GRIMM Dinner Date
3.03 “A Dish Best Served Cold”
[photos: Scott Green/NBC]
Looks like each episode will open with a recap of the stories so far. I recently spoke to a friend who has not been following the series and watched this episode. It showed me that these can stand on their own and you don’t need to have been following it to make sense of the show. I was actually a bit surprised to hear how easily one can drop in on this show and pick it up. But then this episode was much more of a stand alone episode than the first two episodes of this season.
*Spoilers*
The storyline that did continue this week was Adalind’s. Not that we get a whole lot more information this week. But it’s the part of the episode that is carrying on one of the storylines that fans have been following all this time. We see Adalind watching the same internet news story of Eric’s supposed fatal car explosion that Sean Renard watched last week. I call it supposed because we’ve not been shown any proof that he’s really dead. If we’ve seen anything of Eric it is that he’s a slimy, slippery and treacherous character. In short he’s not to be trusted, even to be dead. But it is watching the internet footage of his car exploding that brings a blood red tear to her eye. I don’t recall seeing her shed a tear before. I’m not sure if the red tears are just a part of being a Hexenbiest or if this is a new thing, a result of the rituals she recently completed. I’m not clear if she took on the essence of Frau Pech and took her Hexenbiest powers or was granted new ones.
Sean calls his contact in the castle. Sean is after information on the investigation into his half brother’s apparent death. They also have a brief conversation about Frau Pech. The spy has to hang up as Adalind walks up to the spy and they have an exchange about Eric’s death and their safety.
Because Sean’s spy was informed by Frau Pech that someone outside the royal family is carrying royal blood Sean has told him to find her. Now he can’t find the Frau, in fact it looks like she has not been home in awhile. With some information he finds in a journal of Frau Pech’s he learns where Adalind is staying. It’s a connect the dot sort of thing. It shouldn’t be long before he figures out what happened to Frau Pech.
One theory out there is that the Stefania is Sean Renard’s mother. Did you notice that the voice on the phone when his mother called last week sounded very much like her voice? So, does she know that her son is one of the possible fathers of the child Adalind is carrying? If she doesn’t know but makes that discovery will she still want to help sell the child? Or does she have some other plot of her own that we have not seen yet?
The rest of the episode was a return to the format Grimm started with, except several things are different. But it’s back to Nick and Hank working cases together, just like in the old days. Only now Hank is in the know. Nick is not leading a manic double life as he did in season one. Monroe isn’t hiding from Hank. Even Juliette is in on Wesen and that Nick is a Grimm.
The police case this week is a series of Blutbad that climb a trees to die from their intestines exploding. It turns out a Bauerschwein chef has found the Blutbad achilles heel. A mushroom that when cooked is extremely toxic to only Blutbads. It creates an extreme case of bloat in their intestines and it explodes.
There are some important shifts that happened this week. Captain Renard says what everyone else has been thinking since last week. Why is Nick so much more bothered by his killing of the man in the bar fight than he has been over all the Wesen he’s killed? Why is this so different? Renard doesn’t mince words he’s very blunt with Nick about this. Then there was the way Nick talked about solving the feud between the Blutbads and the Bauerschwein. I noticed a different attitude and a sort of old school glint in his eye. He said some of the right things to Juliette saying that is how his ancestors would have solved it. But there was a feeling that he was not far from taking the same route. It’s like maybe the zombie juice has put him more in touch with his Grimm roots.
Unless I’m forgetting an earlier instance this is the first time that Monroe wants to attack other Wesen to solve killings between Wesen. And in the beginning Monroe was less judgmental that a Bauerschein is the head chef of a popular restaurant.
So why in this one episode do all these different characters make fairly dramatic shifts in their personalities? Are we seeing the beginning of a complete shift for the rest of the season? Or is this just an anomaly of this episode? Is Renard going back to being a less trustworthy character? Is Monroe going to be less logical and more flighty and emotionally reactive? Is Nick about to become a Grimm like the ones in Aunt Marie’s books that kill all Wesen and maybe, much later, ask questions?
The police case is not the most interesting part of the episode. Except maybe the way Nick, Hank and Monroe work together to bring a resolution to the case. The odd part is that a whole pack of Blutbaden are in on bringing down the murder. Think about it for just a moment. All these Blutbaden see Nick, the Grimm, and they show themselves in front of Hank. What were they told? How do our three fearless leaders pull this off? Why would Nick, Hank and Monroe expose their partnership to so many like this? Was this a glitch, a mistake in the script? Did the writers not think this through? Or are they going to explain it all in the next week or coming weeks?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how they work this out or if they don’t address it at all. It’s happened many times before that questionable things happen and they are not addressed. Or even new storylines that are begun and not followed through. In the next few weeks we should find out which way it will go.
[Official Show Site at NBC] [Previous recap: “A GRIMM Return to Zombies”]
