Previously on Grimm! Adalind has clearly never seen Rosemary's Baby. Stefania should not be trusted at all. The police have no idea what kind of serial killer they're dealing with, and Monrosalee are still the adorablest. Although Monroe is rather swimming in denial at this point, until he has his nose rubbed in it by his parents' bad behavior. Aaaaand fight!
Or not. Monroe does manage to keep everyone from doing serious physical damage to each other, though his "Nick is a friend" sounds eerily like someone trying to calm a dog, and Nick apologizes about as profusely as he can when he's not the most emotionally intuitive in the room. Monroe's parents aren't really in a mood to listen to reason which, aside from the species prejudices of last episode/very shortly earlier in the night, is reasonable. Grimms have a history of beheading first and sticking the heads on poles to answer questions later, and let's all not forget the entry about the peaceful turtle Wesen species on the Galapagos, about whom the one Grimm wrote that their peaceful nature only made them easier to kill. Because they looked at that Grimm funny? Yeah, no. Monroe has reasons for defending Nick the way he does, but his parents have reason for reacting the way they do, and when everyone's blood is up no one's that inclined to listen to these reasons. Monroe doesn't help with essentially tacitly threatening to have Nick kill his father, though I'm sure that's not what he meant. While the most emotionally intuitive and the heart and center of the show in that respect, he still manages not to figure out the right words during times of stress. Better would have been "Nick would not like to take it outside because he's a cop," but Nick not wanting to take it outside because he would murder Monroe's parents is probably valid, too. Nick wouldn't like to murder the parents of his friend because they're the parents of his friend. There's some interesting hospitality laws that are being tacitly stated here, too, mostly of the I Am The Ruler Of My Castle variety. Now, actually, while I'm thinking of it, a potentially decent way to prove that Nick's not like the other Grimms would be to have him arrest them for assault, at least long enough to drive them around for a while. Surely there's a protocol at the precinct for "situation got heated we're holding these people for 24 hours to make sure they know attacking people is wrong"? But then we couldn't have the later action, so we don't do that. Meanwhile the parents are shocked that Monroe has just confessed to hunting with a Grimm, at least inasmuch as he's witnessed kills, and that seems to be the last straw. This does, too, serve to highlight just how far from Wesen norms Monroe has come in the last two? years, year and a half, whatever we're running on for in-universe chronology. (Yes, we've given up keeping track. It doesn't seem to matter.) Nick continues to be incapable of diplomaticking his way out of anything. Nick, honey, saying you don't want to cause any problems without providing evidence or at least something to back it up more than your word is not going to help, and maybe nothing you can say will help right now, so please don't make it worse by giving Monroe's parents something else to be stubborn against. Yes? Yes. Monroe's parents storm out with their luggage, not the best sign ever, and with his father saying that whatever they're doing is wrong in the sort of tone that speaks to an underlying fundamentalism, and the mother taking more of a soft stance of not recognizing who her son has become. That, at least, can be eased back down and she can be slowly introduced to Monroe's view of the world. The father will take some doing. Let's all take a second here to shake our fists at Silas Weir Mitchell for selling this entire episode amazingly. You bastard.
Okay, so who's up for more awkward conversation! Is it Monroe and Nick? I thought so! The tone in which Monroe asks why Nick came over doesn't bode well, and Nick isn't so oblivious that he misses it. He tries to back out, not that Monroe will let him, and at this point Monroe's in such a bad place that he's not equipped to handle Nick coming to him with a case, and all of his resentment that might linger at the fact that Nick mostly does come to him when he wants something from him is boiled to the surface with the various other resentments. Which results in a conversation that's needed to happen for some time, we can only wonder if it has lingering after-effects in Nick having more conversations with Monroe over other things than police cases. It might, but the likelihood that we see it is slim. Nick doesn't push back, but leaves, promising to call Monroe later, and it's unclear whether he means call him to check up on him and see how he's doing or call him about the case. Hopefully the former, especially given that Nick's cases tend to move fast. Over at the spice shop, Rosalee is once again isolated and now crying alone in the dark, oh honey. Telling, too, that she doesn't go back to her apartment (Freddie's old apartment?), wherever that is, though not particularly surprising given they've never shown signs of even having that set, and one assumes she's since cleaned it out and sublet it at a minimum. Leading to Monroe sitting up brooding in the dark, and nobody is happy tonight. Oh everyone.
This time Nick and Juliette get to play the role of The Stable Couple! It's been a while since that happened, no? Juliette brings up a good point when Nick starts doubting himself about asking Monroe to help, which is that if Monroe had a problem with it he would have said something a long time ago. It's not as though he wasn't outspoken about his annoyance at first. And, too, it's not as though Monroe hasn't participated with great glee in several of those cases, to say nothing of Nick's combat training. Moving along to the actual case, yeah, it's not as though Nick is coming to Monroe for the easy ones, either, and Nick tells Juliette about the scalping murders in as few words as possible. Probably for the best, she looks not so much shaken or upset, really, but definitely startled and taking into mind the impact of what he's saying. Meanwhile in a remote part of the forest I have no idea what that thing's eating -- burning coal? heart? burning piece of heart? -- but that can't be good. At a guess, burning coal to test the strength of that disgusting scalp coat. Roll credits! This is the version without Renard's All Shall Love Me And Despair pose, I don't know if that's good or bad.
Oh, speaking of that can't be good, let's have Viktor watching Adalind on his icky surveillance system. You pervert, Viktor. Sebastien is still buttling, which continues to make me wonder when he became the butler and why we didn't get an inkling of this role the first time and WHAT THE FUCK. Why is Stefania visiting Viktor. How long have you two been working together. Sebastien isn't doing the best job ever of hiding his antagonism, though maybe as far as Viktor knows or cares that's just his face. He wouldn't be the first Royal we've seen not to pay due attention to his underlings. It's a long held truism both in fiction and in real life that servants have ears, mouths, and minds, and count in the numbering when we say things like three can keep a secret if two are dead. In short, don't talk about your conspiracies in front of your servants. And for the love of all that is holy and backstabbed pay attention to your servants and don't have them escorting your secret allies around the goddamn palace. Whatever happened to clandestine meetings in coffee shops? Don't you people know how to conspiracy? You're only marginally better than the Resistance, it's a wonder any of you all get anything done. Ahem. Stefania makes a gesture in the direction of a curtsey that's less courtesy and more snark and they discuss how long they have, presumably till Adalind gives birth. Not long, according to Stefania. She's given Adalind mandrake root to slow the impending labor down (pre-labor? BH contractions? do Hexenbiests get those, or just Rosemary's Baby contractions?) but it won't work for long and for some reason the baby has to be born in the castle? Um, why? Simply because it's an environment Viktor controls or because there's something special about the castle, the baby, what's in the castle, what? What the hell is going on here? Viktor is ready to move forward, whatever the hell is going on here. Excuse me, Viktor is ready to wait no longer. Denisof you can stop gnawing on the scenery now, even if those lines are kind of atrocious. I'd also like to file a complaint about mandrake root, typically that's more of a fertility inducing type of herbal remedy, though it's also the catchall "we need something recognizable to everyone in the audience as Really Magical No Really." Sigh. Proving my point about servants and secrecy, Sebastien is already on the phone to Renard, using Stefania's full name because, what, there are an abundance of Stefania Popescu's of their mutual acquaintance? Well, possibly he doesn't know how many Stefania Popescu's Renard might know, neither of those are uncommon names. But really. Also they're speaking English, which is only relevant because I pout at the lack of lovely French. In fact, thanks to translation convention it's hard to tell how many people in the palace may be fluent in English (Viktor, certainly, but the rest?) so it might be a reasonable security measure. At any rate, Renard is not happy to hear about this, he has his 'well shit' face on, bracing for a new round of surprises to which he will have to react. And, oh, hey, it's a new influx of data which may come in useful later but which right now is only infuriatingly tantalizing: apparently Renard never met Stefania but his mother knew her well, and in the context where what Renard remembers about her is that she was a black marketeer. Um. Wat. What. What the hell. In a way, this reinforces the impression of Renard's mother as an extremely shady person who clawed her way to every advantage she had, and in another way it tells us absolutely nothing of any use. Goddammit. We will now spend a few seconds as Renard catches up to the events of that plotline in a few quick deductions: they may not know that Stefania has had any contact with Adalind, but they do know that Adalind and Frau Pech were working together, and that Frau Pech was attempting to broker the baby. And that Adalind is displaying some powers, and Renard makes the leap from Frau Pech being disappeared to probably dead to Adalind getting her powers back so quickly that he pretty much has to know about the re-empowering ritual. Which, let us all remember, Adalind and possibly her own mother didn't. Which, Renard, what the everloving buggery fuck was your mother into? Is the nature of this empowering ritual why you don't have powers? (And if that's so, why does he have a woge form but no powers?) Is this just something like half-breeds don't have magical powers but they do have the woge, and his knowledge comes from his mother offering him powers when he came of age? For a very fluid definition of 'of age.' And he declined, for some reason, because if Renard does have witchy powers after two and a half seasons he's really keeping them under wraps. Do Zaubers even have powers, is this some bizarre sex-linked trait? THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? No, okay, frothing and speculating aside, at the very least Renard has some knowledge of rituals, spells, and enough to tell him what's likely going on if not perhaps the whole poppy-flowered shebang.
Also that Stefania is betraying Adalind, which is a similar conclusion we came to and which brings up a whole other point: that contract Adalind was forced to sign? Normally such contracts come with magical consequences, usually bad ones, if one party should betray the other. Why is Stefania not having any consequences? We should be seeing some by now. This is, of course, assuming it's a betrayal; since Adalind didn't get a chance to read and understand the contract for all we know it says "I agree to sell my baby to Stefania for her own purposes in exchange for powers," or to Viktor, or whatever, and if Stefania is then selling the baby to Viktor there's no technical betrayal. Just a lot of really shady bad-faith dealing, but magical contracts don't cue up consequences for bad faith. Just technical fouls. Admittedly, betrayal is an assumption we made and a valid one for Renard to make, and whether it's a betrayal of this very obscure contract or not, Adalind's in danger. The child is in danger, which is likely Renard's main concern. He orders Sebastien to get Meisner and get Adalind out of there, with enough angry dismissiveness that we can tell he's upset. I also have to wonder, given the circumstances of Sebastien's role in this episode, if "fake your own death" isn't foreshadowing of some kind. I hope it's not foreshadowing Sebastien's actual death. I like the nervous little fella. Police work interrupts so Renard signs off, leaving Sebastien to figure out how the hell to get Adalind out of there without blowing his cover or at the very least alerting Viktor that he's got a spy in the palace. The interruption is a moderate break in the scalper case, via some good old-fashioned police work. Pulling all the surveillance footage in the area got them footage of a bunch of students shooting a film in the area, which in turn got them footage from the students of someone not the hotel owner getting into the hotel owner's truck! It's not much in terms of facial recognition but it's footage, and it's more than they had before! Renard orders it out to all the other agencies and before we leave his office we get one last look at the poor bastard, pun not intended, who has way too much to handle right now. Seriously, someone get this guy some friends he can trust, stat.
Over at the spice shop, Rosalee is finding it difficult if not impossible to sleep. Oh honey. Someone coming in the door has to be Monroe, because no one else has a key, so she sits up and turns on the light and we see that she hasn't even changed out of her clothes. So either it hasn't been that long (always possible, a few hours maybe?) or she really has been in the throes of upset and sadness. The oh honey continues. She's braced for something, it's hard to tell what and maybe she doesn't know, herself. What she gets from Monroe straight off is an apology, and an if he'd known what they would do, etc. It's a good start. Followed, of course, by the ominous 'we need to talk,' which always feels scary no matter how true it is. In this case it's also an example of how much stable couples are portrayed in this show as being stable because they do talk about the unexpected trials in their lives, and listen to each other. Which is a really, deeply refreshing change, and it appears to be one that survived the great writer turnover. We at Murderboarding are very glad of this. Anyway, Monroe seems to put something back into his pocket, sits next to her, and leads with I love you because right now that feels to him to be the most important thing. It's an important thing, anyway! And it most likely does help to hear. And she loves him too. But, and it's a huge but, folks. After the initial round of protestations Rosalee points out that drawing this line in the sand isn't that easy, and that his relationship with his parents will be ruined by this, and that will strongly affect him. There is, to be fair, some emotional distancing when one physically distances themselves from one's parents by being far enough away that flying is necessary for a visit. But going by everyone's initial enthusiasm, not nearly enough to compensate for the kind of relationship breakdown like this. Rosalee knows from experience of being estranged from her family, and she has a good point as well in that if Monroe starts to regret being estranged from his parents on her account, he might well come to resent her as being the cause of that. It's not that he's given her reason to think so, only that this is a common pattern between people. And on the other hand, too, Monroe also has a very good point. The relationship between his parents was already suffering minor strains by his vegetarian lifestyle, by the fact that he doesn't believe the traditional things that his parents clearly still believe, and it would likely only develop further strains down that line if someone didn't give eventually. And it doesn't seem likely that that would be Monroe. So, no, he's aware that she's not the sole cause of the strain here, only the latest manifestation? victim? side effect? of him growing apart from his parents' beliefs. Let's have some cuddling before he goes on to reinforce that position by telling her about what happened when his parents found out that he was friends with a Grimm. Oh my god is right. It's one of those you either laugh or cry moments, and Monroe seems to be choosing laughter for the moment. Slightly hysterical, exhausted laughter. Poor babies. The disappointment line seems a little orphaned from the rest of the dialogue, but it also provides a nice bonding and empathy moment with Rosalee who, let's not forget, is also a disappointment to at least her sister if not her mother, though her mother is much much nicer about not saying so.
It's another one of those morbidly amusing themes in this episode that the case of the week, which, let's not forget, involves a lot of uniforms on the ground in various colors, is the lightest of the plotlines. Hello, park ranger pulling up to the Wildesheer campfire. I will say that this entire scene, though it's longer than I feel it needs to be, accomplishes the very important task of a) giving us a highly competent extra who's in over his head and b) communicates with dispatch so we can have some fucking data for them to go back to when they get called out to the homicide. It also serves nicely to refresh our memories about the nuances of the case, since it's been a month in realtime. Hey, dude, report the SCALP COAT. I'm considering taking back all I said about the competence. No, he really isn't a cop, he probably doesn't have cop training, he's supposed to be the guy who deals with bears and shit. Not sentient serial killers in humanoid form. Oh look, there's two of them, considering the extra jeep. Which is from Kansas. With a license plate that starts out with DAD. Dad's gone on a hunting trip and he hasn't come home in a few days? Anyway. Oh look, there's lots of pieces of Officer Mart. Sorry, dispatch, there's nobody there but the Wildesheer, and you can bet you don't want to talk to them. Seriously, do they have anything to recommend them? I'm not seeing anything. Though it is a change of MO for them to simply tear the guy to shreds instead of giving him a chance to prove himself as a worthy warrior; it's also a change for someone to corner them in their home, as much as they have one right now.
The way they light this next scene it must be early morning, and it's a very different overhead shot from the last bedroom-type scene we had with Monrosalee. As you do when you're emotionally distraught and sleeping somewhere unfamiliar, Monroe jolts awake. Neither one of them has pajamas at the spice shop, either, though Monroe's stripey shirt gives a good impression at first. They're both tired and worn, and Rosalee would like some more sleep and to snuggle with her wolf and pretend they don't have to confront this for a few more hours. Plus, more sleep would probably give them a little more energy with which to face their problems. No, Monroe's not inclined to do that, just about 6:30 or not. (By the way, guys, if you want to start including ep numbers in other places, the time would've been a good one. I am just saying. The hotel/apartment/etc thing has been old for awhile now.) He's shut the door on his relationship with his parents in his mind, at least, leaving it up to them to make any overtures of peace but not expecting them except perhaps in wild flights of fancy, but he needs them to know that's what he's doing. So, a phone call it is, and to the slightly more open parent. For the little it's worth, it doesn't look like Alice has slept much or well, either, and Bart doesn't look much better. I don't exactly feel sorry for them, but at least they're not happy about walking away from their son. Alice in particular isn't, by the tired and fed up look she has for her husband's grunting that he doesn't have anything to say. So that's kind of like hopeful.
Over at the Silverton-Burkhardt residence, Juliette is oh my god she is starting casefiles. That is a file folder with printouts relevant to the case, she is starting Wesen casefiles. I love you Juliette. You are so clearly my audience identification character. Which says entirely other things about my preferences in men on this show but meanwhile back on the program. Juliette, as it turns out, had delightful nightmares about scalping after Nick's description of the case and her response to being terrified is to research the everliving fuck out of it. As you do. She finds references to the Scythians, though given that the bulk of enduring contemporaneous sources appear to be biased (Herodotus I am looking at you) (A: don't do that, you'll go blind) and a cursory search gives me little in the way of archaeological record to go on, I somewhat question whether this practice of sewing scalps into bridles and saddlecloths is hyperbole or provable fact. That said, it's certainly not the least probable method of taking trophies and intimidating your enemies ever so, sure, why not. For the purposes of the show it works well. The Sachsenspiegel is actually online for those of you who speak German or are willing to muddle through with Google Translate, excuse me while Murderboarding takes a personal moment. Juliette may or may not be quoting Wikipedia verbatim at least for half of this, but the part about the scalping as punishment is mildly exaggerated in the direction of kill someone and scalp them with a couple quick swipes of a sharp knife, rather than the shaving in various methods from methodical to brutal that it actually was. The manner might sometimes have been equally painful for the victim, but the context was different. She's not wrong, though, in the implication of all of this leads to a collective belief of hair/scalp = power = taking someone else's power by scalping. Which goes with what Nick found in the trailer, and continues the trend of Wesen lore blending with, causing, and borrowing from human lore. It also points up him as a prime target being both a police officer and a Grimm, and even though he brushes off the danger Juliette will not be reassured so easily. And, heh. It's not like people haven't broken into their homes for a fight before. Remember the ogre, Nick? Yes? Yes. Oh, and for morebetter worrying, another uniformed body's been found! Yay! Wait, no, the other thing. Definitely the other thing.
More not-yay can be found in this hotel room. Which is an extremely nice hotel room and they're not even trying to disguise its size as being for the benefit of fitting the cameras in there, so I'm guessing this is to emphasize the wealth Monroe's family has/has access to. They've always been shown as having either immediate family or extended pack-type resources to draw on, however hidebound and/or redneck flavored those resources are. And yes, the hotel room number is 313, you're all very clever find new ways to stick it in. What is this, some kind of contractual obligation? No, Monroe has not "come to his senses." He starts with admitting some degree of culpability in this, insofar as it was a huge surprise to them. Well, so was their coming out with zero notice. I can't say I think much of that lack of boundaries. I think we had a number of words for that last ep, in fact. More heated words, more accusations of bigotry on Monroe's side and lack of respect for traditions and who he is on his dad's, nothing is being accomplished here. Except to point up that Bart thinks he knows who his son is/should be and Alice has admitted that she doesn't. She's also to the point of interposing herself between the two men and is very clearly fed the fuck up with her husband's obtuseness. Monroe's vegetarianism does get brought up, just in case we wanted a third thing (drink) to add to the laundry list of How Monroe Is Unacceptable To His Father. Nick, of course, being the second or perhaps the first, depending on how much emphasis there is on Grimm versus intermarriage. Bart's being such an ass that he won't even listen to how Nick's different, he just lashes out, which causes red-eye woge, which puts Alice in the awkward position of essentially baring her throat to her son. I mean, that's what the blocking here is, it's not quite full lupine pack mannerisms but it's close. And no, Monroe is not going to rip out either parents' throat, he's instead going to do the choking up and trying not to cry in front of his parents thing. Silas Weir Mitchell you are unfair fucking stop that. This is also one of the few times I am all about the backhanded non-apology of "I'm sorry you feel that way," because what he really means is "and you don't respect me or who I am so fuck you very much," but Monroe has a great deal invested in his relationship with his parents and won't breach protocol to say so directly. Oh honey. Who left this goddamn half an onion under my desk. Apparently the writers need to beat us over the head with Alice as the questioning one some more, because she looks extremely dubious over having done the right thing.
Back in Vienna, and in the hotel, Adalind doesn't look like she's sleeping very well no matter how sumptuous her sheets are. Which is what happens when you're carrying a demon baby. Increasingly looking like it's not just a derogatory term for a Hexen baby either, this could well be an actual demonic or at least malevolently anomalous baby. Rosem-- er, Adalind is woken up by the telephone, and apparently she's changed him in her contacts from Captain Renard to Sean? Really? I could justify this with a really convoluted analysis of her changing view of him, her not so well disguised crush/love, and the way she indirectly drugged him into having sex with her, but really what this is, is continuity error. Possibly amending it because realistically, since she was never under his command, he probably should have been either 'Renard' or 'Sean' to begin with. Okay, anyway. Irritating distractions aside, he's calling to warn her that Viktor is sending Verrat agents after her to get her to the castle, and to get the hell out of there. That Stefania has betrayed her (arguable, why the hell would you trust Stefania in the first place and it's not indicated that Adalind completely did) and is working for Viktor (which is new information) and, when confronted with the why-should-I-trust-you question, that he believes she's carrying his child and not Eric's. Let's all take a second here to shake our fists at the trailer editors who cut out that very important "I believe that" from the sentence ending in "the child you're carrying is mine." Contrary to what we thought from the trailer, he doesn't know for certain, he's guessing. We still don't know what basis he has to guess but, hey, Hexen powers coming back, ¾ Hexen baby, good enough. I'm not entirely sure whether or not Adalind's scared whimper about not knowing what to do is to play on Renard's sympathies for some reason or whether she actually is this shaken; either is possible, he does give up a fair bit of information and she's been going through some things lately. Going by her quick recovery when he tells her that Meisner and Sebastien are coming for her, specifically her response to Sebastien, I'm going to go with playing him. We will hope, for our canary's sake, that the room is as not-wired-for-sound as it seemed like in the surveillance footage we've seen, because otherwise he's going to be proper fucked when Viktor goes back over the tapes. The news that Sebastien works for Renard surprises her, though. The more I learn about Sebastien the more it kind of surprises me, too. Renard underlines the fact that they are her only allies and her only chance a few times, in different words. I mean, true, she could pick Viktor's side and take her chances with him, but that doesn't seem likely to end well. Then he hangs up on her, because he has nothing else to say and because he's not really on her side anyway. On the baby's side, sure, I'll buy that. But not on her side.
The door knock, fortunately, is Meisner and Sebastien and not the Verrat. Meisner orders her to get dressed while Sebastien keeps watch from downstairs, and thus begins the wacky adventures of Adalind pouting and playing scared and Meisner giving no fucks for any of it. I have a bowl of popcorn for just such an occasion. It's a very come-with-me-if-you-want-to-live occasion. I don't really question Adalind's shark pond swimming abilities here so much as I shake my head at her underabundance of paranoia; I would have had a go-bag already packed by now. To be fair, though, it doesn't take her long to stuff things into a bag. Long enough for Sebastien to call and warn them about two Verrat, though. Who are then at the door! I'm guessing four Verrat, then, partly because they seem to travel in fours and partly because that's way too short a time to have elapsed. Though Sebastien also did seem to teleport down to the lobby. Blocking issues, then, we'll call it, or he never made it into the lobby and instead passed them in the hall and called as soon as his coast was clear. Meisner and Adalind look at each other in what shouldn't be terror, at least on his part, though something's certainly making Puckler's accent slip. It's slipping throughout this entire scene faster than you can say Sigmund Freud, I have no explanation for this but it's rather amusing to hear his vowels flattening and the American creep out. (A: Best guess is that it's trickier to maintain an accent, especially one that thick, when doing rapid-fire patter type dialogue. Particularly when your partner in the scene has no accent.) He drops the bag to the corner and, um. Strips? Well this is interesting. Not entirely in the usual way either, though I can't say I'm unhappy about Puckler joining the ranks of the shirtless. Still, it's interesting that he chose the fake-lover aspect rather than the much more immediate hide-behind-the-door-and-shoot-them aspect. One wonders what, if anything, he was hoping to gain from this. I'm reasonably certain the writers and crew were hoping to gain viewing figures from Puckler's bare chest.
Adalind's distracted by something. Whether it's Meisner or just the fact that a half-naked man she only knows from having been shadowing her like a glowering thug for several days has just gotten into her bed, I have no idea. Both of those are distracting. He has to tell her to go to the door twice, the second with considerably different vowels than the first. We have a brief commercial break as she moves rather faster than she was a second ago to the door, and when we come back she's opening the door to two Verrat. Foot soldiers, by their bodyguard-blank expressions, Edgar Waltz had more of a smug, leonid look to him. Despite being a Hundjager. They also have typical bodyguard literalness, Prince Victor does indeed request her presence at the castle at this time of night and whatever else he might follow that up with is interrupted by Meisner's voice from the bedroom. Adalind's body language isn't really that of a lover interrupted, but it doesn't look like the Verrat even notice. They push their way into the room and Adalind introduces them at least by concept, standing well out of the way of whatever it is Meisner has in mind. Which is probably violence, given that he, too, looks less like an interrupted lover and more like a belligerent guy trying to impress his badassery upon someone at the gym. I'm not even kidding. The Verrat are unimpressed. The Verrat are also staggeringly unobservant. Adalind tries to defuse the situation Adalind what are you doing. Let Meisner handle this, it's what he's there for. I mean, okay, this does give her an excuse to get into the way where she's pushed out of the way by her pregnant belly, Viktor are your mooks always this incompetent or did you fail to tell them that their retrieval subject was pregnant and protect the baby at all costs? Who should I be yelling at here? Baby doesn't like being pushed or mookhandled, as the vibrating pen shows. Meisner continues to wait until the very last minute, when he shoots through the feather comforter (and possibly the one Verrat guy) into the other Verrat guy and in the process gives me about a thousand and one Kiss Kiss Bang Bang flashbacks. I have no idea who decided on the staging of this scene but that may or may not have been the best plan, depending on your intentions and sense of humor. Before he can figure out which mook to shoot next baby sends a pen into the eye of the standing Verrat. Bring your sword jokes here, folks. Meisner looks at Adalind like he's never seen her before, though he does at least say thank you. Adalind isn't sure that was her and going by her expression, isn't sure she likes it. Whatever, freak later, leave now.
Over to the crime scene, where there is thankfully no telekinetic baby. There is, however, a godawful mess. Even Wu doesn't have his usual quips in him, he's aiming for humorous sarcasm in his tone but there's nothing in his lines to back that up. Renard apparently took the guys in his battlewagon, I would like to think that they filled him in on the Wesen aspects of the case on the way there but since we get bupkis about it I can't make such assumptions. Thanks for nothing, guys. The body did get scalped as well as rent limb from limb, so either the ranger put up enough of a fight to be considered worthy or they're not willing to discard possibly-useful material when it walks into their camp. I don't know, I never said serial killers made sense no matter what species they are. Wu fills them in and this, by the way, did not have to duplicate the information they gave us in the death scene so closely. This is annoyingly filler. Grumble. Also, no, if animals had gotten to the body it would be differently messy; the viscera and eyes and probably cheeks, other soft and easily gnawable, high-calorie bits would be gone. This is all Wildesheer overkill. Oh, and that deer, yeah, it had its throat bit out, I think. Certainly it was a throat shot if anything. Bit, ripped, something, they're being careful not to show us more than the blood smear. The gentlemen in the know will not disabuse Wu of his notions at this time, however, because they have far more important things to focus on. Like the sudden addition of a second Wildesheer. Ready your bottles, folks.
Rather than cut to the Wildesheer driving as we might by now expect from this writing staff, we cut back to Vienna, or the outskirts thereof, where Sebastien is now playing chauffeur to Adalind and Meisner. Seriously, the fuck is he to the Families. How did he and Renard get hooked into the Resistance. Inquiring fucking minds would like to know, because until this season he didn't really come off as "just the help ma'am." Not least because those rings have to mean something, and Chirpy's always had one, so the fuck. The fuck is you. The boys are mighty chatty all of a sudden, though I suppose now that they've got Adalind away from Viktor and nominally under their control it would be difficult for her to use it immediately against them. Yes, thank you, the baby is important to everybody, I would still like the why better answered than "because Royal blood" or "because demon baby." Needs more data, cannot make bricks, insufficient clay error, please reboot Voltron and start over. Sebastien why are you telling her you're with the Resistance. WHY. This is not a good idea, bad spy, no grappling hook. On the other hand, it's probably a safe bet that she knows they're in it with Renard already, since she didn't argue much over going with them and it's entirely possible a phone conversation between Renard and Sebastien or Meisner got cut for time. More to the point right now, and definitely distracting Adalind, is the revelation that Frau Pech approached Sebastien months ago trying to sell Adalind's baby to the Royals. Oh is that a death glare. Followed by a "well shit I owe them don't I" look. Yes, Adalind. Yes you do. Meisner has a plan in mind! And he's making Sebastien pull over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and the middle of the night. Adalind is so not gonna like this. Note that we a) have no idea how they got out of the hotel that was supposedly infested with Verrat and b) have no idea what excuses Sebastien made to be away from the castle and help Adalind escape. The first one we'll blame on the magic of scene changes because I doubt the bodies on the floor will be addressed with the possible exception of the ones we saw Meisner and Adalind's baby drop. The second one may well come into play, and if Chirpy gets tortured I demand that it be shirtless to make up for it oops was that my outside voice? Ahem. Seriously, though, this is the kind of thing that's likely to lead to his very real death or at minimum his fleeing to the Resistance in the countryside, Portland, take your pick. Personally I'd prefer Portland, because I totally want to see what changes that brings to Renard's situation and we don't want our favorite canary to die, but the more sensible and likely choice would be vanishing into the countryside. Extra bonus foreshadowing points for Meisner sticking a lampshade on Sebastien not knowing where they've gone, and what he doesn't know he can't betray. Adalind is still playing the weak and helpless and why do I have to do things for myself card and we are all unimpressed. Meisner is especially unimpressed. You're walking, Adalind, you can manage it and if you can't I'm sure Meisner will carry you in the most uncomfortable manner possible. (Actually I'd think that there'd be some kind of modification to fireman's carry for an extremely pregnant carry-ee, but a brief google search gives me nothing.) She gets out, the boys say their goodbyes in French which is interesting considering Meisner's been German and English defaulting up until now (also his French is kind of awful, as befits an Austrian) and they're on tutoyer/toi terms now? Has that always been a thing? Or is that semi-recent and a result of recent events, after the manner of soldiers in combat losing formality? Argh. Someone who's not us can go check our archives and let us know, right? Because that's a bit odd. Even Renard and Sebastien don't generally tutoyent with each other. Anyway. Meisner has a very sarcastic flip of the scarf around Adalind's neck for the "it's freezing" complaint, though I will grant that he probably doesn't want her to catch cold and recognizes that she's not as good at this whole survival in the woods thing. Wherever they're going, he must be very familiar with it, to find it in the unmoonlit dark. I have to say, Meisner's growing on us this ep, even as he's not exactly good with strategy. (Tactics, yes.) Plus the chemistry between Puckler and Claire Coffee is pretty epically hilarious. Funny chemistry is still chemistry!
Happier things! Like Rosalee and Juliette at the spice shop, which is always an unironically good time. Juliette is here for Rosalee and to check on how she's doing which, as is to be expected, is not good. I like the phrasing of "a shoulder to pound on," implying both tearful reactions and angry reactions and the fact that Juliette encompasses both possibilities pleases me. While we're looking at them in this position, too, let's all notice how vividly colored Juliette is and Rosalee isn't; part of this is an ongoing thing, Juliette tends to get the vivid costuming while Rosalee gets the more muted earth tones as befits the more grounded and root-and-herb related member of the cast, but part of it also serves to reinforce how faded and withdrawn Rosalee is feeling at the moment. (It does on a Doylist level tell us that Rosalee at least changed clothes; whether that was going back to Monroe's or grabbing a change from the shop is unknown.) Also working in that direction is her redirect to how's Nick doing. Well, he, too, feels bad about his part in everything that went down, and Rosalee offers to help since Monroe isn't in a place to deal with anyone, let alone police cases, right now. Or wasn't last night; it's been a few hours since she last saw Monroe, by the look of it. So, Juliette tells her all about the case in all its horrific glory, interrupting in the middle to apologize for telling Rosalee about this right now, not that it seems to bother her. Distraction might well be how Rosalee is coping with her current problems, it is, after all, a time honored tradition. Speaking of distraction, oh, hey Monroe! Who, upon seeing Juliette, apologizes for what he said to Nick the other night. Oh Monroe honey, you have no reason to apologize, everyone understands you were upset last night and it wasn't untrue to begin with. And all that aside, Rosalee would like to bring up why Nick came by the other night because dude. Scalping people seems to be a big thing in the Wesen world, yes? (Juliette would like it absolutely clear that she's here for Rosalee and not because Nick needs help with a case, Juliette I love you for that.) I have no idea of the spelling of the first word of what Monroe said, thereby eliminating my ability to analyze it properly (Katche? Katzche? Cratche? WTF? I tried looking back at the entry from the previous episode but no love.) but the second word is definitely Morte or Morde, and in the great Indo-European language family that usually means death, which means nothing good. Which means Monroe has to run off and talk to Nick. And then everything was all right again? Well, maybe, but at least for now.
Over at the station, Hank's got something! You know what this ep needs? More Hank. (Also more Renard, or at least a better balance of Renard between conspiracy and cop duties, but we're biased.) Hank would have some choice words and possibly be helpful as a shoulder for Monroe, and that's a bonding moment that was utterly missed and I am disappoint, you guys. Grumbling aside, Hank is also serving in a more aware version of his s1 position as the one who does all the footwork while Nick hares off after the Wesen connections and attempts to balance his work-life balance, particularly when that balance really isn't, most of the time. In this instance, Hank has a name on the Kansas-registered car, which only serves to give us the name of another victim and the information that he was a corporal. Poor guy. That's as far as they get before Monroe calls to freak right out at him. To Nick's credit, he doesn't rise to the agitated tone, he stays calm and apologizes again and looks like he's going to start with a more nuanced apology, but Monroe has no time for this shit. Monroe is going to shit a whole new addition to his house at this rate, as a matter of fact, and the Katcha Morte or whatever the fuck that name is apparently is different to him from Wildesheer in some way. Probably just in the nuances, but that can be what, y'know, ends up killing you. Oh, and no Hank. Because it's too dangerous. Those are words I didn't expect to come out of Monroe's mouth given recent events, which means he's really freaked. Also that the writers are yet again avoiding writing anything that has more than two people in a scene at a time who are doing much of anything. Sigh. I mean, I'm sure there's some valid budgetary reasons to French-door these episodes so much of the time, but I'm also sure that a lot of the problem is novice writing staff, and that irritates me. This cast excels when they're doing group scenes, so let them.
Adalind's whining has a lot less point to it, although I'll be over here facepalming about how she's wearing heels and hiking. Or at least, it's Adalind, I'm assuming she is. I'm also assuming the reason we can't see her feet is because Claire is far more sensible and would like not to sprain or break anything. Also Adalind's remarkably not out of breath for having traipsed through the woods with a demon baby attached to her. Maybe the baby's lending her strength? I know that even fairly fit pregnant women are prone to tiring more quickly, so we'll just take it as maybe a continuity error or a comment on how far off the main road it isn't. And Meisner's family whatnow? They have a dacha - okay, a cabin in the forest? The fuck? Meisner, what ARE you? He's never woged, which doesn't preclude him being Wesen, either fullblood or half or mixed parentage like the Monrosalee furballs would be. Or descended from mixed parents who had a kid who showed no Wesen traits externally. Or something. Or descended from the younger sons of a Royal Family who splintered off and decided that the Royals were fucked up enough to do something about it and in conclusion data you fuckers about the Resistance. Give to Zim. Well, Voltron, but close enough. The cabin's dark, but it does look like someone's been here relatively recently; that's not a ton of dust built up and we know Meisner knows how to find it in the dark, so presumably he's been here recently. Under what circumstances? With whom, if anyone? Rassum frassum how safe is this place? I'd say quite since he's building a fire, except Meisner's not always the brightest bulb in the box. I'm hoping that's mostly him being out of his comfort zone in the city, since they're playing up the rough-and-tumble woodsman and the dainty-annoying city girl right now. Adalind makes a pretty awful Red Riding Hood or Snow White, though, and she's whining about being hungry? Adalind, I don't think you've known real hunger in your life. Sigh. But doubtless the demon baby's increased her need for food. Fire first, because with fire you can get warm, you can have light, and when Meisner comes back from hunting with that gun there Adalind, really?, he can even cook it! See, no raw meat consumption here. Unless that's your thing. Meisner continues to give no fucks about Adalind's supposed need to have everyone do for her, and frankly this is probably one of the better tacks anyone could take to get her to stop that shit and assume some responsibility for her life. Even in the minutiae. Not "go do this" but "I'm doing this and there's things that need to be done in the meantime if you want creature comforts." I'll be in the kitchen snickering now.
Snickering over. Alice has a very sad iteration of the thousand yard stare going on in the hotel room. Bart thinks they're leaving. Yeah, one of them is. Maybe. She starts out very soft in her confrontation, even though her words are decisive her body language is carefully contained so as not to be perceived as a threat. But the gist of it is, she's staying here, and she's going to see what it takes to get her son back. And she's done bowing to the demands of her husband (pack-leader? whatever the hell weird pseudo-lupine dynamics are going on here) and she will do what she wants. Well, I kind of like her now. A little. I also feel really sorry for her, and wonder how the hell she and Bart ever got together in the first place, or if this is one of those cases of two people growing greatly different as their marriage continues. Bart storms out with a good deal of bluster but no further arguments to be made, which is probably for the best.
And away to the castle we go. We'll be happy forev- oh, wait, yeah, not a Disney movie. Stefania is being hauled along the corridor to Viktor's sanctum by a pair of Verrat agents, and the way she's holding her arms she looks like she's being restrained more than she is, which is a nice piece of physical acting. It also serves to make her look weaker, which is probably the main point; faced with men like the Royals I'd be playing the small and weak and do please underestimate me card some of the time too. Particularly as a way to collect data. Alexis Denisof will proceed to chew more scenery! He and Shohreh Aghdashloo are excellent at that. She, for her part, shakes off the small and meek attitude once the doors close, with a scornful look behind her, and falls into more of an aggressive "the fuck is going on" stance. More polite than that, but still, she does have power and she's not concerned about reminding Viktor of that fact. Viktor is PISSED. After the manner of someone denied his rightful prize, property, what have you, as we'd expect. The writing in this scene is just awful. Seriously, who let "it is my instinct to blame you for this treachery" get past revisions and notes? Not only is that a fucking mouthful for the actor, it's completely unnecessary and doesn't really give us anything further to go on with Viktor's characterization. On the plus side, Stefania has an excellent point when she says that betraying Viktor does absolutely nothing for her standing. If she had a better offer, she would probably have used it to pry more money out of him given a prior arrangement, or just not sold to him in the first place. And if she'd gone behind his back she damn sure wouldn't have stuck around Vienna where she could be found and hauled onto the carpet. Well, that much gets through Viktor's thick head and then he's forced to think about who might be close to him who would want to betray him. Oh Sebastien. I can feel your days in the castle ticking down, and I don't like it one bit. Stefania is also right up in Viktor's personal space at him with this information, which is consistent with her characterization, using physicality as a tool and a weapon subtler than the use of brute force, but also serves to highlight how little she really fears him.
Speaking of fears and the like, let's have Rosalee closing up the spice shop and oh. Here comes Alice. That is both an interesting and telling choice of angle for peacemaking purposes. Because half the problem right now is with Rosalee as a choice of wife for Monroe, and if Alice can reconcile herself to this and reconcile with the people involved, she stands a better chance of coming to comprehend the friendship between a Blutbad and a Grimm. Rosalee, for her part, is wary and resigned and fed up, but on the other hand it's just Alice and she looks about as sad and tired as everyone else in this mess, which is probably as much of what gets Rosalee to open the door as what Alice says. Yeah, let's have no awkward small talk, though the one line of it serves to highlight how nervous Alice is about this. But you know what a good place to start with framing this is? Love. Alright. We can work with that! The mentioned parties all love each other and want things to work out; Monroe's love for his mother is unstated but assumed, I think, and right now isn't quite as important as the fact that both women love him and want him to be happy. That he isn't right now is partly Alice's fault, she sort of tacitly acknowledges. I see where some of Monroe's inability to not step in it comes from, too, because even when she's trying to say "I'm going to let my son make his own mistakes and stop controlling his life and not assume that the things my experience tells me are mistakes will be such for him" she puts Rosalee's back up. Well, yeah, there's maybe one or two good ways to phrase that, and a whole slew of really bad ones, and Monroe's parents haven't shown themselves to be the most careful people when it comes to emotions. This is the most delicacy we've seen out of either of them, really. Rosalee challenges her on why does she think they're doomed, and ouch. I think that reply is more telling about Alice and Bart's own rocky marriage than about what Monroe and Rosalee or any other married couple might go through. Though she's got a point, expanding outward into applicable-to-us generalizations, marriage and relationships are more difficult when two people are coming from very different backgrounds whatever the reason. There has to be a lot of talking, a lot of communication, and a lot of willingness to accept that mileage varies, experiences vary, and that your beloved is telling you their truth even if it's not your truth. The willingness to merge those truths. That does take a lot of work. But it's work that we've seen Monroe and Rosalee willing to put into their relationship, and his parents didn't even stop to look at or inquire whether or not they had done so. They just assumed it was impossible. Now Alice is seeing that it isn't, but she can't overcome years of prejudice to explain it in words that reach Rosalee. What she is here for, beyond establishing that Rosalee does love her son, is to see if she'd be open to something call the Fahrtrate? Vertraute? Once again we have a non-native speaker potentially mangling German and I have no idea if either of those is accurate, but Fahrtrate would be something like fair steps, first steps, and Vertraute is confidential, confidante, it's based around the same root as vertrauen, to trust. I'm guessing it's the latter, then. I'm also not sure what the sniffing accomplishes, though we may be duly grateful that they perform it in the French sense and not the canid sense (you're welcome) and if that's the Vertraute I'd expect a lot of social complications from it. Because with Rosalee's reaction it can't be that simple. Either it's Not Done between members of different species, or it's a Significant Ritual that's being offered. One way or the other, that was a significant offer, then, so we'll hope for good things from it?
I guess Monroe's commute home is a moderately long one? Because I didn't think sunset was that close when he was on the phone with Nick. Okay, fine, whatever, this is meant to mirror the scene with Rosalee, hello Bart, do you suppose you could put down the aggressive body language ever? No? No. Apparently what Bart wants is not so much to reconcile with his son as to interrogate him about where the fuck Alice is. Oh my god you are a fucking MORON, dude. Monroe has a good idea: leave! Because Nick's coming over, he's said his goodbyes, and he really doesn't want to see one of his best friends kill his father. He's pissed, but he's not that pissed. No matter that Bart's not here to argue anymore, Monroe's had some time to stew and have l'esprit d'escalier and totally has some choice words about cultural stereotypes and getting to live his life just the same way his parents get to live theirs. Except, you know, not the same-same. But with the same freedoms. Rosalee is actually the lesser of Bart's concerns right now! Because FRIENDS WITH A GRIMM okay, guest actor, could you oversell this a little less? Please? I am cringing from embarrassment right now. And not because of the bluster but because of how horribly stiff the physicality is. Anyway. Monroe points out that if it were impossible to become friends with a Grimm he'd be dead, not standing there, which is a much better approach than "he's a Grimm he'll KILL YOU," thank you Monroe. Flashback to the pilot crashbangwindowsmash scene! Oh boys. I miss that, in some respects. The upshot here is, Monroe will proceed to make himself at home and he's helping Nick and they're both different and if Bart can't respect that can he at least fuck off so they don't destroy his house any further? No, he's going to push about heads being cut off (they are really leaning hard on the decapitare aspect of Grimms this season, my god you guys; this had better pay off big or I'll be annoyed) and who are they killing tonight? None of the above, no, they've got Wildesheer! Which makes Bart go stock-still and if he could go any paler I think he would be. Well, someone knows all the old stories. Maybe (probably) better than his son. Sadly, his concern comes across the exact wrong way and leads to rubbing Alice's disappearance in his face, which is a responsibility he can't deny, so, oh, hey Nick. Let's have some more awkward on our awkward sundae of familial relations this ep, shall we? Yay. Bart looks like he might try to object, take part in the discussion, except that his instinctive fight-or-flight is too strong to be around a Grimm right now, so circling each other like feral cats and not turning their backs on each other it is! SIGH. Except that's totally in keeping with their characterization, both Bart and Nick though more the former, and at least they manage it safely. I'm still gonna facepalm in the corner some at them.
Moving along to case analysis and - oh, no, not yet, Bart's gonna howl because he thinks his son's about to die in battle. 'cause the last time we heard that howl was Monroe for Angelina. Both stop and look, even if Monroe's look is two shades of exasperation short of an eyeroll. No, Nick, that wasn't so good, but at least it's a not so good they're all familiar with. Even if Monroe interprets it, mm. Differently. At any rate, he goes on to explain to Nick about the Wild Hunt, Grimm edition. Basically the hounds of hell, although I'm not sure what I've seen exactly lives up to the legend they're spinning here, but whatever. Mostly we're trying not to cringe over the mythology books that were harmed in the making of this episode. Of particular use is the fact that they see Grimm as ideal prey, being that Grimms are the most badass things around. Monroe will proceed to not help some more by saying that this was one of his favorite books when he was a kid because the Grimm gets obliterated. Gee, thanks, Monroe. Even less helpful is the fact that the book does not (though it could) show us the Grimm as anything other than human, because the writers keep promising that'll clear up this season. Well, it hasn't. He then brings up the point that Nick's most likely the reason they're in Portland, backed up by the fact that they're not in New York, Chicago, any other place with a large police force, or a military base for that matter. SEAL training base? No, they're in Portland, which does not, as far as I know of, have a SEAL training facility. Easter Seals are not the same thing, Google. They'll be drawn to Nick, which means Nick had better arm up and get the hell away from civilians and other breakables. Like Monroe's house. Monroe's dad, you're still a civilian. Mostly. Stop that plotting broody look. More to the point you haven't hunted with a Grimm, let alone this Grimm, so the only reason this is going to work out is because Nick's the protag. I wish they'd do less of that.
Arming up means the trailer, along with a good, foreshadowy discussion about how there are at least two Wildesheer, which is better than three. MONROE. SHUT YOUR FACE AND GO SIT IN THE CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST SAID. Honestly, you're supposed to be the genre savvy one. Nick's weapons are numerous, so there's a lot of implements of death to choose from. Personally I'd pick something along the lines of decapitating instruments, and not just because the Scythians bring up the kurgans, or the Kurgans as the case may be. Nick also finds a passage in the Grimm book about one theory that destroying their cloak of hair will, Biblically, remove their powers. Monroe even references the passage! So, all right, the original Grimm didn't get a chance to test the theory, though at least he or she lived to write about it. Nick and Monroe will test it instead! So, taking along what look less like hunting knives and more like big shiny daggers, but hey, it's a sharp edge, whatever gets it done. (A: They also totally look like some of the big shiny daggers I have. One of them's sitting on my desk right now. I bet the edge on Nick's is better, though. I'm sorry, was I drooling out loud?) They then decide on the quarry as some local open ground not likely to have civilians around it, which is all well and good except that the harbinging storm shows up right about then. Now would be a good time to be on your guard and maybe call Renard and see if he has some readily available rocket launchers? RPGs? All those of you who have seen Buffy and remember that no weapon forged line will be nodding and smirking right about now. Monroe and Nick come out of the trailer wary and with their guard up, only to be promptly attacked by Wildesheer! The guns, they do nothing! Let's all remember, as Monroe and Nick either do not or discard the memory, that the ogre gun had to have Siegbarste gift on the bullet to work at all well. (Though that probably was a Siegbarste-specific poison, but still.) Come to think of it, I wonder who would come off better in a Siegbarste vs Wildesheer fight. Certainly the Grimm and the Blutbad aren't having much luck. Nick, your solution of getting to their hair works a lot better when you're not getting your asses kicked by them. I'm just saying. This is also about as terrified as I think I've ever seen Monroe look in a fight. Oh honey. They break apart, reorient into right and left, and oh look! There's the third one. What was I saying, Monroe? The corner, now. This really isn't good odds, and they do indeed get their asses kicked until Monroe's dad shows up to even the odds! Go Bart! After that, both due to more even odds and due to the fact that we have only about four minutes left in the show, it's short work until they manage to do some sort of rudimentary scalping on all three Wildesheer. So it turns out you don't need to get off their hair coats, as it were, just their own hair. I guess their hair bleeds? It sure doesn't look like they're actually scalping them, it looks like spouting Medusa hair or something. Which is marginally easier, for example, all the back-jumping-onto Nick did. The best part is how Bart finally gets an up close and personal view of what Monroe going on a hunt with a Grimm looks like: not hunting other Wesen, but hunting very big and general threats. Particularly when he learns that the reason they knew how to kill a Wildesheer is because of Nick's Grimm ancestors. Nick looks rather smug about that, but says nothing, smart boy. Bart, still coming to grips with what he just saw, addresses the less hard to deal with aspect of the scene: the Wildesheer. (And since we're moving to that, we definitely don't get anyone discussing how to handle the dead bodies at a place traceable to Nick. Again. Yes, I'm going to keep bitching about this until he has some actual consequences come out of it.) According to old family legend, which is not something they would have read in the books and thus it's probably a very good thing that they did get Bart on their side, the presence of Wildesheer means something even worse is coming. A nice, traditional harbinger aspect to the Grimm version of the Wild Hunt. Oh goodie. Demon baby?
Given that our next scene is Meisner's little cabin in the woods I'm going to go with demon baby, and now you see why the title of this post. Meisner is being awfully solicitous, to our and Adalind's mild surprise. It's also surprisingly cute. Awww. It makes Adalind surprisingly sweet, though smart money says she's being nice and kind in order to make an ally of him, not necessarily out of genuine feeling. Now that we have more light the cabin itself, a one-room cabin, seems to be designed for either a single person or a small family. There's only one bed, so a single person these days, a large fireplace clearly designed for cooking on as well as for warmth given the open area within it and the grate above on which he's got a kettle going. I don't even with this guy. There is a sink on one side, which is likely an afterthought given that it seemed to be one of the only modern conveniences there. I'm not even sure this place has electricity, although I did see the silhouette of something that might have been a lamp, though that might have been the oil lamp we saw when they first walked in. For all we can tell that's not a sink as we'd think of it but a basin set into a countertop, meant to be filled from a well. Which, if they're going to leave the thing sitting there for years on end without human interference, is probably better for the pipes. What? My house was also built before such modern conveniences as electricity and indoor plumbing. I think of things like this. Anyway, so, yes. Although it's rigged up with a more modern layout, chances are pretty good that this was something more long-term than a bolt-hole, possibly even a family dwelling. The Meisner ancestral home? Sadly, we don't get any more details than that (and believe me, we are now hungry for them) because at this point Adalind goes into either labor or Braxton-Hicks labor. Pre-labor? She certainly thinks the baby's coming, though I doubt she has any experience to compare it to. Either way she does sound scared out of her mind.
For our last scene of the evening we go to The Most Awkward Dinner Ever. Complete with a literal pass the peas moment, Rosalee and Juliette look so uncomfortable. Monroe looks like he's ashamed of every bite he takes, and Nick seems to be trying to pretend as hard as he can that this is all normal dammit. Bart and Alice look like the opposite of the usual parental role at a Family Dinner, which is to say they're the squirmingly uncomfortable ones who can't wait to be excused from the table. They're probably even more uncomfortable with the fact that Juliette knows about Wesen and is still dating a Grimm, because who does that. Just wait until they meet Hank. Juliette, oh honey, tries to make the silence a little more bearable with excessively chipper conversation? No, that only freaks everyone into woge. Which freaks out Nick enough that his pretense of normalcy is shattered and he jerks upright with a knife in his hand. Apparently Nick is enforcing the peace treaty tonight. Let's all sit back and cackle at a Grimm enforcing peace among Wesen with what amounts to a stern talking-to, even if half of them are his friends. I think everyone can agree with Bart, though, that this is going to take some getting used to. Oh kiddos. And this is the least of your problems. I just hope Meisner knows anything about delivering babies because next week, the baby's coming. (And will laugh wholeheartedly if it turns out that he does.) The promo suggests that he has at least the rudiments, though the promo also gives us a remarkably clean newborn. There's, uh, usually a lot more blood and bits involved, I'm just saying. Not this plain goo, and no, we can't tell sex of the baby from that clip, yes, I checked, what. That's okay, we can be distracted by the fact that none of the writers' room has seen a live birth into hello Adalind with Hexenbiest woge back! We'll have to see what that means for her powers, and what the baby keeps of its creepyass powers. If anything.
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