Hopping Onto a GRIMM Case
2:17 “One Angry Fuchsbau”
[photos: Scott Green/NBC.com]
Are you strapped in for the ride to the end of the season? There’s a lot going on with each of lead characters. This week had a different tone than we’ve seen. Last week Grimm was a mystery complete with clues and riddles. While this week was more like a farce.
Spoiler Alert
This week we revisit a Wesen the Ziegevolk a goat creature, that we met in the first season. This time however, the special effects are better. In the first season there was a glaring continuity issue with the color of the toad. In general, the special effects have been much more believable this season. And while I have not gone through each episode with a fine tooth comb I think there is better continuity.
The episode opens with murder from six months ago when a husband threw his wife off the bedroom balcony. Just before he kills her she morphs into a Mauzertz, a mouse creature and Don Nidaria, the husband morphs into a Lowen, lion creature. It’s important that we see this because the details we just saw will come into play during his trial. It just so happens that Rosalee is on the jury of Don Nidaria. I thought that there was a time line continuity issue because the rest of the episode resumes right where we left off. But I guess that Rosalee could have gone through jury selection and so on during previous episodes and we just didn’t see any of that. This murder trial moves along much more quickly than I thought they usually do. Which works for the story but makes it feel rushed.
Nidaria’s lawyer, Kellogg, is very good, too good. Turns out he’s a Ziegevolk and he’s doping the whole jury and witnesses. I don’t know if the pheromones the Ziegevolk releases only make other Wesen ill or if he makes everyone ill. Rosalee calls off her date that night with Monroe as a result of being doped by the lawyer. The next day Monroe comes to court and figures out what’s going on when he sees a toad that the lawyer dropped in the restroom and quickly retrieves. He calls Nick which leads to a comedic exchange about dropping a toad in the men’s room. This is the farce storyline.
Our band of misfits comes up with a plan to nix the lawyer’s jury tampering. There is a potion that will render his psycho-hallucinogenic pheromones useless. The catch is they need his sweat to make the potion and then it has to be injected into his toad before he eats it. Of this has to be done with out raising the suspicion of Kellogg. Again Monroe is pressed into service and Bud makes a come back as part of this plan.
It all works out, well not for the lawyer. He loses the case, comes to the spice shop for help but finds out that he was set up. He flies into a rage and attacks Rosalee, but Monroe is there to protect her. Nick arrests the Kellogg for assault. When the Kellogg is placed in the holding cell, guess who is in the cell next to him. Yup, the lowen, Nidaria who has just lost his murder trial.
The Nick and Juliette story line picks right back up. Nick greets Monroe in the kitchen and concedes that he now thinks it’s a good idea for Monroe to give Juliette a tour of the trailer. Monroe was not planning to give take Juliette himself. He assumed that Nick would do this, she’s his girlfriend and so on. But Nick ducks out of it by pleading with Monroe. In a relatively short time their friendship has grown to the point that it’s hard to say one owes the other. They have both done so much for each other, saved each others’ lives, that it would be hard to say who is in debt. Although if I had to I’d guess, I’d bet Nick owes Monroe.
Monroe takes Juliette to the trailer with the hope that this will help her regain her memories of Nick. It works, but brings up more issues and questions than poor Monroe can answer. She’s seeing multiple Nicks all presenting different snippets of memories and all at the same time. It becomes a jumble that she can’t sort out. That may be a good thing because if all of the past information came back to her in clear way she’d still feel like she’s crazy. This is her mind’s way of protecting her, giving her bits of information.
Juliette remembers the lady, Pilar, from October. The episode was titled “La Llorona”. At the time Juliette was acting as translator for a Spanish-speaking father in an abduction case. Pilar approached Juliette and sensed that there was more to the cat scratch than Juliette knew. Now Juliette invites Pilar to her home hoping to get more information. We don’t learn much in this episode except that Juliette has a lot more ahead of her. Pilar speaks to Juliette about being between two worlds, one of light and of course the other of darkness.
Unlike in the past when Renard kept Nick in the dark even if he knew he was in danger now, he shares what he knows with both Nick and Hank. Last week, Sean Renard met with his castle spy and they were both nearly blown up by another spy. Renard shot and killed the spy in the street as he drew his gun. The spy’s actual name was Aguistin Katt and he was originally from Malta. Renard tells Hank and Nick that he worked for the Verrat. On one side we have the Verrat and on the other is the Resistance. In the middle are all the Wesen who may not know of any of this or they just choose to not be involved. We still have almost no information about what sort of plans Renard has. But it’s clear that he wants to work with rather than against Nick.
And then there’s Adalind. She reports to Eric, Sean Renard’s half brother. Her news is not good, she does not have the key. Not surprisingly this news doesn’t sit well with Eric. He plans to pay his brother a visit. Something about Adalind catches his attention. He comments that she seems to have a glow about her.
Next week we get to meet another new creature that David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf told me about at the Omaha Film Festival. They described it as a lava man, with plates of lava on its body. But the promos make him look like some sort of devil. We’ll see how the execution of this special effect turned out.
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