Trauma
Episode 2 of Freud begins with Hungarian officials meeting with Sophia and discussing peace. Meanwhile, the Professor attends his rounds with Dr Von, Freud and the others. They stop by a patient Freud brought in with paralysis and despite the Professor being doubtful about her symptoms, Freud refuses to kick her out and instead has her moved to the physiology department. After this, Arthur confronts Freud and shows him a newspaper article about the missing girl, Clara. Together, they head to Vienna Canal and start searching for Clara, while Kiss does the same, stumbling upon a little boy with a dog in the tunnels. As they go on, Kiss finds Clara tied to a bed. Freud arrives on the scene and as he looks at Clara, he finds a severed toe in her mouth. Taking her to safety in their horse-drawn carriage, Clara is brought into Freud’s care, where Dr Von arrives to see her. His Mother arrives soon after but Dr Von struggles to control him as he tries to get Clara to talk. Meanwhile, Kiss heads home to his family but finds himself struggling from a strange affliction in his hand, cramping up much like it did in the first episode. He heads down the pub and immediately finds himself ridiculed by the other officers, eventually calling out Georg and accusing him outright of killing the prostitute. Eventually this leads him to stand up and issue a challenge – which he gladly accepts. As we cut back through time, we see flashbacks of Kiss’s moments during war with Georg, where the latter orders an execution but he refuses to carry them out. Unfortunately his wife doesn’t take too kindly to this duel and questions whether he even wants to live, mentioning his son Otto who sadly passed away. Back home, Freud tries to keep up the facade of keeping everything together, with the disdainful eyes of his Father watching him. Soon after, he meets Fleur in the hope of convincing her to join him. She refuses though but back home, she overhears Sophia talking about Clara and how she hopes her daughter doesn’t find out. At the hospital, Dr Von continues to work tirelessly to try and heal Clara, pouring water over her to get her temperature down. Fleur eventually manages to help convince the Professor to allow him to try and help Clara. As he tries hypnotizing her, the same effect actually works for Fleur, who finds herself walking along the Vienna canal. As she keeps walking, she finds herself infront of a bloodied Dr Von and immediately realizes what’s happened. Fleur bolts upright and panics as she sees Dr Von in the hospital room, accusing him of mutilating Clara and being the one responsible. At home, Fleur is told by her Mother that she needs to perform the seance successfully for the Crown Prince, all the while controlling her every move. Kiss overhears Lenore talking about Freud’s hypnosis in the bar so he heads up to visit him for help. Once there, Freud makes him relive the same scenario again from the war, this time with distinct emphasis on killing Georg. As he fires the bullet, back in real time we see him able to move his hand. With more dark twists and turns and plenty of drama to chew over, Freud returns for another deep dive into this twisted, Gothic tale. While the overarching narrative does feel a bit convoluted and at times it’s hard to figure out exactly what the end-game is for Sophia, there’s enough here to stick it out in the hope that this becomes more clearer. Quite what the rest of the episodes have in store for us however, remains to be seen.
