Previously on... well, actually, there are no previouslies. Just a quote from the "Water of Life" story that has us all pounding our faces into our desks. The sad thing is I'm not even sure what the hell this refers to. There is no King, no throne, no questing anyone. There is no relationship in this episode that fits the sentiment expressed, despite the attempted implication of some feeling between father and son, and although the overall story could apply to what the keys lead to, that shows marginally more forethought and longer thematic application than they've shown in the past. So, um. The hell?
Okay, so, we start off with a dynamic entry into Juliette and Nick's house where Monrosalee are over for dinner and Juliette is rattling off the list of things that have been done or need relatively immediate doing for the wedding! Juliette is the best logisticker ever and I want her to organize my life. I'm only slightly kidding. There is some joking about women and men's roles in planning the wedding, and we can be pretty sure it's joking because in every other scene involving wedding planning except the selection of the dress, Monroe and Rosalee have been sharing decision-making and discussion. There are also some jokes about what grooms are good for (if you don't get that joke why are you up past your bedtime) and Nick plays the typical not-funny-dude friend with repeated "what ring? what speech?". That will give Rosalee a potentially literal heart attack, dude, stop that. Having been around multiple wedding-planning friends, don't even go there. Which is pretty much what Juliette is affectionately glaring at him, because she is a good maid of honor who doesn't put up with that crap. Trubel (I'm sorry, you guys, that still makes me twitch; in deference to clarity because we seem to be the only ones twitching, I will type it out. The sacrifices I make for clarity.) is evidently still living with them, and has been long enough for it to be ordinary for Nick to call her down to dinner. Which may actually only be a couple days' worth of downtime, for that matter. They haven't given us too terribly many specific time markers for the last sequence of episodes, other than "not long." Okay, apparently not long enough for Trubel to get used to being called down to dinner by what is essentially a surrogate, however temporary, family; it takes her long enough that Nick and Juliette have a short debate about who should go get her. Though to be fair, she could just be absorbed in books. That's happened to me on more than one occasion. While Juliette goes and gets the wayward young lady Nick and Monroe (and to some extent Rosalee, but we seem to be French Door-ing a lot of conversations this episode) talk quietly about her. No, he hasn't pushed to find out more about her, yes, she seems to be settling in okay-ish. And that's all we get before the ladies come down.
Trubel is, given her introduction, very calm about getting used to new things and a new way of living, in this case, that people might come over for dinner and wait till everyone was at table to eat. She's also apologetic about delaying everyone's meal, which is less a showcase of her various food-related issues and more a degree of uncertainty as to her place in things, normalcy and how normal she should be acting. Well, normal by their standards. She also seems to be apologizing/making up for it by her slightly over the top declaration of her love for spaghetti, but, sure, it works. Right up until the point where she dishes out a truly astounding amount of spaghetti onto her plate. This is characteristic and likely not exaggerated of a disorder called Food Maintenance syndrome, a compulsive/survivalist disorder usually caused by circumstances with uncertain food availability. Without all the complexities, Trubel has been either on her own or in the foster system long enough to not be certain where her next meal is coming from, and even when she's in a temporarily stable situation this leads to habitual either overeating or food hoarding. Hence, giant pile of spaghetti at which everyone is politely trying (and failing) not to stare. Rosalee takes the job of breaking into this food storing routine by complimenting her ability to cope with what's happening to her and her change in situation. It's a semi-convoluted speech that amounts to that, at least, and also an outreach of empathy. Trubel... counters? Replies? While mournful music plays in the background to make sure we know that this is a sad thing, that she didn't expect to live this long. Honestly I think the actress's matter-of-fact performance on that line sells it well enough; it's often more horrifying when someone simply accepts their inevitable demise at a young age than when you have the sad violins playing in the background. Sad wind instruments? Sad orchestra in general. The music is loud and intrusive. A pan around the table and Trubel's reaction would have done oh wait, now we have to have the dramatic sting of Stranger Is Outside The Door Staring At The House. We have to have it three times because I have a jug of cider that won't drink itself.
After dinner, with that somewhat overdone trio of musical cues (come ON you guys), we get a good look at how thoroughly Trubel has still not integrated into normal society. Which, given she's been hanging around Nick and Juliette for a good couple weeks or so? At least a week, and Juliette's been obviously trying to get her to integrate somewhat, it's a good indicator that Trubel's been on her own and ignoring normal society for a loooong time. From three time as much spaghetti to licking the plate with her fingers and wanting more. It's interesting, too, how they're coding her as masculine as much as feminine, between the social habits (these are cues more often seen in men with troubled pasts; you just don't GET women with these kinds of issues who have an actual recovery arc as opposed to Smile And Nod And Everything's Fine Now On The Surface) and the costuming/haircut. Male-leaning androgyny, definitely, down to the violent tendencies. This is not a woman who places any stock in traditional femininity, because trad-femininity in her situation gets you killed, and it makes it difficult for Rosalee and Juliette who do do a lot of traditionally feminine things (see also: the wedding convo) to relate. This does not mean they're not trying! I love you Rosalee, asking gentle questions and then giving up information about herself in order to coax Trubel into talking. Probably helps that Juliette, the most blatantly normal of the lot of them, is off in the kitchen dishing up more spaghetti so the poor kid doesn't feel quite so much like she's being judged. (She's not, she's being given a massive dose of Juliette's taking in strays compassion, but I can see where she'd feel like that.) Yeah, she was in a foster home when she saw her first Wesen. Nobody is surprised, though a bit wince-y, yes. Nick I think has a bit of "there but for the grace of Aunt Marie go I," and damn right. If he hadn't been really lucky and had TWO active Grimms in the older generation, he would have had nothing to go on when he started seeing Wesen. It also turns out that Wesen don't grow up knowing what they are! Sounds like first woge hits around puberty, going by Rosalee's stated age of 13, I'd love to know how that works with younger sibs in a family. Because teenagers are not so good at keeping their mouths shut when it comes to "ha ha I have something and you don't," even if that something's embarrassing. Sometimes especially, so you can fuck with your younger sibs about how bad it'll be when it's their turn! Alas, we're not getting quite that much sharing this time, just that nobody goes around telling you you're Wesen until you're old enough? woge hits? something like that, anyway, and then you learn and your family supports you. That's kind of like some of what we've been speculating on, although it directly contradicts the glowy Gluhenvolk baby. Then again, Gluhenvolk seemed to be something of a category apart? Still and all, you guys, get yourself a goddamn show bible so you can drop the throwaways early and set this kind of thing up. My best fanwank for this is that bio-parents can suppress the woge and that doesn't even really make sense. Grumble.
First Wesen sounds like not the same as when Trubel learned she was a Grimm, either, because while she was a little hesitant over first Wesen, she's really hesitant over first Grimm. So we know right away it's not gonna be pretty. I have to say, we were both facepalming the second we realized they were going straight for the attempted-rape backstory. All of that said, it sounds like for a change it's attempted rather than completed - look, this trope is so fucking overdone I feel awful saying this but I will take the minor changes. It also helps that everyone in this scene is playing it amazingly well, and that the dialogue is well-written. Because on top of attempted rape, Trubel's dealing with the shock of seeing a Wesen (and maybe it is her first? it's kind of unclear, and I think it's meant to be), and that's the thing she focuses on. Meanwhile everyone at the table is having quiet, understated reactions of "oh HONEY" and no, Rosalee does not give a fuck what kind of person, human, Wesen, Grimm, whatever it was, she cares that someone tried to hurt you, Trubel. Guess who's not used to people caring about that? This whole thing is just heartwrenchingly well done; she's misreading their concern for her as horror that she might've killed someone, and no. That's not it. And she didn't kill this one! Just got him to get off her. Oh sweetie. Interestingly, she even told what she saw, maybe not what was done to her (probably not what was done to her), but too freaked out not to try and tell people there are literal monsters with inhuman faces among them, I guess? There's plenty of themes about inhumanity and how no, really, Wesen are just metaphors for aspects of ourselves, and this is one of the clearer scenes meant to hammer that home. With great big anvils, though for a change the anvils aren't inserted straight into the dialogue but left for the rest of us to come to comprehend. I still wish the musical cues would be a little less cluebatty and a little more subtle, but I acknowledge you've got to have something here. At any rate: she told, they locked her up, she swore she wasn't lying, they called her crazy. You don't even have to have the Wesen component for this to be true to life, so now that we've got a young woman Grimm in the show we have it being made really clear that in so many ways, being a Grimm should be a metaphor for seeing into the seedy reality of our society and how fucked up it is. Maybe Nick will not forget that as often anymore? I can hope, right? You can see it without becoming it, Burkhardt. I love all the quiet attempts not to cry, not to reach out and offer more compassion than Trubel can take, especially on the part of Juliette and Rosalee who have a pretty good idea of "we know what this feels like" (in Juliette's case, as the camera reminds us, especially being made to feel crazy for what you're seeing) and then don't reach out in a way that sets up a crying Grimm at the table. Because she'd hate that. In short, I love everyone in this scene.
Trubel breaks the moment by requesting that fresh plate of spaghetti! Show's over, folks. And for bonus points the phone will now ring, and yes, it's the really creepy guy out front. Look, you stand out front someone's house staring at the door, I don't care WHAT you are, you're creepy first and foremost. It is neither the feeb of following Renard nor is it Holland Manners, but it's a safe bet he's tied to one or both plotlines! He'd like to speak to Nick. He'd like to make sure this is Nick Burkhardt the detective. Nick is very polite, very professional, and very, very police with him. Giving away no information that confirms the guy's questions, if there's a problem he needs a name, yadda yadda. I love the tone and the body language that suggests even before Nick says it that this isn't an uncommon occurrence for either him or Juliette. And it's not. Cops are easily findable in most phone books, or I guess we're using 411, Spokeo, that kind of thing these days. When I was growing up it was still phone books, alright? (A: And you can bet your ass I knew which of the many $COMMON_NAMES in the book were cops, and I knew which houses belonged to them, because I was brought up with the theory that Cops Are Safe.) (K: Meanwhile I was brought up in DC.) (A: And then I got an edumacation, watched the Rodney King riots. You know how it goes.) People do this, maybe not as much as they used to, I don't actually know how common phone calls are as compared to emailing from an anonymized address, but Nick's right. They call, they want to talk, they back out last second. Nothing is not exactly what he means, but nothing he can legally do anything about is accurate. Creepy Stalker Guy will now get in his car and drive off, giving us a good shot of Pennsylvania plates to indicate that whoever he is, he's come a long way to see Nick. I'm just thankful it's not New York same's Nick and Trubel, though now that we've got all our known Grimms out of the east coast I'm wondering if they're trying to make some kind of moving westward, Westward Expansion/Manifest Destiny theme happen. Anyway.
And we're now at a hotel that is not the DeLuxe. Meaning that the person staying here has no ties to Royal conspiracies. Look, the DeLuxe pleases me but that's pretty much what that has become shorthand for, you know? And, no, this is a different hotel, therefore something else. Creepy Stalker Guy comes through the lobby, oh, hey, it's a Creepy Stalker Convention! Because the Creepy Stalker Feeb has taken an interest in Creepy Stalker Guy. Eventually Creepy Stalker is going to stop looking like an actual noun phrase. Creepy Stalker Feeb does not, however, go chasing after the guy, only makes a note of his existence in this hotel, and it's a new stranger on a telephone who comes charging into the elevator after Creepy Stalker Guy. I do appreciate that they're giving us this nod to continuity of the Verrat in Portland, now that they've got an actor they're reusing through several episodes; it helps ground us in the notion that they've got things to do which are not stalk and kill Renard. Because there's a lot of things at play here, as we're about to find out! At this point it's fifty fifty odds whether he's a false scare or an actual enemy following him, though given that Creepy Stalker Feeb is the visible threat, right up until the conversation turns to "same floor" and "maintenance" the feeling is more that this guy's a false threat. No, actually, when the maintenance conversation starts this is when I start going "ah-hah you're laying groundwork for a maintenance guy to come by and toss the room/try to kill Creepy Stalker, aren't you." Why yes, yes he is. We find this out shortly, first Creepy Stalker has to go back to his room and his Dad, Holland Manners. Look, my first experience with Sam Anderson as an actor was on Angel, and I wanted to bite his throat out, the character stuck. This guy is not Holland Manners. This guy is more like one of the victims of Wolfram and Hart, very frantic about something, not terribly forthcoming with the details. He apparently urgently needs to speak to Nick Burkhardt! Which is why Creepy Stalker Guy was Creepily Stalking, not clandestine stalker impulses at all but hovering uneasily wondering if he's doing the right thing. They look a lot alike even in real life; the difference is when you confront a creepy stalker they tend to get defensive, whereas when you confront an uncertain guy they tend to get apologetic and scurry off. Especially when the guy they're lurking around the edges of is at home, eating dinner, with guests, and not to be disturbed. Not!Holland Manners freaks right the fuck out because this is IMPORTANT, DAMMIT, but this is where we start to learn that the son is not in the know on this, daddy dearest hasn't told him a damn thing, and he has no idea why his father has suddenly started obsessing over Nick Burkhardt and whatever other details we're not getting because maintenance! Yeah, didn't I say that was going to happen? I totally said that was going to happen. The earlier scene in the elevator was the mook following him to find out what room he was going into, and laying the groundwork so that when he knocked on the door all "maintenance" the poor bastard wouldn't think anything was wrong. And he doesn't! His dad does, though. His dad is only paranoid because the Verrat are actually out to get him. We call this awaranoid now. Cue combat! And credits! No All Shall Love Renard And Despair, but Adalind-woge. That can't be good.
The Verrat mook has the initiative bonus of surprise, but apparently woge'ing is not a free action, because it takes him a second to get into battle form and that's just long enough for Not Holland Manners to skewer him on a sword. Sadly, not a sword cane, as the Hundjager-kebab turns around we see it's got a normal if excessively ornate hilt. I was rooting for sword cane. Sword cane, secret compartment cane, it's a swiss army cane! No, sadly, it's not. Which doesn't make the skewered Hundjager any less terrifying for the poor bastard whose father just killed a guy. I'm intrigued that they're picking now of all times to bring out an Aunt Marie parallel, dying aged experienced Grimm parent (or surrogate parent), clueless son who's all what the hell my dying parent (or parental figure) just killed someone what the fuck. I'm not entirely sure this parallel is going anywhere, either, but it exists. Contrary to Nick's response, though, this guy is not a police officer. He's not used to violent death and dead bodies and he will, as civilians often do, freak the fuck out. He tries to insist on calling the police, Not Holland Manners freaks right the fuck out right back and insists on not telling anyone and getting the hell out of dodge because they've been compromised. We get a bit more about how much Not Holland Manners hasn't been telling his son right now, complete with a slightly over the top "I don't want to hear any more of your lies" type speech (okay, sick fantasies, but whatever, it's still over the top and doesn't quite manage to escape the cliche of it all) and Not Holland Manners offering up the Verrat tattoo as proof. The problem with that is that the son doesn't have the context to appreciate what the tattoos mean. There's a story here I will tell you as briefly as possible about some American elementary school kids on a field trip to Japan, at a bathhouse escorted by a Japanese teacher, who ran into a trio of Yakuza with full tats. And how no one was sure who was more freaked out, the Japanese teacher who knew exactly who these guys were, or the Yakuza who were being mobbed by curious/entranced/delighted children and couldn't get out of it without losing face or doing horrible evil things. The point being, tattoos outside of context are just pictures, bearing whatever meaning or lack of meaning the observer can attach. Just as the children with the Yakuza sleeve tattoos, this guy has no conception that crossed swords on the palm mean This Is A Scary Motherfucker and therefore is not responding with the same "oh crap" as we would. (That said, I was the only one who knew what Yakuza even were when my teacher told that story in class, so I got to be the one with the context for the tattoos and do all the facedesking/oh crap saying. It was morbidly hilarious. Of course, no Yakuza were trying to kill me at the time, so understanding the significance of tattoos was less important...) (Also to continue the digression, Yakuza tattoos do not fucking look like Akira Kimura's thank you end of story.) Anyway. Yes, the Hundjager has Verrat tattoos, no Josh doesn't have the first clue what the crossed swords mean and by the way, dad, you killed a guy. Rather than explain the tattoo and the Hundjager and everything Not Holland Manners goes with the immediately relevant fact of this dead guy was trying to kill us and there will be more coming can we go now? I have to admit, too, that trying to kill me would be a compelling reason to get the fuck out of dodge, even if the fuck out of dodge means a police station down the line, and I have no idea why Josh is being so damn stubborn. Panic, maybe. ... Okay, but pulling the sword out of the dead guy and waving it around a bit in the air is not the most reassuring thing in the world ever. And DON'T DUMP THE BLOODY SWORD IN THE TRUNK OH MY GOD AT LEAST WRAP IT IN SOMETHING FIRST. Aslan would rip you a new one.
Over to the other hotel room of the moment, much more upscale as we can immediately tell by the marbled sink. It really hasn't been very long between last ep and this one, then, just long enough for Adalind to do whatever it is she needed to at the storage unit. She's never been the type to let wounds or, more accurately, anything that would interfere with her image as clean and pristine, go untended for longer than she absolutely has to. Renard walks in! I'm not sure why she bothers asking who it is except to buy herself more time; housekeeping always announces themselves. Renard believes absolutely none of her lies about breaking a glass! Good Renard. The fuck are they doing with lighting him; it's been like this for a few episodes but this time it's even more egregious, like they're actively trying to make Sasha Roiz unattractive. Or less attractive. Guys. Guys what are you doing. Your bad guy can be as attractive as your protag, and anyway they've been going out of their way this season to blur the lines between good and evil. Renard, sweetie, your place has been compromised SINCE FIRST SEASON. Even if Kimura got dead and it seems like the Dragon's Tongue hasn't bothered anyone since then. There's a very strange tilted angle on this scene, I guess to remind us that their intentions are out of true and nobody's saying what they really mean? I think it's a bit unnecessary after the establishing shot, but alright. Adalind dislikes being cooped up and kept in the dark and wants her baby back, you fucker, and nobody can blame her for that even as we're pissed at her unthinkingly following Viktor's instructions. (Seriously, Adalind. PROOF OF LIFE. You really watched and read nothing useful growing up, did you.) They do a marvelous job of rehashing the fight in very few lines, and Renard's look down of guilt as Adalind lists all the things she doesn't know (and he sort of does) about baby Diana is classic. He turns that into concern for the cut, and I think this is a combination of Adalind hating showing weakness and not believing that he gives a damn. He doesn't! As his next words show, even as he sits down to telegraph how he's Not A Threat. That's cute, Renard. Pull the other one. It's got a witch's hat on. Yes, do please ask her for specifics, because I want to see what lies she comes up with. No, no lies, she does feel better with Renard back because she's half in love with him still. Just a lot of misdirection. I think Renard would be in love with her if he didn't know her better, or at least he'd be a lot more openly caring. She could be an equal partner, if she had someone willing to put in A LOT of time and effort getting her up to speed on How Do Conspiracy Properly. Willing, able in both time and teaching skill, and frankly I don't think Renard has either of the latter. I mean, time definitely not, teaching style that would mesh with Adalind's ability to learn? Noooo. But saying that is blatant manipulation, yes I see what you're doing with trying to seduce me, and now let's have an incredibly unromantic, unloving exchange of bodily fluids. YAY. Because that's turned out so well for either of them in the past.
Completing our trifecta of unfortunate hotel room scenes, Creepy Stalker Feeb comes in to find his Verrat pal dead, and proceeds to woge out just in case somehow we'd forgotten he was Verrat, too. I'd love to know how he's accomplishing all this work for the Verrat when he's gone AWOL from the job that leaves him perfectly positioned to DO said work. I mean, really, dude. You're not very bright, are you. Unless he's somehow gone back to work, which given the lack of time between episodes seems unlikely.
Across town, or at least somewhere that is not at the DeLuxe or the other hotel, Not Holland Manners is pushing his son to keep driving until they can find a safe place to hole up. Josh continues to react the way most normal people would given their lives abruptly being turned upside down by murder, attempted murder, and an unMasqued world they're not yet prepared to deal with. Hard to say what building they're pulling up to except that it once served time as a refueling station, whether as a public gas station or some sort of refueling station for a shipping company/fleet of company cars/what have you, I couldn't say. The inside of the building doesn't tell us much, either, though we do get some snark about breaking and entering as opposed to murder. Not Holland Manners continues to be a font of experiential wisdom, i.e. bring the trunk o' secret shit in and this'll do for tonight but in the morning they need to move on. I like this guy. Too bad he's going to die. Um. I don't think I'd want any of the blankets out of that trunk that you tossed a bloody sword into. Unless it's just the car trunk, not the So, really, I'm kind of in agreement with Josh's what-the-hell Dad, only for different reasons. Poor Josh. Like Trubel, this is not exactly the optimal way to be introduced into the Masquerade.
To contrast with this dirty, makeshift hideahole let's go to Nick and Juliette's place again! Let's start with a canted angle by way of indicating that yes, this may be a normal place but in some respects it isn't, and in some respects it's scary as fuck. I think this has less to do with anything happening in the show, though, and more to do with the conversation we're about to see between Trubel and Juliette. Trubel, as it turns out, is curled up on one end of the sofa (which may be a normal posture or may be a defensive posture, it's difficult to tell; I'm going with defensive, myself) with one of NIck's books, and Juliette offers the use of her bike. This entire scene, generally, feels a bit orphaned from the rest of the show but on the other hand it's also a very good character building piece. Trubel and Juliette discuss chess, which Trubel doesn't play but she at least understands the rudimentary basics and has a preference for the piece that moves out of pattern with the others. The customary symbolism for people who play chess in visual media is that they are not only smart, they are ruthless games-players, or at least are capable of it. In this case it's a little bit off from the usual, in that the knights move differently from everyone else (anviling us with all the ways in which Trubel is coded as not your average young woman and not inclined to play your bullshit patriarchy games, because in case you hadn't noticed that's an INCREDIBLY prominent theme with her) but also sometimes you just upset the board. When given options A and B, choose C! Shit like this is why we enjoy Trubel so much. Juliette asks about the queen, because as a feminine symbol of ultimate choice, yeah, that'd be the one. Particularly the whole, pawns can become queens thing, and suddenly I'm wondering if the writers' room ever read a certain aaaancient HP fanfiction. (A: Look, just nod and smile if you don't know, don't go look it up, let my shame be unknown.) Yeah, sure, Trubel loves the queen, she saved her life once! That's not a metaphor for anything, either, though it might become so given time; I think we can safely say that Juliette's about as close to a queen chess piece as you can get out of the ladies, being less constrained by things like a child or the Wesen Council than Adalind or Rosalee. Juliette, to her credit, has learned enough about Trubel by now that she barely winces at the story of stabbing a Coyotl with a chess piece, and while it's plausible that she really was being attacked, it's also plausible that she misinterpreted because she's so used to people attacking her. We will not be discussing that right now. We will instead do an abrupt topic jump that's so abrupt it's entirely transparent as an excuse for Not Talking About This Anymore. Juliette's going to take Trubel shopping! Her treat! No, let's not, let's not get used to having Stuff, enough stuff to weigh you down when you're on the run, and let's all note how thoroughly Trubel's assuming that sometime, this goodwill will end. And then she'll have to make another new life for herself, and her only comfort will be in knowing that she's not crazy. I can't even start to fathom the drugs they've tried to put her on, too, which given that she's traumatized, probably depressed, definitely hypervigilant, but all of those are situational so far as we know? That shit will fuck you up when it's the wrong drugs, too, and yeah, they will coerce inpatients into taking them. Particularly the kinds of places it seems like Trubel's ended up. At any rate, Juliette runs roughshod over the objection, let's go anyway, maybe they won't get a bunch of stuff but they can have bonding time! I don't know if that's actually what Juliette's thinking, it's what I'd be thinking in her situation, but Trubel just… does not want to get it. Or, in general, get it. People aren't nice, they're after something, she just hasn't figured out what these people want yet. I really hope she figures out that some people are just decent before her brain snaps and she does something that makes everyone's lives ten times harder.
Okay, first of all, let's all note that when Renard sleeps alone he usually sleeps stretched out on the bed in some way or form. Most of the times we've seen him, he's been sprawled out. Except in distress when, as with a lot of people, he curls up. He can't curl up too far because camera angles and needing to get the actor's face in, but it's definitely implied as a fetal position. And given that Renard doesn't normally sleep curled up (some folk do!) this is not the position of a man in bed with a lover, that's the position of a man going "maybe if I ignore her she'll go away." Not that Adalind's gone far! In fact that seems to be what's woken him up, Adalind's voice on the phone in the next room. What the fuck is she up to? his face says. What the fuck is she up to, indeed. Calling up the animal hospital where Juliette works and trying to get in to see her, as it turns out. Also holding a string of bones in one hand and playing with it like an office fidget toy. This would probably bother me more if I wasn't the one picking up skeletons and claws and teeth and things off the beach and the sides of mountains as a kid. (A: And dissecting owl pellets. Can't forget that.) (K: And tanning deer hides. Do you know how much that process smells?) Anyway, she gets the next time Juliette will be in and that's when Renard opens the door all "excuse me, the fuck are you up to?" Ordering room service! No? No. Really not. No one believes you, Adalind, least of all Renard who seems to have been only sleeping with you in the hopes that it'd get you to shut the fuck up. Renard, I know you're tired, I know your only ally and friend has been killed but please. Pretty please. For the love of Birnam Woods, wise the fuck up. I know you're capable of better than this. The awkward is further emphasized by the peekaboo shot as Adalind drops her robe and attempts to continue the seduction that no one is fooled by, and, really you guys? I haven't cringed like this since the last Austin Powers movie. Normally I find both Sasha Roiz and Claire Coffee duly attractive people and there is nothing sexy going on here. It's manipulative, it's not even well-done manipulation, and I'm cringing all over the place. Haven't we had enough cringey sex between these two? Move it along. Christ, I haven't found Sasha Roiz this not-sexy-though-clearly-intended-to-be-the-sex-appeal since the memorial scene in Caprica when I kept screaming for him to put a shirt on, that is the opposite of frum. Don't ask. Renard's smirk is, I think, less "I've gotten laid" and more "god, you're a moron, aren't you"
Looking at it from above I'd almost say yeah, this was a refueling station for some kind of shipping or mercantile company, that looks a little too office/warehouse to be a gas station. Not Holland Manners is laid out on the closest thing to a bed they can find, which... I'm not sure what that is. Some blankets over a stack of boxes? A board on a pallet? I have no idea what that thing at his back is, it's a makeshift bed and he's stretched out on it and they're eating the last of their horrible gas-station food. Not Holland Manners disregards the last of the horrible gas-station food, as well he should, except he's back on the Nick Burkhardt train again. Josh would like some reason that does not involve the words 'Verrat' or 'Grimm' or 'Hundjager' or any other such thing, some reason in words that he can understand, why Nick Burkhardt would even listen to him let alone take him seriously. Oh honey. Let me also pause to note that this is how you throw obstacles in the way without making people incompetent, you give them different frames of reference, different points of view that lead to conflict, you give them bad luck circumstances, you give them any other obstacle but having them make consistently dumb decisions. A dumb decision once in a while is fine, everyone has them, Nick's current winner is not reading Renard in on the new Grimm and now new key in town. But for longer term conflict you do need something like Trubel's up and down adjusting to being in a stable environment, or Josh's awkward and painful adjustment into the world his father has known for most of his life and now no longer has time to explain to his son. It's just bad fucking timing all around. So, okay, Not Holland Manners continues to rant about things Josh needs to do, the latest being get the book from trunk. Apparently there's some sort of rule about how all Grimm stashes must be seen from the inside, or Josh has magically teleported to a Quentin Tarantino movie. I promise, you guys, we are smart enough to draw the parallels without you dropping weapons trunks and weapons armoires on our feet. That shot was very unnecessary. Not Holland Manners tears a page out of the book, which turns out to be a nearly identical journal, just in case we didn't get the parallel the first five times. The page turns out to be the Hundjagers! So, Josh is to show Nick that and it will be the magic password or something. For a final anvil, Daddy Dearest continues to die of an as yet unnamed ailment that causes unspecified pain I think I preferred Aunt Marie's cancer. The more they punch us in the face with these parallels the less I feel like this is leading to anything that will be worthwhile. I could be wrong. But I think the subtler parallels work better when there's not any end game to hint at, more than these blatant ones.
Meanwhile it's barely controlled chaos at the spice shop already, with the sort of customer who doesn't want to listen to expert advice, a phone ringing off the hook, and oh, yeah, here comes a guy with a delivery he needs a signature for and IT IS ALL GOING WRONG. (A: I know that stage of wedding stress! I bet Bree Turner knows that stage of wedding stress. It is made for punching people until they sit down shut the fuck up and DO WHAT THEY'RE TOLD WHY IS THIS SO HARD. Don't ever ask me about Men's Wearhouse unless you have a spare 15 minutes for the ranting about inability to deliver as promised.) This feels a little bit disjointed from the rest of the episode, again, except that we don't entirely have a B plot, it's all the homicide in the hotel room coming together with the Grimms and a bunch of character bits in between. Which is fine! It just makes the episode way less procedural than the assorted filler eps we've been dealing with. More character driven. What a shock! It's like we like that more. Rosalee will now storm off and blow up in private because her usual grace under pressure has been put severely to the test. Or in some other words, her easygoing nature is being sorely fucking tested, except it's an actual easygoing nature in this case, not a Norman Bateman version. Monroe, because he is a sensible fiance, goes pelting after her with the barest minimum of excuse-me to the people in the store because he has his priorities straight. And then she proceeds to turn around and terrify him by implying that maybe they shouldn't be doing this, except Fesman gives us the gift of dialogue that differentiates between a wedding and a marriage, and the two are VERY different beasts. No pun intended. This isn't anything we couldn't have anticipated, Rosalee getting a very bad feeling about this (Rosalee is TOTALLY Han in this relationship, what) and Monroe talking her down from it with his customary dry humor and yes, he knows and loves her anyway. Awww you guys. The music would like us to know that yes, of course something bad's going to happen at the wedding. Just in case we were going to be somehow surprised by that.
Renard has bought a clue! Half a clue, anyway, he's making use of Wu as someone not in the know about much of anything to keep an eye on Adalind's comings and goings from the hotel. Wu's expression says he has no idea what his Captain's gotten mixed up in but he doubts it's anything good. But he will be a good sergeant and sir-yes-sir him. For now. Other conspiracy shenanigans are actually more about Hank and Nick than about what Renard's gotten himself into for a change, and thank you Hank for sitting on the edge of Nick's desk so you two can lower your voices and not talk about coverups at normal speaking voices in public. Jesus. Hank has a problem, or the beginnings of one, which is that the girls they rescued from Asshole Lebensaugers last episode gave witness statements that included Trubel's presence and first name. Nick lists out a range of reasons why that shouldn't be an issue, which it won't as long as the girls and Trubel don't run into each other again. A moderately safe bet, since right now they'll be in different circles and Portland's a decent sized city! And, most to the point, there's no hard evidence to attach her to the crime scene. Except, I would point out, the high probability of DNA in the Lebensauger's teeth? No? We're going to ignore that? Great. I will endeavor not to think too hard about the ways you could make that not an issue, anyway. It also sounds like Trubel was the one taking charge of wiping her presence from the scene, based on Nick's commentary about how nobody's ever managed to pin anything on her. Uh-HUH. Right then. Further coverups will be forestalled by Renard requesting their presence in his office so he can read them in on the current problem. Guys, this would be a great time to read Renard in on the new baby Grimm in town. Please?
Back at Chez Silverton-Burkhardt, Trubel is the only one left at home to answer the door when Josh knocks. This could be either a good or a bad thing, though so far it's a good thing in that she hasn't opened the door to a stranger yet. As well she might not! Josh is very polite and very confused about how his dad insists he has to talk to Nick Burkhardt and he has no idea why, but they drove here all the way from Pennsylvania, and he's got this drawing to show Nick. Trubel asks to see it, presumably in the hopes that it will clear anything up. For a wonder, it does! Except Trubel, being used to keeping her responses under wraps because you never know who's watching or what they'll make of it, doesn't react. And Josh decides this means she has no idea what's going on and to back away embarrassedly. Remember what I was saying about non-stupidity-driven-conflict? Yeah. This is also good. Trubel comes out and grabs the drawing, asks if his dad drew that? And says it's a Hundjager. Which, now she has Josh's attention, since he hasn't said that to-him-imaginary word, giving him independent confirmation that yes, this is a word that means something outside his father's ramblings. Trubel then learns that Josh has no fucking clue about the Wesen, the Masquerade, or any of it, but his father does. Not that she indicates as much to him. She'll call Nick, though.
Nick, unfortunately, did not take his phone into Renard's office. Which I guess isn't too uncommon? I know mine tends to be glued to my side, but I also know I'm just like that. If he did happen to answer mid-briefing I have to say this would solve the entire case well ahead of time, and then they'd have to come up with something else to do for the back ten minutes at least of the ep. So it's a bit of a stretch (We saw Nick take his phone in once before, at least) but not too much of one, for making the ep behave within plot constraints. Pretty sure we've also seen Nick leave his phone out of his reach, too! And he has no reason to believe he needs to be attached to it this close right now, all his cases are in the paperwork or prelim stages. So! Hotel room scene, and Renard's reading them in on this because the dead guy's a Verrat agent. And not just any Verrat agent, one with Special Section D (is this ringing more secret police bells for anyone, that there's always a special occult division? it SHOULD BE, especially if you know anything about your WWII history both actual and mythological) which means they've got wind of something in particular. LIKE A KEY. Says Nick's face, sort of. Or the coins, perhaps? I'm still waiting for those to come around and bite anyone in the ass again. We now have a name on Not Holland Manners: Rollick Porter. Porter, as in a keeper of the keys to the door? You guys are not subtle sometimes. I'm gonna go quote the entire porter scene from the Scottish play, that seems apropos in all kinds of ways. Son Josh, traveling together from PA, no prints from either of them (one assumes, though they're focused on Rollick) linked to any crimes, nothing under the name for a record, that's a very under the radar sort of Grimm! I approve. Renard approves. Nick, take some fucking lessons. Hank please do not joke about the Holy Grail being in that trunk I would not be surprised if the keys end up leading there. You know what I love? I love Renard sharing information about anything at all, and putting the people he knows he can trust with this aspect of things on the case. I wish he'd read them in on his worries about Adalind, though given how nobody here is exactly a neutral party when it comes to her I can't say I'm surprised he doesn't. I REALLY fucking wish Nick would read Renard in on Trubel's existence, because that's exactly the kind of thing your police Captain who happens to be a bastard Prince needs to know. Who the fuck do you think has had your back on coverups until now, Nick? Jesus. Or rather, Jesus Christ It's Renard Get In The Car. Hey, look, we can do obligatory callbacks too! And on the desk the phone rings just to confirm for us that Nick's not getting this right now.
Trubel comes back with that she wasn't able to get ahold of Nick, and Josh is still ready to walk away from all of this, maybe more so, now. She, on the other hand, is not yet ready to let this guy go, interrogating him about what he knows, whether his father has more drawings like this, and he doesn't have a clue, does he? No, sweetie, he really doesn't, he's not a Wesen, he's not even a Grimm, and scaring him won't make him woge. Though I wouldn't bet that that's not what she's trying to do, if she's trying anything and not reacting on instinct. Intimidating him into doing what she wants, at least, which is for him to take her to his father the purported Grimm. The piece de resistance, pun only halfway intended, is when she basically tells him "take me with you if you want to live," which now that I think about it would have been almost more hilarious and certainly a better callback than all the Aunt Marie anvils. I totally buy Trubel as another Sarah Connor type, I don't know about you.
Back at the De Luxe Adalind is leaving for... somewhere. And Wu is on her tail! And calling in that she got into a cab and is heading... somewhere. Should he tail her? At Renard's initial no I admit to feeling a little like he really had lost his game but, yes, contacting the cab company to get the drop-off point is probably more discreet than having her followed by a black and white, so good job there. The constant dropping of 'Radio Cab' instead of 'a cab' or 'the cab company' reminds us that we're in Portland, though why they choose to focus on it now I'm not entirely sure. The brief scene closes on Renard looking not only troubled, but also planning. Remember the eye darting thing I mentioned a couple recaps ago? Yeah, he's doing that, which indicates either a fidgety actor or, which I consider to be more likely, Renard trying to juggle too goddamn many factors at once. And Adalind provides him with even more known unknowns! I fucking hate unknowns.
Back at the gas station thingie! The old volvo pulls up and Josh attempts to give Trubel a stern talking to about leaving his dad out of whatever's going on, and how he's an old man who's frail and sick and should not be caught up in dangerous things. Trubel is not into this. Trubel will in fact slam poor Josh up against the wall and threaten him, loudly and viciously. This is definitely meant to scare him into woge, but also I think this is Trubel reacting both to the immediate unknown danger and to the past several days' worth of being around Nick, in a much different environment than she's used to, nervous and unsure of herself or where she is or how long it will last, and building up stress as a result. That's definitely a lot of built up stress in that yelling, at least. Fortunately this is the point where the elder Grimm shows up. We now will have a hilarious little bit of dialogue where both Grimms circle around each other verbally like wary feral animals. Also including the hilarious question about whether or not Trubel is Nick's daughter, which both indicates that he doesn't actually know Nick Burkhardt or how old Nick is or is supposed to be, or very much about him, and suggests that he wants to trust Trubel despite not knowing her from Eve. So, all right. If he wants to talk to a Grimm, Trubel's the best he's going to get, with the additional point from Trubel that Josh isn't a Grimm and has absolutely no fucking clue what he's dealing with. That seems to decide Rollick on what to do and he physically grabs Trubel by the hand and drags her in, leaving his son gaping at both of them. Nice, dad. One wonders what kind of dad he was before he started dying and turned into a last crusader, because he seems to disregard his son's opinions and wishes awfully easy even when it isn't a matter of life and death. Plus we have a history of active Grimms not being the best of parents. Another gratuitous trunk shot gives us the bloody sword, which, ew, and also unrealistically bright red, and Rollick holding forth on the trunk, its contents, and how his son doesn't have a clue but he needs to get this to Nick. Whereby this means the trunk generally and the key specifically. Josh is taking being talked over awfully well, though I suspect at least some of that is tolerating the sick old man's ramblings because he's a sick old man and because he's still his father. And yet that does not give me faith in Rollick's parenting abilities, really. Of course any indignation or resentment on Josh's part will now be forestalled with a timely collapse from Rollick, because we can't have information getting out that might be useful! And besides, Aunt Marie died gasping out some cryptic words, so should he. Only in his case the cryptic words are you must not read from the book leave the trunk alone! Helpful, Dad. Real helpful.
It's a three-ring circus of people knocking at Nick and Juliette's door that they might not want there! At least the son of a Grimm is less worrying than Adalind, who will proceed to do a little bit of B&E oh my god it's an ACTUAL SKELETON KEY. That's the coolest fucking thing we've gotten out of Hexenbiests and their toys in a long time. That totally trumps the hat at the end. I want one. Looks like they require at least woge and maybe blood to work right, or maybe the blood came before? I'm having flashbacks to Bluebeard's key of dripping blood, and if that was on purpose well done everyone. Laneuville must be really fond of the Tarantino shot looking up at people through various things, because that's three now and there's no reason for Adalind rifling through Juliette's dresser to be a callback to much of anything. Drink for the rule of three, though! One piece of lingerie and one clump of hair plucked out of the hairbrush later, with bonus pause over the small vanity mirror in case anyone in the audience hasn't read Harry Potter and can't surmise that there's going to be some Polyjuicing going on. By the way, this is one of those moments where if you would just TAKE THE FUCKING BUS, Adalind, you could lose Renard easily enough. But no, she wants to be rich and snooty and take a cab, and those are actually easier to track without sending a black-and-white after her. Moron. Or maybe I blame that on the writers, who live in LA and therefore don't know from good public transit. Please, I beg of you, remember this for next season? You can do all KINDS of cool plot points with it if you just stop to think. Not to mention endless Batmanning on, off, and behind buses. Speaking of Batmanning, hello Renard! He gives no fucks for what she claims to be doing here, she has exactly zero neutral or positive reasons to be talking to Juliette, and let's have a search through her purse, now with added snark! Renard, honey, I know you don't know all of what she's capable of now but could you, I don't know, stop to think before you deliberately piss off the repowered Hexenbiest? Dammit, Renard. The way he turns his head to get a faceful of vase he's lucky that didn't kill him, for that matter. Temple's a really vulnerable area of the head, as head injuries go, although they seem to be focusing the brunt of the skin-breaking damage more toward the frontal lobe area. Nice hard chunk of skull.
It's a flurry of activity at the ER entrance, Josh trying to get a doctor or doctors, Rollick trying to impart upon anyone who will listen the importance of getting that trunk to Nick Burkhardt, Trubel trying to stay out of the way and trying to take in all of the information at once. Josh goes with his dad into the hospital, like you do, but unfortunately this leaves him the only option of giving Trubel the keys and asking her to park the car. I'm honestly a little surprised she didn't just drive it over to Nick's house. The docs wheel Rollick into a room and a nurse says Josh can't go beyond that point, presumably because OR, ICU, something like that. And then on the heels of that emergency, Josh gets a call from an official sounding guy who purports to be Detective Donovan. About the murder in the hotel room, oh joy! Claiming that they have a witness who says it was self-defense, etc, this would all be very credible except there were no fucking witnesses. Not that, sadly, we expect Josh to get it, because up till now Josh's life (or at least every indication of it) has not involved murders, combat situations, fleeing for one's life, or the police except perhaps in the instance of the occasional traffic ticket or seeing them as crowd control at events. Maybe he got a telling-off for trying to buy liquor with someone else's ID when he was an idiot kid in college or high school, but nothing like this. He remembers enough to be surprised that there was a witness, we can hear that in his voice, not enough to push to contradict the supposed detective's story. While "Detective Donovan" is assuring Josh that it'll be okay, they need to turn themselves in so it can be worked out, we see the Feeb getting into a car full of four Hundjager. Four? Really? That just seems like overkill for one dying Grimm and one civilian. The Feeb seems to think it's just enough kill, and says he'll meet Josh at the hospital and, again, they'll sort everything out. Feel free to hear a "kill them all and then" at the start of that, because I'm pretty sure that's the type of sorting out the Feeb means.
I'm really not sure what the purpose of having these few seconds separate from the rest of Adalind's flight from the house is, particularly since it doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know. Hey, Renard's pissed! He's wogeing again! He has strong negative emotions about Adalind! Also would you all please stop hitting Renard in the face? Or at least go hit Nick in the face some too, my god. All it really does is give us the act-out to ad break, and we could get that from the Hundjager inna car instead. Eh. Whatever. We come back from that to the hospital and Trubel deciding that it's time to try calling Nick again. GOOD girl. Seriously, street smarts are so fucking useful for this, and I love that she's learned to simply go to Nick again and update him. Though you might've LED with "he's a Grimm." That's kind of the most important bit. Or at least, "there's a third Grimm in town here's the location thought you oughta know." She can be forgiven for not leading with the key, because Nick hasn't brought her up to speed on that and this is a lot of information she's been taking in. I love Hank's little perking-up faces as Nick mentions very specific keywords. Pun intended, though we don't really get a good look at his face when they're talking about the key. I also love the whole two seconds of Hank's what the fuck face, and the partnership inherent in "I'll tell you on the way." Not that we don't know this happens, but every once in awhile the reminder that Actions Are Taken Offscreen is nice.
Hospital parking lot! I love that Hank's first reflex is to match the make, model, and plates. I love that he has the plates memorized. Okay, I love everything about Hank. That's the trunk, Trubel knows where Rollick is, she's only volunteering information when asked which normally would annoy me but in this situation is good, because it means they're not all talking over each other. So, Nick refreshes us and them that the trunk, at least, is in imminent danger, Hank volunteers to stay with the car and Nick and Trubel will go talk to Rollick! Yay efficiency! This is seriously one of the best ways to convey an efficient team that has bonded over the last however many episodes: give them a crisis, force them to react to it, have them make sound decisions in about thirty seconds' worth of dialogue. Back over in whatever room they've assigned to Rollick, Josh is sitting in the Chair of Helplessness and Rollick is hooked up to the usual oxygen, oxygen monitor, blood pressure cuff? and probably a banana bag. Nick introduces himself and Josh dolefully says it might be too late for whatever conversations his father wanted to have. He's definitely not wrong about Rollick being on the edge, but Rollick does have some last words to gasp out, again. Mostly involving things passed down, and if I hear "from my father, from his father" one more time I'm going to punch something. We get it. Vary your goddamn words or I will beat you with a thesaurus. Passed down through my family, passed down through my bloodline, been in my family, had it for a very long time, argh. He also, interestingly, gasps out that Josh had nothing to do with the dead man in the hotel room, which is rather touching if a little too late, this concern for his son's safety and well-being. Oh, but on the other hand this does get Josh to reassure his father that the police know it was self defense, they called, everything'll be sorted out, which leads Nick to go "Um excuse me I am the police they told you what?" But Detective Donovan said! No, dear, there is no Detective Donovan, though fortunately for my sanity there is also no Holby and Bauer, and it's all been a ruse to let the Verrat know where they are. Rollick hasn't quite gotten the memo yet and so he's still babbling about the key. Guys. GUYS. There is no time for this. Literally, in the sense that Rollick starts babbling about his cane, now, and then promptly starts dying in earnest. One of these days someone will opt for the concise explanation instead of the Shakespearean summary and death monologue and the dying will happen after all information has been imparted, and then I will promptly die of shock. But it is not this day! Nick tells Trubel that there is no Detective Donovan and they need to get the trunk and the car out of there now, tells Josh not to let Detective Donovan in (I really don't think that's going to be relevant anymore) and by way of emphasizing the fact that Josh is shut out of every connection to his father at this point, a nurse pulls the blinds on the window leaving him staring at plastic slats. Poor love.
Pedeconference time! For once Renard's not involved in one of these. The world might come to an end. We have our badass Grimm walk and Nick catching up Trubel on the one minute or less version of what the fuck with the keys and the Crusades and the power beyond anyone's imagining, yadda yadda. More important things are happening out in the parking lot, or at least more immediately important; the keys we've been waiting on for three seasons now and they'll keep a bit. Hi three Verrat agents! Wait, only three? And Hank. Whose first move is to call in backup because he's The Best. Nick's response is to inform Trubel that she's staying put which is so not going to work. I know you can lie better, woman, that's not even remotely believable but Nick doesn't have time to get a believable response out of her. It's a good set of reasons why she should stay out of the way, though! Not least that he wants to keep this new Grimm as his ace in the hole, that's smart tactics at the very least. Maybe even sound strategy in the long-term. Who are you and what have you done with Nick Burkhardt? Not that it's going to stay his strategy, because she's determined not to be a pawn in their reindeer games, but I'll give him points for trying. Technically I think Hank should be announcing himself very first and then giving drop your weapon orders second, but I think we can very much forgive him for not doing so when he knows he's going up against people with a shoot-first mentality. Also that's hot. With the exception of not being sure I like where the Adalind-Renard arc is going in general this season, this ep really did manage at least ONE good character moment for everyone, even for Wu's dubious face at Renard in his office. But whoops there were four Verrat, and the last one's going for vehicular manslaughter. Oh goodie. You fuckers leave our Hank the fuck alone. When we come back from ad break you know what, I'm not actually trying to analyze this fight scene, it's way too dark and too choppy to bother with that. The salient points are, Hank gets back in the melee once he grabs up his gun and recovers from the roll out of the way of the car. Trubel comes out about a second behind Nick, yeah, so much for staying in the building. The driver peels off, bye Creepy Feeb, and that leaves them with one opponent each. She being the least experienced, her fight lasts longest, and I think she's actually trying to keep the Hundjager from getting a good look at her eyes? Which is a nice attempt at doing what Nick asked in the spirit of things, though anyone who fights like that is totally other-than-human powered. I actually kind of like how uneven her fight scenes are over these last three episodes, from no control and no finesse to a lot more control to somewhere in between. It seems to indicate that Nick's training her some on the side, and also that she's getting more comfortable with her own Grimm abilities - and it tells us that there may be some natural inclination to fighting ability that comes with being a Grimm. Hank will take the cleanup after this mess, Trubel will take the Volvo home for a value of home that includes back to Nick's place, and Nick will go check on everything else. Namely, did Rollick survive. Spoiler alert: no.
Back in the hospital we have Josh and an empty bed, so that's the end of that then even without Josh's verbal confirmation. Nick is surprisingly sympathetic, I think I'm more surprised not because it's an emotion we haven't seen from him, because Nick isn't a complete asshole, but because he's displaying a degree of perception not usual to him. He also tells Josh that they have his car because it's easier than explaining everything, which, dude. That is not very law and order of you. Anyway, he'll have an officer come by and pick up Josh and take him over to his place and are you sure about this, Nick? You couldn't just leave the man cab fare? You're not all that good at this cover-up stuff, are you? Even Josh is wondering about him, with his "what kind of cop are you?" statement. Nick, notably, has no response except to acknowledge the validity of the question. Yeah, I thought it was a good question, myself, I hope it's one we'll see addressed more next season. We already know what kind of cop Renard is, after all. (Apparently it's the kind that's a Prince of the City first.)
Oh, hey, speaking of the Prince of the City, he's coming back into his? Adalind's? their? THE hotel room with a gun drawn. Just in case we didn't know he was pissed off at her. She's not in the room, though, in fact there are no signs that anyone's still in here, so he's on the phone being very imperially angry at Wu. At least he's not likely to kill Wu if he fails him? Still, there's very little cop left in Renard's pissed off face right now, and a whole lot of Prince. I have really no idea what they're doing to Renard at this point, it's veering between uncharacteristic lack of competence and awareness, and uncharacteristic but more explainable lack of self control. I still dislike it fairly immensely.
Somewhere in between getting the car to Nick's place and getting all the crap in the trunk spread out over their dining room table, someone cleaned that sword. OH GOOD. I see a lot of weapons, some parchment scrolls, some jars and vials and whatnot of various zaubertranks, a bunch of journals and diaries. It looks pretty much like a mini-trailer's been vomited into Nick's house. Except for that one bottle with a cork in which looks like nothing so much as a bottle of Kinky Red liqueur decanted into something marginally more old-looking. We do get a line reference to the missing vase, because Renard's certainly going to clean up after himself and Adalind in their house! Renard. PLEASE USE YOUR WORDS. You're so good about it with certain aspects and so fucking awful in others. Trubel, being in some respects a woman after our own hearts, is not participating in the search for the key so much as she's going through the journals and reading them in fascination. Some of them are new to her even from what's in Nick's journals! I wonder if she's really gone through all of them, and if so, damn, that's dedication. Arbeitigasfresser is I think what she says, which translates vaguely to "work scavenger." That doesn't sound pleasant. Or look pleasant. Josh, in typical clueless civilian who's never read the right wrong books or seen the right movies, is standing around defensive and closed off and utterly terrified in between grieving. Juliette, in keeping with her character, offers him at least the scraps of explanation he might be able to hold onto, even if it's incomplete and not entirely helpful. Please don't call them monsters, that way lies Grimms who kill Wesen indiscriminately. No, he's never seen the key. You guys. GUYS. It's in the fucking cane, for the love of god. Trubel's the one to think of it, which I think has as much to do with her being least emotionally involved in this search as with proving herself as worthy of being the Awesome Hotshot New Grimm. My embarrassment squick, however: let me show you it. Okay ENOUGH with the goddamn his dad from his dad, even if it is telling us that the Grimm line in this family is paternal. Just. Fucking. Enough. Argh. Hank has a mind for puzzles, because he is The Best, and this too is pretty in keeping with his character. He's actually a better detective than Nick is, Nick's very often just the muscle. Unless he's playing tour guide to Wesen. Hello, key! This should be fun. Nick please stop showing off in front of the kehrseite this way leads giving away too much goddamn information.
OH LOOK IT'S ANOTHER TARANTINO TRUNK SHOT. I think I know who this director wants to be when he grows up. Seriously, can we stop already? Trick or distinctive shots are to be used sparingly or they lose their significance, the same with any other trick oh never mind. The point being, Rosalee is getting the key out of the hiding place and putting back the papers and passports. That's also not a very good hiding place if everyone in the gang now knows about it, you know. Anyway. Nick does the ink pad thing with his Aunt's key, giving us the map and a cue from Monroe for yet another flashback to the family map. Next Nick will ink stamp the other key, what we'll call the Porter key because why not, and what a coincidence the two line up! No, I know there are seven keys, which means the odds aren't that terrible that they get one of the ones adjacent to Nick's, I just for once want to see someone end up with two puzzle pieces in different corners of the damn picture and have to figure it out from there. Not today, sadly. So, we have a slightly bigger map that confirms the Schwarzwald, the Black Forest, and it all does come back to Germany. Because Grimm, right? Of course right. Monroe tries to put an optimistic spin on it by pointing out that they're one key closer to, and there it trails off. Because they have no idea what the something is. Rosalee wonders if they'll ever know and, Josh being the sensible civilian, doesn't want to know. He wants to get the fuck out of here and possibly forget that this ever happens, although he appreciates knowing his dad wasn't crazy. Maybe. No one appreciates that last maybe, but we do get a cluster of comedic reactions, I love all o' y'all.
Adalind has decamped to the storage unit for the foreseeable future, as you do when you knock out your sometime lover, father of your child, and rival and decide it'd be better to flee the scene entirely. It's a much rougher living situation than any I think we've ever seen her choose for herself, indicating that maybe she's starting to toughen up to outside strain as well as inside? And yeah, that damn well is Polyjuice Potion, the only reason I can think of that they're not getting sued by Rowling's estate is because potions of this sort go back, oh, at first blush I'll say all the way to Elaine and Lancelot, because that shit is exactly what Adalind's doing and we haven't had a good Grail Quest/Arthurian legend callback in awhile. (A: Excuse me. I have to go do a victory dance, because I fucking called this from the SECOND we got a particular spoiler on our set visit.) (K: Yes. Well done. You get Renard getting seduced and then getting shot.) (A: I DISLIKE THIS PRIZE. ANOTHER.) I cannot even with the witchbong hat, either. That's certainly one of the more hilarious usages of why is a witch's hat pointy that I've seen. Claire and Bitsie must have had FUN with this, by the way, and the FX on it are fucking creepy, going first to a modified woge and then to show us Adalind-as-Juliette. We're going to have to come up with a shorthand for that before next week. Much more creepy is how it takes her voice a few moments to settle out of Adalind's and into Juliette's oh dear lord. With the cadences remaining Adalind's. Well I'M fucking disturbed now, how about you.
Next week's promo! I'm going to leave aside the sneak peeks because I recognize some of you don't watch them and I just now discovered their existence, but promos are part of the episode. Wedding! Two Juliettes! Trubel cracking at least some portion of the case, as far as two Juliettes goes! Maybe Trubel and Renard talking and becoming allied? That would be fucking hilarious, I can't tell if that's real or judicious editing. Actually the sneak peeks aren't telling us anything we didn't already know except that Bitsie Tulloch's doing a hilariously awesome job of pretending to be Adalind pretending to be Juliette. I'm having Thor 2 flashbacks, don't mind me. And the rehearsal's awkward and Monroe, "don't worry it's going to be fine" is ALWAYS as bad as "what's the worst that could happen." I miss your genre savvy days, Monroe. Renard is still getting shot. Nobody is happy about this. All I can say is I really hope that he doesn't actually get fully seduced by Adalind mark Juliette, just the one kiss that we see in that sneak peek. I'm not holding my breath, though.
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