'Vienna Blood's Penultimate Episode Explores "The Enemy Within"

This week on Vienna Blood, we get many illustrative examples that just because someone is paranoid doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Poor Oskar; it’s not enough that Max will be damn lucky to survive surgery following last week’s shooting. Nor is it enough for Oskar to torture himself thinking (incorrectly) he shot Max. Leah’s furiously whisper-shouts at the hospital have nothing on Oskar’s inner monologue. 

Obviously, Oskar needs to fall victim to all the classic hallmarks of film noir. Start with being wrongly accused on circumstantial evidence of a murder he did not commit, go on the run from his former colleagues in the police department as the entire political establishment arrays itself against him, go undercover with what few friends stick by him, and finally, to maybe even be murdered himself. (Whew!) Despite the waking nightmare, Oskar keeps his wits about him. It’s nice to be reminded of how competent Oskar is – between his decades of experience as a detective and what he’s learned from working cases with Max, he’s got what it takes to get out of this pickle, so long as he survives a few more days. 

The 24 hours von Bülow promises Oskar swiftly collapses when Oskar finds Therese’s husband’s corpse in her apartment and does the right thing by calling it in. I expect von Bülow to be pitifully credulous when faced with “evidence” such as “I heard men arguing! And one of them was…HIM!” from the neighbor; however, for the usually full-of-questions medical examiner to jump to suspicion of Oskar based on some untested fibers from under the victim’s nails that seem to match those in Oskar’s coat simply beggars belief. 

The other element of this episode that doesn’t work as well as one could hope is the “dream space/mind palace” where Oskar imagines consulting with Max. It might have worked better with more narrative connective tissue – perhaps a prefatory couple of seconds where Oskar slips into a meditative state or a clear indication that these are his actual lucid dreams – but as they stand, they feel odd and out of sync with the rest of the storytelling.  

In the weeks since I first watched “The Enemy Within*,” it’s the smaller, more emotionally layered character moments that have proven memorable. Leah, screaming under her breath at Oskar but later sheltering and hiding him from Meyer’s (and the reluctant Haussmann’s) search of the Liebermann home, provides space for her to vent her anger and grief, followed by doing what she knows Max would want if he were conscious is powerful. Reminding us – with just a bit of eager, then disappointed body language as von Bülow unsuccessfully attempts to toast with the new Director of Intelligence –  that for all his power as police commissioner, von Bülow is fundamentally an incompetent toady so afraid of scandal that he’ll follow even the faintest hint of an order from anyone. So economical!

(*A bit of my process, for the curious: I watch once to enjoy the plot and then a second time to take detailed notes on the plot and themes.) 

With Oskar on the run, we learn more about the other Chemin de Fer players from last week and about the progress of the interconnected Burgsteller/Mephisto cases. We already know The Baron’s deal, and now we see The Actress at home, being informed by one of the emperor’s lackeys that his excellency is going to have to cancel this weekend. I love the chutzpah of this lady, who must have some massive goods on The House of Habsburg because she tells the lackey he’ll have to figure out a way to get the emperor over to her no matter what.

True to his pseudonym, The Soldier is a general in the Austrian army and reluctantly meets with a creative engineer/inventor eager to share the schematics and proposal for a totally new, state-of-the-art war machine. He doesn’t name it in their conversation, but we know these massive doohickeys as “tanks.” It turns out he’s also the designer of “the contraption” on the end of the gun Oskar found in the Riegers Palace cloakroom last week. He’s quite right that the tank will change the face of warfare forever, just as the silencer will be a game-changer for the assassination industry. 

What a terrible gift it must be to be this talented at facilitating murder. Could he not apply his genius to designing more durable bridges, inventing reinforced concrete, or developing power steering? Anything but these items? 

Just as Max’s absence from the main action lets Oskar’s abilities come to the fore, once Oskar is mainly off the board while dealing with being framed, Josef Ellers gets to step up and let Haussmann show what he’s made of. He’s been paying attention and manages to turn being underestimated to his advantage, pleading innocently with von Bülow to let him continue to help the investigation into Oskar and then convincing Meyer to let him stay behind at the Liebermanns’ home after they fruitlessly search it for Oskar. 

The stakes are sky-high, and it’s starting to feel like things might not work out for Oskar or Max. Max could very well die – we saw how much blood he was losing in the closing seconds of “A Winning Hand,” and we know how much better emergency surgery outcomes are now versus their success rate in 1909. If his continued comatose state weren’t enough, Max just barely avoids being smothered to death by Meyer, thanks to his parents popping into the hospital just before Meyer picks up a pillow. His behavior had been fishy already, and now we know he’s in Mephisto’s employ.

Oskar’s dawning understanding he’s in deep, deep trouble is chilling, thanks to the (presumably acting in good faith) policing establishment and Mephisto’s operatives being hot on his trail. Even though he survives Meyer’s attempt on his life at the end of the episode, he knows that the shadowy figure seen only in silhouette in a window above them could just as quickly have gunned him down, too. As we leave things, Max survived surgery but remains unconscious. Oskar can’t go home or spend too much time at the Liebermann home, but at least he knows that Therese, Haussmann, and the Liebermanns are all on his side. Most importantly, for whatever reason, Mephisto has seen fit to let him live another day. 

This entire situation is terrible, but Oskar has a certain freedom in it, too. No establishment organization will come to his rescue, and the circle of people he can even think about trusting has shrunk dramatically in about five minutes. He’s no longer an officer of the law, so he doesn’t have to be bound by the legal procedures he would as a sworn officer. Now, all he has to do is take those wins and start solving this increasingly complex and dangerous mystery before it gets further out of hand! I’m curious to see how that knowledge empowers him in our season (and perhaps series) finale (sigh) next week. 

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things (From This Episode)

• The Mind Palace Max stuff isn’t working for me in general. Still, I’ll happily give credit where it’s due: kudos to the amusing exchange where Oskar tells Max he knows what he’s about to say, specifically, “Our actions betray us”, and Max immediately responds, “Well, that is psychology!” This is the zippy dialogue I’m here for.
• Whether Vienna Blood gets a fifth season or not, I imagine that in the remaining pre-war years, Max and Oskar live to establish an independent detective agency, bringing Leah, Haussmann, and Linder on board. It would be an agency whose methodology would combine first-rate research and the application of new and emerging technological and psychological techniques. It would have such a well-integrated approach that we might call it a…holistic detective agency. There’s got to be something in that idea, right?  
• Writing out that list of terrible circumstances Oskar is faced with in this episode, it occurred to me that a treasured, illicitly viewed TV series of my youth, The A-Team, is structured around the idea that some clever, decent guys realized they were getting film noir-ed, decided they didn’t feel like accepting it, and went on to solve crimes for the ignored little guys of Los Angeles. Genius. 

Vienna Blood Season 4 continues on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel at 10 p.m. ET on Sundays through the end of January. All four episodes are available for members to watch as a binge (or as initially intended, i.e., two two-hour-long episodes) on PBS Passport. As always, check your local listings and streamers.