Our dear Captain first shows up giving orders in his crisp, Captain voice. Now, something I and my watching buddy have noticed about him over the course of the season, he has two faces he presents to the outside world. One, the first one we see in the show and the one he wears most often, The Captain. Probably highly educated, raised well, polite, and efficient. Honorable, dignified, but still a police captain. He’s very serious, never smiles, but his men consider him approachable and warm enough that they don’t hesitate to go to him if they have a concern. Their intimidation is born out of respect. (Adsartha says: He’s an involved captain, he likes to be kept in the loop, we never see him interacting with other detectives for obvious plot/narrative reasons but there’s every reason to believe he has a revolving door of cops through his office.)
So, right now he’s being the Captain. He shows up, tells Random Uniform #254 to ID anyone who wants access to the room, and asks Nick how she is. And here we have a good contrast to how he asks how Nick is in the first episode, here he’s still the Captain, crisp and deep and enunciated. Almost projected for a theatre, with a similar resonance. The Voice Of Command. His voice drops some in resonance and volume when he asks Nick how he knows she wasn’t a nurse and if Nick can identify her. I think in this case it’s less out of concern for Nick and more out of concern for his cover, Adelind’s cover, and Hank being right behind them, but I’m not sure. It could also be a tell, which will require more examples. Either way he’s back into Captain mode again.
It’s also something worth noting that his tie in this scene and the one immediately following is the same tie, same shirt he’s wearing, and possibly the same suit although the lighting makes it difficult to tell, as he was wearing when he picked up Adelind from the hospital in the episode previous. This confirms the conversation taking place the same night or in the wee hours after Adelind made her first attempt.
Yes, Captain, let’s take a look at those tapes.
Adelind is careful, she doesn’t let herself be seen. It’ll be interesting to compare his expressions and tics, patterns of behavior, in this scene to the other scenes where he’s almost outed. The scene with Adelind in his office would be more of an apt comparison than the one where he’s almost outed because of his own oversights, but arguably all of them could be held up to see how he does under pressure.
He doesn’t have many lines, and at no point does he drop the Captain voice again. He does cock his head to the side twice, which might be a nervous gesture or just a common unconscious tic, indicating thought. His hands are hidden throughout both these scenes, tucked in his pockets in the hospital and folded under his arms in the precinct. But despite this, especially despite the arms folded, his body is still relaxed. Shoulders dropped, chin up, head straight. Again, dignified and poised without having to hold himself rigid; it’s ingrained in him to be poised by now. He tells Nick to let him know if Nick gets something they can work with and goes off to (presumably) deal with another case.
Next we have the wily Captain Renard in his mobile habitat, the BattleWagon! I do find it kind of interesting that he has a car designed for someone who hauls either a lot of people or a lot of stuff, when everything else we’ve seen about him suggests he has few of either. Then again it could just be the car he was most comfortable fitting his long long legs into. The score gets very beat-heavy, letting us know this is Serious Business. Adelind walks up to our Captain and he tells her Marie came out of the coma and he’s had to put guards on her. He sounds irritated. He also sounds a little tired, and there’s less of the resonance in his voice. Not quite the Prince, not quite the Captain either. Which is interesting, considering, Adelind. I don’t think it’s an indication of great trust, though, so much as him acknowledging he’s bringing her into a confidence.
(Worth noting here, from a future episode: At no point that I can think of offhand does Adelind refer to him as Prince or Your Highness, even to other characters, and no other characters do so to her.)
“We can’t allow her to tell him anything more, we need him with us.” Why, Captain? What are you so afraid she’ll tell him? It’s not that we have a lack of possibilities, Marie could tell Nick that Renard’s a royal, that Renard isn’t to be trusted. About the history between the Grimms and the royals, about the key, which Renard then fears Nick may try to keep for himself. We have an excess of possibilities. Also, us? Us the Wesen/Royals, us Renard and Adelind?
Followed shortly thereafter by “… and I do mean people. We can’t risk someone getting excited and blowing the whole thing.” Blowing it how? Showing Nick that there’s Wesen in the world? By this point I’d think he’d already know Nick has seen some of them. Blowing it by getting excited and babbling about how the Prince gave orders? My best guess with these two pieces of information and how he likely knows Nick already knows about Wesen from Aunt Marie at least, is that he’s trying to keep Wesen/Royal politics from Nick. But I don’t have any more solid evidence any which way.
And as featured later in the season, he’s holding court in his BattleWagon. He doesn’t look at people very often when he does this, though he does meet Adelind’s eyes more often than he did with poor Peter. Adelind is, of course, of higher station than Peter. Then Adelind goes off to show him what a badass she is and he rolls up the window, coldly putting some distance between himself and her actions.
Renard’s tie says this is a different day.
Now he tells Nick that he’s pulled the men off of his aunt’s protection detail. While it does make a certain amount of sense as a police Captain, because they’ve been on her protection detail for nearly two days at this point with no hard evidence of who’s trying to kill her, it’s still a cold move. At this point I’m thinking the velveting voice is a tell of when he’s concealing something, pushing a cover story on Nick. Trust me, it says, rather than the resonant effect which says Obey me. Another interesting tell is how he puts his hands in his pockets again. After he comes up with his hands out and free, the set of his shoulders indicates him putting his hands in his pockets. He takes one out to gesture, then puts it back. It’s possible, though, that this is more of a tell of Sasha Roiz’s still getting used to the character.
And Renard’s tie says this is a third day. Yes, I am now telling time by Renard’s ties. Pay attention, though, this comes in handy later!
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