The GRIMM Code of Wesen
2:14 “Natural Born Wesen”
I really enjoyed this episode. The story picked right back where we left off last week. Since it was a good suspenseful moment with Nick lying on the floor turning bright red it made for a great place to jump back into the story. It’s a lot of fun the way more characters are working together. Each of the characters has grown and become so much more interesting; it’s worth following them instead of following a particular case.
Spoiler Alert
Wow, poor Juliette really went through the wringer this week. And in contrast to the male characters, she goes through this on her own without any support. Nick has formed a strong group of supportive friends. Renard goes through this with seemingly little discomfort. Juliette is virtually paralyzed by the horrifying mental trauma of breaking the spell between her and Renard. Now, maybe it’s just me but I kept thinking, “What about her job? How do you just hole up in your house and disregard all your other responsibilities?”
The show opens with a short re-cap of the story so far. Considering that these are not the stand-alone stories of the first 13 episodes, it’s probably necessary. We’re back in the spice shop with Nick on the floor, Juliette fretting over him, Renard being aloof, Monroe and Rosalee trying to get the other three through this. Renard and Juliette both take a potion that includes a bit of Nick’s blood. Juliette leaves alone and once she’s home she starts on her own freaky journey.
David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf were right, the special effects were great. David and Jim talked about getting the neural synapses of Juliette regaining her memory to look right. I thought it was worth the effort. Juliette gets inside her door and there is a gaping abyss right in front of her. When she turns to try and go upstairs the stairs extend into infinity. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t just open the door and get out of there. She tries shaking the door and for some reason she can’t get out. I have no idea why.
Nick brings Hank up to speed on what he knows about the key, Renard and what happened in last week’s episode. Nick admits that there are holes in what he knows. But from now on he will be wearing the key to protect it.
If you had been wondering why Wesen don’t go around committing crimes and creating havoc on the regular populations, this week you got your answer. A trio of rogue Wesen go on a crime spree. They are brazen in their assault on banks. They go in their fully morphed Wesen forms showing everyone in the bank exactly what they look like. They think it’s a foolproof plan because no one will be able to identify them when they are not looking like Wesen and they won’t have fingerprints. Except that Monroe happened to be in the first bank we see them hit. He is rocked to his core that these Wesen are exposing themselves and breaking the most serious Code of Swabia.
Hank and Nick are called to the bank to investigate the robbery. After getting brought up to speed by an officer on the scene they spot Monroe there. Last week Sargent Wu watched Monroe on surveillance footage. He thought he recognized Monroe then. As this goes on, Monroe is walking a tightrope of being found out. At the time Nick brushed off Wu and downplayed Monroe’s possible connection to the crime scene. But if he continues to be connected to events that can’t be explained this might not work out so well for Monroe.
This episode had two levels of the effects of the crime that Hank and Nick are working. One level is the seriousness of brazen bank robbers that are hard to tie to the crime. The other is how this exposes the Wesen community and the ramifications of their actions. Hank and Nick both know they are dealing with Wesen that committed this crime, but what they know and what they can present to the DA is another thing. Monroe locates the perpetrators in a seedy Wesen bar. And by locates I mean he gets in a huge bar fight with all three of them. He can’t understand why Hank and Nick don’t arrest them. He fears, rightly so, that the Wesen community is going to be turned upside down by this.
Rosalee’s Spice shop is full of nervous Wesen. She tries to calm them and ushers them out of the shop telling them she will take care of this. Rosalee, as it happens, is the current living lineage that has a contact with the Wesen Council De Groot En Zosen. She calls her contact and reports the breach in Wesen Swabia Code.
Interestingly, Renard is doing the same thing. He sends the police photos of two of the suspects. I am not sure what the official description of Renard would be but, he seems to play a similar role as a Grimm would. He sort of manages the Wesen in Portland. He allows some activities to continue while squashing others that he deems necessary to stop and protected Nick without his knowledge. We’ve seen Renard doing all of this throughout the history of the series. Now he tries to explain some of this to Nick. But Nick has little patience or time to be lectured to. He clearly has not forgiven Renard for the trespass with Juliette.
As the bank robbers leave their last hit in full Wesen form, one drops money in the street. In the confusion Cole shoots a bank guard and by-stander dead. Drunk on their new success, Cole and Crystal are making plans to continue their spree and expose their Wesen identities in public. They relish the attention their crime spree is garnering them. Gus, on the other hand, wants to lay low till the media attention has blown over. This leads Cole and Crystal to kill him. They don’t understand the consequences of their behavior and the repercussions it will bring.
Hank and Nick track down the bank robbers to a low rent apartment. Unfortunately for Cole they arrive to find his body on the floor. Cole and Crystal have headed to their lair and are retrieving the money and guns they have stashed there. Following a shoot out with Nick and Hank they are brought to the precinct. As they are led down the hallway and in front of the news cameras a gun man shoots Cole and Crystal and close range. Nick immediately knows that this is Wesen justice being served. The way this was shot is visually interesting. It was a very different pace and style than the rest of the episode. Setting it apart from the rest of the story made it a short story within the larger frame work.
We end with Juliette receiving a phone call from and unknown number. She is hallucinating again. This time her bed appears to her as hanging over an abyss with light like little lighting bolts snapping below her bed. The voice on the phone is distorted and barely audible. The voice says something about wanting her to know the truth. But she is too freaked out to hear any message. She is again held captive by her own mind. If I were to guess, I’d say Adalind is the caller. Not because of the sound of the voice but because she is the one most likely to want to cause Juliette more anguish.
Next week, we will meet more monsters.
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