My Kingdom For A Therapist Grimm S3E17 Synchronicity

Previously on Grimm! Rosalee gets to inform us of this, and the Royal baby plot gets most of the previouslies, which tells us what this ep is largely going to involve and does nothing to quell our jitters over Rosalee's various allegiances, mainly to the Wesen Council. Also Nick's entirely justified fears over being best man. Adalind choosing sides! Let us give you a hint: it involves not trusting anyone she doesn't have to. Meisner being her protector in the woods, and with THAT Jung quote coming up for this episode (let us bash our heads against that a little more, have we mentioned lately how much of our analytic training involves taking the useful parts of Jung and flinging it spaghetti-like at walls?) I'll just grumble quietly into my water bottle about strong guardians through dark places in the psyche and leave it at that.

Hello, castle-which-is-not-a-model! Maybe next season we'll get a better backdrop for that. Nice fakeout from that to the precinct, where we're flipping between a couple angles on Nick and Hank as they talk over the… case? Yeah, that's not a case, we know better. They don't usually start a CotW that much in medias res, and there's far too few case files and takeout detritus anyway. So they're hypothesizing, in cop terms, about the wedding! Poor Nick. At least he had the good sense to go bounce it off his partner who has far more experience with violence, containing violence, all those good cop things, as opposed to Juliette, whose reaction is much more gut-level mostly-civilian "oh fuck no." Hank can talk Nick through the reasons why it's a bad idea and come up with the question we've been asking for three seasons now. Seriously, Nick, I'm aware that you may not be a genre aficionado like we are here, but surely some bit of curiosity about that has circled around your brain? Russell does a great gentle-nudging-and-concerned here, and Giuntoli continues to sell the quizzical puppy look. Which is one of the few reasons I can enjoy throwing things at the screen when Nick fails to ask the salient questions. Like: so what happens when a Wesen sees a Grimm? What is this key/map to? Mom, have you gotten rid of those fucking coins yet? What happens to a Grimm over time? Can they become addicted to killing in a more paranatural sense, or is what he's seen out of his mother and aunt a result of tradition and the standard levels of psychological trauma killing multiple sentient/sapient beings over the course of years and decades? ARE THERE THERAPISTS FOR THIS SHIT okay maybe not that last one, but seriously. I do wish they'd fuel the metaplot with less half-assing it from Nick, or more demonstrating his level of damage explicitly, because there's only so much an actor can do to keep that simmering in the background.

Off in the woods, near what Claire Coffee tells us is a sewage plant (oh dear) Meisner and Adalind pull up outside of a presumably pre-designated meeting place. Judging by the word choices involved they're stopping outside the actual designated meeting place, which isn't the worst safety protocol ever. Leaving your protectee alone in the car kind of is, but there's only so much one Meisner can do. He wants to make sure no one's going to ambush them while he makes the handoff to their contact, who will then presumably escort Adalind to a place of safety. Adalind, because she is a right-thinking woman, questions whether or not such a place exists. Meisner's response is not encouraging if you think about it at all through, because while he's reassuring her that her escort will be the best the Resistance can find, that's not exactly a guarantee of safety. Still, it's the most he has to offer. The degree to which Meisner actually goes to reassure her and offer her comfort is not only touching, for her, it seems unprecedented. Perhaps no one has gone out of their way to do things like this for her without expectation of return, hence her openly worrying over him. The look he gives her back is almost a Han Solo "Hey. It's me." Meisner. You brat. She's not wrong, either, and just to emphasize that we get a view of Meisner from a surveillance camera. And a pack of Verrat speaking German and following him. Oh yay. Guys, your ambush only works if Meisner doesn't see you coming.

Fight choreography! Stunt fighting! Oh man, you guys, it is criminal how little we can tell you about the technicalities of this (though we have a couple-three leads on people who can help us with something more than our stage fighting backgrounds, so hopefully soon we can fix that!) but what we can say is dear god that's pretty. Meisner will death from above the first guy! I appreciate that finally someone on a… good? side gets to use that tactic, because fuck knows the bad guys have used it plenty. The Verrat aren't very smart and filming multiple opponents is tricky at best, so we have both Watsonian and Doylist reasons for Meisner/Puckler to be taking them on more or less one at a time. I say more or less because there's at least a couple times where he has to put one down, spin kick another, spin and elbow a third, but the camera focuses on primarily Meisner and his opponent of the moment. Adalind focuses on keeping herself and the baby quiet. Personally, I'd have gone the tactical route of climbing into the floor of the backseat with a blanket over, or the trunk, someplace where it's not immediately obvious that hi here's that blonde with a baby you've been told to look for. See also: Verrat not very bright. Worth some rudimentary concealment. On the other hand, then we'd have been deprived of stealth badassery from Kelly, which serves to emphasize that she's much more dangerous than Meisner and really a lot not to be fucked with. Meisner went hand to hand in the way that takes awhile and might not kill them all, which is admittedly as much a function of wanting to show off Damien Puckler's skills (and so worth waiting for) as a function of the character. Kelly does not give a fuck for such things. See also: will stab the Verrat in the back, because that's not symbolic of the entire Grimm relationship with the Royals, historically speaking. I am amused that Meisner's immediate question to Adalind is not "are you okay" but "you did this?" That's a nice bit of continuity with her previous skills, although given that he seemed to be able to see her woge (and an earlier Hundjager's, which continues to raise questions about what the fucking hell Meisner is if he can see woge, or if those were intentionally full woges because they were in the middle of nowhere? show bible, people, I would like to have faith you're keeping to it) I give him some degree of side-eye since she's very much not woging now. And all of that said I wonder if she would've waited until everyone was seated in the van and then broken out the "now kill yourself" powers. I hope she wouldn't have waited for them to get underway, but let's not forget that Adalind's not nearly as harmless as she appears. But no! Far from being Adalind's doing, and in keeping with the utter relief on her face when Meisner appears, it's Kelly. Let us note that she comes up behind Meisner, not Adalind, because she (think she's) aware of who the greater threat here is. I'll be over here snickering, although, I kind of wish they'd kept this a secret in the promos, I know it would've had a great deal more impact, but Grimm PR seems to make a game out of "how many spoilers can we give you and still leave enough unexplained to make you watch it." Which I will grant is kind of amusing.

After the credits (in which we have once again that clip of All Shall Love Renard And Despair, because that's not worrying or anything) the plane was apparently an older, I think retired plane from the Great Silver Fleet. Um. Just at a guess that puts that plane around 20 years old at the very least, the Great Silver Fleet being a division of Eastern Air Lines, which I think was scuttled in the early-to-mid 90s. Though  that does probably put that plane in the right price bracket for the Resistance! At any rate, Kelly bitches about the fact that someone's security protocols weren't: it turns out the Verrat were at the meeting place three hours ago! Wow. That really is some bad security. I dont even think we can pin that one on Sebastien, either, he was dead at the time. This is probably Tavitian's people. Tavitian, we thought so much better of you. Adalind would like to stay and argue some more about who everyone is, where they're taking her, and whether or not they (her and Meisner) can trust her (Kelly). Meisner, sweetie, I know you're not overly fond of long term spy strategizing, but just because someone saved your life once doesn't mean you can trust them. And, really, if I were Adalind, I would be damn tired of everyone yanking me back and forth by now. The apparent pilot opens the door and Kelly begins immediately browbeating him to get them the hell out of there. As you do. Well, as I would do if I were her. There's a touching almost Casablanca moment where Adalind says she owes Meisner her life and kisses his cheek in gratitude. And all he can say is good luck, because this ship, alas, will not sail despite the wishes of a thousand fangirls. Upon further inspection, this seems likely to be an on-purpose Casablanca moment given the cinematography at play here. Aww. It's also, more tellingly for Adalind's character development, the first time I think we've seen her show genuine affection which is not designed to manipulate and control the recipient of it, at least as a primary goal. Adalind! You grew emotions! I'm so proud. Meisner seems to be visibly forcing himself not to look back as he walks away. Or possibly that's our shipping talking. They pack in and strap in, Kelly allowing herself a moment of concern for mother and child by asking if the baby's a girl, and then they're off. Interestingly, she seems relieved? pleased? some kind of strong positive emotion, over the baby being a girl. Possibly, if she knows anything about the child, because that takes her out of even more succession battles, illegitimacy nonwithstanding. Or possibly she just has Opinions on the relative strengths of males and females?

Whatever amount of looking back Meisner wasn't letting himself do before, he will watch the plane take off. Possibly just to be sure the Royals didn't bring any surface-to-air missiles with them. Or a rocket launcher. Just because they'd prefer the baby being alive doesn't mean they won't eventually take the route of killing Witch Baby so nobody can have access to her power. Well, trying to, at any rate. Still want to know if and when that kid's going to undergo rapid aging, or if in a twist of hilarious parallels Kelly will take her off to be raised in secret. Because keeping a child on the show while retaining normal aging rate is gonna be damn tricky. Anyway! Time to check in with Renard. This is going to go over so well. We'll start with the most immediately salient points: Adalind, baby, contact are all on the plane, Meisner has no idea who Kelly is at least by sight (which speaks moderately well of her ability to keep a low profile while she's supposedly dead). Renard's a bit surprised that the contact is a woman, which says unsurprising things about a) the number of female agents associated with the Resistance (I think we saw two in the eps where he was in Europe, against about four? five? men) and b) his overall environment being overwhelmingly male. I wonder, on a more technical level, if the actors get to rehearse these phone scenes with each other so they get the rhythm about right, since there's no point to having them both on separate sets and filming next to each other. Or if they redo it for tone of voice in ADR, and have something to go off that way. Back to the plot! In which Meisner explains without saying in so many words that the fuckers tortured Sebastien, he broke, he felt it a point of honor to stick around and slow Viktor and his henchmen down after, he's probably dead. Not that anyone on that side knows for sure, unless Viktor gets the brilliant idea of sending his head in a box or something equally villainous, but it's a safe bet. Oh boys. Renard is not pleased with that, looks rather like he wants to grieve more but has no time, so he shoves it away and tells Meisner to go lay low. Uh-huh. Meisner, for his part, has slapped back on the mountain man/secret agent man stoicism and will be Sir Not Having Emotions Right Now. I will say I'm pleased by the urgency and tension conveyed by shooting half this call as a moving shot, Meisner walking off to somewhere hopefully anonymous and safe in the snow, and half as Renard holding very still and controlled in his office. The waiting game versus having taken action. I don't think we've mentioned yet, but we've liked Solomon's other Grimm eps (Danse Macabre, Love Sick, Bad Moon Rising).

Meanwhile on a plane! Where there are, one assumes, no snakes. I don't see Kelly trusting any Wesen as pilots for this mission, let alone any of the -schlange types we've seen. I would like to ask, once again, the fuck is the Resistance? The fuck are they resisting? If Kelly's willingly associating with them, as she seems to be, I wonder how much they give a flying fuck about the Wesen role in all of this. It's beginning to look a lot like nobody but the Wesen, Nick, and Hank to an extent care about what happens to them. I'm pretty sure this scene was shot in a couple pieces to make all the angles they're using here work, probably one piece for Kelly walking over to the supply chest and one for the back-and-forth closeups. I'm also pleased that someone remembered diapers for the baby, both in the script and in the show. Because YES REALLY NOW. What the hell have they been using the last week, ten days, whatever. I can only assume the reason they didn't have random scraps of fabric hung all over that cabin was because filming around them would've been a pain in the ass. Whatever it is, Adalind's finally allowing herself to slump and look less put-together than she has been, because the plane will hopefully protect them for however long until they land. The one thing she's not taking into account, probably because she's too tired to think like that, is that once you let the level of hypervigilance and mask of competence go, you end up needing time and energy to reassemble it. Which she will undoubtedly not get enough of. (Claire Coffee's aware of this! As we'll address later in the ep.) Oh, and there's Brazilian real in there (which converts to about $900 US, not bad but not intended for a long stay), so I guess we know where they're supposed to end up. Allow us to laugh up our sleeves now, since even if we hadn't been spoilered by the promo, by this point we'd have a damn good idea where the narrative was pointing. No reason to start a third continent's worth of plotline when you can tie it all together in a nice neat bow of episode title.

Kelly is not in a sharing mood. Really, I don't think she's ever in a sharing mood, but she's extra not right now, even if she's trying for something resembling compassion for this woman with her baby fleeing from the Royals. I think that's less compassion than regret and residual trauma from abandoning her son to be raised by her sister. Empathy, we'll go with, after a fashion. Longing as as well. I don't think Adalind quite understands what she's seeing, one part new emotional anchors haven't fully formed yet to two parts too fucking exhausted to read people well, because that rant about the things she's been through is exactly what not to complain about to Kelly. Who has been through far, far more years of similar hardships than she'd care to enumerate, and probably is thinking something like, well, at least you're still with your child. Change her diaper indeed. Mama Burkhardt attitude disappears, Kelly-the-Grimm reappears and stalks on into the cockpit to hassle the pilots. Heh. (And that'd be another break between pieces of this scene, for those of you playing along at home.) Kelly has a great deal more security consciousness than anyone in this fucking show except Renard, who has to give away information in order to make arrangements at a distance. I approve! There's no point to going wherever the pilots were originally planning to go, it's obviously somewhere in Brazil. Fortunately Brazil is a very large country (decent planning on someone's part, possibly Tavitian's, which in no way excuses the security breach), so if they have to they can land somewhere other than Sao Paolo, exchange currency, disappear elsewhere. You will have to excuse us while we cackle over Sao Paolo and Winter Soldier references, because we also saw that yesterday. (Also: go see Winter Soldier if you're a Marvel person. Doooo eeeet.) Oh, and Kelly will have none of this radio contact bullshit, there's a security leak and she trusts no one. That is exactly the correct attitude to be taking! About fucking time! I don't know if there's any need to make that threat explicit, but there are some things this season's writers are inclined to drum into our heads with multiple anvils. Yes, she will kill you if you try anything, oh pilots. Please don't try anything. We're pretty sure Kelly knows how to fly a plane in extremis. Or do, so that maybe we get more information about where the fuck you came from. Someday we'll come to a greater understanding of all the moving bits and pieces of the Resistance and both of us will die of shock.

[Nick being peered at w/ sunglasses on by Monrosalee]

Moving to the B plot of this episode! Which is kind of weird to say, because normally Nick is not initiating the B plot, but for a change we have no Wesen of the week, no procedural, just metaplot. Can you guys browbeat the NBC execs into doing this all the time? And running cases as background C plot noise? Our biases let us show you them. Honestly, I think this would in many ways be a better show if Nick quit working at the precinct and went into the PI business, because that's 90% of what he's doing, at least on a Hollywood interpretation level of what a PI does. He can't file fully accurate reports, he can't really engage in the community of cops as he once did, he's being pushed more and more into being a loner. I would love to see Nick fully on the outside, with Hank and Renard and Wu as his insider contacts, but I don't think that's the show they're making. Yet. Maybe that'll change if they get around to addressing Nick's increasing levels of trauma. Anyway. Time for some Monrosalee adorable! Because we do have to have the light to balance and heighten the dark, and Mama Grimm is rather dark. They have on rather stressed sobersrs faces, though for a change it's less to do with Nick and more to do with oh god fuck wedding planning in the eye. I will now proceed to be amused at how long being aware of those stress levels sticks with you, because I'd bet good money that Silas and Bree are pulling from personal experience on this one. Yes! Definitely ask who wants a vegetarian dish in the RSVP, don't be stuck trying to guess at that shit. That's a terrible idea and leads to, as Monroe says, a lot of leftover whatever-it-is. I suspect this is not just the first wedding they've planned, but that they haven't been to very many weddings in any capacity other than as guests, because these are pretty beginning-stages, never really looked at it before kind of mistakes to make. (This may actually say more about the writer than the characters, come to think of it. Sorry, Golamco, but they are. Once you start looking at wedding shit, RSVPing with a meal preference is a really, really common thing to do, at least in my part of the country.) Oh, and seating arrangements, which have Rosalee freaking right out. I have ultimate sympathy for her there. Family friends and college friends often don't mix very well, and hitting the right balance is always an interesting exercise in logistics. To Say Nothing Of The Grimm, as it were, and for foreshadowing. Not to mention Wesen politics.I will say that I think she's flailing before it's time, because until you have your RSVPs in you can't do seating arrangements. But people stress about things differently, including stressing over something you can't control to procrastinate on the ones you can not that we would know anything about this. Happily interrupted by a knock on the door! Unhappily interrupted by Nick's serious Grimm face, which they know so well by now that it's perfectly reasonable to assume it's a case. It's always a case! This is not helping Nick's guilt reserves, of which he should have plenty by now as regards bugging Monroe and Rosalee for a case. Oh honey. No, it's not a case, it's their wedding, which I think exasperates Rosalee a little bit. She was hoping to leave it behind in the pile of notes in the other room! And we finally get him tying up the loose thread from last ep, which is that he doesn't want to hurt anyone and while Monroe's immediate family may know he's a Grimm, Rosalee's doesn't and assuming extended family are coming, they don't. Nor do all of their Wesen friends know he's a Grimm - maybe most of them would? It doesn't seem like Rosalee at least has a ton of Wesen friends in Portland, but it's also hard to say because we don't see them at their day jobs very often when Nick's not involved in a police case of some kind. We have seen a few of Monroe's Wesen friends peripheral to cases. Rosalee, turn off the guilt trip, you are making Nick literally hang his head. But wait! Monroe has a solution! It's called sunglasses! Excuse me while I fall over laughing and making Blade jokes. All of the Blade jokes. The explanation for this is very, very Jungian in nature, I see why they dropped this into this ep, basically Grimms by their very nature are a way to show Wesen their true nature. So you have to be awfully comfortable with yourself and know what you're capable of in order to woge and look a Grimm in the eyes. That's not something most people put in the work to be good at, let alone having an entire additional nature to contend with. It does explain a lot about the reactions Nick's gotten, and much more telling than who recoiled from him will be going back and finding who didn't. Renard, I think, was one of them; it helped that he knew he was looking at a Grimm but as Monroe and Rosalee tell us, knowing didn't make the shudders go away immediately. YES. GOOD NICK. ASK QUESTIONS. Also, ask questions sooner, fuck's sake. Now I'm going to have to go back and check to see if it works in reflections, too, because a) mirror symbolism and b) that'd be a useful workaround. Then again, if Nick can see woge in reflections (and I believe we've had that proved, certainly we were reminded that he can see woge on camera), there's no reason they couldn't see him, if they caught his eyes. So let's test this theory with Nick's sunglasses, which he apparently just leaves in his coat! Seems reasonable, you don't know when you're going to get a call-out. And cue matched body language from the happy couple as they woge and stare far more intently and directly at Nick's eyes than it's likely any of the guests will. Hey, you gotta be sure, right? I'm going with Nick's thrown enough by all of this that he automatically responds when he's being stared at even though he should know Monroe's not talking to him. We have a success! I would someday love to get the Wesen's-eye view of this, but I'm not quite sure how they'd achieve it in a way that wouldn't be incredibly hokey, expensive, or both, so probably it's best left to the imagination.

Back on the plane, we have Kelly having given directions to the pilots. In which an action is taken that we do not see, etc. Now, is it likely that Kelly said yes let's go to Portland? Yeah. Is it likely that witch baby fucked around with something somewhere too? Also yes. When we come back from ad break, unhappy baby is very unhappy. Not to the point of throwing things around with her mind, but crying and fussy and generally appearing to be a normal baby for the moment. I kind of morbidly want to know how long they had to wait for the right take of that, though working with twins does double your chances of a baby being fussy at any given moment. Or at least looking fussy enough that you can stick the crying in via ADR later. I would just point out that while the altitude change is bad, so is the godawful fucking NOISE. Baby's ears aren't developed enough to be able to filter out that decibel level to something livable, and it's all overwhelming. Poor kid. (Again, I assume that was stuck in during sound editing in post.) But Kelly's solution does work and is now a good time to point out that again we have Adalind all blonde and light clothes and generally symbolic of non-evil, or at least as a Maiden becoming Mother figure? And Kelly's all in black, black hair all around her face, and very Crone-like? I'm just saying, we have multiple correspondences here, and I'm not sure the Maiden-Mother-Crone stuff is on purpose at all. I rather think that's our individual bias coming to the fore. (For the record, Meisner was in earth tones befitting the midpoint between the ladies, and/or the Horned God. You're welcome, we're here all week.) Much more interesting as well as explicit is Kelly saying that her sister had children rather than that she did, with another of those looks of utter regret and no further explanation. Which implies that even when Nick was a kid, before she "died," Marie was doing the bulk of the child-rearing. Kelly, the fuck were you into. Are you into. Since they might very well be one and the same, just plus 20-odd years of changing allegiances and conspiracy. Grumble mutter cough up all your damn secrets. Also significant is that Kelly just essentially disavowed her own son, offering a neat parallel to Adalind's own mother's rejection of her. No one is being a conspicuously good parent to any of the mains, here. Sadly it almost seems like the closest we might come are Monroe's, Rosalee's, and of all people's possibly Renard's mother. Very maybe. And all the fathers save Monroe's are dead or otherwise absent. It's an interesting inversion from Haven. I suspect there's a tropes essay here that we're not writing right this second. Adalind, here, is definitely in the pump for information stage, and I think making use of her new-mother terror to appeal to Kelly's sense of overprotectiveness/desire to fix incompetence wherever she sees it. The thing is, it's working now to a greater degree than when she was being polished and fake and insincere, which, if Adalind learns how to use genuine emotion as a tool for manipulation? Will make her much scarier. I'm just saying.

Speaking of said child that Kelly has just tacitly disavowed, over to Nick and Juliette's bedroom we go, where they're folding laundry for something nice and mundane and domestic to contrast against talk of potential bloody death and/or maiming. Also providing movement during the scene, so it's not so static. Juliette will now come up with all the ways this could go wrong! I can't say that she's wrong about them or that they're unlikely - this is Grimm, after all - but perhaps having a meeting with Monroe and Rosalee and discussing contingency plans would be a good thing to do, yes. Surely there will be other groomsmen and bridesmaids? Someone who could help stand between Nick and everyone else while he got his sunglasses back on, fend off questions, all that sort of thing? Because that shouldn't be anyone's job out of the wedding party thus far known, but the rest of the wedding party (if there is a rest) should be made aware of what Nick is. Oy vey. Oh, and the engagement ring is still in the sock drawer. You know, it seems like a terrible Hollywood trope, but there was an absolute rash of engagements among my college friends at one point. One couple getting married definitely makes you think about whether or not you want that commitment, if you're in a long-term relationship. That said, Juliette has a very good point that with them as the maid of honor and best man for a wedding, they do not need to additionally worry about pulling their wedding together. Nick seems to be thinking that's what long engagements are for. I will be over here dying of the cute and the teasing and the banter. You know, Juliette didn't used to be our audience identification character, but since she's been let in on the Wesen world and gotten a lot more blunt about her opinions as a result of assorted insecurities around her? (Hello, pointed look and "So am I.") Yeah, definitely. Although I still don't want to date Nick, I want to sit him down and explain to him all the important questions and big-picture things he needs to look at. Like a proper consigliere, or something. (A: Said desire probably explains a great deal about my actual relationships, come to that.)

Things to worry about are in plentiful supply over at the castle! Which despite the opening shot for the epigraph we will now visit properly for the first time. Viktor is a Very Important Prince. He has a tower. We move inside with our by-now-standard with slight variance for different director Dutch shot of the castle study; this time it's long and low instead of being blatant about making the set look even taller and Denisof like a giant. Helps that he's sitting, too. Viktor looks like he has the kind of headache his Evil Overlord List-violating antics give ME. I have no sympathy for him. Also, and this is a very tiny quibble that probably means I'm overthinking things, but the fact that he says "Come in" rather than "enter" or anything else suitably imperious indicates that he hasn't been used to being in this kind of position of authority that long. Making me wonder how far down the line of succession he is. Though, like I said, that's the kind of microfocused attention to word choices that I doubt the scriptwriters have been applying. At any rate. Danilov! Who has failed him for the last time, of course, it doesn't take a microanalyst to see where this is going. Viktor's utter mockery of Danilov's excuses neatly doubles as mockery of the Evil Overlord tropes in general, as well as providing us with information about how they found out about the plane. No traitors this time necessarily, or I suspect Viktor would have said as much. Just communication intercepts, indicating that everyone on this continent involved in conspiracizing is a moron. I mean, I'd assume better protocols on the part of the Resistance if they'd shown any (Meisner and your inability to use a burner phone I'm looking at you) and Viktor clearly isn't ruling or leading anyone out of anything but fear. At least Eric could be rather urbane and charming when he chose. See also that lunch invitation to Renard, which visibly did tempt poor Sean, at least for a moment. Anyway. Ooh, he said Verrat properly, that's kind of sexy. But interrupting your henchtwit just in case he might have said something useful is not sexy, because stupidity is never sexy. So, there's an end to Danilov at the hands of what look like a pair of Drang-Zorn? Definitely not the same coloration as our more usual henchjagers. And there's a brief respite from Viktor's savagery of the Evil Overlord rules. Seriously, dude, are your resources so vast you can afford to kill everyone who annoys you? I wish I had that kind of resources.

Back on the plan we have more mother-daughter-assassin bonding time, by which I mostly mean Adalind and Kelly going over things we already knew but that are important to get out there for everyone's emotional development. Mostly Adalind's. That the Royals would kill her and safeguard the baby, that Adalind's reflex is to deny that anyone take her child and come over all momma bear, though that brings up interesting potential backlashes from that magical contract she was forced to sign. Yes? No? Probably not. Kelly's pride at hearing that challenge from Adalind, tacit though it may be. It's almost poignant considering what happens next, and it also serves to highlight (in conjunction with Kelly's statements towards the end of the episode) how much Kelly's reactions are built upon what people are and not who people are. Right now, Adalind is a young, new mother in trouble. Later, she's just a Hexenbiest. But right now, young mother in trouble, so Adalind gets to go to sleep, reassured that Kelly will watch over the child and that since they're on a plane in the middle of the air there's nowhere she can take the child. Kelly dandles the baby (there's a word I don't get to use enough, dandles) and rocks her and makes the appropriate goo-goo noises, thereby beginning our trend of hardened adults making goo-goo noises at the baby, and pulls out a locket by way of hypnotizing? Or at least distracting the child. Who promptly woges into something truly weird. Seriously, blue glowing eyes? Unless someone has Gluhenvolk in their background that they're not telling us about, that must come from the Royal side of the family. In which case, REALLY what the fuck, that is not standard hexen/zauber woge. Unless there's something else weird going on with this baby, which I would not put it past anyone either. Frau Pech, is that you? So, yeah. Baby gets entranced, plane controls go woobly,  please don't bring the plane down baby. That would be bad. I can't tell if the baby opens the locket or if it just swings open with all the turbulence, but either way it does cause some gooing over Nick on Kelly's part. This would be the part where we ponder if the baby either redirected the plane to Portland or confirmed that it was, in fact, going there. Hard to say for sure, but there's some interesting implications here both in terms of baby wanting to go to its papa (which would indicate that Sean really is the father) and baby or thing inside baby recognizing Nick as a potentially valuable asset. I don't think she's nearly that self-aware or capable of processing it on a logical level, but I do think she's got substantial empathy and some degree of telepathy maybe? which is serving as a substitute for language centers. If we were doing something more real-world-consequences based, this would likely result in a child with very delayed speech ability (why bother learning when you have the capability in another form?), but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Back at the castle of Evil Overlord fail! Viktor is having a drink, as you do after your plans go to shit, and another henchtwit is coming up past Danilov's body being dragged off. Yes, we did a little dance of joy at the proof that we were right when we called it for Danilov in that one glimpse out of the promo tag to last ep. So, working for Viktor has the same kind of job security as working directly under Vader. Joy. The conversation, in fact, plays out much the same as the whole "You are in command now, Admiral Piett" one, which for those of you who have not memorized Star Wars, basically involves summing up what the bad guys have failed to do and then assigning this heretofore unseen mook to be in charge of continued efforts. With the requisite death threats should he fail and by any means necessary emphasis. We will take a moment to appreciate both Denisof's lovely pronunciation of the German and the subtle gulp of the next mook with his head on the chopping block. Poor mook. He knows what he's got to say, he knows what his likely chances are, and he'd probably rather be anywhere but there.

And after the break we're back on the plane, this time with Kelly providing the flashback we've all been waiting for! Okay, at least the flashback some of us have been waiting for. They did a damn good job of making up... is that Gloria Votsis? as younger Kelly, I have to say, especially since a lot of us have some degree or another of memory of Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio as Marian from that Robin Hood movie at about the right age, giving a dominant image to compare to. Everyone (except Nick, of course) is very serious and very urgent, but nowhere is there a reason outright stated for this urgency, and continuing in the aforementioned theme nowhere is Nick's father seen. We can remember that at this point the three Coins of Zakynthos were in Kelly's possession, that Tweedledumbass and Tweedledumbshit, Akira Kimura and Soledad Marquesa were coming after them, and also (though possibly less relevantly) that Aunt Marie had recently been dating a Steinadler played by the usually sinister Titus Welliver - at least, according to Kolt. But as to what exactly all this has to do with anything, we are not enlightened. We don't even know if Reid is still alive at this point, or if Kelly is faking both of their deaths with her husband's corpse to get people off her trail, which is exactly as morbid as it sounds but is also entirely in keeping with her character. Kelly and Marie's whispered conversation confirms that this is all being done in great haste, and then of course "Kelly and Reid" die in a car crash. So, the flashback is more for mood and recurring theme of mothers protecting their children than anything else, and possibly also a theme of mothers sending children to be raised in secrecy and unaware of their heritage for either and everyone's safety. Extra bonus points if Adalind fakes her own death later. There's a nice bit in here that I think I would've hammered in a little differently about how Nick can't take everything with him, the everything in this case not just being his baseball bat (good for smacking the monsters under your bed. what? I grew up skewed, y'all knew this) but also his parents.

And back in the present, the pilot will get them as close as he can to this not-very-mysterious-but-as-yet-unspoken destination, and there's a couple of old airstrips

they can land at. Having recently been out in at least one direction of the outskirts of Portland we can confirm that this is true! Yes, I put that in just because blogging from Portland amuses me. Adalind drags herself back to consciousness and takes her baby back before anything else, because as exhausted as she is she is still in momma bear mode. A couple of flyover shots of the mountains, coast, the field where they land (that's not an airstrip, that's a farm, though I'd believe an old airstrip on a map has been converted to farmland), the plane taking off again, and Adalind's standing in the middle of a grassy nowhere looking a bit bemused as to what happens next. And with a baby. The farmer is only marginally helpful, acting as though she's done something wrong for being helpless with a baby in the middle of nowhere, but yes, getting the sheriff would be a civilian's idea of helping! Or a doctor. Doctor would be good. Witch baby needs her well-baby checkup. Still, Kelly will not be having with any of this sheriff talk, and for good reason; that kind of thing leaves a very large trail. Though at least all she does is knock the farmer on his ass and steal his truck while Adalind will be wary of the fact that she's back in Oregon.   

Over to the B plot! For this episode, anyway. Despite Juliette's determination that she and Nick not think about weddings and marriage right now, she's looking awfully sadly at that wedding dress. Okay, not sadly, but with wistfulness. Not to mention actually picking one out for herself. Yeah, sweetie, your common sense says no, and I appreciate you listening to that, but your inner something says FUCK EVERYTHING MARRY NICK. Her inner something is distracted first by a shop attendant/dresser/seamstress asking her when she's getting married which, l'awkward, and secondly by Rosalee coming out in a distinctly vintage wedding dress. Though for how vintage that fashion is, it's in really damn good shape. It turns out that's her grandmother's dress, which, awww, and also provides another example of how deeply tied into and supported by their  family histories Rosalee and Monroe are, contrasting with say Nick (recently discovering but not emotionally invested) or Renard (in many ways at the mercy of his family history). Rosalee jitters for a little while, giving her and Juliette a wonderful opportunity for bonding and friendship; and Bree Turner is absolutely gorgeous in this scene.

And back over to more immediately dangerous family drama, Adalind has finally confirmed that yes, they are heading back to Portland. She makes the out-loud assumption that Renard set this up because of his ties with the Resistance, but Kelly doesn't know who Renard is. I find that at least slightly hard to believe, considering the amount of sniffing around Renard's footsteps she was doing the last time she was in town, but she didn't exactly stick around long enough to do any kind of solid research, so maybe. I definitely don't buy that nobody but Kelly was involved with the setup, since they specifically namedropped Tavitian earlier, but she may mean that in the sense of compartmentalizing the data so that if the Royals do catch up with Adalind, there's nothing she can tell. Adalind would like to know where they're going if not to Renard's, and all Kelly will venture is "somewhere [she'll] be safe." Well. It's entirely likely that she would consider Nick's place the safest place to take someone in trouble in the abstract, but the sheer amount of shit that's going to start flying due to a lack of anyone telling anyone else anything is kind of staggering. I'll take a second to go make some popcorn for the event.

Meanwhile in the castle of Villainous Idiocy, the mook of the week (they gave him a name but I can't for the life of me be bothered until he appears for at least another couple of episodes) (and this is exactly why we've given up on the murder dot-plots, we really DO need a Jarvis to 3D it for us by now) (And the writers never go back to it anyway, when was the last time we heard from the Dragon's Tongue? Season two, that's when.) has new information! It amounts to the plane was tracked heading west and west again, past Manitoba and staying out of controlled airspace. He has people checking with all major landing areas in that direction, but Viktor predicts based on that information and what he knows of Adalind that she will be heading home, to Portland. Oh Viktor. Even when you're right it's for all the wrong reasons. I'm reassured by your utter incompetence, frustrated by your ceaseless resources including the mooks, and annoyed that we're not getting any competent villains. Particularly because Denisof could do competent villain so well.

Portland being Portland, it's sheeting down rain when they finally stop and Kelly tells Adalind to get out. They can't very well sit around in a stolen truck, and Kelly's got a rain slicker or poncho or something to cover Adalind and the baby. Adalind's sounding rather like a tired cranky baby herself, especially since there is NO reason for her to be this unused to Portland weather (yes, I know she's been gone, it's been implied she's a native though the point about the baby is still a valid one) as they head towards wherever it is, which the next cut does indeed tell us is NIck and Juliette's house. Nick and Juliette are warm, dry, safe, and cute. Juliette setting out the table, Nick responding with the kind of blunt, open and teasing honesty that he's procrastinating coming down for dinner. As we go upstairs, too, we see that Nick is procrastinating by contemplating the  ring some more. Oh honey. The cuts get quicker as we go to outside again, meaning that we're about to come to a head on something. Kelly guides Adalind up the steps, and back to the inside where Nick's being cutely awkward about hiding his intentions. Which is to say, he's doing a very bad job. And then, just as he's about to bring it up again, there's a knock at the door! Going by the tension in her voice right after that happens Juliette has some idea of what he was about to say, or at least that it was along those lines. And going by the smile and the general happiness in that tension, it's not entirely unwelcome. But since we're apparently going for third time pays for all here (drink! finish the bottle if/when Nick and Juliette manage to successfully get out proposal and acceptance on the third try) he doesn't get to finish that question, going to answer the door instead. Let's hope he doesn't run the engagement ring in his pants pocket through the laundry amidst all the turmoil that's about to ensue. It's Kelly! And a hooded guest, dripping all over their floor. Nick's surprised to see her! Juliette's surprised to meet her! Kelly is rushed for explanations! Adalind is unmasked! Juliette, hilariously, is the one who lunges forward for vengeancy violence (possibly a little bit because she was also about to get a marriage proposal and this interrupted; I'd be snarly even at a friend for that one), and Nick is the one who has to stop her. Meanwhile Kelly is trying to reassure Adalind that she's safe here, ignorant of the history between the three of them. Ahahahahahno. Adalind will sum that up for us with Claire Coffee's excellent "well fuck" delivery, except since she's on broadcast television it comes out as "Oh my god." We all know what she means, and I will never get over that line delivery.

Well, now, in a lot of cases, what we would have is everyone talking over each other. What we actually get is a Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque round robin that is only missing a 'Doctor Scott!' to pass over into the realm of absurdity. Kelly didn't know Adalind was a Hexenbiest! Or that Hexenbiest! Adalind didn't know Kelly was a Grimm or Nick's mother! Neither Nick nor Juliette knew Adalind was even pregnant let alone that she'd had her baby. Actually, for all that Kelly tacitly confirms it's Adalind's child, they have no way of knowing for sure the baby is hers. We know, but they don't. Kelly also didn't know that Adalind tried to kill her sister, Aunt Marie! In the midst of all this yelling comes an admittedly genuinely terrified Adalind (Remember that thing about using her emotions to manipulate people? We're going to keep bringing it up. Double bonus points for the terror and yelling getting the baby worked up, probably on purpose.) yelling at Nick about what's he going to do, kill her and her baby? Witch baby doesn't like that. Witch baby going to have an epic witch tantrum and shake the house some. And bend a spoon, apparently, for shits and giggles. Knowing infants, more likely that first one. Once the baby subsides and Kelly clarifies that yes, that was the baby that everyone is going to try to kill Adalind to take, well, now they know why! Adalind looks not at all sheepish for triggering a near earthquake at least under the house, but she does notably look sheepish or chastised when the baby cries and explains, or admits, that it's because she hasn't had a chance to feed her yet. Juliette steps forward at this point, because whatever their origin (does she have nieces and nephews? very younger siblings? is this an extension of her calling as a vet?) she's in a mood right now to (aggressively) take care of the baby first and kick Adalind's ass later. Rather than hungry she calls it as the baby is wet and cold, which, really, can't it be both at once? Adalind, still understandably, recoils. But Juliette delivers a couple of audibly angry speeches about what they need to do and why they need to do it, and that it's about the baby, not Adalind. Bitsie and Claire do a marvelous job with this, too, balancing a number of conflicting emotions for their characters while keeping the tension largely between them. Nick does raise some objections to Adalind coming any further into the house than she already is, but Juliette snaps them down because, again and still, it's about the baby. So, into the depths of the upstairs (okay, the staircase that goes nowhere, but details) with the two of them and now the Burkhardts get to have a frank conversation about what the fuck, Mom. Kelly continues to apologize, she knew nothing about Adalind's connections in Portland, only that the baby and mother needed to be protected from the Royals because Resistance says. Or more accurately because Tavitian says. Kelly seems to be convinced of his bona fides as one of the Leaders of the Resistance, and we've seen him acting in that capacity, certainly, but somehow I question the cohesiveness of this save-the-baby intention as far as the Resistance goes. Maybe along the lines of, if no one faction of the Resistance is going to come out with the baby as its pawn, then they're going to make damn good and sure the Royals don't get her either, and because they have expressed no intention to kill the baby they're somehow the good guys. (Hah. Haha. Neither have the Royals.) But Kelly is still sorry for bringing this trouble to her son's door, because apparently ... etiquette? Or a strain on Nick's and Juliette's feelings, which I both kind of buy and kind of don't. Kelly's been remarkably ruthless so far. Still, okay, yes, if she had known who Adalind was she never would have brought her to Nick, and yes, clearly Adalind doesn't know who Kelly is, although there is in general much less evidence to point Catherine's murder to Kelly than there is personal history with everything else. Though if Nick were to tell Adalind, that could get awkward. Kelly's expedient answer is that no one's going to tell her! Okay then. NIck will continue to object despite no one actually giving weight to his objections, to Adalind staying with him and Juliette. Kelly makes a very good point about the baby's powers, but that isn't necessarily relevant to Adalind staying with them. Meanwhile she's stuffing her face with Juliette's dinner, because it probably has been a while. Not like the intended diners have much appetite right now, at a guess, so she might as well. Oh everyone.

Upstairs, Juliette starts out no less aggressive toward Adalind while managing somehow to be gentle and caring toward the baby. Mostly by acting like she needs to protect the baby from Adalind, which is kind of an amusing concept given what we've seen that kid do while it was still in the womb. (And it's probably just as well Kelly doesn't know about that aspect, come to think of it.) Baby is warm, baby is dry, there's a guest bedroom now! They finally got the set built and all the boxes moved out of it or whatever the excuse was. Honestly, I would have far, far preferred something in s2 about how they didn't have room or didn't give the set designers time to build a long-term guest room set instead of the song-and-dance they gave us. Grumble mutter we tend not to believe people about the One True Way to get a particular character/plot point across. That way lies writing yourself into a corner, although this writers' room seems unfortunately skilled at that in certain respects. Anyway. Babies make everyone go at least a little squishy, if they're not completely horrified by the concept of infants in the first place, and Juliette uses that to pump Adalind for information. It has the added benefit of giving us a timeline on the last few eps! The last 3-4 eps have taken place over about 10 days, according to Adalind who's having to stop and think about it both in terms of insufficient sleep and lack of any sense of time out in the woods, and probably also translate for time zones. Which are fuckers. Go on, ask us how we know. Ahem. Even worse, the poor baby has no name because Adalind's been busy running for their lives rather than trying to think up appropriate names. Oh honey. Claire Coffee does a mistressful wobble and holding back tears here, and I think that's even unintentional manipulation this time, because she's too fucking tired to be quite that skilled at emotional mind games right now. That's just horror and sadness at the circumstances under which she's brought a child into the world. There is some precedent for not naming a child until you know it's going to live, back in the times before good hygiene and vaccines were a thing (do not get us started on herd immunity and the vaccines rant we'll be here all night), but I don't think that's what they were thinking of here. I still want to know how much of this Adalind could have guessed had she been paying any attention when she hatched this plot to tie herself to Sean by getting pregnant. Because that part of it was damn well played as deliberate, but the subsequent everyone wants the child suggests there's a prophecy or somesuch out there she's not privy to. Fucking prophecies. Those never, ever turn out well, least of all for the child in question in them. Juliette has an excellent point in response to the freakout: if Nick wanted her dead, she would be dead. Have I mentioned lately how very few people on this show have particularly strong moral centers? Including the nominal protagonist? I'd love it if they did more with that one, but alas, that seems to go to the actors the vast majority of the time. Adalind seems like she's trying to regain the upper hand both in terms of information gathering and in terms of emotional context by asking why Juliette's helping her, being nice to her, but she only succeeds in seeming exhausted and terrified and confused that there are decent people in the world. Which does, at least, accomplish the task of making me feel sorry for her!

Our expository family reunion is also flashback city tonight. Kelly has very few fucks to give for table manners, just to emphasize how long it's been since she ate. Uh. Guys? What happened to the supplies on the plane? Was she refusing to eat them just in case they landed and had no other source of food? Anyway. They will now proceed to infodump us about what Adalind is, what Nick took from her (now with bonus flashback!), and Kelly will explain to us about the contaminatio ritualis, which is still the silliest Latin since Buffy and how they can get their powers back. Which is at least brief as far as bringing Nick and Juliette and anyone who checked out during the front half of this season up to speed, but a bit on the clunky side. And then we have the clunkiest goddamn fucking ep title namedrop and explanation ever. I don't know if this is all original writer, or if someone tried to drop it in on revisions, but oh my god this is the dumbest. Awkwardest. There's no reason for Juliette to know this bit about Jung, there's no indication she's been reading up on her fairytale mythos and analysis (though it wouldn't be unbelievable, given she's very much researched other things surrounding the Wesen world), there is nothing more than the most tenuous of thematic connections and certainly nothing to provide a more realistic conversational segue, and it's just a terribly, terribly written line. We've seen awkwardness out of the scriptwriters before, but nothing this clunky, leading us to wonder if maybe there was an exec who felt that the title needed more explication? Or someone else demanded it to be shoehorned in. I promise, guys, your readers will properly infer the meaning, and you overestimate the importance of titles and their reflections on the episode. Anyway. The baby is important! It will be a leader of men! And possibly women if they swing that way okay, no, she'll be a leader and a focal point on which events hinge and has a destiny and all that good shit that you hear when there's a prophecy involved. We just still haven't heard if there is one for sure, or what the wording is. Wording in these things is key, just ask Neville Longbottom. And you know, I appreciate that at least Kelly doesn't seem to think her hands are the right ones to leave the upbringing of this child to. I'm just also not convinced that she should be the one to decide who the right person or people are. Not even a little. (Could do worse than Nick and Juliette. Could do better, in terms of someone who has fewer people who want him dead, and a less dangerous job. I'm just saying, Kelly's incredibly skewed on appropriate levels of danger to raise a child in.) Nick is way too convinced that Adalind will be a terrible influence on the baby and therefore the baby should go to the Resistance. NICK. Dude. You know not a single fucking thing about the Resistance, you met Ian Harmon a grand total of one fucking time and frankly most people would come off looking better against Edgar Waltz's smarmy assassin self. Could we maybe get some data before flinging the baby to a particular political faction? And this is why I say they could do better than to give the baby to, well, mostly Nick to raise. Protect I will accept. Raise? Not so much. Now, Monroe and Rosalee? I would not be shocked if they went that route with the soon-to-be-wed couple. "I got you a wedding present! It's a very important baby to raise! Think of it as practice for when your families object to mixed-heritage children! It'll be great!" Juliette starts to say something about the email about heading north to meet with the Lauffeuer, presumably that Kelly was trying to tell them something about the baby? Whatever the specifics of this realization, they'll have to wait, because there will now be wind! And doors and windows and things banging about! Why yes, while nobody was upstairs keeping an eye on her, Adalind's run off. The fuck did you expect; she's not that far into believing that people might genuinely want to help her for any reason at all, including the mere fact of being civil to someone they've been thrown together with and also baby to protect and care for. That definitely does not include believing people she's actively harmed and sought to kill are capable of not taking immediate and bloody vengeance, and Juliette gets half a pass because she's not trained to think tactically and is (or should be) still dealing with lingering trauma that's now come back to be shoved in her face in the person of one Hexenbiest, but Kelly and Nick, I expect better out of you. Grumble. Oh, hey, more illusions, this time of baby left on the bed which turns out to be a cushion. Even odds if that was Adalind thinking ahead and using her regained powers, or witch baby filling in the gaps her mama left. Kelly clearly thinks it's the latter, though we know she's prone to leaping to conclusions on insufficient data, so who the fuck knows. It's also about the same nature and duration as the illusion witch baby cast on Meisner, so I'd guess that's accurate. Babies' attention spans: not very long. Yes, Kelly, that stolen truck which will now be parked around Renard's condo in the Pearl. Excuse me while I snicker in our borrowed kitchenette; Adalind will now demonstrate how awkward it is to try and carry an infant with no carseat while driving. Answer: very, that's why they only showed us the barest glimpse of it.

Ad break! Increasing momentum of the strings theme! Two Grimms pounding pavement! Yes, yes, she's gone, and the jar with the surprised face has still not hatched a Horseman of the apocalypse. At least not in this universe. I do love the comic timing from both actors on "did you kill the driver?" "why would I do that?" Well, uh, Mom, you have a tendency to leave bodies on the floor every time I've seen you for the past twenty years! You know, the first time involved some random person dying in her stead (probably? not a murder on Kelly's part but still) and the second time we had Kimura and Catherine. So, y'know. Bodies. No, she didn't, he was a civilian and not trying to kill her, she has some boundaries left. Small favors, thankful, etc. On the downside, he'll have reported the truck stolen by now, which means Adalind could be arrested if someone caught the APB at the right time. At least she'll probably be driving carefully due to having the baby with her, and it's night, and she's about to drive into a wealthy section of the city, so given those three things she should be able to avoid the cops for the whole, oh, ten minutes tops it'd take to drive to Renard's condo from Nick and Juliette's place. (Which I think is purportedly in SW somewhere? Yeah, we've walked a lot this week. Yeah, we have a lot better concept on distances now. Enjoy the broadened knowledge base! I know we are.) Expository walk-and-talk will be expository and, for a change, not in the precinct! This time I'll even break out the jar. Again, for exposition that's designed to catch up both character and audience to necessary events, it's accomplished as quickly as possible. I'm not sure I would have aimed for these specific lines - I think I'd have gone for more deliberate comedy - nor for the delivery they directed Giuntoli into, which really should have had more emotion behind it. I think I'd have preferred a more cynical take on his bantering with Juliette from earlier, as a bit of an emotional throughline, and I can kind of see the remains of something like that in Giuntoli's delivery, but I think they were aiming for just-the-facts-ma'am, which does a disservice to the emotional weight and cognitive dissonance that should be associated even with these few words about Nick's relationship to Renard. And believe you me, there should be more than we're getting on the page here.

More on that in a moment; for now let's take some time to appreciate that Renard's condo is not being broken into for once. We'll see if that lasts past the second half of this two-parter. I'm betting on no. Renard, no matter how late it is, always has more to do, because despite the Twitter jokes over airing time about kitten vids, that looks like some kind of bureaucratic window he's got up. Actually, that does finally explain how his goddamn desk is always so clean: he got the precinct to go paperless. Somebody write me the crack!fic about the young Captain throwing himself at the weight of city and police bureaucracy until it gives way to his demands for a properly digitized system. Ahem. At any rate, Renard goes to answer his buzzer, and because this is a super-upscale Pearl condo they will, in fact, have a doorman who's telling him who's here to see him. I have to say, after three seasons of Captain this and Prince that, it's incredibly disconcerting to hear someone call him nothing but Mr. Renard. Accurate, in all probability; Renard doesn't seem like he'd go make friends with a doorman such that he'd be on Captain, Cap, anything reflective of his day job persona terms with the guy. But weird.

Back to the car of Intransigent Mama Grimm! Because that's basically what this is, Nick expositing his past with Renard and Kelly boggling and promptly disregarding any information that doesn't fit with her limited conception of how the world works. He's a Zauberbiest and a Royal and Nick's boss! Not to be trusted! This is true. It's also true that he's manipulating Nick with his own cooperation into being on his side. BUT. That said, Renard has asked for damn little in recent episodes. He's kept to himself, and while yes, he's been keeping information from Nick, there's every emotional reason to do so and even to an extent logical ones. Compartmentalization of information is a thing, whether or not you believe in it we do know that Nick's got a hard time keeping his mouth shut and doubly so around his friends. I can well believe Renard wouldn't want the entire scooby gang to know his business. Or even part of his business, in the sense of there being a child that's very important. (Hell. Renard himself may not know the full import of the kid, if he's unaware that Adalind's been re-hexened and/or there's a prophecy he doesn't know about. WAIT SUDDEN THOUGHT: does a potential prophecy mean more Pilar? I would be all about that.) Aaand hang on, I need a moment to bash my head against the headboard. This isn't a writing issue, or if it is it's one of the good kind, because nobody including Nick, I think, believes that Kelly comes without strings or is in the Resistance out of the purest of motives. We still don't know how they connect up with other Grimms, let alone this Grimm, and while she may have begun her association with the Resistance with noble ideals, you cannot tell me this hasn't become deeply personal for her. Plus, in bringing the baby to Nick, she's admitted that she, too, has strings which can be pulled. Her son most obviously, but family, guilt, regret, duty, possibly in reverse order, and since as far as we know she's not reporting to anybody for orders, duty is exactly what she decides it is. People who go it as loners have a bad tendency to decide duty lines up with their emotional desires and then twist their logic into pretzeled knots proving it. In some ways this echos Viktor's conclusions: even when right, they're drawn from such very, very wrong data. No, you can't trust Renard, but you don't have enough data to know what's right for witch baby, so let's not go leaping before we look, hmm? Nick seems to have come to some similar conclusions as they pull up, with bonus points for her attitude of stalking off toward Renard's building once she recognizes it and looking like she's gonna go kill someone. BAD IDEA. Fuckssake. Nice touch on the commentary about having been here before, though. As far as we know she didn't go inside but she was there when Nick and Hank responded to the assault on Renard, with some very nice hiding-from-the-protags blocking to keep her identity hidden until optimum dramatic reveal.

Up on said sixteenth floor, Adalind looks nervous and defensive as all hell as Renard opens the door to her with his own brand of wary, and the first question out of his mouth is not "are you all right" but "is she all right," establishing very firmly and immediately what his priorities are, i.e., not Adalind. Nerves will make her push past him and on into the main room; unfortunately the blocking doesn't give us a clear picture of any of the walls or surfaces on which potential previous wife and child were displayed. Which is aggravating because that might actually, if someone called attention to it, lead to real information.  Renard: less scary than potentially two Grimms who might be trying to kill you! I cannot disagree with this assessment, though that's distinctly a matter of degree, not kind. Funny story time it is! Not the ha-ha funny, either, and these two have amazing comic timing that serves to halfway lighten, halfway underscore the seriousness of the situation as they bicker and gripe their way through explanations of who Adalind found waiting for her at the other end of this supposed safe place for her and the baby. Imagine everyone's surprise! By that look on Renard's face he understands why Kelly (not that he knows the importance of Kelly at this point beyond Nick's mother) would have taken her to a Grimm's house for safety, but all the potential complications inherent in having Nick protect Adalind and the baby are exhausting and numerous.

While Renard and Adalind are enjoying some of the most honest and emotionally connecting conversation they've had ever, Kelly is even more firmly establishing her position as not to be trusted and dangerously violent and singleminded! She's going to get that baby out of the hands of the Hexenbiest and the half-Royal Zauberbiest bastard and never mind that they are the baby's parents. At least as far as we know, I still would like a DNA test on that kid, though at this point I believe that all parties involved believe Sean's the father, though we should note here that the Burkhardts don't actually know for sure that Renard's the father, they've just made the right logical leaps for it. Kelly gives zero fucks for any of that, for anyone's feelings on the matter, or with giving Adalind or Renard the benefit of any doubt, even though she's seen Adalind display at least some caring maternal instincts. And she's never even met Renard. See also: what they are matters more than who they are, a position that the show has not traditionally been advocating for for the past three seasons. And they don't now! With Kelly playing the part of the extremist, Nick is playing the voice of reason. Or as he might put it, the advocate of tact. He does have a very good point that Renard can't exactly just manifest a family and hope no one notices, not as a Police Captain and certainly not as a Prince under scrutiny. That would likely mean Renard arguing to have a say in where the child gets placed, but I don't see Nick objecting to that very much. He has a somewhat less well-phrased point about how Renard would try to kill her, in that what I think he means is that Renard has no fucking idea who she is (untrue at this point, but has no emotional ties, yes) whereas if Nick goes up he's got years of work history to fall back on, and can appeal to the cop if not the prince or the father. Kelly, on the other hand. She seems to have forgotten that Renard is Nick's Captain, despite actually saying so in the same sentence as positing Renard might prefer to kill Nick. (Speaking of, I'm giving better odds that Renard's pointing the gun at Kelly or a Henchjager in the previews for next week's episode than at Nick, who's with me.) Nick quite reasonably points out that Renard probably wouldn't intend to be on the run and wanted for murder, let alone the murder of a Grimm, in two worlds. I take a second to ponder that if Renard wanted Nick dead the most efficient way would probably be to set him up for Council assassination while Kelly agrees to wait for Nick to appeal to Renard's reasonable qualities. No, no one believes she's going to wait there for long. In fact, narrative convention says she'll wait exactly long enough for negotiations between Nick and Renard to reach a critical stage, and then barge in. This scene also serves to play up the massive, massive differences between two people who would like to love each other and be family again, but the ways in which Kelly a) has fucked up and b) is fucked up are too numerous to make that easy. So yes, Nick's going to choose the people whose motivations he can extrapolate and whose abilities he knows and respects.

We'll have to find out next week! Nick and Kelly say their fond ... farewells? Something like that, and it's back up to the condo of questionable family feelings as Adalind gives Renard the most adorable awkward/hopeful/wary look and asks if he wants to hold their child. Her child. Something like that. Renard doesn't quite look like he's being handed a live grenade and doesn't actually relax until the child is in his arms, which at least is in keeping with what we know of him. I somewhat question the extent to which they had him soften up, and since I know from watching Caprica that Sasha Roiz can do a very good hardened but tender toward a precious few people, I wonder why they didn't essentially let him stay on the Sam Adama side of things rather than pushing him all the way to a Sasha smile. Look at candids sometime and tell me I'm wrong. Mainly I feel that, as a severely isolated character, Renard should have a warrior's, soldier's sort of mentality, and we've seen that in other places. The concrete realization that out of death and destruction new life can still form is a powerful one, and not something they should have pulled punches with. This, to me, feels like they wanted the punchline of writing "Renard smiles down at his daughter" more than they wanted to respect the emotional weight of a man under siege finding a piece of hope, a very much unlooked for type of hope, in his arms.

But next week! Next week I hope for a lot more emotional impact, on account of the shrieking in the street and the Royals coming to Portland. That won't end in bodies on the floor at all. I'm not sure why the street shot of Renard with a gun looks like they pulled it out of the ep with the Henchjager at the bar, though I assume they used an old woge shot of him from the Musai ep because post wasn't done with that segment yet. Looks like Viktor is losing another mook to a meatshield, someone took the baby, Kelly's coming into the condo guns blazing because that's exactly what Renard needs after he finally got it set to rights again. Possibly that shot of everyone in the precinct is intended to indicate that Renard's using his police captain powers to initiate a manhunt for the Royals and/or his daughter and/or Adalind, and I'll bet on all three. Because overprotective Renard is overprotective. Adalind is momma bear, much to nobody's surprise at this point. What I want to know is where our civilians will fall in this mess, along with Hank and Wu (will this bring Wu into at least partial knowledge of what the fuck is really going on, instead of doing what I hope are his own investigations in off-hours?), who were conspicuous by their absence this ep and we are in dire need of both of our The Bests to hammer sense into people. Can I get Hank and Juliette tag-teaming Kelly and Adalind, who are the most likely to throw shitfits of various kinds that lead to things not being accomplished that are best for the baby? Because do want. A lot.