came from.
Set in the same universe as “Into the Night,” the spin-off series follows Yakamoz S-245’s submarine crew and a few marine researchers who use the submarine as a protective shield against deadly solar rays resulting from a severe change in the sun’s polarity, which was earlier discussed in length in “Into the Night” Season 1. Unlike captain Mathieu, and his fellow passengers, they flew into the night, thereby avoiding the sunlight, Arman and his fellow crew members submerged deep in the water during the daytime to survive the severe gamma radiation. However, the shortage of food and the lack of any permanent solution to the problem play with their sanity, leading to violent ego clashes and deaths. Let’s dive further.
See More: ‘Yakamoz S-245’ Review: A Promising Spin-Off That Brews In Fragments
‘Yakamoz S-245’ Plot Summary
While the original series tried to depict the backstory of each and every surviving passenger, “Yakamoz S-245” solely focuses on Arman Kaya, who lives in Turkey away from the shadows of his controlling father, Asil Kaya, one of the richest persons in the world. As the series begins, Arman is contacted by an old flame named Defne Eren, who offers him to work on a project that involves the exploration of the Erebus Trench with her small crew that includes her assistant, Rana Bulut, oceanographer Felix Bauer, and marine biologist Cem. Defne hesitantly reveals that the project is sponsored by Yenilik Inc, a company that belongs to Arman’s father, and thus, as soon as he hears the name, he rejects the project without a second thought.
Meanwhile, at Incirlik Air Base, Adana, an intelligence officer named Lieutenant Hatice Celik, discovers the change in the sun’s polarity that results in an explosion on the sun’s surface and releases deadly gamma rays that travel towards Earth at an alarming rate. As Celik tries to warn her superiors about it, they keep Celik on hold so that she doesn’t reveal the information to the public.
The next morning, Arman has a change of heart and decides to accompany Defne to the Erebus Trench. When he visits to inform her about his decision, he finds out about Defne’s fiance, Kenan, who is a videographer by profession. Soon, the research team boards a ship to accomplish their mission. On October 3rd, around 3:31 am, the research team, except Kenan, takes a preliminary dive, and when they come back to the surface, they find out that each and every member of the ship has deserted the vessel. Inside the ship, Arman and Defne find a video recording left by Kenan that informs them about the catastrophic event where the sun is causing the death of everyone on Earth. Kenan reveals in the video that he is heading to Kos Island, where there is a shelter that might protect them from the harmful sun rays, and therefore requests Defne to reach there soon. Arman and others leave the ship and reach the Kos harbor on his ocean research vessel, where they suddenly spot “Yakamoz S-245 ” coming out of the water.
The series further follows Arman and his fellow researchers who board the submarine to survive the catastrophic event. However, while they stay on the submarine, the research scientists deal with toxic clashes with the naval officers who blame them for the deaths of their fellow officers, especially the chief engineer. On Kos Island, the navy crew tried to locate Kenan, and during the search, the navy lost its chief engineer, along with a few other men. Umut and his crew blamed the scientists for these deaths and thus held a personal grudge against them until the very end. Kenan, on the other hand, was found dead inside a shelter in Kos. The narrative also unravels the secrets that Defne has been hiding from Arman all along, which finally reveals a larger conspiracy connected to the sudden appearance of the “Yakamoz S-245” submarine at the Kos harbor.
Major Spoilers Ahead
What Was Defne Hiding? What Were NATO’s Command To Captain Erenay Yilmaz?
NATO handed over an underwater mission to the Yakamoz S-245 crew on the same day when the catastrophic event took place, and Umut Sancakl, Second in Command, suspected that it couldn’t be a mere coincidence that they found Arman and his research scientists at the same place and at the same time. He had a theory that maybe their meeting with Arman and Defne was preplanned and, after the commander, Erenay Yilmaz’s death, the crew found a stowaway who was none other than intelligence officer, Hatice Celik, the first to find out about the change in the sun’s polarity. However, her warnings were neglected by her superiors, and when the officers tried to arrest her, she fled from the base to survive.
Celik told Umut what she found about Yakamoz during a command briefing and thus decided to take shelter in the lower parts of the submarine. She even revealed that the dead commander, Erenay, was trying to make contact with someone from the outside, and when Umut checked Erenay’s logbook, he found a familiar name in it, “Defne Eren.”
Throughout her time on the submarine, Defne was discreetly using her laptop and sending mails to an unknown person. However, what she was planning to do and whom she was contacting wasn’t revealed until her death in the ‘Yakamoz S-245’ Episode 6, at the end of which Defne was captured by brutal mine workers in Spain. She was killed by one of the miners, and thus, Umut decided to leave her on the surface while taking Arman and others back to the submarine.
After Umut was arrested for his violent behavior and corrupt practices, intelligence officer, Celik, successfully decrypted NATO’s command orders that were sent to commander Erenay Yilmaz and found out that he was instructed to pick up Arman, Defne, and other scientists from the Kos Island on the night of sun event. He was also directed to safely take these researchers to an island off the coast of India. Through these coordinates, the team recovered a number, and Arman finally used Defne’s satellite phone to make contact, and the voice he heard from the other side was of his father, Asil Kaya, who was at Diego Garcia airfield and wanted Arman to join him there and become a part of the new world.
It can be speculated that Defne lied to Arman from the beginning of the affair and was acting on his father’s order, whose sole purpose was to protect his son from the catastrophe. As established at the beginning of the series, Arman and Asil share a conflicted relationship, and he wouldn’t have listened to his father’s warnings, which is why Asil devised a plan and involved Defne to bring Arman to safety. With such wealth in his pockets, he might have been able to easily use NATO’s machinery for his personal purpose, the layer that had been repetitively discussed in the original series, “Into The Night.”
The screen depicted Asil for a very brief moment, and in that part, he was wearing a space-suit-type helmet that suggested that maybe the rich people of the world were already prepared for the catastrophe and thus had designed special equipment to survive the harmful rays. They used their wealth and power to bring in the most specialized brains in the world. Umut might be suffering from severe PTSD, but he had his reasons for the outburst as he felt like a pawn in the whole affair where the rich and affluent used the loyal soldiers for their personal protection. Even Arman didn’t approve of his father’s action, which was why he asked the new commander, Yonca Yilmaz, to route the ship towards the Svalbard global seed vault in Norway so that they would be able to grow their own food and wouldn’t have to rely on their father’s new world to survive. And that finally brings the crew to the Doomsday Vault, where a tragedy awaits Arman.
‘Yakamoz S-245’ Ending, Explained – How Does The Series Connect With ‘Into The Night’?
The events in “Yakamoz S-245” were happening concurrently with the original series, “Into the Night,” and thus, many times, the events in this series clashed with the original one or gave out reference to the same. For example, it was intelligence officer Celik who found out about the shift in the sun’s polarity, and probably her information reached NATO HQ, where Richard “Rik” Mertens heard about it and also picked up the coordinates for the secret bunker named Stara 17, in Bulgaria, the same bunker that Umut and Celik mentioned in the series. While trying to find out about Defne, Umut and Celik picked up an indistinct voice over the radio that belonged to a cosmonaut trapped in a Russian space station. The same signal was picked up by an engineer named Jakub Kieslowski in “Into the Night” Season 1.
In “Into the Night” Season 2 Episode 1, an unknown missile destroyed the Bulgarian airport, while another missile destroyed the Russian planes near the Russian bunker, and it wasn’t revealed until the end who triggered those missiles. It could be surmised that Umut Sancakl probably ordered his most loyal man, Altan, to target the Bulgarian airport and the Russian airbase because he didn’t want anyone else to reach the Doomsday Vault in Norway. He literally told Altan that he had a responsibility to his crew and not to the people on the other side of the world. Umut had seen the horrors of war during his traumatic childhood and had been suffering from acute undiagnosed PTSD, because of which he yearned for supreme control of the submarine and of the world that was leftover. During the final confrontation between Arman and Umut, Arman revealed to him that he knew about the two missing missiles that Umut probably triggered to bomb someone. This further suggests that maybe it was Umut who triggered those missiles to sabotage Captain Mathieu’s mission and fuel an enmity between the Russians and the Bulgarians.
After Umut’s selfish and brutal ways were revealed to his crew, second in command, Yonca Yilmaz, ordered his arrest and put him away. Arman requested Yonca to route the ship to Norway from where they could recover the seeds, and with the help of Rana and Felix, they would be able to grow their own food.
As soon as Rana, Felix, and Arman came out of the submarine and ran towards the Doomsday Vault, they noticed the survivors from Bulgaria near its entrance. While Rana and Felix decided to stay away, Arman ran inside the facility, where he saw Ayaz Kobanbay, a passenger, pointing a gun at an officer, Captain Markus Müller. At this point, all the survivors from Bulgaria had lost all hope of leaving Norway because their plane’s panel was destroyed by a psychotic woman, and thus, Ayaz decided to take revenge on Markus, who played a prank on his lover Zara to scare her and teach her a lesson, but the prank went too far, leading to Zara and her son’s death. And before Ayaz could pull the trigger, Arman arrived and requested Ayaz to drop the gun. Ayaz was distracted, and Markus used the opportunity to escape, and thus, Ayaz, blamed Arman for it, therefore decided to shoot him to make him pay for it. Arman took the bullet, but he didn’t die by the end of “Yakamoz S-245” season 1, which means there is still hope for his return in Season 2.
However, while Arman and his research team came to the surface, Celik inquired about Arman’s father from Umut, locked inside the submarine. Umut tried to convince Celik to unlock him, and if she chooses to release him, then in his insanity, he will further add conflict to the narrative, which may have devastating effects, leading to death and destruction. At this juncture, “Yakamoz S-245” merges with “Into the Night” Season 2, and from here on, the narrative will further explore the fate of both Arman and the submarine crew members, as well as captain Mathieu and the other survivors from Bulgaria.
See More: ‘Into the Night’ Season 2: Ending, Explained – Did They Find A Cure to Survive Harmful Sunlight?
‘Yakamoz S-245’ is a 2022 Turkish Science Fiction Thriller series based on Jacek Dukaj’s novel, The Old Axolotl.
