It’s a GRIMM Fight

Season 1, episode 12: “Last Grimm Standing”

Have you been following along? Grimm is now starting to act like an actual series. Instead of stand alone episodes that don’t relate to each other they are now building on each other. I still wonder if some of the story lines from earlier will be tied up at some point.

Remember episode 3 “Beeware”? The queen bee died with a message to beware. And while there have been many things that Nick and Monroe needed to be warned about, I am not sure we have seen the event the warning was for. Much of the tension in this series has been set up with the half truths, concealment and trying to keep information from other characters. So, Nick runs around trying to do his job both as a cop and a Grimm. But all the while his only ally that he has confided in is Monroe. As time goes on being Nick’s only confidant is placing Monroe in ever greater levels of danger. Not to mention the fact that Monroe does not exercise the best judgement and usually Nick behaves very un-cop like. I am sure that if Nick always followed police protocol the show would not have the suspense and intensity that it does. Renard knows Nick’s identity as a Grimm. Sometimes he seems to be protecting Nick. But he was also in on Aunt Marie’s demise.

I miss the comedic Monroe of early episodes. In fact, I don’t recall any comedic elements in this week’s episode. Sargent Wu is not present in this episode and you can’t trust his one liners to any one else.

SPOILER ALERT

A couple living in the woods is brutally murdered by some sort of creature with scales. But then he is captured by horsemen who drag him off. And as he is dragged out of frame, his hands clawing at the ground, he changes into human form.

Police show up at the couple’s home in the woods. They find the dead couple who look like they were torn into instead of just stabbed with say, a knife. When Nick and Hank go outside to investigate they immediately find horse tracks and are suspicious. I think it’s a stretch to build a case on horse tracks. But horses become the unifying element in their case.

Nick finds a scrap of leather with a sort of spike or talon on it. He bags it for evidence.

Juliette is folding laundry and talking to Nick on the phone. They are planning their anniversary dinner for tomorrow night. Nick says his three years with Juliette have been the best three years of his life, and he would not change a moment of it. Juliette finds a ring in a jewelry box beneath socks in a tight fitting drawer.

Nick and Hank interview Dimitiri’s parole officer, Leo. They found his bloody finger prints at the murder scene. Dimitiri is a Skalenzahne, a sort of crocodile like creature. This isn’t really explained but we do see him in his scaly skin from both at the opening murder scene and later. The parole officer did Dimitiri a solid by not reporting him when he skipped out on one of his check-ins.

The interview with Leo leads Hank and Nick to a boxing gym where Dimitiri worked out. Dimitiri’s uncle vouches for his moral character. When they ask about others at the gym that might know Dimitiri well, they are pointed to another boxer, Brian. Brian reveals himself to be a Dickellig, a rhino type of character. Apparently they make for really good boxers, tough skin, high pain tolerance.

Brian shows Hank and Nick where he and other boxers go for their training runs. It’s in a wooded park, not that far from the murder scene. As Nick and Hank look at the trail used by the runners, Hank points out a pile of horse manure. See the horse thread here? Hank gets a call; Dimitiri’s car has been found near an abandoned warehouse.

At the warehouse Nick and Hank follow a guy into the warehouse. They find blood leading to a sort of arena. It has markings that make it look like a satanic ritual, thing. There are words around the bloodied ring in Latin. Nick takes pictures of the words and markings. The police officer that they met at the warehouse goes out to call forensics when the blood is found inside the warehouse. He tries to capture who ever it was that they saw going into the warehouse. The policeman says that he had something sharp in his hand. We see that now the policeman’s hand is bleeding and a motor boat is leaving the scene.

There are a lot of things that are being done well on this show, but the blood effects are not one of them. It looks more like thickened Kool-Aid than blood. I keep thinking it’s something else till one of the characters calls it blood.

Brian is abducted from behind by the three horsemen. It’s not clear if he is abducted because he talked to police or if that is just coincidence.

Back at the police station Hank and Nick are working to understand what they have seen. They turn to Captain Renard to translate the latin symbols. If you look really close you can almost see Renard start to squirm. He gives Nick and Hank the go ahead to find the owner of the warehouse.

Renard bumps into the parole officer, Leo. He pins him with his car in a parking garage. Here we learn that Renard has been feeding Leo with a list of acceptable names for the fight club. Leo is not happy about their whole set up on several levels. Renard is furious at the disobedience from Leo and his poor choice in Dimitiri. Renard refers to his canton. I think this means his state or his territory as it were. Leo refers to Renard as his Highness. Leo also tells Renard that the purse is the highest ever, that Renard will get his tribute. Renard seems to be walking an even thinner line than Nick when it comes to the double life part. We have not seen the back story on Renard but it appears that he has been involved and known who and or what he is for a long time. In fact it seems that Renard may be much older than his appearance would suggest.

Monroe meets Nick in Aunt Marie’s trailer. They discuss creature gladiator fighting. Nick sets Monroe up to try and find out who is setting up the underground fight clubs and where they are taking place. Poor Monroe. Meeting Nick maybe one of the worst things that ever happened to him. Monroe gets a meeting place to find out more about the Lowen games. Either Monroe thinks he’s invincible because he’s a blutbad or he just has really bad self-preservation skills.

Renard sends Hank and Nick to re-interview Leo and tells them to go to his home, not his office. This is after Renard’s own confrontation with Leo. I am not sure if Renard is setting them up for trouble or Leo.

Back at the fight club it’s thumbs down for Brian.

Monroe is abducted by the same horsemen only without their horses. They just loaded Monroe into the horse trailer.

This is the part of the story that follows the story of origin for this episode. Monroe takes a nail out of Dimitiri’s hand. Too bad his act of compassion does not translate to mercy in the fight arena later. The fighters, creatures in cages, are fed raw meat. Monroe realizes that the meat has a tattoo on it. Yes, Dimitiri is eating Brian, his former sparing partner from the boxing ring.

Leo and his henchmen ready Monroe for his fight with a cattle prod. (If you are familiar with cattle prods, you will be surprised by the sparks and apparent high voltage this prod puts out. Perhaps it’s been enhanced for this purpose.) Hank goes alone to Leo’s home for questioning, just as Renard suggested. Leo is not there. Hank finds horses, and some gear that most horse owners don’t have, shields, morning stars, and short swords.

Nick has found the horse trailer and the barn where the fights are taking place. In one of Nick’s smartest moves, he tells Hank to bring it back up to the barn.

Renard goes to confessional. This is not explained well. Renard and the priest have a short exchange about Leo leaving the fold. The priest is some sort of other creature who is capable of wreaking vengeance.

Nick stops Monroe from being killed. He steps into the ring in Monroe’s place. This is an interesting plot point. Monroe encourages Nick to call on his family history, to dig down and find the power and skill of his heritage to fight.

Hank shows up in the nick of time with back up. Dimitiri is arrested. Think about that for a moment. He can not be in with regular prisoners. He will probably eat them. He can’t be paroled; he will start killing. He has lost the human governor that would have kept him from being a danger to the public. Where is Dirty Harry when you need him?

Leo escaped the police raid on the fight club. Escaping Renard is another matter. Renard confronts Leo in his barn as Leo is grabbing money from a safe. Renard sets a creature, presumably the priest on Leo.

Nick calls Juliette. Juliette is sitting alone at a beautifully set table. She is very depressed about her situation, which is odd considering she knows what Nick does for a living. This can’t be the first time he has been late for a date. She goes back to the ring she found and gazes at it with both sadness and longing. Another week has passed with out Nick coming clean with Juliette.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode as much as I did. The promo for next week looks very interesting.

[Official Show Site at NBC]     [Previous recap: “Tarantella”]