Sunday, May 1, 2016

Grimm 5x19 Review: “The Taming of the Wu” (And a Melding of the Subplots) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]


“The Taming of the Wu”
Original Airdate: April 29, 2016

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

Wu’s secret werewolf double life is finally revealed, Adalind is forced to make an impossible choice, and the subplots finally converge in the latest episode of Grimm!

THE WEREWOLF IN THE WU


Wu is in the hospital recovering from the concussion he received during last episode’s Wesen case. Nick and Hank are concerned that something’s going on with Wu but they have no idea that "something" is that he’s turning into a werewolf. Turns out they’re not the only ones with a vested interest in Wu’s condition. A creepy looking guy shows up at the hospital to spy on Wu and makes a cryptic phone call confirming that Wu is there.

After Hank and Nick leave, Wu falls asleep. When the nurse comes in to check his vitals, he starts having a dream about chasing the dog that led to him hitting his head and ending up in the hospital to begin with. He suddenly woges and wakes up, and the nurse understandably freaks out. She runs out of the room screaming. She gets help but when she rushes back in with a couple other hospital staffers, Wu is back to normal with no memory of what happened.

The next morning, the doctor releases Wu. His MRI and other tests all came back normal, and he seems stable. The only test with any sort of anomaly was a blood test, but the doctor can’t explain what she’s seeing and since the weirdness with his blood doesn’t seem to be having any adverse effects, she’s not too concerned.

Hank and Nick pick Wu up and take him home, where he admits to them he’s been having strange dreams about running through the woods and has been craving red meat something fierce. They wave it off and tell him not to worry. Nick says that if Wu does continue to have any issues that maybe he should contact Rosalee. After Nick and Hank leave, Wu starts chopping up some food and cuts his hand. This triggers him to woge again, though he’s able to suppress it rather quickly. He decides to take Nick up on his advice and gives Rosalee a call at the spice shop.

But Wu has bigger problems to deal with first. He noticed the creepy guy that’s been following him, and apparently it’s a dude named Theo Delano, who he’s arrested three times in the past. He circles back around on the guy and confronts him in an alley, threatening to arrest him again if he doesn’t stop following him. The guy woges into a scaly reptilian Wesen and attacks.

Later that afternoon Nick and Hank get a call about a dead body. It’s Theo Delano. The guy’s throat has been ripped out and Wu is nowhere to be found. Just then, Nick gets a call from Rosalee, who says she’s really worried about Wu because he said he was going to come by the spice shop but never showed. Nick and Hank go to Wu’s apartment to check on him and find him passed out and covered in blood. They wake him and it turns out he’s fine — not a cut on him — but he doesn’t remember what happened. As Hank and Nick talk with him, he starts to remember bits and pieces of his encounter with Theo. He doesn’t remember actually killing him but he does remember Theo attacking him. After they get Wu cleaned up they take him back to the crime scene to identify Theo’s body and investigate the van Theo was camped out in while he watched Wu.

Hank and Nick finally seem concerned that maybe those dreams of Wu’s are more than dreams and they take him to the spice shop so Rosalee can help him remember what’s been happening during his black outs. She gives him a potion to knock him out and cause him to recall his memories. While he’s unconscious, he starts reenacting the encounter with Theo, and then he woges. Monroe, Rosalee, Hank and Nick all see it. They deduce that this must be an effect from their fight with the Lycanthrope a few weeks back. When Wu comes to they ask if he was bitten or scratched by the Lycanthrope, and he recalls that he did find a scratch on his leg after the attack. Rosalee explains that this is how the Lycanthrope virus was transmitted to him.

Nick gives Trubel a call and asks her to look into Theo Delano and find out why he was tailing Wu in the first place. Trubel confirms that Theo was a member of Black Claw and that they are probably keeping tabs on everyone associated with Nick. This as we find out, includes Zuri, the Wesen woman who randomly popped back into Hank’s life last week. We find out she’s actually working for Black Claw as well and is trying to infiltrate the team, though they’re unaware of that fact.


A MINI-HEXENBIEST AND HER MOM


Meanwhile, the Diana subplot has finally morphed into a full-blown plot worthy of taking up half the episode. Meisner is back in Portland and pays a visit to a house with a couple of dead bodies in it. It seems the bodies are the work of Black Claw, judging by the black claw marks on the wall (I do love an organization that leaves a very distinct calling card). Just as Meisner is finishing up his search of the house, a Wesen shows up and starts fighting him. Mid-fight the Wesen rips Meisner’s shirt off, which was the most utterly ridiculous move ever, but I certainly won’t complain about this thinly veiled excuse to get Meisner shirtless on camera for a few minutes. Just as things are looking dire for Meisner, Trubel shows up to help. She makes quick work of killing the Wesen and tells Meisner there were two more outside that she already took down. Trubel’s been MIA for the last few episodes, so her showing up now seems to indicate there’s big things about to go down. Apparently this is the safe house where Diana was being held and the dead people were her handlers. Meisner and Trubel quickly surmise that Black Claw has Diana, which the viewers already knew.

Speaking of Diana and Black Claw, we saw her and Adalind finally reunited at the end of last week’s episode. This episode picks up right where we left off, with Adalind remarking that Diana looks so grown up, which is a point I’d love for them to explain sometime soon since it seems Diana has aged about 10 years in the past year or so she’s been missing. Not only has she aged, but her powers have dramatically increased as well, as has her seeming instability. When she gets angry that Adalind isn’t coming with them, the walls start to shake and a metal shard rips off and flies toward them, embedding itself in a concrete pillar. So, apparently mini-Hexenbiests are just as dangerous as the full-grown version. If that’s even what Diana technically is. With Adalind’s Hexenbiest genes and Renard’s half-Zauberbiest, half-human genes, Diana should be ¾ Hexenbiest and ¼ human, but the whole rapidly aging and purple-eyed characteristics that Diana has are not characteristics that we’ve ever been told are typical of Hexenbiests. Not that we’ve ever seen a child Hexenbiest before. But still. I’m going to need some additional explaining to occur concerning what is going on with this demon-child.

After her meeting with Diana, Adalind finally confesses to Nick that her Hexenbiest powers have returned — which he already knew, of course. He promises that he’ll never hurt her, but she remains unconvinced and doesn’t tell him about Diana or Renard wanting her to choose him. She also doesn’t tell him that Diana seemingly has the ability to appear out of thin air and beckon to Adalind. First Adalind hears Diana calling to her and then Diana appears in front of her even though she’s actually far away in a completely different part of Portland. This happens a couple of times to Adalind and then it starts happening to Eve, too, presumably because of the link Adalind and Eve have shared ever since they did their little body-switcharoo. Diana is less than happy to have summoned Eve as well as her mother, and shatters the mirror in Eve’s room to show her displeasure. Eve is visibly shaken, which is the first time we’ve seen her express any sort of emotion since she changed her name and personality from Juliette to Eve. She tells Meisner and Trubel what happened and shows them her broken mirror, which has shattered in a skull-like pattern.

Meanwhile, Renard gets a visit from a new shady individual named Conrad Bonaparte, who is some sort of leader in Black Claw. He wants to force Adalind to choose Renard over Nick and is convinced he can make that happen. But he also wants Nick on the side of Black Claw, telling Renard that Nick is part of their world and they have a place for him within the organization. Which is interesting because Hadrian’s Wall has spent A LOT of time stating that Black Claw hates Grimms and is hell-bent on killing them all so that Wesen can take over the planet. Renard isn’t sure he can convince Nick to join Black Claw, but sort-of agrees to give it a shot.

The next day, Conrad Bonaparte pays Adalind a visit at work, under the guise of being a “very important client” of Adalind’s law firm. He tells Adalind that her current relationship with Nick, a Grimm, is very unhealthy and she needs to take up her place with Renard and Black Claw. He basically threatens Adalind and Nick’s baby boy, Kelly, in the process which is a pretty low blow and not something Adalind is going to take well.

While Adalind thinks over her options, Meisner and Trubel give Nick a call. Nick visits the Hadrian’s Wall compound and finally learns that Black Claw has Diana. Meisner and Eve are convinced that Adalind can’t be trusted and it’s only a matter of time before she joins Black Claw and takes Kelly with her. Nick says he won’t lose his son and Eve vows to do everything in her power to keep Kelly safe.

They’re definitely not giving Adalind enough credit because she’s really torn up about the decision. As she sits with Kelly, crying over the impossible choice she’s being forced to make, she gets a call she thinks is from Renard, telling her she’s run out of time. The call is actually from Diana, who is impersonating Renard’s voice. Adalind becomes upset at Renard and hangs up.

Shortly after that, Nick gets a call from Eve and she tells him she can sense that something is happening to Adalind and he needs to get home now. He rushes back and finds an empty apartment — Adalind and Kelly are gone. Adalind’s left a note apologizing for leaving and saying she has to protect her children and that she loves him.

I’m so glad these subplots are finally starting to meld together. I never doubted that they would but I do wish the Grimm writers had pulled them all together a bit faster. I’m sure Wu being a werewolf is going to come in handy in the inevitable confrontation with Black Claw. Hopefully afterward, Rosalee can find a cure for him. Wu could use some normalcy in his life again. And poor Hank. When he finds out that Zuri is Black Claw, he might just give up on relationships altogether.

Bonus Musings:
  • “Thanks for coming.” “Yeah, well, we couldn’t figure out a way to get out of it.” “That’s why we bought chocolate and flowers.” “Oh, where are they?” “Oh we didn’t buy them for you.” “It’s our reward for coming here.” 
  • “Sorry I’m late. I had to make sure there were only three of them.” “There are two more?” “There were.” 
  • “This little girl has a lot of power. I just felt some of it and it felt like grabbing hold of a lightning bolt.” 
  • “There’s a word for when you lose your parents. It’s ‘orphan.’ And there is a word for when you lose a spouse. It’s ‘widow’ or ‘widower.’ There are many words for many things but there is no word for when you lose a child.”
  • “Bad memories are like, you know, little bunnies. They get scared, they run back down the hole, they hide…” “Bunnies?”

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