REVIEW - Grimm S2E10

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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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