GRIMM Gets Muddy

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Episode 4:04 “Dyin’ on a Prayer”

[photos: Scott Green/NBC]

I’ve been thinking about this episode, and it seems splintered. I mean that there’s a police case and again it takes up most of the episode; the bits about the core characters are so small that it feels almost lost. But be sure you keep track because the little things will or should be what the rest of this season is going to be built on. Adalind only has one scene but it’s pretty memorable. This is one of the few examples of Grimm bringing back something that was introduced before.

The police case this week is not actually about a Wesen at all. Well, the Wesen are not doing the killing; they are being killed. The police case is about a nasty, drunk, wife beater, Keith. He also happens to be an ugly Wesen with anger management issues. Keith violates his ex-wife’s restraining order and attacks Sarah and his stepson, David. The two escape in their car. She goes to the hospital to get care. While there, her brother, Ben, comes to visit them.

Ben is beside himself with frustration wanting to protect his sister and nephew. Ben is a rabbi. Back at his synagogue he uses ancient scrolls and a jar containing special mud to raise a golem. In Ben’s defense he meant the golem to protect David. What the golem does instead is kill anyone that threatens David.

Sgt. Wu discovers Keith’s body at Sarah’s home. When Hank and Nick inform Sarah and Ben of Keith’s death, Ben blames himself. He later tries to confess to Hank and Nick that he prayed for the golem so he’s responsible for Keith’s death. It’s a twist that they are having to explain to someone else how what you know, believe or have seen doesn’t mean it can be proven in court.

I was going to say this is the first week that Trubel hasn’t been in mortal danger, but that’s not entirely correct. She does attempt to save Nick by trying to tackle the golem. Which in turn spurs David to attack the golem to save Trubel. Since the golem was summoned to protect him and he’s attacking it the golem dissolves. Still it didn’t feel like she was in the same kind of danger we’ve seen her in before.

Trubel left the house leaving only her black Knight in her room to let Nick know she’s at the trailer. He finds her there and she shares her whole story about being kidnapped by Chavez. She wants to leave town but Nick thinks it’s best if she stays close till they can figure out what Chavez is up to. That’s the only part of that story this week. We’ll have to wait and see if my hunch is right or not.

At some point there’s going to have to be a come-to-Wu-meeting and give him information that either is the truth or a good enough lie that he can live with it. Captain Renard returned to work and Wu wastes no time in going to him with his concerns about Trubel being a suspect in a double homicide and now living with Nick. He’s not going to let this go, and the longer they don’t address his concerns the worse it will turn out. Which may be exactly what the writers are intending.

The unevenness of Adalind’s character is getting to be ridiculous. In the first season Adalind was presented as a smart, ruthless Hexenbiest. This is the woman who deliberately got pregnant to get her Hexenbiest powers back after Nick took them from her. She has been far too clever to now fall for Viktor’s trap and end up in his dungeon. Now, she’s eating something unidentified and following someone she doesn’t know, to some unknown location. I’m pretty sure whatever she ate is causing hallucinations. It’s quite a trip she’s on.

I said that this is one of the few times Grimm has revisited something previously introduced. I was talking about the warnings that Monroe’s parents made about the fallout he and Rosalee would experience from their mixed Wesen marriage. This week gave us the answer to what the masked pair that pulled up to the spice shop were up to. They throw a brick through a window that has a specific marking on it. Monroe identifies the marking as a Wolfsangel. I don’t recommend reading too much into the name. Most of the names are made up by the writers. They may use historical or other references but they are still made up.

Personally, I thought the masked guys were going to do something much more damaging and violent than throw a brick. I get that even this kind of attack would be scary in real life. It’s just that on Grimm we’ve seen so much more violent attacks that a brick through the window seems kind of tame.

Some of my favorite parts: The fun that Elizabeth has with Monroe and Rosalee when she is disguised as Adalind. Trubel playing with David and telling him stories about monsters she saw as a kid. The extreme push in on Juliette at the end of the episode when Elizabeth says that she is the missing key ingredient for the potion. It was reminiscent of the push in that Peter Jackson used in the first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring.

Next week we should find out how Adalind makes it out of the certain trap she walked into. And maybe we’ll learn if Nick still wants to be a Grimm.

[Show site at NBC]     [Previous recap: “GRIMM Fights Dirty”]