Freud Season 1, Episode 3 recap: Sophia plants deadly seeds

Freud strengthens his abilities, Sophia’s agenda becomes deadlier, and Fleur inches closer to discovering the true culprit behind all the madness.

The term “Somnambulant” refers to sleepwalking, which is a very fitting title for the third episode of Freud. The wicked Countess pulls a lot of her puppet’s strings in this hour. We see her using her mysterious abilities on multiple people throughout the episode, although we don’t learn much more about her motives.

The first time we see Freud this week, he’s on the verge of killing himself by jumping out of his window. At first, it seems to be Martha’s nightmare. She awakens suddenly, disturbed by her dream and feeling a sudden urge to rush to Freud’s side. At the end of the episode, we see another perspective on this scene.

The Duel

Georg and Kiss go head-to-head in their planned duel. It is all over very quickly. Georg fires once, misses, then Kiss fires and his aim is true. He nails Georg in the femoral artery, killing him almost instantly. Georg’s lover is majorly pissed.

As an aside, I swear this show has not named Georg’s lover yet, which is odd, so I’ll just keep calling him Georg’s lover until they do. 

Georg’s lover meets up with Georg’s father. They don’t exchange many words in their brief meeting but the implication is clear. Lichtenberg wants Kiss dead, and Georg’s lover has permission to do so, as long as no trace is left behind that could lead anyone back to the royal or imperial army.

The Crown Prince & Sophia’s Agenda

Sophia calls on the von Schönfelds to smooth things over after Fleur’s accusatory outburst — or so it appears. After accepting their forgiveness, she plants a deadly seed in Leopold, instructing him to kill himself.

The storyline involving the Szapárys becomes increasingly weird and complicated in “Somnambulant.”

We finally get to see the strange seancé the Count and Countess have been preparing for the crown prince, and it’s crazy. But before the seancé begins, the Count delivers unsettling news to his wife. Georg von Lichtenberg is dead.

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Apparently, that is a problem for the duo, although I’m not sure why just yet. It seems like they may have orchestrated the murder of Steffi Harváth and the kidnapping of Clara von Schönfeld by using various men to do their bidding. Why?

We move forward to the seancé and it’s just as creepy as you would imagine.

Fleur uses a mummified child to begin a ritual that involves crushing the mummy’s jawbone into a bowl with a liquid that looks suspiciously like blood.

She drinks it, the crown prince drinks it, and then she has a vision of herself at a dinner table when another bloody man (different than before) emerges from behind her. He walks slowly around the table and then bites the neck of one of her dinner guests.

Fleur jolts awake again and has another seizure-like fit. Sophia looks frustrated as Fleur is carried away. I’m not sure that was part of her plan.

At the hospital, Freud runs into a zonked-out Leopold. He tries to get his attention to apologize for the way things went down with Fleur and Clara but Leopold is under Sophia’s spell. Meynert and Freud get into it while Leopold surpasses them both into Clara’s ward. He falls to his knees and presses the scalpel to his throat.

Then, just before it looks like this episode claimed the lives of two characters, Leopold snapped out of it and surreptitiously headed out of the hospital. Freud follows him out. Despite his unwillingness to say anything to Fleur in the last episode, it is clear he believes her about Leopold being Clara’s torturer.

He follows Leopold to what appears to be the same tavern Kiss went to before. Georg’s lover is inciting a call to arms after Georg’s death. It looks like Sophia’s mind-melding is still at work since Leopold creepily pours beer on his head and goes into a strange trance, reciting an inflammatory speech about a ride to victory to burn down the world.

Weirdly, it motivates everyone in the bar, except Freud whose like, “these dudes are crazy,” and gets the heck out of dodge. A little later, he meets with his colleague and explains what he saw. Freud, at least, recognizes the symptoms of hypnosis and realizes that someone was controlling Leopold.

Fleur Has Another Vision & A Realization

That night, Freud is enjoying himself some “me” time in the bathtub while thinking of Fleur — wink-wink nudge-nudge. Guess who shows up at his door? Fleur demands he hypnotize her so she can figure out that creepy dinner party vision. Then things get even WEIRDER if that’s possible.

In the hypnotic trance, Fleur walks into a bedroom at the dinner party scene and sees the bloody man from earlier convulsing on the floor like pupae. He emerges slowly and begins singing opera, it’s Mucha. If you remember,  Freud and Arthur went to see Mucha perform at an opera in one of the earlier episodes, and he was in attendance at the prince’s seancé earlier that night.

Apparently, he is yet another potential murderer that may or may not be under Sophia’s control. Freud comforts a thoroughly freaked out Fleur after she comes to.

Together they seek out Kiss — and unknowingly save him being stabbed to death by Georg’s lover — Fleur,  Freud, Kiss, and Poschacher arrive at the dinner party house and it looks exactly like Fleur’s vision. Two are dead at the table and Mucha is singing a haunting song into the mirror in the other room.

Freud realizes he is somnambulistic and likely another victim of the person putting people under trances. Further evidence to this point is the fact that Mucha goes ballistic after spotting Fleur. Freud quickly sedates him.

In the aftermath of the incident with Mucha. Freud speaks with a severely shaken Fleur, who is beginning to realize that Sophia is the one behind everything. Freud also seems to come to a similar conclusion.

Back at the Szapárys’ home, Fleur tells Sophia to back off, threatening to kill herself is she comes any closer. Fleur seems to have realized she is being used as a pawn by her foster mother.

Unfortunately for Freud, his suspicions about Sophia haven’t solidified enough to turn her away when she shows up at his home. He lets her in and she does what she does best — enchants him. In his trance, Sophia tells him to commit suicide and the episode begins the way it ended, with Freud standing in the window, about to jump.

Odds & Ends

• I’m guessing Otto was Kiss’s son-in-law or son, based on the conversations he had with his daughter. He says, “for Otto,” before killing Georg, meaning Georg likely had something to do with his death.
• We learn that Fleur is the foster daughter of the Count and Countess. During one of her visions, we see her as a child. It looks like her birth parents were murdered by soldiers.

Season 1 of Freud is currently available to stream on Netflix.