Grimm 6x13 Review: “The End” (Everything Has A Beginning And An End) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“The End”

Original Airdate: March 31, 2017

“Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

After six seasons of wesens, Grimms, and a little bit of magic here and there, Grimm has finally come to an end.

*cue moment of silence*

I’ve been with this show from the very start and am legit feeling A LOT of emotions about its end. It’s been a wild ride of ups and downs, campiness and heart, and I’ve loved every minute of it even when the storylines were a bit thin and the audience was expected to follow approximately 87 subplots at once. Despite frustrating and sometimes comical flaws here and there, Grimm remains one of my favorite shows of all time. It brought the magic of the Brothers Grimm fairytales to television and did it with heart, week after week. So, it is with great sadness and a few tears that I’ll review this very last episode. Here we go.

In the final episode, Nick has been blasted unconscious by Skull Guy/Zerstorer. He wakes to a nightmare: the entire police force, including my beloved Hank and Wu, are dead. Nick immediately tries to revive them with the stick, but for the first time ever it doesn’t work. Trubel rushes in and sees the destruction. She asks the question we all immediately had: why didn’t Zerstorer kill Nick, too, or at least take the stick while he was unconscious? After all, this stick is supposedly the only thing standing in Skull Guy’s way of becoming completely all-powerful and unstoppable.

Nick calls Adalind and Renard to fill them in on everything. Adalind has news of her own — that based on what Diana said, Skull Guy wants both baby Kelly AND Diana. Trubel heads to the cabin to protect Adalind and the children while Nick heads to the spice shop, where Rosalee, Monroe, and Eve (do we call her Juliette again now that her powers are gone?) are all frantically looking through the Grimm books, trying to find out how to defeat Skull Guy.

Monroe finds a super vague reference to one’s blood being able to “destroy the destroyer.” That reminds Rosalee of a potion she’s seen where the blood of three opposing forces (a Grimm, a wesen, and a Hexenbiest) are all combined. Normally, this would be next to impossible to get, but luckily the team has all three: Nick, Monroe or Rosalee, and Adalind.

They set to work mixing the potion, but blood from the three “forces” has to be added all at the same time, which means the team has to get to Adalind. Rosalee and Monroe head out in one car with the partially-mixed potion. Nick and Eve/Juliette plan to follow right after but before they can leave, Zerstorer bursts in. Eve/Juliette yells at Nick to get out of there because his blood is needed for the potion and she takes on Zerstorer herself.

Before Nick can make a run for it, Zerstorer blasts him into a wall and then causes Eve/Juliette to turn the knife she’s holding on herself. She stabs herself as Nick comes to. He runs to her and she dies. Meanwhile, Zerstorer disappears. It seems he’s taking out all of Nick’s team one by one until only Nick is left. It also seems he might have some sort of link to Nick? I mean, he keeps showing up wherever Nick is.

Nick tries desperately to revive her with the stick but, just like with Wu and Hank, it does nothing to help her. In a rage, Nick begins smashing everything in the spice shop, yelling at Zerstorer to come back. I don’t know why Nick thinks destroying Rosalee’s livelihood will entice Zerstorer to come back. And it doesn’t.

Meanwhile, Rosalee and Monroe have arrived at the cabin and fill Trubel, Adalind, and Renard in about the potion and their plan. They’ve also brought quite a few weapons with them with the thought that perhaps they can dip bullets/arrows/etc. in it and that way cause damage to Zerstorer.

Nick arrives at the cabin shortly after, distraught and angry. They set to work with the potion. Adalind, Monroe and Nick place their hands on top of each other’s, over the bowl. In order for the potion to work, a knife has to be stabbed through their hands while Adalind and Monroe are woged. Renard volunteers to do the stabbing (not surprised).

After they’ve been stabbed and the blood drips in, their hands immediately heal. The potion begins boiling. When Rosalee goes to stir it, the spoon dissolves. Here’s hoping that’s what happens to Zerstorer, too.

Just then, Diana comes up the stairs and says she feels “different” and isn’t scared anymore. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing. When Renard says it’s okay and she doesn’t need to be scared, she says, “Oh good, so you know he’s coming here.” Well, now they do. Diana also fills them in on what we already suspected: Zerstorer knows where Nick is. The stick tells him. So, Nick’s basically been keeping a homing beacon on him at all times.

Suddenly, Zerstorer appears. He does his staff blasty thing and everyone is knocked to the ground except Diana, who remains standing. She smiles at Zerstorer and does her creepy glowing purple-eyed thing. As Zerstorer looks at her, he transforms from Skull Guy into his human form. Then he offers her his hand and they walk out of the cabin. The team wakes up as Diana’s walking out and starts screaming at her to stop.

Renard rushes out of the house and attacks Zerstorer. Diana yells at Renard, defending Zerstorer. She seems to be in some sort of trance and says that Zerstorer needs her. Nick shouts at Trubel to take baby Kelly and run. She wants to stay and help, but Nick insists. As the team races outside, Zerstorer transforms back to Skull Guy and stabs Renard with his staff. Renard collapses, dead. Diana looks a little unsure about the whole thing. The team throws the potion on Zerstorer’s face and he screams, his face sprouting ugly boils. For a minute, they think it’s working. Nick’s not going to take any chances though and goes to cut off Zerstorer’s head with his axe, but Zerstorer throws a hand up and stops him. As he looks up, his face clears of the boils and he throws Nick to the side.

Adalind screams at Trubel to run but before she can, Zerstorer slams the cabin door shut, trapping Trubel and Kelly in the house. They all start attacking Zerstorer at once, but they’re no match for him. He manages to grab Nick’s axe from him and then proceeds to stab Adalind. With her final breath, she tells Nick to save Diana and Kelly.

When Zerstorer grabbed the axe, he dropped the staff. Rosalee runs forward and grabs it, holding it out to defend herself. But Zerstorer just looks at her and suddenly the staff she’s holding is a poisonous snake that bites her in the neck. Monroe pulls the snake off but then it bites him, too. All of them die. Only Nick and Trubel are left. And Zerstorer has disappeared again.

He reappears with Diana inside the cabin, where Trubel is. Diana shouts at Trubel to stay away from her brother. Trubel tries to protect Kelly but Zerstorer makes quick work of killing her. Nick rushes to her side. Diana says she and her brother are ready to go with Zerstorer, and that Kelly likes him, too.

Nick tells Zerstorer that he’s taken everything from him and is not going to take his son. Zerstorer says that doesn’t need to happen — that none of this does. Nick realizes that Zerstorer isn’t capable of killing him or taking the stick from him, but that’s what he wants. Zerstorer smiles his agreement with Nick’s assessment and tells him that he’s willing to give him something in exchange: the resurrection of all of his friends. To show he’ll make good on his promise, he resurrects Trubel in front of Nick’s eyes.

Trubel wakes up confused and disoriented but quickly catches on to what’s happening. Nick takes one look at his son and willingly offers the stick up. He holds it out toward Zerstorer. As the stick gets close to the staff, both the stick and a portion of the staff (where the missing stick goes) glow green. Just as Zerstorer is about to take it, Trubel intervenes with some good questions. Like, why can’t Zerstorer just take it from Nick by force? What is Zerstorer not telling him? What happens when he gets the stick and his staff is completely restored? According to the prophecy, that would make Zerstorer all-powerful and he’d bring about the end of the world. At least Trubel is thinking these things through.

Nick isn’t listening, though. He’s only thinking about all the loved ones he’s lost. He tries again to hand the stick to Zerstorer but Trubel stops him again and they scuffle. She knocks him down, grabs the stick and races into the woods with it. But it begins burning her hand and she has to drop it. Nick catches up with her and they fight again. He seems out of his mind and beats her up pretty good. Just before he deals what would undoubtedly be a death blow, he stops, picks up the stick and begins walking back to Zerstorer.

As he makes his way back through the woods, the sky darkens and thunder rumbles. Suddenly he hears a voice calling to him and his deceased mother, Kelly, and also-deceased Aunt Marie both appear, telling him not to hand over the stick. If he does, they say, the world he knows will become like the Other Place he saw: endless pain and suffering for humanity. They confirm that Zerstorer cannot take the stick himself — it must be freely given. That’s why he killed everyone Nick loves, so that Nick would give up the stick.

Nick doesn’t know what to do. He wants his friends back and he wants to protect Diana and baby Kelly. He tells his mother and Aunt Marie that he can’t defeat Zerstorer. The team tried the blood potion and it didn’t work. But they tell him that the power to defeat Zerstorer lies inside Nick. The blood to defeat him is in Nick’s veins — and Trubel’s. Nick contains the power of all his Grimm ancestors and it’s that power, that blood, that can defeat Zerstorer.

With the little pep talk complete, Nick heads toward Zerstorer with renewed purpose. Kelly (his mother, not the baby) and Aunt Marie walk with him. Trubel races up too and now it’s four Grimms against one. It doesn’t appear Trubel can see either Aunt Marie or Kelly, but whether they’re figments of Nick’s imagination or not, the damage they inflict on Zerstorer is real.

All of them battle against Zerstorer. Trubel stabs him in the leg, Aunt Marie stabs in the back, and Kelly chops off his arm. Nick grabs the staff from where Zerstorer dropped it and the stick zips into its rightful place in the staff. With the staff now fully restored, Nick stabs Zerstorer in the heart with it, finally defeating him.

Kelly and Aunt Marie warn Nick to guard the stick well. It is ancient and powerful. Trubel walks up and says she can’t believe she and Nick defeated Zerstorer, just the two of them. Nick’s confused at first but then realizes Trubel couldn’t see Aunt Marie or Kelly. Diana comes out of the house and asks Nick where the other Grimms who were fighting with him went. Apparently she could see them just fine.

Just as Nick realizes he can use the staff to save all of his friends, Zerstorer’s body turns to ash and begins spinning in the air. The ash turns into a portal and begins to suck the staff through. Trubel screams at Nick and tries to hold on to him, but the portal sucks both Nick and the staff through. Nick comes shooting out through the mirror in Monroe’s house, and everyone is there. It’s taken him back in time to the moment when he and Eve originally came back through the portal from the Other Place. They’re all alive.

Everyone’s super confused as to why Nick is hugging everyone and shouting about them being alive. Only Diana knows what happened. She turns to Eve and tells her she’s a Hexenbiest again. Eve is confused about what she means by “again,” but Nick knows. Diana then turns to Nick and tells him that Zerstorer didn’t come through the portal this time — that he’s dead and she’s not afraid anymore. Just then, Monroe spots the staff. Zerstorer may not have come through, but the now all-powerful staff did. Nick has a lot to catch them all up on.

In the final two minutes of the episode, we fast-forward 20 years and hear a voice relating the story of Zerstorer and the time Nick saved the world. It’s baby Kelly all grown up, sitting in Aunt Marie’s trailer, writing the story into one of the Grimm books. A grown-up Diana bursts in, telling him there’s wesen to kill and their parents are waiting. Oh, and the triplets (Rosalee and Monroe’s kids all grown up) will be joining them, too. Kelly grabs the staff from Diana and they head out. The final credits role, and it’s the end.

Final Musings:

• “Everything has a beginning and an end.” “Well, I’m not finding any beginning or end to whatever Zerstorer is.” 
• “I’ll die before I let you have her.” “I know.”
• “What you think you have to do is not what must be done.” 
• “How did you know I needed you?” “We feel it.”

Read More

Grimm 6x12 Review: “Zerstorer Shrugged” (Back to the Cabin in the Woods) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Zerstorer Shrugged”

Original Airdate: March 24, 2017

“You shall break them with a rod.”

It’s the penultimate episode of Grimm and things are getting worse and worse for Nick and his faithful team! Let’s dive right in, shall we?

We left off last week with Skull Guy unleashing his glowing green staff and Eve going full Hexenbiest. Eve and Nick battle it out with Skull Guy in the Other Place, while back in Portland at Monroe and Rosalee’s house, Monroe, Adalind, and Renard try to figure out how to get there to help out. Monroe has a theory, based off of what Renard’s mysterious friend told them, that this other plane of existence is hell and Skull Guy is the guardian, a.k.a the devil. So while Adalind and Renard consult the Hexenbiest spell book, Monroe pulls out his trusty family Bible (Wesen edition, naturally).

In the Wesen Bible, hell isn’t the hell we think of — all fire and brimstone. Instead, it’s a beautiful garden overrun by beasts and hell “resides within” the beasts. Sounds pretty identical to where Eve and Nick are. The Wesen Bible even has a drawing of the devil, and wouldn’t you know, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Skull Guy, complete with staff.

Monroe also has an idea of how to reopen the portal. He thinks Diana possesses the ability to open it, but Renard and Adalind are completely against involving their daughter in any of this, since Skull Guy wants to make her his child bride and all. Of course, their shouting match about it wakes Diana up and she hears what they’re saying.

Over at the spice shop, Hank, Wu, and Rosalee are consulting the Grimm books and they come across a drawing of a skull with some ancient German text. When translating it, they figure out that Skull Guy used Eve to lure Nick to the Other Place. Skull Guy needs the power of a Grimm to cross worlds, get to theirs, and take his bride, and now he has Nick. As Rosalee’s piecing all this together, she also remembers that the strange markings on the cloth wrapped around the Elder Wand were a calendar that pointed to March 24 as the date the stars would align and something “very bad” would happen. It’s all coming together now!

Rosalee, Wu, and Hank decide they absolutely cannot open any portal to the Other Place, lest Skull Guy jump through. Back at the house, Monroe has finally agreed to let Adalind open the portal herself and not involve Diana. Just then he gets a frantic call from Rosalee. But unbeknownst to them, Diana is in the living room, and she has the Elder Wand. She opens the portal and Adalind, Monroe, and Renard run in, screaming at her to stop.

In the Other Place, Nick, Eve and Skull Guy see the portal open. Nick manages to grab Eve and they both get sucked through. After they’re gone, Skull Guy saunters through, too. Uh oh.

Back in Portland, Nick and Eve come flying back through the mirror in Rosalee and Monroe’s house. Eve is no longer woged. Nick immediately grabs his Elder Wand and heals himself from the wounds Skull Guy inflicted. The team is relieved to have them back, but Monroe shares what Rosalee was trying to tell them — that if they came back, they wouldn’t come back alone. Nick looks around. It sure looks like they’re alone. Monroe points to the mirror, which has been completely destroyed and definitely won’t be moonlighting as a portal again any time soon. Just then Rosalee, Hank, and Wu bust in. Everyone’s relieved Skull Guy isn’t there, but they’re not entirely convinced Skull Guy missed his big opportunity.

Nick and Eve fill the team in on their time in the Other Place, and describe Skull Guy. He also had a name in the Other Place — Zerstorer. Monroe tells them Zerstorer means Destroyer.

Before they can ponder that for too long, Diana tells Eve that Eve is different now, and that part of her stayed in the Other Place. Adalind asks if Eve feels any different. Eve isn’t sure, but when she tries to woge, she can’t. She’s not a Hexenbiest any longer.

Just then Diana starts hyperventilating, crying, and screaming, “He’s coming! He’s coming!” Nothing Renard or Adalind does can console her.

Meanwhile, over at a creepy gas station, bats start dropping dead from the sky and suddenly a guy minding his own business in the station bathroom is stabbed through the chest with a staff that emerges — with Skull Guy — from the bathroom mirror. As Skull Guy comes through the mirror he transforms into a very attractive (and completely naked) human-looking man.

Skull Guy — now Naked Man — emerges from the bathroom and promptly kills the gas station attendant with an electrical charge from his staff.

Back at Monroe’s, Diana is still inconsolable but the team vows that they will all protect her. Adalind takes her to another room to calm down and the team brainstorms where to hide her. Nick decides they should take her to the cabin in the woods that he and Monroe discovered on his first case after realizing he was a Grimm.

Apparently, they assume the cabin is still standing empty after six years or that they can easily evict its current tenants. And no pause is given to whatever bad juju the cabin might have, considering it was where a Wesen serial killer committed a string of murders. Nick thinks this is the perfect place because it has no connection to any of them. I think it’s the perfect place because producers didn’t want to splurge on a brand new set design on the second to last episode. Either way, Monroe points out that Skull Guy may have a connection to Diana that enables him to track her down no matter where she’s hiding.

So, Rosalee suggests an additional protection — a Hexenbiest charm that protects a child from danger coming his/her way. Renard says his mother used the charm on him several times when he was a child and, as far as he knows, it worked because he’s still alive despite the royal family trying for years to kill him.

While Hank and Wu head to the precinct to check and see if there’s any unusual chatter about a Skull Guy coming through, the rest of the team applies the potion to Diana and then heads off to the cabin.

Meanwhile, Trubel is back! She’s down in the tunnels looking for the Elder Wand when she notices the symbols. She’s been gone awhile and sure has a lot of catching up to do.

Nick, Adalind, Renard, Diana, and baby Kelly arrive at the cabin and it looks exactly the same as it did when the Blutbad serial killer lived there. Complete with the hidden door in the floor that leads to a little girl’s bedroom where the Blutbad kept his victims. Not creepy at all.

Monroe, Eve, and Rosalee are back at the spice shop, poring over Grimm books. Turns out this special staff has quite the legacy. Not only does Monroe’s Wesen Bible connect the staff to the devil, but also to Moses, David, and a host of other important figures from the Bible and several other religions. Just then, there’s a noise upstairs. Fortunately, it’s just Trubel come to find them, and Monroe wastes no time getting her caught up to speed.

Over at the precinct, Wu and Hank hear about some suspicious activity at a gas station and take off to investigate. There’s two dead men (one of whom is naked because Skull Guy stole his clothes), and lots and lots of dead bats everywhere. Nick joins them at the crime scene and confirms the fatal wounds look like something Skull Guy could have caused with his staff.

Speaking of Skull Guy, he’s winning friends and influencing people as he wanders Portland. He almost gets hit by a car as he meanders into traffic. The driver shouts at him. Then he happens upon some homeless people in an alley. He mimics what the driver said to him to the homeless people and then begins mimicking them, which they do not appreciate. When one of them starts to attack him, he drops his staff and it turns into a snake that kills the man. Then he walks away, mimicking the man’s screams. Well, I guess that’s one way to teach yourself English. Rosetta Stone’s not for everyone.

Back at the spice shop, Trubel is up to speed and she, Rosalee, Eve, and Monroe are brainstorming how Zerstorer got his bony hands on an all-powerful staff connected to so many important historical figures. Eve also mentions a key detail – that when she saw the staff in the Other Place, it was cracked and weathered and looked like it had been broken apart and put back together again (anyone else thinking the Elder Wand is a piece of this staff?).

Monroe says he remembers reading a prophecy about a staff with the power of the gods that can’t be destroyed. In the prophecy, the staff was broken into 100 pieces and scattered across the world to prevent evil from using it. Eve guesses that the Elder Wand is a piece of the staff (shocking!). That must be what Zerstorer is after. Eve calls Nick and tells him to come back to the spice shop immediately.

Back at the cabin, Diana has a dream that Skull Guy shows up and tries to take baby Kelly. She wakes up screaming and when Renard and Adalind try to tell her it was just a dream she explains that no, she knows now that Skull Guy wants them both — her and Kelly. This is super problematic because the concealment charm Rosalee whipped up was only used on Diana, not Kelly.

Nick gets back to the spice shop and Rosalee, Monroe, Eve, and Trubel fill him in: if Skull Guy gets ahold of the Elder Wand — the last piece of the staff — he’ll be unstoppable. Nick gets back to the precinct and fills Hank and Wu in, too. They weapon up with as many guns and as much ammo as they can find. Meanwhile, Trubel hears shots where she’s at and comes outside to discover two dead cops. She calls Nick and lets him know just as Nick hears gunfire out in the main precinct area. Skull Guy is in the precinct!

Nick, Wu, and Hank race out to confront him and he’s no longer looking human – he’s back to being a literal Skull Guy again. He uses his staff to blast all the cops out of the way. This enrages the werewolf within Wu and he woges and charges Skull Guy, who rams him through with his staff. Wu collapses and unwoges. Nick rushes to his side but there’s nothing he can do and Wu dies.

Nick tries to charge Skull Guy but he just bats him away. Then Hank unleashes a round of gunfire on him — with no effect. Skull Guy stabs his staff through Hank’s neck and Hank dies instantly. Nick rushes him again, and again is thrown backward. And then the episode ends!

We’ll have to wait until the finale to find out who prevails. My guess is Nick and team — utilizing Diana’s many powers — will be able to reverse time or somehow resurrect Wu and Hank (perhaps with the Elder Wand?!) and everything will be a-ok. I hope so anyway. I would be super bummed if they end the show by killing off Hank and Wu, who are arguably two of the best characters.

Bonus Musings:

• “The hitchhiker didn’t need a guide to this galaxy. He just needed a Grimm.” 
• “Just think of it as fairy dust.” “Mom. There’s no such thing as fairies.” 
• “That was before I had a baby with you. Or you.” “Simpler times.” 
• “I tried shooting this guy in his world. It didn’t work.” “He’s in our world now.” “Let’s weapon up.”

Read More

Grimm 6x11 Review: “Where the Wild Things Were” (The Other Place) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Where the Wild Things Were”

Original Airdate: March 17, 2017

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

The latest episode wastes no time in jumping right back into the swing of things. At the end of last week, Eve took a portal to another world. The team has yet to realize this; so instead, Nick and Adalind are having a little heart-to-heart about Diana. Renard’s mysterious friend thinks Diana is in danger because she can see the symbols, but Nick is hesitant to let Renard help them or tell him where the tunnel full of symbols is. Adalind urges Nick to tell Renard about the tunnels so that he can help. They want to keep Diana safe, though obviously the girl can take care of herself.

Meanwhile, Rosalee and Monroe arrive back home and quickly realize Eve managed to create a portal through their mirror and has disappeared through it. They call Nick and Adalind in a panic. Everyone’s pretty upset that Eve went through the portal on her own without telling anyone else.

Eve is indeed in another world. She wakes up in a rune-filled, snowy landscape. At first she can see through one of the runes back into Monroe’s house, where Rosalee and Monroe are discussing what happened. But then the window closes and it’s just a rune. Before she can contemplate that for too long, she hears shouts and comes upon a group of Wesen attacking a man who they then drag off, but not before he wounds one of the Wesen. Then another Wesen shows up and kills the wounded one. Eve doesn’t stick around for too long after that. Can’t say I blame her.

When Adalind and Nick arrive — with Diana and baby Kelly in tow — Adalind opens the Hexenbiest spell book for them so they can figure out exactly what Eve did. Turns out, Hexenbiest blood can be used as currency to cross into other worlds. As the only other Hexenbiest around, Adalind offers to go in after Eve but Nick, Monroe, and Rosalee all say no. Nick says he’ll go but first he needs to find another way through the portal. He’s brought the Elder Wand with him (we haven’t seen that in a couple episodes). Apparently, all he needs to do is hold the Elder Wand up to the mirror and the portal magically opens right up. Convenient.

Nick passes right through, but the stick falls out of his hand as he goes. Diana tells Adalind, Monroe, and Rosalee that the stick can’t pass through because it doesn’t belong there.

Nick wakes up in the other world and, just like Eve, he can see a glimpse of what he left behind. He sees Monroe holding the Elder Wand and looking confused and it’s then that Nick realizes it didn’t come through with him. Now he’s stuck in a mysterious land surrounded by runes. At least it seems to have stopped snowing.

Nick happens upon another fight (or the same one?) in the woods. Unlike Eve, he just walks right up, because, well, he’s Nick and not known for sound judgment. The Wesen killer runs at him, shouting in German. Nick beats him up pretty good, but the Wesen just pops right back up. Frustrated, Nick declares he doesn’t have time for this and shoots the Wesen, who has clearly never seen a gun before. Unlike in Portland, the Wesen don’t woge back after being killed here. They stay Wesen.

Eve comes running when she hears the shots and she and Nick have a good semi-shouting match about her running off through a portal by herself. After they’re done with that, they take off through the woods. It doesn’t take long for the Blutbaden pack to find their fallen friend and start howling. Nick and Eve hear it and start running faster.

Back in Portland, Adalind tells Monroe and Rosalee that Renard knows about the symbols. Monroe and Rosalee aren’t happy, and they’re not on board with Adalind’s idea to tell Renard everything. But without any other options, they decide to fill him in and hope he and the mysterious friend can help. Before they call him in though, they call in Hank and Wu, who aren’t at all happy that Nick went to another world without them.

They’ve convened at Nick’s house where the tunnel entrance is located and they’ve contacted Renard. They fill him in on everything — the keys, the symbols, the Elder Wand — and show him the tunnels. Adalind tells Renard that Diana is connected to it all somehow and they need to find out how.

Meanwhile, in “the other place” — as Diana has named it — Eve and Nick are running for their lives from the Blutbaden pack. Eve also has another problem: she’s slowly starting to woge and doesn’t seem to have any control over it.

They happen upon a human encampment. Nick manages to kill a few more Blutbaden and the rest run off when they see the camp. Nick, in his limited German, tries to tell the humans that they won’t harm them. When the humans see the dead Blutbaden, they are a little more trusting and invite Nick and Eve into the camp. One of them speaks a little bit of English.

With their limited ability to communicate, Nick is able to explain that he wants to kill the creepy skull guy, whom the humans seem familiar with. They tell him skull guy is in the Black Forest. The humans are pretty friendly once they find out Nick and Eve want to kill this dude. They offer to share their meal with them — freshly killed and cooked Blutbad. Something tells me Nick won’t be telling Monroe he just ate one of Monroe’s distant relatives.

The leader of the humans tells Nick and Eve they can find skull guy at the runes. He takes them up to a certain point and then tells them they’re on their own the rest of the way.

Back in Portland, Renard and the gang are Skyping with Renard’s mysterious friend. Diana fills her in on skull guy and the place beyond the mirrors. The lady explains that there are other dimensions — parallel universes — that have similarities to our own but are different in big ways. She also says opening a portal to another world or going into another world is a very, very bad thing. As for skull guy, she says that he’s what we would think of as the devil in this world. There is a prophecy, she says, and she believes that Diana could be the shaphat of the prophecy – the person skull guy will take as his bride and have 100 children with. The mysterious lady relays all this in Russian, so only Renard knows what she’s saying. Renard is not too happy to hear there’s a prophecy involving his daughter becoming the devil’s child bride.

After they put Diana to bed, Renard tells the team what his friend said and they head to their books to figure out a way to stop skull guy.

In the other place, Eve and Nick have come back to the runes. A Wesen comes running out and attacks Eve. Nick shoots and kills him. Well, if skull guy didn’t know they were there before, he certainly does now. Despite the imminent danger, Eve and Nick manage to have a heart-to-heart about their past relationship, who they are now, and why it’s good that they’re not the same people they once were. They have just enough time for their chat before skull guy shows up. Skull guy has a magical staff that he uses to blast Nick and Eve back a few feet. They jump up and Nick fires his gun but it has absolutely no effect. Then skull guy’s staff starts glowing green and Eve turns fully into a Hexenbiest.

That’s all we get for this week, though! We’ll have to wait until next week to find out what happens next.

Read More

Grimm 6x10 Review: “Blood Magic” (The Godfather of Death) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Blood Magic”

Original Airdate: March 10, 2017

“Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying.”

On this week’s Grimm, Eve is looking for a portal to another world and people are being attacked by a roaming Wesen. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Eve has gotten it into her head that going over to green-eyed skull dude’s world is a good idea. Why, no one knows. But she is insistent on it, and manages to solicit the help of Adalind to find out how to travel to the world beyond the mirror. Adalind is hesitant. This is dangerous, dark stuff and someone could get killed. But Eve has a feeling this skull dude is coming after her because she can see the symbols, and of course, Adalind’s daughter Diana can also see them. So, that’s good enough motivation for Adalind, who doesn’t want skull guy anywhere near her daughter. Adalind hands all of her mother’s old spell books over to Eve to look through.

As soon as Nick gets home, Adalind lets him know what Eve is up to. I’m glad the team isn’t keeping secrets anymore. It makes everything much easier. Nick says he’ll talk to Eve, but before he does that, he has a new case to solve.

A girl has just been attacked and killed by a Wesen while she was out to dinner with her friend. There are no leads and neither the dead girl nor her friend appear to be Wesen, though judging from the state of the body, the killer probably is.

Shortly after the attack, a kindly orderly named Mason is helping an elderly patient at a nursing home to bed when she starts talking about her olden days of chasing “them” through the woods and the taste of blood. Mason knows the patient, Mrs. Cuttler, has dementia, so he just dismisses what she’s saying. That is, until she woges into a wolf-like Wesen and tries to take a bite out of him. He starts struggling with her when she suddenly un-woges and become confused. A nurse comes in just then and sees Mason with his hands wrapped around Mrs. Cuttler’s throat. Poor Mason. He runs out, clutching his injured arm.

Later that night, while the elderly lady sleeps, a creepy green insect Wesen visits her and sticks its tentacles up her nose. The next morning, she’s declared dead and Mason Wilcox is named as the prime suspect. Even though the doctor on duty, Dr. Landau, had declared her injuries superficial, the nurse who walked in on Mason struggling with her thinks he’s at fault. Nick and Hank talk to Dr. Landau, who stands by what he said — that the woman died of old age, not because of Mason’s attack.

They’re able to track down Mason, who tries to run from them. Nick and Hank tackle him and haul him in for questioning. He tells them his story of Mrs. Cuttler turning into “some kind of monster” and is shocked they believe him. Nick and Hank visit the morgue to talk to the ME, who confirms that the injuries Mason caused couldn’t have killed her. She did find something strange though, because, of course, Mrs. Cuttler had high levels of a protein only found in bug saliva, specifically assassin bugs. It was in such a high concentration, the ME says, it could have only come from a huge number of assassin bugs. Or, more likely but unknown to her, one giant Wesen assassin bug.

Back at the spice shop, Eve is busy consulting Adalind’s mother’s books, which are all pretty creepy. She comes across a section on blood magic and calls Adalind all excited. According to the book, blood can be used as currency to cross into other worlds. This isn’t Adalind’s area of expertise and her warnings to Eve that blood magic is extremely dangerous fall on deaf ears. Eve wants to go through that portal and she’s going to find a way. Adalind reminds her that, even if she can get through to the other side, that doesn’t mean she’d be able to get back, but Eve doesn’t listen.

Upstairs, Rosalee and Monroe are waiting on an elderly customer named Mrs. Stanton, who is purchasing a huge amount of melatonin and gets a little cagey when Rosalee tells her to say hi to her husband.

Nick and Hank walk in shortly after and tell Monroe and Rosalee about the bug saliva in their victim. It’s Rosalee and Monroe’s turn to get cagey. They urge Nick to let this one go and not pursue this particular bug Wesen, who they describe as “the godfather of death.” Apparently, in the Wesen community, if a Wesen suffers from dementia, the godfather of death is called to help the Wesen pass peacefully. This is due to the fact that a Wesen with dementia is prone to uncontrollable woges that endanger themselves, their family, and the secret world of the Wesen.

Rosalee and Monroe even confide to Nick that they’ve already made a pact that if one of them develops dementia, they’ll call the godfather of death to aid their passing. Nick asks them to put him in touch with this Wesen and despite their better judgment, they agree.

Nick and Hank head back to the precinct, where Wu has something to show them. He’s been reviewing video footage of the vicious murder of the girl in the parking lot and the other victim who was attacked in the same manner. Both were being followed by an elderly man with a cane. Wu doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. Neither do Nick and Hank.

Just then, Renard calls Nick into his office and they bicker as usual. Renard has been trying to track down what the symbols Diana’s been drawing mean through is European contacts. He hasn’t gotten far — except to find out they’re dangerous — and he knows Nick knows something. Renard already tried calling Adalind earlier, demanding to see the tunnel where the symbols are, but Adalind told him to take it up with Nick. Taking it up with Nick doesn’t go very well though. Nick says this flow of information Renard wants needs to be a two-way street and if it’s not going to be, then he has nothing to share. Then he storms out to get back to his open cases.

Over at Monroe’s house, he and Rosalee have been awaiting a call from the bug Wesen when the phone rings. It’s him. Rosalee panics a bit and tells the guy that it’s Monroe who has dementia. Oops. After they hang up, Rosalee calls Nick and tells him to hurry over. When the bug Wesen shows up, it’s Dr. Landau. After Nick convinces Dr. Landau he means him no harm, he then tries to convince him to help Mason by convincing the nurse at the nursing home that Mason had nothing to do with Mrs. Cuttler’s death. Dr. Landau finally agrees that he’ll do his best so that Mason doesn’t have to go to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

Suddenly, Dr. Landau gets a call. An elderly Wesen has attacked his wife. Nick says he’s coming with Dr. Landau and when he tells them the address, Rosalee realizes it’s her customer, Mrs. Stanton’s address. They all take off for her house. Mrs. Stanton says her husband has never attacked her before but she fears he’s been sneaking out at night and doing bad things. Looks like this is the attacker Nick, Hank, and Wu have been hunting.

They manage to track down Mr. Stanton, who was wandering around looking for his wife. They tell him they can bring him back home to her but he woges and struggles with them. They manage to get him back but he doesn’t recognize his wife.

Wu brings over the video footage and they look again and see that Mr. Stanton’s cane is a match to the one in the video footage. He’s definitely the Wesen who’s been killing people, though he clearly has no idea what he’s done. Nick tells Dr. Landau to go ahead — he won’t interfere with what he has to do. While Rosalee comforts Mrs. Stanton, Dr. Landau woges and helps Mr. Stanton pass peacefully.

Back at Monroe and Rosalee’s house, Eve comes bursting in, telling them she’s found something. They’re not home because they’re at the Stantons’ house, but Eve doesn’t want to wait. She tears the paper off a mirror, cuts her hand, and smears blood on the mirror. At first, nothing happens, but then a portal opens in the mirror. She goes through.

This was a truly heartbreaking episode and a surprisingly real look at the painful reality of dementia. The Grimm writers have been pulling no punches in this final season, and this episode was no exception. It was easily the most emotional Grimm episode ever. Beautifully written and acted. Excuse me while I go curl in the fetal position and bawl my eyes out for the rest of the night.

Bonus Musings:

• “What if it’s not just mirrors?” “What do you mean?” “What if she catches her reflection in a window or like, a china cabinet?” 
• “If it messes with my family I will rip its green, ugly eyeballs out.”
• “I think Eve’s looking for a little redemption… aren’t we all.”

Read More

Grimm 6x09 Review: “Tree People” (Symbiosis) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Tree People”

Original Airdate: March 4, 2017

“In the morning, glad, I see my foe outstretched beneath the tree.”

The latest episode of Grimm jumps right into the mystery of the man in the mirror. Or, the creepy skull in the mirror that seems to be after Eve. Now that the whole team is aware of the situation, they’re trying to unravel just what it means. With perfect timing, as always, Diana pops into the conversation and lets them know this creepy skull dude is a harbinger of things to come. Something is stirring on the other side of the mirror and it’s going to affect them all.

Meanwhile, a couple of drunk hunters in the woods get more than they bargain for after shooting a deer. When hunter #1 attempts to track down the fallen deer, a tree attacks and kills him. Hunter #2 is useless, only managing to shoot his already dead friend in the head before panicking, running back to their truck, and crashing it into a regular tree in his haste to get away.

Wu, Hank, and Nick get to the scene and hunter #2 is talking crazy after what he saw. He’s barely coherent but leads them to the dead deer and the spot where the tree monster took his friend. There’s no evidence of a tree monster and no sign of his friend, so they take him down to the station to question him some more.

Back at the precinct, Wu is able to track down more disappearances that have happened in that same general area. Three in the past five years, to be precise. And no bodies ever recovered. The lab results come back surprisingly fast on hunter #2’s jacket and it turns out that, in addition to his friend’s blood, there were large amounts of chlorophyll — an amount that could only be found in a large tree.

At the spice shop, Eve wants to take a closer look at the mirror she was staring into when creepy skull dude shot his arm out of it and tried to strangle her to death. Rosalee and Monroe, who is armed with a mallet, take the mirror out of a locked drawer and Eve examines it. As she’s looking, it starts dripping blood. Monroe takes that as a good sign to put it back in the drawer, but Eve declares she wants to get the bottom of this — by going to the place beyond the mirror.

They don’t get around to discussing that idea any further because Nick and Hank show up at the spice shop with a vague description of the tree monster. When they reveal that the missing guy was a hunter out poaching in the middle of the night, this narrows it down. Rosalee tells them there are some Wesen who have a strong inclination to protect nature and the poachers could have triggered a reaction. Hank happens upon a description of a humanoid creature made entirely of plant materials called a Kinoshimobe that sounds eerily similar to what the hunter described.

Back at the precinct, Wu has uncovered even more disappearances over the last two decades. Each of the missing people had a record of crimes against nature, from poaching to pollution. Meanwhile, in the forest, the Kinoshimobe has struck again. This time, against a woman who’s using the forest as a dumping ground for some environmentally harmful waste. The Kinoshimobe kills her and then releases her to a tree who seems to absorb her into the trunk.

The next morning, the team is back out in the forest, attempting to track down the Kinoshimobe. Wu discovers the old woman’s truck and the toxic waste she was disposing. They plot out the places where all the people have gone missing over the years, and it forms a perimeter. They head to the center and discover the gigantic tree the Kinoshimobe fed the woman to the night before. The knots in the tree seem to form screaming faces that look similar to the missing people.

Rosalee, of course, has heard about this type of tree even though it’s not Wesen. It’s called a Jubokko and it feeds on human blood. They quickly deduce that the Kinoshimobe has been feeding people who harm the environment to the Jubokko in some sort of disturbing symbiotic relationship. They decide to lure out the Kinoshimobe by pretending to harm the environment with a non-toxic but awful smelling concoction Rosalee whips up for them.

After hours of waiting with nothing happening, they call Rosalee to ask her how they can “spice up” the potion they poured everywhere. She says turpentine might do the trick and decides to bring it to them. They’re all pretty conflicted about their plan. After all, the Kinoshimobe is only trying to protect the environment from bad people who are hurting it.

Rosalee drives her SUV into the forest, following the path Wu texted her about, but on the way she hits a rock and begins leaking oil onto the trail. When the car starts making a bad rattling sound, she jumps out and sees the damage. As she’s talking to Monroe about the problem, the Kinoshimobe appears behind her, ready to exact revenge for the oil. She takes off running and Monroe, Nick, Hank, and Wu all take off running too, trying to find her.

They reach her and — just as they think they’re in the clear — the Kinoshimobe grabs her legs with vines. Hank is able to hack the vines away. Unfortunately for them, the Kinoshimobe isn’t done yet. It stalks toward them, and when Nick tries to reason with it, it wraps them all in vines. After some struggling, Nick is able to hit its heart-area with an axe, which fatally wounds it. The Jubokko tree then absorbs the Kinoshimobe into itself. A new knot appears in the Jubokko that has the face of the Kinoshimobe.

The team is a little beside itself about what to do next, so they just pack up and leave. After they drive off, the Kinoshimobe knot suddenly opens its eyes and looks around. So, apparently the Kinoshimobe isn’t totally dead inside the Jubokko.

This was a fun episode but we sure didn’t get very far on all the subplots like skull dude and the strange tunnel symbols, and we’re running out of episodes before the series finale. We’ll have to see what headway we make next week!

Read More

Grimm 6x06 Review: “Breakfast In Bed” (Don’t Fall Asleep) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Breakfast In Bed”

Original Airdate: February 10, 2017

“Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.”

We’re fast approaching the series finale, and Grimm is continuing to pull no punches with its introduction of new sinister Wesen. In the latest episode, we meet Dan, a man who is running on very little sleep due to a green, toothy monster who likes visiting him at night. Dan is living in the derelict Englewood Hotel, where many low-income individuals reside. Despite Dan’s attempts to secure his room, the monster keeps getting in. This leads Dan to become paranoid and delusional, and he attacks and kills a man in a park one morning after a particularly disturbing visit from the green monster.

Before Nick inevitably gets called in to investigate, he and the team are doing some early morning research into the strange symbols Eve and Diana have been drawing. They discover one of the symbols is seven stars — the constellation Pleiades — and this corresponds with the seven Grimm crusaders and seven keys they already know about.

Once Nick gets into the precinct, he fills Hank in on what they’ve learned about the symbols. Then they head out to investigate the latest murder. It doesn’t prove to be too hard to track down their suspect, considering there were multiple witnesses and Dan was only wearing boxer shorts and a white tee for his stroll in the park and subsequent killing.

Dan continues to scream nonsense at them as they break down his door, yelling that he can’t let them in because something is after him. Nick and Hank hope it’s just all in his head but they suspect a Wesen may be behind it all. They talk to the landlord and he says Dan was normal when he first moved in a couple months ago, but got “weirder and weirder” over the past few weeks. Meanwhile, there’s a creepy old man in a wheelchair, Mr. Charles Lynk, who seems to just like hanging out in the hallway outside Dan’s room. Hank and Nick are a little suspicious of him and the landlord confirms there’s something a bit off about Lynk — no one’s ever heard him speak.

Back at the precinct, Renard is paid a visit by a high-level member of Black Claw. Renard tells him in no uncertain terms that he is done with Black Claw. The bad guy just smiles and walks out, which does not bode well for Renard, in my opinion. Also, can we discuss how last episode ended with Renard sprawled out on the ground of an abandoned building with the undead Meisner standing over him? It was unclear at that time whether Renard was trapped in his own head or what after his bout with the spirit vacuum. But now he’s back at work and seems alright, albeit a little jumpy.

Nick and Hank are becoming more and more determined that Dan has had a bad reaction to seeing a Wesen and that has caused his volatile behavior. They go in to question him but he’s only able to give them a vague description before he becomes overwhelmed by memories of the beast and becomes violent, causing Hank to have to knock him out before he hurts them.

Eve, Rosalee, and Monroe are still at the spice shop, where they’ve developed the theory that all of these strange symbols are a map of the universe that form a calendar. They can tell some of the symbols are Sumerian and others are Mayan, but how symbols from these two cultures work together to form an ancient calendar is still a mystery. Just then Hank and Nick join them, needing assistance with their Wesen case. Even with the vague description from Dan, Monroe knows immediately that the Wesen they’re looking for is an Alpe — a beast who paralyzes its victim so it can feed on their sleep, causing the individual to suffer insomnia to the point of madness. Turns out, Monroe’s favorite aunt back in Germany was plagued by an Alpe, but the family didn’t realize until it was too late that it was a Wesen feeding on her sleep that drove her insane.

Now they know what the Wesen is, but they still don’t know how the Alpe got into Dan’s room. As they look deeper into past problems at the hotel, they discover a past tenant attacked a maid, while six other tenants committed suicide. The suspicious violence spans the past 60 years, making the old man in the wheelchair, Charles Lynk, their prime suspect.

They place a call to the woman who owns the hotel, Beverly Garwood, but she is no help at all. She resides in Los Angeles and says she inherited the property from grandfather when he died and she just lets the manager and repairman handle the day-to-day.

As the day winds down, Renard heads out of the precinct, but Meisner warns him that two men are waiting by his car, ready to kill him. Meisner then helps Renard by blinding one of the men while Renard sneaks up on the other, grabs his gun and shoots first him, and then the blinded one. When Renard questions why the undead Meisner helped save his life just then, Meisner says it’s because Renard chose the right side this time. Then he walks away. As Renard shouts after him, asking if he’s done haunting him now, Meisner merely waves. I’m going to guess Meisner’s only just begun.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel building, the Alpe has had to find a new victim: Dan’s neighbor across the hall. She takes having her sleep consumed even worse than Dan did. In the morning — after the Alpe’s paralyses finally wears off — she runs out of her room screaming, trips on the stairs and falls over the banister to her death.

Nick and Hank decide they need someone to go undercover at the hotel. Since all the suspects have already seen them, they enlist Monroe. He’s more than willing to help bring down the Alpe and considers it payback for what happened to his dear aunt. Rosalee is less pleased that Monroe is putting himself in danger, but Nick and Hank assure her they’ll catch the Alpe before it has a chance to feed on Monroe’s sleep.

They pump Monroe full of melatonin to attract the Alpe and turn him loose. He books a room at the Englewood and heads straight to bed after locking the door and windows and setting up a camera on the dresser. It doesn’t take long for the Alpe to take the bait. The camera gets knocked down before Nick and Hank can get a look at it, however. Then it paralyzes Monroe and prepares to steal his sleep. Nick and Hank try to rush into the hotel but the front door is locked, thanks to the manager.

They break the glass of the front door but by the time they reach Monroe’s room, the Alpe is gone. They realize there’s a passageway behind the dresser (which is why the camera got knocked down). They take off through the passage and quickly find the manager, who attacks them. But when he woges, he is a Hundjäger — definitely not the Alpe, though him trying to kill them would suggest he works for it. They kill the manager and take off down another passage in search of the Alpe. This passage leads them into an opulent room which is in stark contrast to the disrepair of the rest of the hotel and the clientele it serves.

As they look around, Beverly Garwood comes out in her bathrobe, looking extremely disgruntled by the intrusion. Apparently she doesn’t live in Los Angeles after all. Monroe is able to smell that she’s the Alpe they’ve been looking for. Nick tries to reason with her but she attacks and ends up falling onto an end table, dying on impact. Not that anyone’s too sad about this.

Meanwhile, upstairs the old man in the hallway, Charles Lynk, begins laughing uncontrollably and woges into a red herring-like Wesen. Because of course.

Back at the spice shop, Rosalee and Eve are still hard at work deciphering the calendar. They are able to plug the star coordinates into the computer and it spits out a date — in the future. March 24. Apparently, all the strange symbols lead to a date and time that hasn’t happened yet.

Bonus Musings:

• “Got a fun one. Someone woke up in a bad mood and smashed a guy’s head into the pavement.” “And you’re happy about this?” “No. But I’ll take a cold-blooded murderer over an unsolvable ancient riddle about the universe any day. The only big bang theory I want to deal with is the one from a gun.” 
• “These things can’t walk through walls... can they?”
• “You might want to reconsider conversing with someone no one else can see.”

Read More

Grimm 6x05 Review: “The Seven Year Itch” (When a Murderer Meets His Match) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“The Seven Year Itch”

Original Airdate: February 3, 2017

“When something itches my dear sir, the natural tendency is to scratch.”

In this week’s Grimm, a cicada-esque Wesen has emerged out of the ground in a local park and immediately kills (and eats) a random passerby. Something tells me this will be a case for Nick, Hank, and Wu! But first, Nick needs to deal with something a little closer to home. He’s having bad dreams about the attack that ended with him being fatally shot and the Elder Wand resurrecting him. Juliette/Eve is dealing with her own set of symptoms after her fatal wound was healed by the same ancient stick. She’s down in the tunnels beneath Nick’s apartment, in some sort of trance, scratching out strange symbols on the walls. When she comes to, her hands are bloodied and the walls are completely covered with markings.

It seems everyone’s a little worse for wear these days. Renard discovers Diana’s voodoo doll collection and the giant needle she uses on them when she wants to murder someone. His understanding of how she caused him to kill Bonaparte is growing. But he has more pressing issues at the moment — mainly, his hallucinations of Meisner are also growing, becoming more pronounced.

Then there’s Monroe and Rosalee, who decide a visit to the doctor is in order after Diana told them Rosalee had more than one baby inside her. Turns out she’s having triplets.

Meanwhile, Nick and Hank have gotten the call about the dead man in the park and meet up with Wu to investigate. The murdered guy is completely naked and has a huge puncture hole through his neck. It seems the cicada dude felt his victim’s clothes were superior to the filthy rags he was wearing when he hatched out of the ground.

As the team searches the crime scene, they hear a scream. A boy has fallen into the hole left by the cicada guy and after they pull him out, they find another body — this one’s been there a long time. They quickly put two and two together and realize their murderer must have crawled out of that hole. All these years dealing with Wesen crimes has made Nick and Hank pretty efficient with their deductive reasoning.

Cicada dude uses his victim’s credit card at a diner, where he eats a ridiculous amount of food (I guess being underground for seven years makes a guy hungry) and creeps the waitress out with his conversation skills, which revolve around discussing people he’s eaten in only slightly veiled terms. He’s gone by the time Hank and Nick get a hit on the credit card but the waitress is able to give a decent description. While there, Nick gets a call from the coroner, who was a bit stumped by what she’s found out about the victim who was buried underground. There are digestive enzymes on what’s left of her, her remaining skin has been crystallized, her bones all have gnaw marks on them, and her internal organs are missing. Seems cicada dude made the most of his human meal before coming back up for air.

Back at Nick’s apartment, Diana questions Adalind about Meisner. She explains Meisner died, and Diana tells her that Renard was shouting Meisner’s name a lot last night when she slept over, and seemed angry at him. Adalind isn’t too sure what to make of this. Diana says she remembers Meisner (he was there when she was born and helped keep her safe over the years), and that she hopes she gets to see him again sometime even though he’s dead. Before Adalind can dive down that rabbit hole, Diana casually mentions that Eve is here, inside the wall.

Adalind goes down into the tunnels and finds Eve, bloodied and pretty out of it. She manages to get her back up to the apartment. While Adalind cares for Eve, Diana goes down into the tunnels and finds all of Eve’s drawings. She lights them up with her violet-eye move and that’s how Adalind finds her — standing in the midst of purple glowing symbols.

Meanwhile, Nick and Hank visit the spice shop to research their Wesen case. Monroe and Rosalee arrive with their news about the triplets. After some quick congratulations, they get to work and discover the Wesen in question is an Ataktos Fuse, also known as a Bestia Festiva, or “party animal.” Apparently the Ataktos Fuse is immortal. They hibernate underground for seven years, come up for 24 hours during which they party it up, then grab a victim that will sustain them underground for another seven years. What a life.

Nick gets the sketch of the man the waitress saw and Monroe tells them all he’s seen this guy somewhere, and it was recently. They’re skeptical, but just then Nick gets a call from Adalind, who relays that Eve has been living in the tunnels and is in pretty bad shape. Nick takes off.

While Nick, Adalind, and Eve discuss the strange symbols Eve drew while in her trance, cicada dude is busy searching for his next victim in a bar. He tries picking up a woman who’s there with another guy. The guy is understandably displeased and challenges cicada dude to a fight outside. Bad move because cicada dude makes quick work of killing him and then heads back in to flirt with his next victim.

Back at the spice shop, Monroe is growing frustrated at not being able to figure out where he’s seen the suspect before when suddenly it dawns on him: The man is William Stillman, the founder of Stillman Park, where all the victims have been found. The Grimm books did say the Ataktos Fuse is immortal, after all.

They call Nick, who is with Hank and Wu investigating the dead guy at the bar. They explain their theory, which makes sense. If you were a rich Wesen who needed a safe place to reemerge from the ground every seven years, you’d probably donate a ton of money to create a park that you could use for your continuous feeding and punctual hatching, too.

While the team attempts to track down cicada dude, Renard pays a visit to a Wesen pawn shop owner who has the ability to find out whether Renard is truly being haunted or if it’s all in his head. They use a spirit vacuum, which is a glass case large enough for Renard to stand inside with lots of knobs and contraptions for the pawn shop owner to control. When they turn it on, they discover Renard is indeed being haunted. The pawn shop owner is knocked to the ground as Meisner’s spirit separates from Renard’s body and becomes corporeal. Meisner then turns the spirit vacuum up to full blast with Renard trapped inside. The glass of the vacuum shatters and Renard blacks out. When he regains consciousness he’s inside an empty building and Meisner tells him a mind is a terrible thing to lose. Does this mean Renard is currently trapped inside his own mind?

Meanwhile, Nick and Hank have made it to the park just in time. Cicada dude has brought the woman he was flirting with here, knocked her out and is quickly digging a hole for the two of them. The team is no match for him, however, as he’s super strong. He knocks them all to the ground and is just rearing up to do them in when his victim awakes. Apparently, she’s a Wesen, too. She wakes up woged as a giant hippo creature and makes quick work of biting off cicada dude’s head. She spits it to the ground as an amazed Nick, Hank, and Wu look on. After un-woging she laments how difficult it is to find a good man in Portland. Makes you wonder how many other heads she’s had to bite off after dates go awry.

This was a fun episode, reminiscent of the olden days of Grimm, before the plots got tangled and overly complicated. The writers also did a good job this week balancing all those flailing subplots with a solid and amusing Wesen case. Definitely the best episode of season six so far, with hopefully more good things to come as we hit midpoint in the final season.

Bonus Musings:

• “You gonna follow me everywhere?” “I’m not following you. I’m haunting you. There is a difference.” “Well, it’s annoying in either case.” 
• “Eve is here.” “What?! Where?!” “In the wall.”

Read More

Grimm 6x04 Review: “El Cuegle” (All the Better to See You With) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“El Cuegle”

Original Airdate: January 27, 2017

“Foretold our fate, by the gods’ decree, all heard and none believed the prophecy.”

I don’t know about you, but I sure am loving that Grimm is back for another season. Er, half a season. Uh, well, let’s just not talk about how this is the last season, okay? We’re on episode four, which means we’re about a third of the way through their 13-episode final season and as such, the Grimm writers have been packing each episode with so much crazy, twisty drama you’d think Shonda Rhimes was writing it now. But I guess they do have a lot of subplots meandering all the way back through season one to wrap up, don’t they?

The latest episode picks up in Renard’s mansion, where he’s just come home after an unsuccessful fistfight with Nick. Meisner is there waiting for him, but is it Meisner? After all, Renard killed Meisner — shot him in the head — and you don’t really come back from that. But here he is, looking pretty solid and un-ghostlike and lecturing Renard about choosing the wrong side.

Before Renard can do much more than argue with Meisner, he has to field an angry phone call from a Black Claw member and try to explain how Nick was able to shapeshift into a Renard lookalike and wreak havoc in the span of 30 minutes or so. When Renard gets off the phone, Meisner has disappeared again. So, still looking like Meisner is just a hallucination Renard’s mind has thought up to torment him. As long as it gets us more Meisner screentime, I’m okay with this.

Back at the spice shop, Diana is demanding a few answers about why Nick showed up looking like her daddy. The team’s answers aren’t really cutting it with her, nor is the explanation that she, baby Kelly, and Adalind are all going to go live with Nick now. But before a huge blow-up can occur, Diana gets distracted by Rosalee. She can tell Rosalee has a baby inside her, but she has a bombshell for the group: Rosalee is pregnant with more than one baby. This is news to everyone and when Monroe questions just how many constitutes "more," Diana says she’s not sure. This could get interesting.

Meanwhile, a new desperate-looking Wesen has arrived in Portland and is busy googling “Portland babies,” which leads him to a website with a bunch of newborns and their parents’ addresses, because that seems like a real thing one could stumble upon? He pays a visit to one of the houses and successfully kidnaps the child. When the mother tries to interrupt the kidnapping, he woges, sprouts a third arm out of his back (his original two were busy holding the baby, naturally), shoves the mom out of the way and runs for it. The husband comes in too late and all he sees is his wife on the floor, mumbling something about someone taking their child.

Back at Nick’s loft, Diana is having a hard time settling into the new home. Who can blame her when she’s just gotten used to living in a mayoral mansion? Plus, she can tell that “lots of people died here,” and not just because of the blood stain on the floor. After she falls asleep, Nick and Adalind discuss her future and we see that Eve/Juliette is still hanging out in the tunnels and can hear every word. She’s more than a little uncomfortable overhearing them and just as she turns to go deeper into the tunnels, she spies the place where Nick hid the Elder Wand. This doesn’t seem good.

The next morning, Nick, Hank, and Wu are all back at work. Nick is greeted with a round of applause, which is nice considering it was only a few hours before that he was at the center of a massive manhunt and had a shoot-to-kill order on his head. Renard calls them all into his office to lecture them about not getting in his way and then dismisses them. After they leave the office, Meisner suddenly appears, lounging in one of Renard’s chairs. Renard starts shouting at him. This does not go unnoticed by Hank, Wu, and Nick, who are still standing just outside the door. From their perspective, Renard is talking to himself, ranting and raving at air.

Nick and team don’t have much time to speculate because they have a kidnapping case to look into. They deduce the kidnapping is Wesen-related due to the hysterical mother who claims to have seen a three-armed, three-eyed monster take her baby. The husband thinks his wife has gone crazy, but Nick, Hank, and Wu believe her. They’ve seen stranger things.

The monster seems pretty harmless so far, though. At his hideout, he’s taking good care of the baby. So, at least he’s not the type to eat babies. Or is he?

Back at the precinct, Wu has discovered a pattern of missing children from all over North America – all from social media-addicted parents who post way too much info online. They head out to gather more info, but as Nick stands up he gets lightheaded. Turns out, Eve/Juliette is down in the tunnels right now, where she’s nabbed the Elder Wand from its hiding spot. It doesn’t like being held by her, however, and does its quavering thing before knocking her backward and leaving her with a red welt on her hand. A red welt that soon turns into a symbol she’s seen before: on the dead guy who tried to drag her down to hell with him.

At the spice shop, the team is pouring through books looking for a three-armed, three-eyed monster, when Hank stumbles across the drawing and description of El Cuegle. According to the book, El Cuegle stalks mothers and steals their newborn babies then, well, eats them during the "hours of dread." This riles the team up — especially Monroe, who gets very upset whenever kids are in danger. Of course, this gruesome description of El Cuegle doesn’t really jive with what we’ve seen of this dude so far. Especially because he’s currently at a pharmacy purchasing cold medicine for the baby, who has a slight fever. Unfortunately, his simple shopping trip goes awry when he suffers what looks like a terrible headache, uncontrollably woges, and terrifies the shop clerk. Then he bolts from the store with his cold medicine and not long after, Nick, Hank, and Wu are called to the scene.

They’re able to track El Cuegle’s car from the pharmacy to an apartment building, where they bust in and find him with the baby. Fighting a dude with three arms is as tough as it sounds and it takes all three of them to take him down. El Cuegle’s panicked when they take the baby, but they just chalk this up to him being upset about missing out on his midnight meal of newborn baby.

Over at the mayoral mansion, Adalind has dropped Diana off so she can spend some quality time with her daddy. While Renard and Diana make dinner, he questions her about how Bonaparte died. She cheerfully tells him that he killed Bonaparte because Bonaparte hurt her mommy. She doesn’t admit that she was the one who forced Renard to kill Bonaparte but it’s probably as close to a confession as Renard is going to get from a child. Renard then subtly encourages her to hurt Nick if he ever does anything to hurt Adalind. Diana says that if Nick ever hurt her mommy, he’d be very sorry. This pleases Renard, who is clearly hatching some sort of plan in that evil head of his.

Back at the precinct, El Cuegle is schooling Nick on why he does what he does. He says his three eyes see the past, present, and future, and he is compelled to take babies based on the visions his future eye shows him. He claims the children he takes are all destined for evil. And he has proof — one of the babies he took years ago, he returned unharmed. And then the baby grew up and murdered 10 innocent people as an adult.

As they’re verifying his story, El Cuegle has another vision — of the baby grown up and murdering his parents. In the vision, the teenager has wrapped a gun in his old baby blanket to silence it and shoots both his parents.

The vision causes El Cuegle to start seizing and foaming at the mouth. He then woges, knocks out a guard, and escapes the precinct. He makes his way to the baby’s house. Nick and Hank aren’t far behind though. El Cuegle breaks into the house and knocks the father out, who again doesn’t see him in his woged form. The mother manages to run into another room with the baby and lock the door. Nick and Hank arrive just in time and scuffle with El Cuegle, who’s thrown down the stairs and dies. As he’s dying, he mumbles something about “the bears.”

Nick and Hank can’t figure out what he means until a little while later. The parents are arguing again: the husband still doesn’t believe that his wife saw a monster. He thinks she’s crazy. Nick tries to assure him that she’s not, but he just sneers in disbelief and storms up the stairs to continue yelling at her. That’s when Hank spies the baby blanket on the table. The same blanket that was wrapped around the barrel of the gun in El Cuegle’s vision. The blanket is embroidered with teddy bears. I guess they should have believed him after all.

As much as I love Grimm getting back to doing what it does best — which is the serial format of introducing a new Wesen mystery to solve each week — trying to do that AND wrap up the ridiculous number of unresolved subplots is a bit too much. The episode felt jarring, cycling between its procedural roots while still trying desperately to wrap up subplots involving Elder Wands, Diana the demon child, the Adalind-Eve/Juliette-Nick love triangle, and more. I wish they could just go back to a weekly procedural with interesting new Wesen each week, but they’ve gone too far down the rabbit hole of meandering subplots to do so effectively. The writers need to focus their attention on wrapping up all the loose ends that have been collecting over six seasons and give us a solid conclusion by season’s end. I just hope they can pull it off.

Bonus Musings:

• “Look, if this is some kind of revenge haunting, don’t forget I shot you to put you out of your misery!” “Yeah. Thank you for that. Really. But, don’t forget you betrayed us all. That’s the real reason I’m dead.” 
• “How many babies can one guy eat?” “Is that a real question or a riddle?” 
• “I’ve got three arms and two cuffs!”
• “Anything you say or eat will be used against you in the court of law!”

Read More

Grimm 6x03 Review: “Oh Captain, My Captain” (This City’s Not Big Enough for Two of You) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Oh Captain, My Captain”

Original Airdate: January 20, 2017

“You will face yourself again in a moment of terror.”

The Grimm writers are really liking their cliffhanger endings this season. Last week brought us Renard earning a get-out-of-jail-free card thanks to his buddy, the Wesen judge, who dropped all charges against him in the murder of Rachel Wood. Now, Renard is out and back to hunting Nick, who is “on the run” — only not really, because he’s just been hanging out in the basement of the spice shop. Honestly, this guy has got to be like the easiest guy in Portland to track down but, despite every officer out there on the case, he’s eluding them with next to no effort.

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.”

Read More