Freud Season 1, Episode 2 recap: Freud tries to help a catatonic Clara recover

Kiss And His Vendetta

Meanwhile, Kiss tries to blame Georg von Lichtenberg for the crime after the boy identified a man with a facial scar. His superior points out that half the city looks like that and demands Kiss leave it alone.

Later, Kiss goes home to see his daughter and grandchildren. In the middle of eating dinner, he has a fit of some kind that leads to his hand cramping. We’ve seen Kiss hold his hand in pain multiple times throughout the first two episodes and we learn why in this episode.

After leaving his daughter’s house, Kiss seeks out a dingy, underground fight-club-type place where men swordfight. Now we know how they’re all getting those facial scars! Georg is paling around with his boy toy from the last episode when Kiss accuses him of brutally stabbing Steffi in front of everyone. The two decide to settle their differences in a duel until death.

Flashback time! Kiss has a PTSD episode after exiting the underground club. It looks like Georg forced him to execute prisoners, and in present-tense, Kiss may have pulled a gun on a civilian as he relived the moment. The scene is spliced together haphazardly to make us unsure of what happened, and it cuts off before we can see what really happened — in past or present.

As for Georg, his father isn’t pleased about this dueling nonsense. He demands his son nip it in the bud ASAP.

Georg gives his father some unsettling news after he questions him about Steffi. He can’t be sure he didn’t harm her, after all. He doesn’t remember.

After his admission, Georg’s father changes his tune about the duel. He demands that Georg win, no matter what. I’m guessing he wants Kiss out of the picture, so he doesn’t find evidence that could get his son charged with murder because that would be majorly embarrassing for the von Lichtenberg family.

Kiss’s daughter learns of the duel, and she’s none too pleased. She begs her father not to go through with it as she doesn’t believe he can survive it. If he dies, she and her children will wind up on the streets as they depend on Kiss for their livelihood.

While mulling over his daughter’s plea, Kiss nurses a beer at a tavern and overhears Lenore discussing her experience with Freud and his hypnosis technique. Kiss gets to thinking, “Hey, I could use some of that,” and turns up at Freud’s doorstep.

With Freud’s assistance, Kiss revisits that fateful day where Georg ordered him to execute the prisoners. Except for this time, Freud instructs Kiss to “kill the order,” i.e. kill Georg. Kiss pulls the trigger and kills the version of Georg haunting the darkest recesses of his mind. Suddenly, his hand feels much better. Perhaps Kiss is ready for that duel, after all.