Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Matthew Beard, Jurgen Maurer Luise Von Finckh, Jessica De Gouw, Conleth Hill, Amelia Bullmore, Charlene McKenna, Ursula Strauss, Oliver Stokowski, Raphaek von Bargen, Simon Hatzl.
We stoke the fires of revenge in our minds with ease, by refusing to let go of every conceived sleight, every disgrace against our body and our mind, we become trapped by our own belief, we wish to create an anarchy of feeling in which we can enjoy the employment of justice by our own hands.
The trouble with revenge, whilst possibly being one that fleetingly relieves the mind of its troubles and aches, is that others become immersed in the game being pursued, the complexity of the nature that revenge feeds upon requires planning, structure, the dish best served cold becomes the meal in which many sit round the table and each has a bite taken out of them.
In Vienna Blood – The Queen Of The Night, that complexity is encouraged by the opulence provided by the state and the riches of the city in which both Dr. Max Liebermann and Detective Oskar Rheinhardt, played by Matthew Beard and Jurgen Maurer respectively, perform their duties and in which the murderer is driven by the narrative of grandness.
The psychological aspect of revenge is what drives this particular episode of the enthralling Vienna Blood. Revenge, as is shown with brutal effect, is one that consumes and eats away at what makes us reasonable people, its sister emotion of jealousy may cause us to think the unthinkable display, but it is revenge, no matter the circumstance, that drives us out of our mind.
As a lesson in psychology, The Queen Of The Night is a tale to which only the damned can see the role of revenge as a course for good, from the outside however what becomes painfully aware is that one death is not enough, that others are needed to exact the required result.
In a time when the psychology of a criminal has lost its bearing to the scientific means of investigation, watching a student of the art weave their way through the maze of profiling as a means of deduction has never been more fascinating. As Liebermann and Rheinhardt grapple with idea that the killer is leaving clues because they want to be caught before the actual act of revenge is complete, so to does the armchair detective find themselves asking questions about how someone can become so corrupted by the thought of acting on the instinct of reprisal wish to see their crime stopped before they lose their soul.
The art and history of psychology is such that it is surprising that a programme such as Vienna Blood, set against the backdrop of Europe facing its own cracked personality, has not been tried before, and yet as the series proceeds, what the viewer is left with is a greater appreciation of the skill required and the need for greater patience when observing people. An insightful episode, very much in the class of Endeavour or Morse.
Ian D. Hall