'Vienna Blood' Recap: Season 4 Episode 2
Daniel Hautzinger
January 12, 2025

Vienna Blood premieres Sundays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Oskar’s first reunion with Therese was accidental. Now she comes directly to visit him. Her husband was in prison for years, and she didn’t think he’d ever return; that’s why she started a relationship with Oskar and didn’t tell him about her husband. Now her husband is back at her house suddenly and bringing dangerous people home. She doesn’t feel safe, and asks Oskar for help.
But Oskar says he can’t do anything until her husband commits a crime.
So off he goes to pretend to be a high roller at a casino along with Max, in order to continue looking into the killings of Franz Burgstaller and the singer Carillo, and try to catch the government traitor known as Mephisto. Max’s father Mendel lends clothes to Oskar, while his sister Leah insists on joining them – the Riegers Palast is the hottest venue in town. She has even invited Max’s ex-fiancée Clara.
Max reluctantly lets both women join him and Oskar in the fancy new car he has rented.
At the casino, they are met by the manager Karner and given tags for the cloakroom. The tags match a card found amongst Carillo’s possessions. And the murdered singer was scheduled to perform at the casino that night.
Max sets off with Leah and Clara, who pretends to be his wife, to make one large gamble that will make him seem legitimate. He wins, to his surprise. He loses his attempt at legitimacy, however – especially after Clara tries to bet with a gambling chip found amongst Carillo’s things. That chip is only accepted at a special table, the dealer tells him.
Soon the proprietress of the casino calls him over. Her name is Helena Rieger, and the casino was bequeathed to her by her father, a steel tycoon. But she runs it on her own talents. She immediately sees through Max’s ruse, even guessing that while Clara is pretending to be his wife they are both in love with each other.
After all, as Leah points out separately to Clara, Max wrote to her while he was on a lecture tour in America – and brought back an expensive gift for her. But Clara objects to any speculation about their relationship.
Meanwhile, Oskar has been trying to retrieve whatever Carillo left in the cloakroom. The casino manager Karner intercepts him and brings him to Helena and Max. She knows who both Oskar and Max are, and tells them that the chip they got from Carillo is for a private game in a secret room with anonymous high rollers. She has powerful friends; threats against her won’t work. So Max decides to raise the enormous opening stake required to gain entrance – he’s already won enough with his luck in gambling that night to cover it.
Max and Oskar will return for the game the next night, without the women – it’s too dangerous. Max almost admits his love to Clara while they wait for their car, after telling her that Helena immediately knew she was pretending to be his wife. But he hesitates too long.
Later, he does tell her he still has feelings for her. If she tells him that she is over him, he will never bring it up again. She says nothing, and leaves. It’s not a full rejection.
The next day, Therese again comes to Oskar’s door, this time bloodied and bruised by her husband. Oskar gives her a key to his house and sets off in a rage. He wakes her husband from a nap and warns him to leave Vienna. After a scuffle, he grabs a knife and tells him to never lay a finger on Therese again, or he’ll kill him.
While Oskar is away from the police station, the officer Meier looks through Oskar’s papers and pockets the case file on a narrowly averted bombing that Oskar believes the government traitor Mephisto was involved in.
Meanwhile, Clara meets an English newspaper publisher known as “the baron.” He likes her work, and wants her to write for him – as long as she writes a column that tries to prevent Serbia from declaring war with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She agrees and leaves. The baron prepares for his evening – he has one of the high-roller gambling tokens for the Riegers Palast.
After her encounter with the baron, Clara insists that Max again take her to the casino – she might find leads there, as a journalist. He won’t allow her to join him at the private game, however.
The casino is built on the site of an old mine from Helena Rieger’s father’s business, and the high-roller game takes place in one of the old tunnels, accessible only by boat. The players all wear masks, and are identified only by a vague name: the baron, the soldier, the actress, and the Englishman – Max. There is no upper limit on bets.
So Max wages high, and wins his first hand. The game is chemin du fer; it’s all based on luck. But Max wins another hand, and the baron asks him if he wants to wager anything greater – like Clara. Max is appalled, and Helena intervenes, letting him leave the game.
Upstairs, Oskar has snuck into the cloakroom after the clerk leaves for a minute. He pockets a cigarette stub from the clerk desk, recognizing it as the same as one he found at the scene of Burgstaller and Strasser’s killings. He finds a case with Carillo’s cloakroom number that is labelled “C.C.” Oskar picks the lock and finds a rifle with a silencer inside. Hearing footsteps, he quickly closes the case and re-locks it before hiding. He watches a man enter and take the case away.
Oskar follows the man, who enters the tunnels below the casino. As Max is trying to leave the tunnels, he spots Oskar from a distance, and follows his friend. They get lost in the warren of tunnels and confused by echoes. Oskar hears a gun being cocked and comes upon Max from behind. He yells, “Drop your weapon!” and shoots. Max falls.