Last Judgment
The season 1 finale of Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood begins with Roman and Clara opening Ludwig’s brewery for thirsty patrons. It’s under new management now and this could be enough to salvage the business. Prank purposefully visits Glogauer and tells him to close up shop, knowing the man’s been working against him with Stifter. Glogauer promises to stop the investigation into Ignatz’s death and Prank seems to believe him. As he hands over cash, Prank suddenly leans forward and plunges a knife in his belly. Falling to a crumpled heap on the ground, a young girl walks down the stairs and starts humming. Following her erratic outbursts last episode, Maria is taken in as a patient at the mental institute. It’s up to Roman now to try and lead the family name forward. Only, Maria is not happy about this and lets her feelings be known to her son. With her husband back, Colina finds herself stuck within the toxic relationship with Rupp she tried so hard to escape from. When she returns from a busy day at work, she finds her boy passed out on the bed covered in vomit. Rushing to his aide, Rupp simply sits down nonchalantly and asks what’s for dinner. On the back of this – and the increased price of drinks plaguing the various breweries – Colina has enough. She leads the women into striking against these changes. It seems to work too, and Stifter finally comes to an agreement with her that suits everybody. Meanwhile, Clara confronts her Father and asks whether he’s responsible for any of the tragedies befalling the Hoflinger family. When she doesn’t get an answer, his silence speaks for itself. She instead asks him for money to help with the brewery and walks away. Inspektor Eder arrives back on the scene in the wake of Glogauer’s death and speaks to Roman. Along with the police, they scoured the area and deduced that Glogauer (or specifically his dog) as the one responsible for Ignatz’s death not the cannibals. This brings Roman before Prank again as he sits in the emptiness of his beer tent. Roman listens as Prank tries to pitch the boy a brand new idea. This would see them join forces and pave way for a new alliance to prevent Stifter from taking their spotlight. In order to do this, he wants Roman buy his brewery off him. This would sacrifice the Prank name in order to see Clara and Roman rise up. For now, Roman contemplates what to do next. Reminiscing over some of Ludwig’s old sketches, Roman heads back in to see his Mother and hands this over for her. She’s going to need it too, as Roman pays off the doctor to keep his Mother institutionalized. This means the papers would fall to him and he would be in charge of the brewery legally. On the back of this, Roman agrees to work with Prank. They’re not alone in joining forces either. Colina tries to leave with Maxi back home but finds Rupp standing in the way. As things take a turn for the worst, Clara saves her and stabs the man in the back. Together, they dump him in the lavatory and hurry away. Meanwhile, the Hoflinger/ Prank alliance gets underway and Roman makes his move. He heads to see Stifter in his underground meeting spot armed with a video. This video incriminates the man and shows him very clearly breaking the purity act. While Stifter tries to weasel his way out of this, Urban decides to follow through and investigate Capital Brew following these claims. On the back of this, Prank grabs the wheelchair-bound member from the cartel and wheels him outside (presumably anyway, the scene actually just hard-cuts to him outside). It turns out this man was instrumental to the death of Prank’s father. As the episode closes out, Clara and Roman get married, solidifying the familial ties between the Hoflinger and Prank families. During the final moments of the episode, Curt arrives with Glogauer’s dog and stares at his daughter on her big day.
The Episode Review
What will happen with Rupp’s murder? Will his body be found? What about the fate of those involved with the cartel and the investigation as a whole? There’s plenty of scope for a second season here but despite a couple of big bouts of drama, this one plays out as much more of a historical slice of life. The costume and production design in general is fantastic though and really lends itself nicely to the setting. Personally though it’s a little disappointing that we didn’t see a full on war between the two families. It would have been nice to see more blood spilled on Prank’s side but the ending certainly sees Roman winning and coming up as the victor at the end. Roman and Clara finally get married and everyone is seemingly happy – at least for now. Whether Netflix’s will green-light this for another season or not remains to be seen but there’s certainly enough here to warrant that. In the meantime, Oktoberfest delivers good on its promise of beer and blood – even if there perhaps could have been a bit more of the latter.
