‘Vienna Blood’ Season 2 finale recap: What happened in ‘Darkness Rising’?

The second season of Vienna Blood concluded in the UK tonight!

Based on the best-selling Liebermann novels by Frank Tallis, BBC Two’s period crime drama is adapted by Sherlock writer Steve Thompson.

Vienna Blood is back with three brand new feature-length 90-minute episodes, following the success of the first season.

Season 2 is expected to air in the US on PBS in 2022.

Matthew Beard (The Imitation Game) and Austrian actor Juergen Maurer are reprising their roles as Max Liebermann and Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt.

The pair are joined by Conleth Hill (Game of Thrones), Charlene McKenna (Peaky Blinders), Amelia Bullmore (Gentleman Jack), Lucy Griffiths (True Blood), and Luise von Finckh (Schlechte Zeiten).

Vienna Blood is set in 1900s Vienna – a hot bed of philosophy, science and art, where a clash of cultures and ideas play out in the city’s grand cafes and opera houses.

Here’s a plot recap for ‘Darkness Rising’, which aired on BBC Two at 9pm on Friday 24th December 2021:

Autumn, 1907. A fanatical monk, Brother Stanislav, has been found brutally murdered in his monastery.

Suspicion falls on a religious Jew, Isaak Korngold, who had reprimanded the monk for spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric.

After Oskar arrests the obvious suspect, the scandal edges the Korngold family business towards bankruptcy and threatens Isaak’s brother, Jonas’ upcoming marriage to Clara Weiss. Clara is left with little option but to plead with her ex-fiancé Max Liebermann for help.

To Oskar’s annoyance, the monastery proves impervious to investigation.

Max goes undercover and carries out enquiries in the guise of a monk.

Meanwhile Oskar’s investigation brings him into sharp conflict with Commissioner Von Bulow, who is convinced that Max is blinding him from getting to the bottom of a Jewish revenge murder.

Vienna Blood is available on DVD on Amazon.