Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (Jürgen Maurer) and his companion Freudian psychoanalyst Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard) are again on the case for Season 4 of Vienna Blood, beginning Sunday, January 5. The favored PBS drama set in 1909 sees the dynamic duo look right into a double homicide of a senior public official and an arms supplier in police custody. Liebermann simply returned from a lecture tour in America earlier than Rheinhardt requested for assist.
“[Max] has been on a really profitable press tour as a result of they’ve all lapped up his psychoanalytic theories, and he’s taken Freud over there. It’s gone down very properly, which is, as quite a lot of this sequence is, fairly loosely primarily based on some truths about how properly Freud did when he went over there,” Beard defined. “And he’s additionally been given a promotion at work. So he has quite a lot of new obligations, so he’s driving excessive when he comes again. However in fact, for him, the work and that facet of it isn’t as thrilling as being with Oskar and dealing on circumstances. So he in a short time will get again into that.”
As they dig deeper, they uncover a conspiracy that traces them into the guts of the federal government. On the middle is a mole named “Mephisto” who has made it their mission to destroy the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
“It’s not some nameless distant foe,” Beard teased of this season’s baddie. “And in addition it’s revealed in direction of the tip that additionally they have a connection to the previous of Vienna Blood and earlier seasons, which we additionally haven’t carried out earlier than…However I feel the place we go away Max and Oskar on the finish is that they’ve positively gone by way of one thing that they haven’t gone by way of in earlier seasons.”
The actor believes the odd couple delves right into a “new layer to their relationship, which is all the time onerous with a recurring sequence.” Including, “We bought the time to essentially unfold out this story over all these elements. We bought to take it a bit additional than earlier than…”
Left to proper: Clara (Luise von Finckh), Leah (Charlene McKenna), Max (Matthew Beard) and Oskar (Juergen Maurer). – VIENNA BLOOD (Season 4) (PBS)
If the twists and turns of this high-stakes and harmful investigation weren’t sufficient, the 2 additionally climate by way of their very own sophisticated relationships. For Rheinhardt, that’s girlfriend Therese Thanhofer (Maria Köstlinger) and whether or not issues work out for Beard and Clara Weiss (Luise von Finckh).
“We go away the final season with Max and Clara type of shaking arms and deciding to have knowledgeable relationship,” Beard tells TV Insider. “She’s now an investigative journalist and type of has this sort of Lois Lane-Clark Kent factor occurring the place they professionally resolve crimes collectively. However in fact, it’s extra sophisticated than that. And as these episodes develop, we return over some outdated floor by way of if there’s sure issues there which haven’t been solved and never been talked about and unresolved emotions, which come to the forefront.”
Regardless that the sequence goes again to the 1900s, overarching themes like corruption and having it run by way of the federal government are nonetheless very prevalent right this moment. For Maurer, the parallels are sadly there.
“It was a loopy time again then,” he mentioned. “Nationalism was taking on folks’s minds, which is rarely a good suggestion. And that led to the First World Warfare as everyone knows…what now we have within the fourth season is you see {that a} construction, a society is about to get destroyed, the empire.”
Maurer felt in Oskar’s thoughts, the “system that he is aware of and the emperor, the empire, the entire thing must be protected. The Austrian added, “I feel you could possibly examine it to democracy in the mean time. It’s like a system, like a political order or stability that’s about to collapse. And that is likely to be the same vibe to the story. I feel that’s one thing you could possibly take from the story and relate it to what’s taking place today.”
Beard agrees in how the sequence brings parts of historical past to life. “We do must go there as a result of it will be ludicrous to not discover it a bit, at the least,” he mentioned. “I do know you solely have so lengthy in each episode. We will’t carry up the entire of pre-World Warfare I historical past, however I feel it’d be irresponsible to not at the least contact on it and present the central characters are a Jewish household and it will be loopy to not present how that might have an effect on their life in Vienna at the moment.”
Vienna Blood (PBS)
Beard, who additionally stays in Monsieur Spade, really filmed the season of Vienna Blood whereas making one other of his reveals, Moonflower Murders. That is the follow-up to the opposite Anthony Horowitz adaptation of Magpie Homicide from the Susan Ryeland thriller novels. The 35-year-old has been grateful to be booked and busy flying from Vienna to Dublin for the shoot. There are even some surprising crossovers.
“The good bit about that’s that Conleth Hill in Vienna Blood performs my father and in Moonflower Murders, he performs my sugar daddy,” Beard mentioned. “The man who hires me, the lease boy. In order that I couldn’t get extra Freudian by way of us leaving Vienna on a airplane to Dublin collectively to go from taking part in father and son to taking part in lovers was fairly a hilarious coincidence.”
Beard is also seen in Humorous Lady, a tv sequence that sees him soar into somewhat more moderen time. The Sixties to be precise the place Barbara Parker (stage identify Sophie Straw), performed by Gemma Arterton, seems to be to make it from the wonder queen stage to the comedy tv display screen. “Switching intervals is nice,” Beard, who performs a author Invoice Gardiner.
“There’s extra of the identical, but it surely goes in, all of the plot strains get developed fairly considerably…,” Beard teased of the upcoming Season 2. “Loads occurs in these 4 elements. And Gemma Arterton is simply unbelievable in it. The way in which she takes the character is absolutely beautiful. I feel she’s actually, actually good.”
Vienna Blood Season 4 premiere, January 5, 10/9c, PBS
Humorous Lady Season 2 premiere, February 2, 10/9c, PBS