Recap: GRIMM’s Stars Align

Episode 509 “Star Crossed”

Kammie must have more sway than I realized. She got her wish. Grimm wove both the police case and the larger storyline in one episode.

This week the Wesen of the week or police case had connections to the Black Claw. Well, not directly but the writers did a good job weaving the larger story issues into the regular weekly formula. The police case was a serial killer. Actually, he was a Fuilcré, an ox-like Wesen who was performing a rain making ritual that requires seven sacrifices placed to form the constellation of the Big Dipper.

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Of course it took some detective work for Nick (David Giultoli) and Hank (Russell Hornsby) to find out what was going on. Based on a lumber purchase that matches the wood used in the crosses of the of sacrifices they take a farmer in for questioning. That was after he woged in front of Nick and Hank and attempted to attack Nick.

The Black Claw tie-in came, in part from the farmer’s son. He left the farm to attend a Black Claw recruiting rally. This young man was our red herring. All the clues could have led to him. I’m not sure how successful it was. I’ve seen so many of these I expect the killer to be someone one other than who it looks like. Perhaps you can let me know if it worked for you or not.

The agony on the father’s face as he left his defiant son at the Black Claw meeting was the most painful thing I’ve seen on Grimm in a long time. Kudos to the actor, Wade Williams, for communicating the loss of a child with just a look.

At the same time all that was going on, Hadrian’s Wall was battling Black Claw. The only three that we’ve gotten to know so far, Meisner (Damien Puckler), Eve (Bitsie Tulloch), and Trubel (Jacqueline Toboni) went mano a mano with bad guys cutting them down and not taking names. Eve takes one of them alive. Only, I’ll bet after Eve’s interrogation he may have wished he hadn’t been taken alive.

A point that we discussed in the podcast; why are the leaders of Black Claw descending on Portland? And if Grimm doesn’t find a reasonable way to explain that or doesn’t address it all, it will be failing. There needs to be some plausible explanation for why this war seems to be coming to Portland more than other, even larger cities in the U.S. Maybe that’s where Andrew Dixon the Mayoral candidate comes in. What ever the reason, it needs to be significant to explain this.

The buildup for the larger stories; Black Claw, Hadrian’s Wall, Andrew Dixon, and what’s behind the door at the end of the tunnel are still escalating. This is the back end of the season. Sort of, the mid season break came really early. And Grimm is still laying the foundation for these stories. Which makes me wonder, will the payoff be worth the buildup? And if it’s not, will fans be forgiving?

I still have reservations about Grimm featuring a civil war. War is not a fun storyline. War could wipe out all of our current cast. Would Grimm ask it’s fans to start over with survivors of a war?

The promo for next week was not as lengthy or detailed as they often are. I don’t know if that means we’ll see more of the previous things teased along with Monroe, Silas Weir Mitchell, battling a big eared something or not.

Grimm airs Friday nights at 9/8c on NBC.