With
the season two finale of Grimm two weeks away, it goes without saying
that the episode this week has some high standards to reach -
unfortunately, last week's episode only made said standards higher.
Previously
on Grimm, everything went to Hell.
The
teased Renard and Juliette relationship started to blossom, Nick's
reputation as a 'friendly neighbourhood Grimm' was nearly tarnished
and, most shocking of all, his neighbour Bud was almost tortured to
death for the crime of being a wesen.
Also,
to top it off, there's another Grimm in town out for wesen blood.
Over
the course of the series, we've encountered a lot of wesen. We've
seen Nick expose their crimes, befriend them and, most important of
all, use his knowledge to solve the weekly crime.
Despite
this, we've never seen a case where the culprit was not a wesen. Even
cases where we had non-violent, friendly wesen staring us in the
face, the one who commited the crime is rarely a human.
This
made the line 'just because he's a wesen doesn't mean he's guilty'
feel a little jarring at first. However, it serves to set the tone of
the episode perfectly.
In
this episode, we see two wesen encounter Nick for the first time;
they proceed to freak out worse than others had (ie: Bud) in season
one.
This
isn't new in Grimm, but it's different for one key reason: Nick
threatened the suspect. While it might not register as menacing at
first, his obsessive behaviour when deciding to pursue the suspect
certainly is.
Before
I continue, I'd like to make it clear that there's no reason to
suspect that Nick might be wrong this time. The audience is informed
right away that the wesen we've been introduced to is guilty and that
the only reason Nick's acting like this is the possibility that this
kidnapping monster might get away.
His
solution? Drug him up for a confession, of course.
Shady?
Very, but what actually happens is much worse.
When
we see him again, the poor guy's hanging by chains in a basement with
blotchy, skull-shaped burns all over his body.
The
police department decides to mark it up to a vigilante and feeds the
story to the hungry press. The wesen community, however, takes one
good look at the photos and declares that there's only one suspect: a
Grimm.
This
isn't as surprising as you'd think.
Yes,
it's a good twist, but it's
already been established that Nick isn't the only Grimm in the
series. What was stopping another one popping up?
In
the main storyline, we've finally got a reason for Juliette and
Renard to interact - both are concerned about how Nick's been acting
and arrange to meet for coffee.
After
six weeks of amnesiac Juliette I have to say it's about time; I was
worried that they would save this for a finale cliffhanger or the
penultimate episode.
Both
Sasha Roiz and Bitsie Tulloch give a good performance here. It's
every bit as tense as you'd expect; both put in effort to resist the
potion's effects (Juliette more than Renard, if you ask
me) but...well, see for yourself.
This
episode has a very strong balance between the main story plot and the
episode plot. Throw in a great twist and a few status quo challenging
questions and you've got one of the better episodes of the season.
Review by Greta Rehak
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