'Vienna Blood' Season 1, Episode 2 Recap: "The Last Seance, Part 2"

The premiere episode of Vienna Blood ended on a cliffhanger. But this week doesn't pick up there. Instead, we open with Max called to the carpet by Professor Gruner, the head of the hospital, whose lectures viewers saw last week includes torturing women with "hysterics." He read in the papers about Liebermann's exploits with the police. He threatens Max will not have a position if he keeps it up. But by "keeps it up," Gruner means going to Freud's lectures, sneering some "Jewish Doctor's" ramblings are not worth listening to, with a frowning suggestion that his anti-jewish sentiments extend to Max.

Shaken, Liebermann makes his rounds, checking in on Amelia. She is horrified at the conditions in the hospital. He gets ready to release her until an orderly enters, and she flips out again. Max finds himself questioning his judgment as he heads home for a night out with the family. Mendel's new friends got them into an upper-class soiree, a concert given by Gustav Mahler. Dad's proud as punch, while Clara desperately tries to flirt with her distracted date. She suspects he's fretting about Amelia, but it's more the sea of antisemitism he feels around him. Still, Max's ambivalence towards Clara has reached the point that even his sister Leah noticed.

Not to worry, Gruner soon electrocutes Lydgate, which he claims cures her. Max knows this is nonsense; it was his hypnotism that did it, bringing forth her repressed memory of rape at the hands of someone wearing the same cologne as both the waiter and the orderly. But with his job at the hospital hanging by a thread, he lets it go, especially since Clara is clearly ready for her assumed future husband to stop talking about her.