“The End” for GRIMMLY SPEAKING? It’s a GRIMM Life
Episode 6:13 “The End”
Written by David Greenwalt & Jim Kouf
Directed by David Greenwalt
[recap by Maia Ades]
Here it is, my last Grimm episode post. We may do a series wrap up at a later date, but this is the last episode and last post covering one of the episodes. Overall I think the writers did a good job of wrapping this series up. I have some niggling issues with some of their choices, but it did bring the story to a conclusion.
[audioplayer file=”http://www.podcasts.com/download/scifi4me-radio-grimmly-speaking-ae5c60159/The-End-for-GRIMMLY-SPEAKING-Its-a-GRIMM-Life-5684″ titles=””The End” for GRIMMLY SPEAKING? It’s a GRIMM Life” artists=”SciFi4Me Radio” track=”ffc011″ text=”301c11″]
Talk about cramming story in. This episode is still only 43 minutes long. I thought since it was the series finale that they might make it a longer episode. Instead they put it all in one regular length show. It manages, to not only give us some catch up scenes of what came before, flash backs of bits from the original pilot, it also manages to have the final battle and resolve it all in the end. And that is probably the highest compliment I can pay this episode. It manages to wrap up a series that has been playing out its storylines for the past five and half seasons. It does a fairly good job of resolving many loose ends. It doesn’t go back and resolve story ideas from some of the first seasons, but I’ll forgive them at this point.
SciFi4Me 20% Off at HumanCharger. Use coupon code scifi4me during checkout. Expires 12/31/2017.
Grimm has been building to a huge showdown, an ultimate battle for the world as we know it. Or actually the world Grimm has built, which, let’s be clear, is not the same world I live in. So, they had to give us a pay off for the long build up to that. They also had to leave their audience with an ending that they would be happy with. This ending probably didn’t make everyone happy, but if they’d left all our favorite characters dead, there just might have been riots in the streets.
My biggest peeves with this episode were the breaking of their own rules and the final, “Twenty Years Later” part. By my count Nick (David Giuntoli) offered the stick to the Devil twice. I thought that the rule was, Nick had to give the stick to him. Well, he tried to, twice. I don’t know why that wasn’t the end of it. It would have been a very unsatisfying ending. True. But the way it played out, they weren’t following their own rules. That always bothers me. If you create a world, create rules for that world and then break them, what was the point of making the rules? Why did the Devil bring Trubel (Jacqueline Toboni) back to life? It did not serve him well. Why would he give Nick an ally to use against him?
Have you seen It’s a Wonderful Life? The end reminded me of that movie. Nick experienced the deaths of everyone that was important to him, and then they were all given back to him. Okay, everyone doesn’t die in the movie, but somehow it felt similar. I expect he will go on to live the end of his days not taking them or their friendship for granted. I do like that there are some key details that are different in the two times Nick comes flying through the mirror. The second time, Eve/Juliette (Elizabeth Tulloch) retained her Hexenbiest powers. Trubel goes to Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) and Rosalee’s (Bree Turner) house, instead of to the Spice Shop. Adalind was not wearing Bonaparte’s ring, because Nick took it off her after she was dead, and Diana (Hannah R. Loyd) remembered what happened. Oh, and of course, the Spear of Destiny made the trip through the mirror with Nick and Eve.
The whole thing at the very end with the kids now as adults seemed unnecessary. We see now grown up Kelly writing his dad’s story in the Grimm book. Not surprising that he embellished the story. While Nick is to be credited with saving the situation, he did have his weak moments. He did turn his back on his duty as a Grimm. He tried to give the stick to the Devil. In fact, if it weren’t for first Trubel taking him on and then the spirits of both his Mother and Aunt, he would have given up. He also could not have defeated the Devil without the aid of all three women.
I never did get my Baby Jack Jack moment with baby Kelly. I so wanted that. Seeing Kelly as a handsome young man did not make up for it. I still felt cheated out of that.
Can we be honest? Diana is creepy. That child could give anyone nightmares. Which makes it a bit odd when Renard (Sasha Roiz) and Adalind (Claire Coffee) agree that she is their shining achievement. That child has created a lot of chaos and death. That’s before the whole issue of the Devil coming to claim her for his bride. People were dying because of her before she was even born. Then more people died trying to either get her or protect her as a tiny infant. I wonder what her teenage years were like?
In the flash forward, we learn that Monroe and Rosalee’s triplets arrived safe and sound. But we don’t get to see them. They’re just mentioned in passing. I didn’t need to see them. But then, I didn’t need to see adult Kelly and Diana. It really could have ended with the group hug. I’d have been fine with that. Was that part necessary to other audience members? Did you feel the need to see how the kids grew up? Did you need to know that for some reason, Kelly is the one writing his Dad’s story twenty years after it happened? We’ve seen Nick adding to the Grimm books after various encounters. Why would this story have been different? Why would he not have written down his own story shortly after his re-entry through the mirror? Yes, it’s cool that his son is carrying on the tradition. I just don’t understand why he’s writing that story and not his own.
Well Grimmsters, it’s been quite a ride. Thanks for following along with me. It’s been an honor and privilege to share with you my thoughts and critiques of each episode. Maybe I’ll see you at a comic-con some day and we can chat about a Grimm world.
Hey, thank you guys for sharing these podcasts! Great job =) Just wanted to comment on the “end of episode 1” (it was actually the end of the second episode) with the Wesen hiding in the woods — this Wesen was actually a Mellifer. I think it was the only time in the history of the show where a sneak peek of the next week’s featured Wesen was seen in the episode before.
I really liked the Hexenbiest Henrietta as well. The things I would’ve liked to find out about were what happened with the rebuilding of the Wesen Council, and did Alexander survive? The last we ever saw of him, he was the only Wesen Council member still alive and he was on the run. Interestingly, the actor that played Alexander was brought back for Season 6, but he was a stunt double for Renard in “Oh Captain, My Captain” where David Giuntoli directed. The other character I would’ve liked to see more of was Pilar, the mysterious woman who helped Juliette when she was suffering from her memory loss, La Llorona, and El Cucuy. I always thought it was a bit of a missed opportunity that when Juliette was struggling with becoming a Hexenbiest and losing her humanity, that she didn’t seek out Pilar, someone who’d helped her before. These are just really minor quibbles though; I’m going to assume Alexander made it alive and helped rebuild the Wesen Council (perhaps with the help of Rosalee). Grimm was an incredible show that I am going to miss watching so much. Everyone that was involved in making the show happen should truly be proud of what they accomplished. I raise a glass to toast them as well!
Auf Wiedersehen!!!
Thank you for the correction about which episode the peeking Wesen was in.
All good points. I’d forgotten about Alexander, and apparently so did the writers.
I felt like many of the police cases, Wesen of the week stories, would have benefited from playing out over more than one episode. Many times I felt like we were shorted information and story to squeeze it into one episode. I’m sure there were reasons for doing it the way they did.
Thanks for listening and playing along.
Really good point about having some episodes play out over more than one episode. Looking up a few times that was the case–the Wildesheer storyline in the middle of season 3 was a really nice couple of episodes there, “Revelation” being one of my favorite episodes of the series. The end of season 1 and beginning of season 2 also featured the Mauvais Dentes, definitely a favorite Wesen of mine, with the Cracher-Mortel being similarly featured at the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3. Then there was the Gedächtnis Esser in the first two episodes of season 4. Perhaps part of the reason the writers didn’t have more instances like these was to feature more Wesen, and with directors and writers changing usually every episode, I guess it’s hard to build multiple episode storylines for one Wesen. The reason why doing so with a season finale and then season premiere worked, however, is often times one of the major show runners or producers was playing a major role in those episodes, so some continuity could occur with just one Wesen storyline.
All in all, it’s pretty remarkable how many Wesen were created and how much mythology and history was tied into the Grimm universe. I do hope if there ever is a spin-off, you’ll continue to have some podcasts on that as well. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with the rest of the fans!
The final episode was less than I hoped for, but satisfying. For the ending, I would have preferred 5-10 years later instead of 20, showing the happy families together for an extended family reunion or something. There could have been Kelly and Diana playing with Monroe and Rosalee’s kids, some discussion about recent Wesen troubles Nick, Hank and Wu got involved in, maybe. Wu would be talking to Nick and Hank until the kids drag him away, begging him to change into Altered State Wu and play with them. Renard wouldn’t be there, perhaps he’d be at the police station or maybe he ran for Mayor again for more altruistic reasons and is seen on TV making a public address. Not to mention Bud would be there! Perhaps with his long-referenced wife providing food for the affair. Of course the main adult characters have a small discussion about how things have changed for all of them. And it would end with an image of them all together, human, Grimm and Wesen, together in peace and then THAT would turn into a new page from the Grimm book which then (literally)closes out the series. That would have been a much better ending.
I can just picture that. One of the reasons I would like to see what you described is that we would get to see the triplets. I would love to have seen Rosalee and Monroe’s kids, and I would love to see them woged. Are they identical or fraternal:? Blutbad or Fuchsbau or a mixture of both?
Oooh, Matthew, I think you should have been on the writing team for “The End”.
Bud wasn’t in any of the last episodes and I missed him. It would have been great to finally see his wife. Of course, I always hoped that I’d be tapped to play Bud’s wife. . . Hey, we can all have our dreams.
I would have liked to see what you describe instead of Kelly writing a softer fictionalized version of his Dad’s battle for the world as we know it.
Still, it can’t be easy to wrap up a series and they did manage to do that.
Grimmaniac, If there should be a spin off, I plan to cover it. This time, I’d start doing the podcast from the get go.