Ah,
Halloween: that wonderful holiday stuffed full of cobwebs, fake blood
and sugary goodness.
It's
over now, but we've still got Grimm around to supply us with monsters
and mayhem.
Any
monster-based show worth its salt has to up the ante in the Halloween
episode: this episode should have the creepiest antagonist and the
creepiest scenes.
Grimm's
never really been a scary show (it's gorey and got monsters, but that
doesn't always make things scary) and the scenes in this episode
didn't really stir anything in yours truly, but that doesn't mean it
was a bad Halloween episode. It may not have lived up to my
expectations, but it was actually one of the more entertaining
episodes in season two.
As
per usual with Grimm, we had three subplots: bringing down this
week's antagonist, Monroe's subplot and the ever looming messy love
triangle between Renard, Juliette and Nick. Because I discussed my
feelings towards the love triangle last week, I'll try and focus on
the former two subplots.
For
those of you who have never seen Grimm, Monroe is a Blutbad AKA a Big
Bad Wolf AKA the Grimmverse's version of a werewolf.
He
is also the comic relief and easily one of the most fun characters to
watch on screen. He works with antique watches, had a model train set
and, best of all, celebrates Christmas with more gusto than you'd
imagine from someone his age.
As
it turns out, he's also a huge fan of Halloween.
I
cannot express just how much childlike-glee covered my face the
moment I saw Monroe's decorations. His plotline focuses on three
neighbourhood kids trying to get revenge on him because he stopped
them from stealing a girl's candy. It had no real effect on the main
plot of the episode, let alone the series' storyline, but it's still
pretty entertaining.
Besides,
how else would we have known it was Halloween if Monroe hadn't shown
Nick his decorations?
Our
villain this week isn't from a fairytale as one might expect: what
we've got here is the Weeping Woman, a piece of Mexican folklore.
This is acknowledged via Nick's ancestors being unable to figure out
what exactly she was and the one wesen in this episode not
registering that this was a supernatural threat.
While
I like that the book is unable to supply an easy solution and forces
Nick to take a huge risk to save the victims, part of me feels that
we could have deviated from the formula a bit more than we did.
The
Weeping Woman, or La Llorna, feels like it would terrify a parent
much more than anyone else: she systematically captures two boys and
a girl then drowns them. The parent sees her drowning, goes to save
her...but by the time they're in the water she's walking off with
their child.
The
kid'll be dead in the water the very next day.
We've
dealt with kidnapping and child abuse in Grimm before, but we seldom
witness it. I feel that this is because we generally don't like
seeing children getting hurt, which is why over the course of the
episode we're shown scenes where the kids are just in a really dark
place but completely unharmed.
This
episode ultimately failed to deliver the horror you'd expect from a
Halloween episode. While we clearly see the stakes rising throughout
the episode, it feels more like it's NCIS, not Grimm. I also feel
that in terms of the children's safety we played things far too safe
to conjure a sense of dread. It might've made a difference if we saw
a glimmer of fear in even one child's face.
All
this said, it was an entertaining episode, even if it was a
disappointing Halloween special.
Review by Greta Rehak
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