Freud Season 1, Episode 5 recap: Fleur has left the building

Fleur completes her transformation as a group of young men shows up at the Szápáry Palace for a secret ritual in the fifth episode of Freud.

We’re past the half-way point of Freud‘s debut season and I’m not sure I have any idea what the overarching plot of the show is, or how all of these murders and storylines tie together, but I am having fun going along for the ride anyway.

The fifth episode, aptly titled “Desire,” focuses on Fleur’s complete transformation, the discovery of “Táltos,” and it also follows up on the general’s desire to have Kiss killed. Plus, we learn what happened to the Crown Prince Rudolf after his rendezvous with Fleur in the last episode.

Freud vs. the piano player

Freud is transfixed by Fleur and the many problems that have come into his life since he first started “treating” her. They have sex again at the beginning of this episode before Freud hypnotizes Fleur into remembering what happened the night before. For now, it seems Fleur is gone and has been completely possessed by some kind of demonic energy.

Unfortunately for Freud, Lenore lets Eli in and they happen to spot a very naked Fleur and Freud in bed together. A smug Eli now realizes he won’t have to repay his loan to Freud since he could ruin his engagement with his sister Martha by informing her of Freud’s infidelity.

While that is yet another complication in Freud’s already very complicated life, it is not the most pressing of matters for him to attend to at the moment. Instead, he focuses on trying to figure out who or what the mysterious “Táltos” is since Fleur kept uttering it while asleep and under hypnosis.

By doing some research, Freud learns that Táltos is a Hungarian term used to describe someone who is akin to a shaman. They can enslave the living and speak to the dead, hm, sound familiar? He still doesn’t quite know what that means for Fleur or her strange abilities. Before he can learn more, however, he is interrupted by loud piano-playing coming from his neighbor’s place.

Except, no one has lived in the neighboring apartment for years. Lenore shows up just in time to let Freud in so he can see the empty apartment and the ghostly piano. Apparently, the former owner was a victim of the Vienna Ringtheater fire. I don’t completely know where the show is going with this but it seems like it will eventually tie-in with the overall mythology of the series, I presume, anyway.

Kiss deals with would-be assassins

I’m still not quite sure how Kiss’s storyline ties into all the other supernatural craziness on this show. By comparison, his narrative arc is quite tame. However, remember how he killed Georg in a duel and Georg’s lover and father were hellbent on revenge? It feels like that happened ages ago.

Related Story. Freud Season 1, Episode 4 recap: Totem & Taboo. light

Well, two assassins break into Kiss’s home with his daughter-in-law and grandchildren and try to kill him. Kiss manages to fend them off and murders both of them. His daughter-in-law calls Poschacher to help calm Kiss down and all three share a surprisingly touching moment complete with hugs and tears.

Afterward, Poschacher helps Kiss dispose of the bodies. If the general found out, he would surely have Kiss thrown in jail, since his intent is to get rid of him. By the end, the two men have decided to go straight to the source to confront Heinz and his men and put a stop to all of this once and for all.

Fleur completes her transformation

After spending the night with Freud, Fleur seems to lose touch with herself altogether and completely succumbs to the “other soul” inside of her. She steals some of Freud’s cocaine and returns to the Szápáry Palace where she shaves off her eyebrows and intimidates the heck out of Viktor and Sophia.

More from Show Snob

You’d expect the Count and Countess to be scared but instead, they’re downright gleeful. Apparently, this is all going according to plan for them, even if Fleur is going full-on Exorcist. They want to move forward with yet another ritual, with the intent to kill Fleur after it’s over.

Well, the ritual involves a group of 12 men showing up in a trance to a tiled room in the palace with the bloody totem symbol painted on the wall. They’re all naked and covered in blood — because of course, they are. Enter Fleur, who emerges out of one of those weird pseudo-placenta sack things like we saw Mucha doing in Fleur’s earlier vision.

She then proceeds to chant “Táltos” a lot before triggering a weird bloody orgy with the Count and Countess involved. Fleur eventually leaves, gets on a horse, and rides off into the night. We don’t learn what happened to the other 12 men, Viktor, or Sophia.

If I had to guess, it seemed like Fleur unlocked something primal and murderous in all of the men, so I anticipate them going out to do her bidding like Leopold, Georg, and Mucha before them. What are all these murders for, exactly? That, I’m not sure yet.

Freud shows up at the Palace, but by the time he gets there, everyone is gone. The only thing that remains is the bloody totem on the wall.

20 best Hulu original series, ranked. dark. Next

Odds & Ends

Freud’s mentor is not happy about his involvement with Fleur. Remember, he warned Freud against getting involved with his patients earlier in the season. He even offers Freud money to cut her off altogether, which he does not accept.
During demon!Fleur’s ritual, she has a flashback to when she was a child and saw her mother murdered in front of her. We see that the soldiers tried to capture her too, but she called Táltos, or she is the Táltos, to save her. She managed to turn the soldiers against each other to protect herself.
Whatever Fleur did to Rudolph seems to be in the Szápáry’s best interest. He still wants to invite them to the People’s Ball but his father strongly objects. That said, he is getting strange visits from his mother at night telling him to do what he wants anyway since he is the Crown Prince. So let’s see what happens with him in the next few episodes.
One thing that does annoy me about this show is its reluctance to explain names and relationships. We still don’t know Georg’s lover’s name, although I think it might be Heinz? And up until this episode, I assumed the woman in Kiss’s home was his daughter, it’s actually his daughter-in-law who was married to his son, Otto.

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

Home/Netflix