Where They Know Your Name Grimm S2E16 Nameless

There are no previouslies on Grimm! Do not let this fool you into thinking there is no new metaplot information, however. This just means that someone finally talked them out of wasting 10-15 seconds on that shit. THANK. GOD. Akela, if that was you, keep stabbing them until they keep doing that, because as much as these eps are trying to fit in since the show came back? You need ALL your seconds. At any rate, last week on the blog we were extremely cranky and spent way too damn long trying to make the procedural part of the ep suck less. This week on the blog, we still question some of the pacing (seriously, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to have a procedural plot, a B plot, AND a C plot in a forty-minute show, the latter two of which are both overarching? Really?) but we also cackle madly with glee over a great deal of it. And have appreciation for the fact that nobody tried to go the Carlyle-Rumpelstiltskin route with this, because that would have been doomed to failure, not to mention the genre-skewering that occurred. Sometimes literally. Well, slicing in half is LIKE skewering, right?

Murderboards Update, mid S2 Grimm

Our heads hurt just thinking about this, especially since this most recent episode gave us a lot of new information but very little new insight. We could have and did guess that the Royal Families want themselves returned to power, we guessed that each faction would be nervous about their alliance with another, and we figured someone would attempt to assassinate the canary, Renard, or both sooner or later. Reasonably, we don't even have a source of that assassination; it doesn't have to be Eric. Still, for your viewing pleasure and so you can call out theories or see just how many goddamn players there are, we present you with our updated murderboard. Now with dead people marked out, but only the really truly confirmed ones. After Kelly's reappearance we're not trusting that Reid is still dead. For example. We've also taken the Grimms out as a faction, lacking any evidence that they function in that kind of cohesive manner. We haven't forgotten about the key, nor have we mistaken Renard's acceptance of Nick as a flunky (because honestly) for trusting him enough to bring him into his circle of whatever-he's-doing. If other keys show up, we'll break out the icons and start marking who has what.

As always, click to embiggen.

Colors:

Deep Purple - Royal Families

Blue-Purple - Renard's Coterie

Blue - Allied to Nick

Brown - Resistance

Green - Dragon's Tongue

Burgundy - Verrat
Yellow - Wesen Council

Gray - Unaffiliated

Fonts: 

Script - Wesen

Standard - Human
NotComicSans - Grimm

Distorted - Verrat

Regardless of Ideology (Person of Interest S1E08 Foe)

This week's episode also starts us out with the perpetrator, giving us a brief interlude of perps who are difficult (nigh unto impossible were it not for Finch's talents) to find. In many ways, this is another ep's worth of Reese's Dark Mirror, only we're being even more anvilicious about it. At any rate, the credits shot is of an older gentlemen descending an elevator and looking rather dead-eyed about it. Much like our favorite spyssassin when he's on a job, come to that. Said spyssassin comes around the corner of a construction site, clearing the area with gun in hand. Well, this won't end well! The last time we saw Reese armed in the credits was the introduction of Elias, and we all know how that went. Now let us read from the Book of Reese's Issues, Vol III chapters I-VI, The Government And How I Learned To Distrust It!

This is also the first time we've watched the Machine pick out a number, just in case we wanted to add to the growing pile of evidence that it's an AI. Which we did! How thoughtful of the writers. We also see that it pulled up all the data on this week's number which Finch spends a chunk of the episode acquiring, thereby demonstrating that it has a damn good idea of what each week's number will bring even as it sends the number to Finch. Which means it's picking these numbers on purpose. And aww, "contacting admin," that's so... child calling for Daddy, in a way. Come fix this, Finch! And he will, right after several ominous seconds of Ulrich Kohl evading detection by a suit who looks awfully Germanic and awfully out of place in the train station. Doing so in well-trained spyssassin style, too. Over to our boys, Finch is standing in front of the bookcase with the dictionaries. Are you watching closely? Because this will be important later. MUCH later, as it turns out; the writers on this show are such sneaky fucks. I say that with love. At any rate, Reese brought drinks! It's cute that Finch thinks Reese doesn't know how he takes his hot drinks by now, that's one of the first ways in on a long term assignment that a good spyssassin learns, is the little details like drinks and other daily routine self-care things. This being one of the few self-care items Finch allows himself, it was probably easy to pick up. And yes, I think Reese does still think of Finch as a long term assignment; the fact that they're getting to like and trust each other is a function of the work they're doing together as well as an inevitable side effect of any long term spyssignment. Not what Reese might consider optimal. We never said we liked the normal ones, did we? Banter banter snark, for those of you who ship them this is a great opportunity for a trollface.

Because It's Dull You Twit Grimm S02E15 Mr. Sandman

Previously on Grimm: Sexenbiest! There's a lot of Renard and Adalind and the love potion subplot in these previouslies, for as little of it as we see in this episode. Makes us wonder, among other reasons, what the hell they cut out of the original script.

Tonight on Grimm: BUG WESEN. And we have to warn you in advance, we have been tabletop roleplayers for a long time. We started this recapalypse out in a roleplaying frame of mind due to one of the Big Bads of one of the major roleplaying games being insect spirits. There will be some tabletop roleplaying references. If you can't pick them up from context, please feel free to ask.

A Catalogue of Crime (Person of Interest S1E07 Witness)

No lie, there was a lot of swearing when I realized I would be doing this episode. There will probably be even more swearing throughout the episode. So, if you didn't already know that we say 'fuck' (among other things) a lot, you do now! (Or, there would have if I hadn't had to do most of this on Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which does not take to swear words well. Sorry, guys, RSI comes before amusing profanity. If you spot any odd mistakes, that's probably the Dragon tracks. It only took us six months of typing this much to have to resort to speech recognition software, aren't you proud?)

We're starting with all of the symbolism inherent in the number's shot of the opening credits being Reese, a balding shortish guy with glasses, and a gun that in that short span of time makes it ambiguous who's holding it, while Reese makes the "shh" gesture with one finger. Just off the top of my head we have the symbolism of the number being sinister, we have the ambiguity represented in who's holding the gun and who's hostile to whom, we have the implication of secrets in Reese's gesture, and I could go on but then I really would dissolve into incoherent swearing.

There Is A Hole In Your Mind Grimm S2E14 Natural Born Wesen

Previously on Grimm: a whole shitpile of plot was dropped, Nick turned fuschia, and our heads exploded to the tune of 17K. Or so. Look, if you wanted the long version, you've got last week's recapalypse. Still love the delivery of "No. *beat* That's it."

This week on Grimm: a major new political player! INFINITE SWEARING. Things that are not answers. Those are more fucking questions. Also, some of the most annoying and arguably worst Wesen-of-the-week ever, but that could be my natural dislike for NBK references coming out to play. Also, Bremen musicians again really? We JUST did that in Season of the Hexenbiest. Also, Bremen ruins where Adalind and Nick had their showdown. I have so much side-eye now. My best guess is this is a way of keeping Adalind's presence within the series without having her actually in the episode, and now I would really like to know what fucking connection hexenbiests have with the Council, or the Royals with the Council. In short: YOUR MURDERBOARD WE WANTS THEM. At any rate, Nick's turning lobster pink on the floor in the back room of the spice shop, and Juliette would like some damn explanations right this second. Or at least an ambulance. An ambulance would be good. SOME EXPLANATIONS WOULD BE BETTER oh my god would you fuckers, someone, anyone, please tell her? Which at least confirms that Renard and Nick hustled her off without doing the reveal off-screen. And I realize that the full reveal is likely to take up the better part of an episode. I'm just very, very tired of it not happening. I'm also kind of amused that they blocked this so that Renard is looming protectively over Juliette but not helping anyone, partly I think because he doesn't trust himself to not touch her or say anything stupid even in public, and partly because he's gone to lurk and watch and incorporate new data mode when confronted with all these social dynamics of which he's not a part. Monroe manages at least a halfway credible explanation for Juliette's science-minded self which would be more useful if he were capable of babbling science in a way that anyone with actual knowledge bought. Still, she's desperate enough for explanations that she'll accept them at face value, especially since Nick's waking up! Yay! (This also gives us a marginally better timeline for Renard's own purification potion black smoke fest, though presumably his took a little longer.) This is also a marked, marked contrast to that same scene, Renard the loner who had to do it all himself with nobody he trusted around and Nick who's made friends and allies aplenty. Oh honey.

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money (Person of Interest S1E06 The Fix)

Welcome back! We're sorry about the long break, but we're bringing you one of our very favorite eps to make up for it, complete with infinite cracks about wanting to be Zoe Morgan when we grow up. (We've been spoiled through 2x15, so there are all kinds of additional reasons for this motivation now!) Last week was a bit of a lackluster episode, but this week we get a peek at what Reese and Finch could do if they had someone whose primary skillset is in social engineering on the team. Not that I have copious fantasies of Zoe becoming a regular or anything. Not me. So! Our first glimpse of the person of the week is of a woman with rather artfully tousled hair and an umbrella and oh, hey, Reese is playing her driver-cum-bodyguard? This should be interesting! Then we get one of those Significant Clips of a phone recording, a woman (who is not Zoe, as we quickly learn) saying that whatever they're doing is wrong. Could be an affair, could be corporate malfeasance, without the other half of the phone call we don't know just yet. Though knowing Reese and Finch, we can guess what they'll assume if/when they end up listening to this! Sigh, boys. The woman in question is immediately suspicious of a strange new driver, which tells us that she dislikes changes to her routines and may have cause to suspect danger from such things. Her clothing is simple, elegant, a moderate amount of cleavage, kickass boots, the sort of personal decoration that speaks to wealth and not wanting to be flashy until she's right up close with you. She'd stand out on the street purely for being attractive, but not for trying to get attention. It's a carefully crafted and designed look, and the big old brownstone that's apparently her home is equally unobtrusive in its wealth.

A Democratic Drawbridge Grimm S2E13 Face Off

Hello, welcome back, we missed you! Readers-you and show-you both. Last time on Grimm there was a lot of swearing, a lot of capslocking, and a lot of facedesking, and this week promises to be more of the same. The previouslies give us, out of the many many things that happened in the last half season, Juliette confessing her inexplicable feelings to Nick, Hank and Nick discussing Adalind's inexplicable visit, Adalind making entirely explicable threats in Renard's general direction (really, Adalind, this is not making me feel better about your survival instincts), Renard at the trailer, and Monroe utterly fucking up at telling Nick about the Captain and Juliette. Really, you couldn't have led with "love potion mindfuckery"?

Today's opening quote comes oh fuck everything. That's the abbreviated version of my reaction when I sourced it. Today's opening quote comes from an Allied military commander and hero, Ferdinand Foch. First World War, not Second, but still and nonetheless we will now be capslocking to here and back. For those of you just joining us, we've been drawing Axis and Allies parallels since last season, and there are posts to that effect. Now it's just getting blatant. This comes, I believe, from his lectures on military history and strategy/tactics, but since I haven't read them I couldn't say. Though now I'm tempted. The backdrop to all of this, of course, is the key which is the source of tonight's conflict. I'd say the specification isn't necessary except sometimes it's the key, sometimes it's the coin, sometimes the part of the McGuffin is played by Nick himself. Tonight, the key.

Son of Behind The Scenes at Murderboarding

Hello and welcome back! With Grimm starting up this weekend, we figured it was a good time to let you all know what our blogging status is at the moment. (Speaking of blogging status, we also have individual blogs now, at Kitty Ipsum and Mad Maud.) You may have noticed that our non-recaplysis posts have been trickling to a stop, which is intentional. There are a few posts that we'd like to get around at some point, but as is par for the course, life only settles down on one front at a time. If we're lucky. So Kitty's working on editing her antho for publication later this year, and I'm working on a sekrit fiddle project (which I will reveal this weekend!), and we do this for fun.

Thus, recaplysis posts will make up the bulk of our posting. Grimm takes precedence, and we still intend to get those out every Saturday from here through May-whatever when the finale airs. (Yes, by the way, we did see the interview that said the ring on Renard's left hand isn't a wedding ring. We also swore a whole lot. We're not scrambling to change the speculation right now; we'll wait to see if we get any actual damn data. Not that we're frothing at the mouth for murderboards. We would never.) Person of Interest is at the moment being shifted to a mid-week posting, both to give us some breathing room and to give you guys more space to read ALL the snark. (We're giving like that.) By current estimate, unless we marathon our way through a bunch of Person of Interest, we should be caught up with currently-airing eps sometime in s3. I'd apologize, but these are fun and I don't think either of us wants to miss a vital bit of data from early eps due to skipping a bunch. And last but not forgotten, Haven s1&2 recaplyses are running in the background at the moment; we'd like to start putting those out after Grimm finishes airing, with the goal of finishing them up in time for the s4 premiere.

Obviously, we are not planning to add a new show anytime soon. Just in case that wasn't clear. Now the part you've all been waiting for! Behind the jump, lots of us saying 'fuck.'

I'll Bear The Cross On Judgement Day (Person of Interest S1E05 Judgement)

So our setup for this evening's profiletainment first involves an older bearded fellow who looks to be in some considerable distress, a vehicular assault if not homicide, and a man calling someone else and telling them in a thick Eastern European/Russian accent that they have a problem. Interesting. The Machine will take note of the driver's license plate number and then take us over to a diner where Finch is having a meal and Reese is sitting down opposite him. Reese asks a three word question and Finch gives him the iciest "don't even try it" stare I have seen this side of Guerrero. The assassin from Human Target, that is.