GRIMM Dances With Fire

Episode 114 “Plumed Serpent”

This is a great episode. What girl doesn’t want to see a valiant knight battle dragons?
Will this be the week Nick comes clean with Juliette?

Spoiler Alert

Our episode opens with two guys breaking into an abandoned old building to strip the copper. They are a bit creeped out by the thought that there is another robber who has beaten them to the place. The locks are warm as though they have been cut with a welding torch. They are burnt to a crisp by the other robber, who also happens to be a Daemonfeuer. The parting shot is a nice close up of his transformed dragonish face.

A man with half his face scarred runs in front of a moving car. The driver of the car is startled and yells at the man he nearly hit. Then we see the same man using a hand pump cart on the railroad track. The cart is sort of surrounded in copper.

Police arrive at the scene the next morning. Sargent Wu briefs Hank and Nick on what is known so far. The arson investigator tells them that the two bodies were hit with something that burned similarly to napalm.  They find a substance that turns out to be human lipids. Hank does an unscientific test on it at the scene with a cigarette lighter. It flash ignites like flash powder.

Back at the station the arson investigator, Hank and Nick fill in Captain Renard on the details so far on the case. The witness who saw the scarred face man leaving the scene the night before comes forward. At the station he tells Hank and Nick what he saw the night before. He then works with the police sketch artist on a drawing of the suspect.

This is a small point that bothers me, all of the art work in this show is done by the same artist. So the police artist’s work, the drawings in the books left to Nick from Aunt Marie,the sketches by Nick in the pilot episode, the doodle by Monroe all have the same look. If they are not all done by the same artist they all have the same style.

There is a call to the police. The owner of the building where the two robbers were torched has been hit on the head. It’s the same guy from before. He is back in the building. The officers arrive on the scene and enter cautiously. The guy, Fred Eberhart, gets away but not before trying to torch all of them first. Wu is sickened from being sprayed with the lipids that the dragon creatures use to create their breathing fire trick.

The human lipids found at the scene of the robbery / arson give the police human DNA and lead to the identity of Fred Eberhart. That leads to his daughter, Ariel who lives in Portland also. Her phone number is for a Club Trop Chaud.

Nick goes by himself to check out the Ariel lead. At the club Nick notices there are a lot of creatures in this club. The fire dancer on stage morphs to reveal that she too is Daemonfeuer. Nick is surprised to find Monroe at the club, clearly enjoying himself. Monroe states several times that he is not an expert on Daemonfeure. He gives Nick an explanation on how these creatures sort of breathe fire. They somehow manage to vomit their own fat and vaporize it in the air. Then they produce a small fire that ignites the fat vapors.

Monroe also passes some information on to Nick. A Grimm has been assassinated in Antwerp Belgium. The Grimm was decapitated and the head has not been found.

Nick pays Ariel a visit in her dressing room. She claims to not know where her father is or what he’s up to. She is clearly flirting with Nick. Nick follows her home. Not too surprisingly she knows and pounces on him when he is in her back yard. She forces a kiss on him while she has him pinned.

In the tussle Nick’s phone lands in the yard. When it rings Ariel gets to the phone first and answers Juliette’s call. This leads to two things, Nick needing to reassure Juliette of his fidelity and Ariel knowing what his treasure is.

Despite telling Nick that she had no information on her father’s whereabouts we see her entering her father’s lair. Fred is lying on a bed and looks ill.  Ariel tells him she has found someone that is going to make him better.

Hank and Nick gather more information on Fred. They determine that Fred is probably living in an abandoned mining spur of railroad track.

Ariel gives a personal invite to Nick. Nick calls Juliette to tell her he’ll be late and that Hank is coming with. Her home has multiple lightning rods on the roof. Concerned for her well-being, Hank breaks a small window of the door and they go in. The inside of the house is covered in copper. There are copper wires all over the place.

I don’t exactly understand the connection between copper and the dragon people but it seems to have something to do with copper’s electrical connectivity. I don’t understand why you would want to be creating fires in your wooden home but I am not dragonish.

Ariel is nowhere to be found in the house. An approaching storm starts creating a crackling and humming in the air in the house. Sensing that it is probably not safe, Nick and Hank run out of the house. With no further leads, Hank sends Nick home to Juliette.

At home Nick makes a rude discovery that Ariel is in his bed and not Juliette. The two have yet another confrontation. This time Ariel tries to burn him. She runs out of the house. Nick tries to follow but is slow to recover from the fumes and such.

Standing outside his house he hears his phone ring back in the bedroom. He runs up there to answer a call from Juliette’s number. Only of course it’s not Juliette; it’s Ariel who has taken Juliette hostage.

And thus begins our climax of the story, the chivalrous suitor coming to the rescue of the lovely damsel in distress. Nick brings Monroe in for back-up. Not a bad idea but if you’re Monroe wouldn’t you be questioning the value of this friendship?

Monroe helps Juliette escape. Nick kills Fred with a copper pipe. Ariel is actually happy about this. She says her father died with dignity. She says what sounds like a incantation or spell creates a fire ball. But Nick got out of the tunnel in time. Juliette and Monroe make their own introductions. Monroe skirts around who or what his relationship to Nick is. Juliette is obviously shaken by her latest adventure as Nick’s girlfriend.

Nick is driving he and Juliette back in his truck. We don’t see how Monroe got home or who drives Juliette’s car from the scene. Anyway, Nick starts to apologize to Juliette for putting her in danger. And she starts to question whether she can continue being put in danger. She says that she is too tired to make a decision that night. But it seems clear that something is going to have to give. Juliette, it must be said, is not a weak or helpless female character. She is the one who saved Nick by throwing boiling water on the ogre that broke into their house. She punched Ariel in her bid to escape. She is a strong, smart female.

I have been wondering if Nick were to include her in his secret if she would choose to stay or leave. And I don’t think it’s a simple question. I think he has been very wrong to not tell her. I think if you are going to be put in harm’s way repeatedly you have a right to know why.

And the last bit of information you need to know is Ariel walked away from her own fire ball apparently unscathed. I don’t know if that means we will see her again but it is certainly possible.

[Official Show Site at NBC]     [Previous recap: “Three Coins in a Fuchsbau”]