GRIMM Got the Tongue

Let’s get on with it. I can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t involve spoilers. So, here’s the warning and let’s dish on this episode.

This week the police case was instrumental to Nick regaining his Grimmness. It wasn’t any surprise that Nick would get his Grimm power back. Grimm is the title of the show. Nick is the lead of the show. The title would totally have to be changed to something like, Formerly Known as Grimm but, Now Just a Guy Who Moved Away to Live With a Really Good Looking Lady.  And let’s face it, that’s a really awkward title.

Nick and Juliette/Adalind go through reversing Adalind’s spell to get his Grimm back. This part of the episode gave us some of the best lines and parts. There was Truble’s line to reassure Monroe: “It’s okay, I know what convoluted means.” And the group returning to Nick and Juliette’s house has Trubel knocking on the door while Monroe and Rosalee wait around the corner. You just know that the three of them played rock, paper, scissors to decide who had to knock on the door.

It worked well to have the two parts of the episode intertwine. Often the police case is one story and what’s going on with the main characters has nothing to do with the case. Merging the two gives the police case more reason to be in the episode. When Grimm started, it was just a police procedural who’s main police officer was becoming a Grimm. In the beginning, it was explained that he was becoming a Grimm as his Aunt was dying and losing her Grimmness. That rule for becoming a Grimm in this world has not been followed since but hey, who’s keeping track? Then we got much more invested in the main characters’ stories to the point that the police story often feels like a hindrance.

The basics here: there’s a lizard like Wesen that is described in the Grimm book as having the appearance of the Komodo Dragon. A fun little detail, the entry was made by Rudyard Kipling. Anyway, these Wesen make human sacrifices every three years to appease their God. The local lizard Wesen bought an auto salvage yard seven years ago. Every three years there’s been an unsolved missing persons case along highway 406. And for reasons that aren’t explained they leave a small welded metal lizard man where they abduct the couple that’s to be their sacrifice. This talisman does help the police link all of the cases.

This year the lizard Wesen are only able to abduct a man. They can’t get the woman out of the car that they caused to run off the road. A female officer working the case goes to the auto salvage yard trying to track down who might have made the talismans only to become their second sacrifice. Luckily she had just called it in before she was attacked. That night Hank and Nick bring Monroe to see if the men at the salvage yard are Wesen. They find the officer and the man both in graves. All of this happens as Nick is painfully getting his Grimm back.

It bothers me that it’s never been explained why there is so much more involved in reversing Adalind’s spell now, when Captain Renard’s only instruction to Trubel was make sure Nick drinks the potion. Is it the passage of time? Or is it something else that the writers had in mind but didn’t share with the audience? I don’t know. I’ve listened to all the episodes carefully and haven’t heard an explanation.

Why, oh why is Adalind giving away all her information? Again she’s been written as not bright. Anyone want to take a guess what Viktor will do with her now that he has all the information he can extract from her? She has always been a smart survivor. Now she’s fine with showing all her cards for a decent meal. Really? This is so out of character. If she’s going to change her character the audience needs to see what has created that change and it needs to make sense. When Adalind had her baby we saw a different side to her character. I bought that. Having a child changes a person. But, suddenly she is so desperate to get her baby back that she’s lost all the qualities that we’ve come to admire.  She’s lost all the intellect that made her a  smart, conniving Hexenbiest bent on her own survival.

Ever since she went through the twining curse with Nick she lost all her common sense. She fell for Viktor’s stupid rambling and ended up in his cell. She followed a voice out of the cell and then ate something that she didn’t even try to identify. That sent her on a hallucination trip and even on that trip she couldn’t follow directions. Now she gives up every bit of information she has, without any deal or assurance of her own safety let alone the possibility of being reunited with Diana.

Another week and again Sgt. Wu is left in the dark. I sort of thought that since Renard made it clear Nick must deal with Wu that he would. Pretty soon no one’s going to have to tell him anything; he’ll have pieced this all together on his own.

There are some nit-picky details that irk me: when are police required to wear gloves to handle evidence? In the police station, Hank takes the little metal lizard man out of the evidence bag with his bare hands. When they find one in the woods he carefully handles it with the blue latex gloves on. In the final showdown with our heroes in the salvage yard there’s a ginormous lizard man sculpture. Where do you store a giant metal lizard man? It looks like it’s at least 15 feet tall. Wouldn’t something that big be noticed?

My favorite bits:  The performance by Jacqueline Toboni, who portrays Trubel. This week marked a lot more subtlety from this young actress. She looks natural handling weapons like her butterfly knife. With her character’s growing confidence she’s become stronger and tougher, which helps sell her believability as a Grimm. And because they never get enough credit, the grips and electrics did an excellent job lighting the salvage yard. It was beautiful.

According to the promo, it looks like next week will be Grimm’s Christmas show. I don’t know what these little gremlin like Wesen are supposed to be. I’m hoping for some good fun in this episode.

[Show site at NBC]     [Previous recap: “Cry Luison”]