GRIMM Is Hunted

3.11 “The Wild Hunt”

[photos: Scott Green/NBC]

Honestly this episode would have been full without a police case. But the case may turn out to be really good. It was not finished up in this episode, and that was a smart thing for Grimm to do. Unfortunately for fans they’ll have to wait till February 28th for the rest of the story.

We open with the real reason for this episode: the Monroe and Rosalee story. They could have spent the entire episode on this storyline. I’ve not talked to any male viewers, but women vested in the series would have been satisfied with an in-depth telling of just the one story. But there is a whole lot more going on this week. There’s a killer on the loose who’s targeting men in uniform. And Adalind is getting closer and closer to being in a whole lot of trouble.

Briefly (okay, briefly) Monroe and Rosalee get engaged.  Monroe’s parents drop everything to visit Monroe and Rosalee. That meeting doesn’t go well. Rosalee storms out and Nick knocks at the door and that meeting goes even worse. The resolution of which is delayed till next week.

A  fierce Wesen, a Wildesheer,  is on the hunt for uniformed men, collecting their scalps and sewing them together into a coat.  According to a little Aunt Marie trailer research, the coat serves as an added protection for the hunter. Not too surprisingly this guy’s ultimate prey is Nick. Fortunately this hunt will continue, because this may be the most exciting Nick story we’ve had since the zombie war.

Things are getting really touchy in Vienna. Adalind is brought before Prince Victor to view photos of resistance members. She acknowledges that she’s seen one of them, Meisner, but has not met him. Back in her hotel room, she’s going through some wicked pregnancy pains. She meets with Stefania, the Gypsy Queen, for a sort of medical and practical check up. Stefania excitedly declares that the baby will be born soon. Adalind is no dummy, she recalls the warning/olive branch that Sean Renard gave her during his visit to Vienna. When the baby is born she will be in danger.

That is the episode very, very briefly. So lets take a bit closer look at parts of the episode.

I’ll start with Monroe. Monroe has been one of my favorite characters from the beginning. Now, in the third season, the Monroe character has strayed so far from who he was in the beginning it’s hard to recognize him. He’s lost the humor, wonderment and open-eyed view of the world that so attracted the audience to him. He was a Blutbad that had so many layers. He had a whole system that he adhered to in order to help him tame his wild side. He completely dove into holidays with such enthusiasm that we were awed by the magnitude of his displays. He had a rich and varied background knowledge on so many topics. That’s why Nick came to him week after week. He was a wealth of information and guidance that Nick sorely needed as he navigated his new role as a Grimm. While it wasn’t a balanced friendship it gave a lot of depth to Monroe.

If I might make a request, could we have some of the fun parts of Monroe back? I know that Sgt. Wu has been given much of Monroe’s job of comic relief, but couldn’t we still have some of the fun Monroe back?

Last week we had Monroe meeting Rosalee’s family, which was much more interesting than meeting Monroe’s folks this week. While this family reunion had a lot more action, it lacked the depth and complex family dynamics that we got last week. I suppose that it could be argued that’s the difference in the kinds of Wesen. But I think it has much more to do with the writing than the type of Wesen. The meeting part of the episode wasn’t given much time to develop. It was a brief violent showdown and storming out of Rosalee. So there wasn’t time to get a feel for how each of these characters interacts and the history in Monroe’s family.

I really hope the whole Grimm hunter story gets plenty of time. It makes sense and is much more interesting to have a story that takes longer than an hour to solve. The promo line for this season has been “The hunter becomes the hunted”. Odd that they made that the theme, if you will, for the season and yet it’s not till episode 12 that we find out why it has been called that.

Admittedly we haven’t learned much about Nick’s new foe. All we know is he has been scalping men in uniform that he finds to be worthy of battle. Apparently making a coat of the scalps gives him the power of every one of the men that he took a scalp from. Why he’s hunting Nick, who he is, how he found Nick all of these things are unknown. I had a thought, though, if you’ll recall the head of the Wesen Council assigned an agent to keep an eye on Nick. We’ve not seen anything of him since then. I wonder if he is watching this and would he intervene if Nick was in mortal danger.

So, what’s going on with the Royal family in Vienna storyline? I don’t know. This is a case of not enough story to hold the audience’s attention. We’ve seen glimpses of first one Prince and now another, a castle, little of bits of secrets but, none of it adds up to anything of substance. There’s a rumor that the Royal Families are moving to take over. What they want to take over is not clear. Who they rule has not been explained. Why are they so ruthless? I don’t have any answers.

The bigger issue is, does anyone care?  They’ve dragged this out since the first season without giving the audience enough to warrant taking this long. At this point I feel like the old saying p#$$ or get off the pot.

We’ll have to wait till after the winter Olympics to get any answers. So enjoy watching sports you know little to nothing about and come back for Grimm February 28th.