GRIMM Makes and Breaks Its Own Rules!

Episode 517: “Inugami”
Written by Kyle McVey
Directed by Sharat Raju

[recap by Maia Ades]

Some good, some bad, some baffling and a whole lot of Whoa!

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The police case is based in Japanese Wesen traditions. It’s the family honor and traditions that must be upheld, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Brian, a Caucasian teen, is abducted from his parents’ basement. At the scene, an origami dog is left on the floor. Later we discover that Brian was beheaded as part of a vengeance ritual.

We’ve seen it in the news headlines, an accidental shooting among kids. In this case it’s teenagers who have been drinking and smoking some weed. Okay, all of that is illegal, but then the kids haul out their parents’ weapons in a “who’s got the coolest weapon” show. Needless to say, the revolver wins. Brian picks it up and for reasons we’ll never know, cocks the gun, it goes off, hitting Kumo. Ah, but then Kumo woges and freaks out his friends. They fall over themselves to get out of the way. The gun drops and…it goes off a second time. Granted, I’m no gun expert but, is that even possible? Could a gun just go off due to the force of it hitting the floor?

This is another one of those cases where Hank (Russell Hornsby) asks Nick (David Guiltoli) when they’re going to handle it like cops and when Nick is going to go all Grimm on them. And in this case it’s a mix. He starts out strictly as a cop, but when he learns that one of the families involved is Wesen he has to confront them on a Grimm level. This was one case where Nick used both sides rather well.

When they figure out that it’s the attorney who is bound to protect the family to repay an old family debt, they rush to save the last boy from fulfilling his part of the ritual as a sacrifice. It takes three grown men to stop one older attorney from beheading the teenage boy. My big question, how did the attorney make people pass out?

Okay. That’s the police story and my apologies to the writer, the police story was the least interesting part to me. I was much more interested in what was going on with our main characters. The episode actually started with Eve (Bitsie Tulloch) meeting Nick in his car and telling him what she figured out from her roll in the hay with Rachel Wood. She also warns him about Adalind (Claire Coffee); how she knows about that, I’m not sure. Perhaps Hexenbiests can feel a disturbance in the Hexen force.

When Nick later shares all this with Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) and Rosalee (Bree Turner), Rosalee is surprised that Adalind didn’t confide in Nick. She goes on to tell the tale of Tony’s visit to the shop. Surprise Monroe! He’s not amused. This leads to Nick asking Monroe and Rosalee to check out the tunnel at his place. Which the only substantial thing we got from all of that was the two of them overhearing a conversation between Adalind and Eve. Eve stops by really just to give Adalind a warning. “You hurt Nick, I’ll come after you.”

Adalind is still keeping her Hexeness from Nick. I can’t say I blame her. On the other hand, a secret like that is likely to come out, somehow. And probably not in the best way or at the most convenient time. She does let him know she’s going on a job interview with her former law firm. What we didn’t know before, was that this is a Wesen law firm. In fact, Adalind has to woge to show that she still has her stuff. The interesting thing about that, she does it in front of Baby Kelly and the baby smiles. Hm.

This is going to give me anger management issues. Wu (Reggie Lee) is now gone on to have . . . um, active dreams? He apparently went off for a midnight run through the woods, not as himself. I’m not sure he was quite Blutbad but he definitely wasn’t Wu. At first when he wakes up it seems that it was just a dream but, then the camera lingers for way too long on a couple of leaves on his bedroom rug.

Seriously, writers, you can’t set up the rules of your world and then break all of them. If you want your audience to go on this journey with you, to buy into the world that you created you HAVE to abide by the rules you made in creating the world. Period. There is no going and then making up new rules. Well, I say that and yet, again and again that’s exactly what Grimm has done. Stop it. Just stop it.

(Photo by: Scott Green/NBC)

Sure, it’d be fun to let Wu become some sort of Wesen, but that’s not how it happens in this world. Supposedly one is born Wesen. Except, of course, for Juliette/Eve. And that is another example of rule breaking. She shouldn’t have been able to become a Hexenbiest.

I guess we’re allowing that because otherwise we’d be down yet another strong female character. So, if we allow that you can become a Hexenbiest due to whiffing from a funky witches hat to try and help your boyfriend, then are we just opening the flood gate to becoming a Wesen in anyway there might be?

The end held the biggest surprise. But, also the biggest “how the heck did that go that way?!” Rachel is in Renard’s (Sasha Roiz) house when he gets home, and since he wasn’t in the least surprised by this, does she have her own key? She brings forth Diana. Yes, you heard er, read that right — Diana! The child that we haven’t seen in ages. And the last we saw of her she was in the helicopter with the king and Meisner. Meisner pushed the king out of the helicopter and assured Diana that she was going to be fine.

If she was with Meisner, how the heck did she end up with Black Claw? How? How do you just pull the prodigal child from behind you with out any explanation of how she went from one side of this war to the other? If she’s as important as we’ve been led to believe and Meisner …just gave her up? He lost track of her? How come he hasn’t been tasked with getting her back?

Was Diana given to Black Claw in some sort of exchange? Is Meisner playing both sides? I expect — I hope — that this will be explained. Or, it’d better be explained. If it isn’t, the writers will have a glob of angry fans beating down their door.

Grimm airs Friday nights at 9/8c on NBC.