A Pretty GRIMM Afterward

Episode 120 “Happily Ever Aftermath”

There are two storylines in this week’s episode. The first is the murder to be solved and the second is Nick’s personal back story. We are introduced to a new creature again this week. And we revisit an older storyline in flashbacks.

The very worst thing about this week’s episode is that the promos gave away who the murderer is. Rule #1. If you are writing a murder mystery, don’t tell the audience who the murderer is before the story begins. It really takes away from the suspenseful nature of the mystery.

Spoiler Alert

Mr. Adacuff commits suicide in his office with people outside calling to him to let them in. This news quickly gets to Arthur, a young business man. Arthur calls Spencer who is calmly working on a phlen aire painting. Arthur is distraught and tells Spencer that he gave Adacuff all their money and it’s all gone. This part of the plot reminds me of the Bernie Madoff. Except, Bernie didn’t commit suicide.

Arthur gets home to find his young wife trying on dresses like a playful teenager. Arthur and Spencer meet and agree to go ask Arthur’s mother-in-law for money to help him cover the money lost my Mr. Adacuff.

Mavis, Arthur’s Mother-in-law and his wife’s stepmother refuses his request for money. Despite the attempt to make her out as the wicked stepmother she comes off as reasonable. She expects her stepdaughter and her son-in-law to work out their own financial issues.

A bat boogie is hiding under Mavis’s bed. Mavis is killed by the bat creature with its literally ear-splitting high-pitched scream.

The story leans more heavily on the Cinderella story when Arthur, Spencer, and Lucinda are all taken to the police station. The tale these three weave is almost exactly the Cinderella tale. Except that both Lucinda and her godfather, Spencer are Murcielago, bat creatures. Arthur even shares how he met Lucinda at a black tie affair. He danced with both of her stepsisters but, when he danced with Lucinda he claims it was love at first sight.

So, we have one stepmother, two stepdaughters, both of Lucinda’s parents are dead. She was left out of the will. As a youngster she kept to herself. Her godfather has always been there for her. She married her prince charming. And should be living happily ever after except when she doesn’t get her way she screams her enemy’s head off.

Nick is not sleeping well. Juliette wakes him from a nightmare. She asks him to share his dream; in an unusual move for Nick he actually does. He is dreaming about the men after the Coins of Zakynthos, from the episode “Three Coins In a Fuchsbau”. Juliette offers to help him with investigating if there is anything more that they can find out about the car crash that killed his parents.

Juliette calls the detective in Rhinebeck New York and asks him send information he has on the case to Nick. Interestingly when detective Arnold Gubser calls Nick he informs him that the case was reclassified as a homicide instead of accident. Also three of the men that were killed in the jewelry store murder case were also suspects in the death of his parents. There is a fourth man Akira Kimura who is also a suspect.

I have to say this is a great way to be introduced into the series as an actor. For a week your face has been seen, there will be speculation about your character before you ever do a scene on camera. And he has an interesting tattoo on his left temple. I am sure there is something significant about the tattoo, but I don’t know what at this time.

Lucinda confronts one of her stepsisters, Tiffany, at their mother’s house. Lucinda morphs into her bat out of hell alter ego and kills Tiffany with her scream.

Nick and Monroe do some research together in Aunt Marie’s trailer. They find a hand crank siren that interferes with the Murcielago’s scream.

There are parts of this episode that are misleading or don’t necessarily lead to the ending conclusion. I expect that this is done to create red-herrings. But it also dissipates the real storyline.

Spencer tells Arthur that when he married Lucinda he was supposed to take responsibility for her. Arthur admits that he’s never been able to tell her, “No.”

At times it seems like Arthur knows what Lucinda is and at others he seems to only know she is a pretty, spoiled young lady.

Spencer is at the crime scene when Nick arrives and finds Tiffany dead. He takes Spencer into police custody. At the station, Spencer thinks that Hank knows Nick is a Grimm. It’s an uncomfortable exchange which ends up making Spencer look like he’s a mad man.

Once Hank has left the interrogation room, Spencer is more truthful with Nick. He explains that he is certain Lucinda committed the murderers. Once both her stepmother and both stepsisters are dead she will inherit the whole estate. He is most bothered that Lucinda has no conscience.

The big show down is Lucinda on a rampage. Spencer escapes from the police station and returns to Arthur and Lucinda’s home. He finds Arthur slumped on the floor with deep scratches on his cheek. Spencer leaves Arthur to go find Lucinda.

Nick calls Taylor, the last living stepsister, and warns her to stay inside her home and to make sure she is locked in. Taylor is already freaked out. She goes to lock her doors. She turns around and Lucinda is in her home.

This is one of the confusing things that happens. Lucinda is able to get in to peoples’ homes with out being detected. It doesn’t seem like she knew about the meeting Arthur and Spencer had with Mavis. Yet she lies in wait under Mavis’s bed to attack her once Mavis turned off the lights. And now she just appears in Taylor’s living room. Perhaps her attacks had nothing to do with her husband’s financial woes. Maybe she knew how the will was set up and planned to kill off her rivals for the estate all along.

Nick rushes in to save Taylor from Lucinda. Hank stays with Taylor while Nick pursues Lucinda. Monroe shows up with the hand crank siren. They flush Lucinda out with the siren. She jumps out of a window. Spencer finds her as she lands from jumping out the window. He goes batty on Lucinda. She looks dead but when he leans in to mourn her death she attacks him and bites out his throat.

Nick and Monroe find both of them dead in the garden. Monroe poses the question, “How are you going to explain this one?”

Nick does so by turning over the hand siren as evidence. He makes the false claim that Spencer used it to produce the sound waves that killed the victims.

I don’t think this was a good idea. Now he no longer has the hand crank siren. It will be in an evidence box, much like the Ark of the Covenent in Raiders of the Lost Ark. When the box it’s in is being stored in a huge building along with thousands of other boxes.

The episode ends on the picture of Akira Kimura on Nick’s computer screen. I’m telling you, what a great way to be introduced on Grimm.

[Official Show Site at NBC]     [Previous recap: “Leave it to Beavers”]