‘Vienna Blood’: Matthew Beard & Juergen Maurer Address Season 4 Twists & What’s Next

Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (Jürgen Maurer) and his partner Freudian psychoanalyst Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard) are back on the case for Season 4 of Vienna Blood, starting Sunday, January 5. The popular PBS drama set in 1909 sees the dynamic duo look into a double murder of a senior public official and an arms dealer in police custody. Liebermann just returned from a lecture tour in America before Rheinhardt asked for help.

“[Max] has been on a very successful press tour because they’ve all lapped up his psychoanalytic theories, and he’s taken Freud over there. It’s gone down very well, which is, as a lot of this series is, quite loosely based on some truths about how well Freud did when he went over there,” Beard explained. “And he’s also been given a promotion at work. So he has a lot of new responsibilities, so he’s riding high when he comes back. But of course, for him, the work and that side of it is not as thrilling as being with Oskar and working on cases. So he very quickly gets back into that.”

As they dig deeper, they uncover a conspiracy that traces them into the heart of the government. At the center is a mole named “Mephisto” who has made it their mission to destroy the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

“It’s not some anonymous distant foe,” Beard teased of this season’s baddie. “And also it’s revealed towards the end that they also have a connection to the past of Vienna Blood and earlier seasons, which we also haven’t done before…But I think where we leave Max and Oskar at the end is they’ve definitely gone through something that they have not gone through in previous seasons.”

The actor believes the odd couple delves into a “new layer to their relationship, which is always hard with a recurring series.” Adding, “We got the time to really spread out this story over all these parts. We got to take it a bit further than before…”

Left to right: 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 dangerous investigation weren’t enough, the two also weather through their own complicated relationships. For Rheinhardt, that’s girlfriend Therese Thanhofer (Maria Köstlinger) and whether things work out for Beard and Clara Weiss (Luise von Finckh).

“We leave the last season with Max and Clara kind of shaking hands and deciding to have a professional relationship,” Beard tells TV Insider. “She’s now an investigative journalist and sort of has this kind of Lois Lane-Clark Kent thing going on where they professionally solve crimes together. But of course, it’s more complicated than that. And as these episodes develop, we go back over some old ground in terms of if there’s certain things there which have not been solved and not been talked about and unresolved feelings, which come to the forefront.”

Even though the series goes back to the 1900s, overarching themes like corruption and having it run through the government are still very prevalent today. For Maurer, the parallels are unfortunately there.

“It was a crazy time back then,” he said. “Nationalism was taking over people’s minds, which is never a good idea. And that led to the First World War as we all know…what we have in the fourth season is you see that a structure, a society is about to get destroyed, the empire.”

Maurer felt in Oskar’s mind, the “system that he knows and the emperor, the empire, the whole thing needs to be protected. The Austrian added, “I think you could compare it to democracy at the moment. It’s like a system, like a political order or stability that is about to fall apart. And that might be a similar vibe to the story. I think that’s something you could take from the story and relate it to what’s happening these days.”

Beard agrees in how the series brings elements of history to life. “We do have to go there because it would be ludicrous not to explore it a bit, at least,” he said. “I know you only have so long in every episode. We can’t bring up the whole of pre-World War I history, but I think it’d be irresponsible not to at least touch on it and show the central characters are a Jewish family and it would be crazy not to show how that would affect their life in Vienna at that time.”

Vienna Blood (PBS)

Beard, who also stays in Monsieur Spade, actually filmed the season of Vienna Blood while making another of his shows, Moonflower Murders. This is the follow-up to the other Anthony Horowitz adaptation of Magpie Murder from the Susan Ryeland mystery 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 unexpected crossovers.

“The great bit about that is that Conleth Hill in Vienna Blood plays my father and in Moonflower Murders, he plays my sugar daddy,” Beard said. “The guy who hires me, the rent boy. So that I couldn’t get more Freudian in terms of us leaving Vienna on a plane to Dublin together to go from playing father and son to playing lovers was quite a hilarious coincidence.”

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Beard could also be seen in Funny Woman, a television series that sees him jump into a little more recent time. The 1960s to be exact where Barbara Parker (stage name Sophie Straw), played by Gemma Arterton, looks to make it from the beauty queen stage to the comedy television screen. “Switching periods is great,” Beard, who plays a writer Bill Gardiner.

“There’s more of the same, but it goes in, all the plot lines get developed quite significantly…,” Beard teased of the upcoming Season 2. “A lot happens in these four parts. And Gemma Arterton is just incredible in it. The way she takes the character is really stunning. I think she’s really, really good.”

Vienna Blood Season 4 premiere, January 5, 10/9c, PBS

Funny Woman Season 2 premiere, February 2, 10/9c, PBS