“Oh Captain, My Captain”
Original Airdate: January 20, 2017
“You will face yourself again in a moment of terror.”
Hank and Wu fill everyone in on what happened with the judge — and the fact that Renard is cleaning house at the precinct, starting with their jobs. The team decides maybe it’s time for Nick to actually put a little more effort into his escape plan, so he and Eve/Juliette head back to the tunnels. He goes back to where he stowed the Elder Wand, and it’s still having some ill-effects on him. It has a powerful hold now, and every time he picks it up, the wand tries to convince Nick he needs it, and it becomes harder and harder to let go of. But, he manages to put it back in its hiding place again and Eve/Juliette again expresses her concerns about its powers — and its hold on him.
Back at the precinct, Hank and Wu are forced to hand over their resignations. Wu doesn’t handle it too well. First, he tries to refuse, but Renard threatens him, so he hands over his (slightly crumpled) resignation letter. As Renard walks away, Wu tries to lunge after him, woging as he goes, but Hank is able to grab him and calm him down.
Afterward, they head down to the tunnels to deliver some sandwiches and water to Nick and Eve/Juliette, and together, they all hatch a plan: Nick will use Adalind’s handy witch’s hat to perform the spell that can make someone transform into someone else. In this case, Nick wants to transform into Renard. They seem to be forgetting all of the many things that can go wrong when this particular spell is involved, like the mind-meld that occurred when Adalind impersonated Juliette a couple years ago. A mind meld that still crops up from time to time, and subsequently ended up turning Juliette into a Hexenbiest, who then became Eve. But yes, let’s set aside all memory of this incredibly problematic side-effect and have Nick transform into Renard, because that’s all this show needs: a Grimm who inadvertently turns himself into a half-Zauberbiest.
Meanwhile, one of Renard’s previously unnamed mayoral campaign staffers is suddenly blackmailing him. Apparently, the now-named Jeremiah was in love with Rachel Wood, saw Renard leaving her apartment, and was the one who discovered her body shortly after. And now he wants money to keep his silence. This all seems a little out of left field, but okay, let’s see what comes of it.
Apparently not much, because a couple scenes later, Renard and a Wesen police officer kill the wannabe blackmailer, Jeremiah. Well, that was short-lived. Renard has promised the Wesen officer, a Lieutenant Grossante, his place as Captain of the precinct once he becomes mayor, in exchange for his help with this pesky little matter.
Back at the spice shop, Rosalee and Juliette/Eve have set to work concocting the potion they’ll need for Nick to transform. Nick tried to recruit Adalind as well, but she’s knee-deep in domesticity, watching her children play at the park. She does agree to get some of Renard’s hair from the house for the spell and some of Renard’s clothes for Nick to change into. I’m glad they remembered to include this detail, since Renard is like a thousand feet taller than Nick and obviously, he’d need some different clothes. Monroe swings by the mansion to pick these up and tells Adalind she needs to make sure Renard stays home this evening and watches the seven-o’clock news, because Nick is going to make some sort of announcement.
Before Monroe can make his way out of the mansion, Renard comes home to change because his clothes got all bloody from murdering the blackmailer. Fortunately, Adalind does some quick thinking and distracts Renard by telling him he got blood in his hair, too, and should really go take a shower first before changing. Then Monroe can sneak out (he’d been hiding in the closet, naturally), and speed back to the spice shop with the hair and clothes, Renard none the wiser, albeit a bit suspicious that Adalind is suddenly being nice to him.
With the hair as the final potion ingredient, Nick is now ready to transform. Right before Nick is about to inhale the potion, Rosalee suddenly thinks to question what the side-effects might be for a Grimm, but before she can consult her books, Nick waves away the concern, stating there’s no time to worry about it. This bodes well.
Then, Eve/Juliette tells him he should probably take off all his clothes before inhaling the potion since Renard is so much bigger than him and his clothes might be a little tight after the transformation. God bless you, dear. No one is complaining about a shirtless Nick. After he’s disrobed, and with no other concerns pending from the onlookers, Nick finally takes the potion. At first, nothing appears to happen, but then he collapses and — after what looks like a very painful transformation — pops back up, looking like Renard. Only problem: he looks like Renard in his woged state, which is not something that should ever be seen in public.
Nick, who’s never had to woge or un-woge before, is more than a little panicked. Fortunately, Monroe and Rosalee are able to calm him down and walk him through un-woging. Just in time, too, because it’s 6:30. He has big plan is at 7:00 and he has to get going.
Meanwhile, back at the mansion, Renard has finished showering and is preparing to go back into the office. Adalind tries to stall him by saying they need to talk about their daughter, Diana. After going into a semi-panic attack, asking how they’re going to make sure Diana gets a good education when she can barely set foot in public without murdering someone, Renard finally relents and agrees to listen to Adalind’s concerns.
The team at the spice shop isn’t quite ready to unleash faux-Renard into Portland. Turns out, Nick has a hard time acting as pompous and arrogant as Renard, so they have to practice a bit, which is hilarious and gives Sasha Roiz (who plays Renard) one of his rare chances to show off his superb comedic chops. Finally, after testing out faux-Renard’s acting abilities on an unsuspecting Hank — who fully believes Nick to be the real Renard — the team declares Nick ready to head off and set his plan into motion.
Adalind has just about used up all her stalling techniques with Renard when, finally, the seven-o’clock news comes on and there is Nick as faux-Renard, making the announcement that he is abdicating the mayorship. Then he adds, for good measure, that the massive manhunt for Nick Burkhardt was just part of an undercover investigation into another matter and they’d like to thank Nick for playing along.
But Nick’s not finished wreaking havoc as faux-Renard. His next stop is the precinct, where he and Hank start ransacking Renard’s office. Just then, Lieutenant Grossante walks in, none too pleased that Renard has abdicated the mayorship and is remaining on as Captain when that job was promised to him. Nick, of course, has no idea what Grossante is talking about (or even who he is, it seems), but quickly catches up – realizing that Grossante killed Jeremiah for Renard to prove his loyalty. Heated words are exchanged and Grossante threatens faux-Renard, who threatens him right back, before Grossante woges, un-woges, and storms out.
Hank comes back into the office and he and Nick hurry to finish up. Nick doubles over in pain and realizes he’s about to turn back into himself and they need to get out of there fast. But you can’t just abdicate a mayorship without it causing a stir, and as they make for the precinct exit, they’re bombarded with reporters who want a statement on his decision. He blubbers some glowing words about Nick, Hank, and Wu, throwing in how great the press is as well, and makes it clear he has no intention of ever running for office again, before taking off at a run with Hank for the parking garage.
Wu has been in the garage waiting for both them and the real Renard’s arrival. Sure enough, real Renard pulls up and Wu tells him he better not go in, considering it would get super awkward to have two Renards walking around. Nick — still impersonating Renard — and Hank show up just then. After an angry exchange and shoving between Nick and real Renard, they all hop into the car Wu has waiting, leaving real Renard in the parking garage just as the press catches up. The real Renard tells them he has no intention of abdicating which directly contradicts what faux-Renard told them. He yells that that wasn’t him which make no sense to the reporters. One observant reporter questions why he’s now wearing a different tie than he was just moments ago but he has no answers for them that they’ll understand or accept.
The team reconvenes back at the spice shop with the intention of poring over Renard’s laptop and files. But, Eve/Juliette has some bad news. When she asks Nick if he’s felt the effects of the spell wearing off, he says yes, back in the precinct, he felt like a truck hit him and doubled over from the pain. Hank confirms this, but Eve/Juliette says this is bad. What he felt was the spell trying to wear off — and it should have worn off right then. But it didn’t. She fears he may be stuck as faux-Renard permanently. The team is understandably panicked at this idea. Rosalee immediately starts searching her books for a solution.
But they have bigger problems at the moment. Renard has finally gotten away from the press and is back in his office, where he discovers his computer and briefcase are missing. He calls up Nick for a little chat. Nick bluffs and says he’s going to stay faux-Renard until they get what they want — conveniently leaving out that he has no choice in the matter. They agree to meet on the roof of Nick’s loft to continue this conversation face-to-face while Hank goes to get Adalind and the kids and bring them to safety. After all, the only leverage Renard has over Nick is his son, Kelly.
Renard and Nick waste no time with words and get right down to fighting. Side note: why are there always so many roof fights on television? Renard woges to give himself an advantage over Nick, but Nick has a surprise up his sleeve — his faux-Renard can woge, too. Now it’s a Zauberbiest vs. Zauberbiest fight. After a few minutes of fighting but getting nowhere because they’re exactly evenly matched, they decide maybe it’s time to do some actual talking. They reach a truce. They’ll blame the North Precinct attack on Bonaparte and they’ll say Renard stepped down so he could lead the investigation. With both Hadrian’s Wall and Black Claw dead in Portland, Nick and Renard will stop going after each other and do their best to go back to the way things were before the two syndicates came into their lives. Meanwhile, Nick can finally be with Adalind and raise their son in peace, while Renard gets to raise his daughter, Diana. Renard walks out with a dire reminder that Diana won’t want to see anything bad happen to her daddy and if Nick does decide to come after him, she just might exact her revenge.
Back at the spice shop, Adalind is not pleased when Nick comes back and relays that she’ll have to share custody of her daughter with Renard. Unfortunately, the team doesn’t have the greatest news for Nick either. They haven’t been able to find a spell to counteract the potion and are afraid he will remain looking like Renard forever. Just then, Diana wakes up and approaches Nick, thinking he’s her dad. She soon realizes he’s not and does her glowing purple-eyed thing, exclaims that he is NOT her daddy, and causes him to fly across the room through a wall, and crash to the floor.
Adalind tries to explain that it’s not Nick’s fault — he’s just trapped in Renard’s body, but just then Nick transforms back. Whatever Diana hit him with seems to have done the trick. Adalind rushes to his side and hugs him, while Diana looks on, not at all pleased to see her mommy hugging someone who is definitely not her daddy but was impersonating him only moments before.
Renard, meanwhile, has arrived back at home. He enters the house and a figure rises up from a chair in the darkened room. It’s Meisner, here to tell Renard that he chose the wrong side. The episode ends as Renard stares at Meisner. This is probably just another of Renard’s hallucinations, since we all saw him shoot Meisner in the head not that long ago, and Meisner had no special abilities that we’re aware of. But we’ll have to wait until next week to find out for sure!
Bonus Musings:
- “We should have killed Renard when we had the chance!” “We never had the chance.” ... “We should have killed Renard when we didn’t have the chance.”
- “It would be an honor to succeed you, sir.” “Yes, I know.”
- “Oh, wait, wait! Shoes and tie!” “Oh, right! Oh, blue or red?” “What?!” “I don’t know… blue might be the smarter choice you know, but I gotta say, a lot of people like red — it’s a power color — but Nick’s not really a tie type of guy but then again it’s not actually going to be Nick — ” “OH MY GOD JUST PICK ONE!” “Right! Right... I’ll take them both.”
- “There are things we need to talk about.” “Like what?” “Well, your daughter for one.” “Diana? Why? Did she kill somebody else?” “No, Sean, she didn’t kill someone else. She has other issues.”
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