We're All Mad Here Grimm S4E04 Dyin' on a Prayer

Previouslies cover don't/tell Wu, Chavez and her weird group, Elizabeth being kickass, Adalind being fucking stupid about eating random food from strangers. Quote includes… the Book of Job? Considering the origins of golems I'd go for Genesis, but okay, fine, whatever. Nobody expects you fuckers to have done your research at this point even with one source for it right there in your cast. Oy vey.

Yes, we did, yes, we are, yes, we've stopped giving a shit. We pick up right where we left off with people in fighting? death? masks, and the potions class in the spice shop, which remains the most interesting side-plot they've got going. What this scene is doing is establishing all the shit that Adalind's gone through in the past few seasons without being too much of a rehash. Yes. Keep doing that if you need to remind people. Also WHICH of these MANY options makes poor baby Diana more valuable? All of the above? Because fuck's sake I want answers. Not that I expect them. Nor does anyone expect the brick through the window, which turns out to be some Wesen group or another that disapproves of mixed-Wesen marriages. (Elizabeth clearly doesn't, she slept with a human, produced a child, and is apparently fine with all of this.) Because of course there's at least one group to which we can say "oh THOSE assholes." Cue Monroe and Rosalee freaking out in the direction of what they'd normally do, and Elizabeth providing the calm cool head. I see where Renard gets it from.

That does not look like enough stir fry for two people and a Grimm, especially one who eats like Trubel does, but okay, whatever. The point is not the adorable domesticity, the point is that she left without saying anything, took all her stuff but the black knight pendant, and has freaked her foster not-parents out. Meanwhile the potionsmaking continues, Monroe attempts a Scarborough Fair joke that falls entirely flat, be nice, Elizabeth. But the point is, he wants them to get their honeymoon, whenever this is over. Monroe, you're on a weekly genre TV show on network, you're never getting that lucky. But it's cute that you're trying.

Octopus's Garden Grimm S4E02 Octopus Head

Previously, on Grimm! Everyone was stupid. And then everyone was stupider. Except for Renard, who can't qualify as stupid, he was dead at the time. Seriously, that's basically what this boils down to: stupid, or insufficient data to be smart. Also these are incredibly long previouslies, who the fuck edited them and why are you doing such an awful job. Mind you it's only this awful because there was so little data in the premiere, thereby making this basically a one and a bit minute's worth of recap of the only salient points therein.

Oh look it's a quote about memory to start us off. I will continue to give that such looks, both for the more literary reference (Alexander Smith, poet of the Spenserian school) and for the general attitude of LOOK CAP2 DID IT SO WILL WE. Guys, I really am judging you if this is where you're getting your ideas from. Badly. Apparently Renard's mother is capable of freezing time with her eyes and not actually woging while she does it. I'll grant that saves on FX. I'll also note that that makes her fucking terrifyingly powerful. Oh, the reason we're saving on FX is for the really atrociously bad CGI snake. One head black going into Renard's heart, one head red attached to hers (K: Positive to positive, negative to ground!), okay, I will grant that this is a pretty substantial indication that Renard has someone solidly in his corner. I'm sure she has her own motivations here, but this is the first person who's sacrificed of themselves to keep Renard alive let alone well-off in any kind of emotional or physical sense, beyond the confines of being cops in the line of duty together. So… yay for that? I already assume she's going to end up dead, evil, or both. But alright, the snake turns into dust/ash, she goes pale and collapses like you do when you used a… snake life-force transfuser to resuscitate your son. I wonder if that works on anyone you're not blood-related to. I'm betting the answer is no. The doctors tend to the abruptly-appearing still living person on their floor, Renard woges when he comes back to life, we'll leave them flailing around and visit the evil castle of evil.

Where the preeminent henchthing (is he getting a name ever guys? he hasn't died yet! I'm impressed! wait, Sebastien died after he got a name, we should name this one immediately) is filling Viktor in on the money trail: courier in Lisbon, cash payments, no trace to them. I wouldn't take his word for it either. In fact you're all incompetent please just stay in your model for the next ever and stop bothering people. Oh but wait a phone call! Adalind's not waiting to be summoned back to Vienna, she's at the gate demanding her baby. Really, Viktor, if you were half as competent at evilling as your goatee would suggest you could have foreseen this. Cue wailing and nearly crying and making us feel sympathy for Adalind who swears she only did what she had to do. In those words. A lot of repetitions of it. Yeah, I don't imagine having sex with a Grimm was all that fun for her, but let's not forget that she's had a lot of sex with people at her own instigation in … oh why am I fucking bothering. It's not like the show's going to point out that Adalind's a serial rapist, they're just going to let her keep blaming the men who control her. Which is the apparent purpose of this scene. I mean, I have some sympathy for her, but I don't for a second forget that she has raped three men on this show and that's just the ones we know about. In conclusion it's more nuanced than they're bothering to portray. Aaand I'm done ranting, because if you haven't been reading our blog for the last ever the archive is right fucking there, and the writing hasn't improved any. Nor have the brains. Seriously, that's not telegraphing, that's outright saying hi I'm going to throw you in a dungeon now.

Octoman will be better, right? Well, we can watch Trubel fail to shadow him steathily, which is fair, all her experience is with being the hunted rather than the hunter. I'm still gonna facepalm. I'm also going to give Russell Hornsby ridiculous props for that little headtilt as Hank suggests Nick try to stop blaming himself, because that is continuity and shared kinship of having… well, they'd probably call it having sex with Adalind, because Men Can't Be Raped, but we all know what they mean. And Hank's had a couple years to recover from that. Trubel continues to be a good detective/Grimm-in-training and update them, and we know how long that's gonna last: not.

Adalind left her brain on the plane to Vienna? Or possibly in that bundle of blankets. They're continuing to push us toward blaming Viktor for everything rather than acknowledge that Adalind had choices anywhere in here. I'm continuing to froth at the mouth about fucking agency fucking give your female characters some and let them be fuckups you assholes. No, I give up. There are no brains here, there is only dungeon and the need for steel wool while Viktor tries to ask her how the sex was. EW. EW EW EW. And then he'll drop the by the way Sean Renard might be dead any minute on her head just to keep her off-balance while he shoves her in the dungeon. Okay, seriously, I do see what the writers are going for? But all it does is create UTTER STUPIDITY on the part of everyone in this scene. And cackling, moustache-twirling villainy. And I'm bored now. I mean, everyone's doing what they can with what they're given, but the huff and puff line is on par with the fucking awful Little Miss Muffet line from The Covenant. Seriously. That is how far your dialogue is sinking, people. Do better. At least Claire Coffee still screams and froths convincingly. I am intrigued by the comment that the cell was built for Hexenbiests, which says some potentially interesting things about Sean's mother. And father. And maybe Eric Renard's mother. Who the fuck knows, but the older generation definitely had a hand in it.

Roll credits, while we sigh and set the snark engines even higher, because it's going to be the only way to get through the shoddy writing. A reminder: this says nothing about the acting and directing, which is anywhere from competent to excellent, by and large. It's just… they don't have a fucking thing to work with, and in at least some cases I think they're being directed into an oversell, and it gives us hives. Trubel's failure to stalk people also gives me hives, but at least that's predictable embarrassment squick by now and given time, I have some confidence in her learning curve. The Mr. Anderson is just giving me Matrix flashbacks now. There's not a cat on this hotel floor, is there? Trubel, you don't count. We're back to hotel room numbers make great ep number drops, gratuitous non-bleeding shirtlessness, and oh yeah, he's going to change his appearance. At least someone's not fucking stupid. Shame it's the one-off. There's still a puddle of blood on the floor where some dude is calling to find Henry, yadda yadda, what a tragedy, seriously, is this going to have payoff? Or do we just get a spy ring running around the West Coast poking at defense contractors with only one of them in jail? I'm assuming the latter, because what the fuck is continuity. This is why we call out bad writing, guys, this would make a wonderful addition to the influence of the Royals, out of which we've only seen one political machination in Japan (Mia), a shipping company (GQR, from Eric), and one allegedly influenced election from Viktor. And yet, we have no faith that this is going to happen. Trubel updates the people who actually give a shit about the law, yes, really, no evidence means no evidence and stop lopping off people's heads, it sets a bad precedent, kid. The lunch money exchange is, at least, moderately humorous. I will sign up for all the Nick and Hank and Juliette make awkward parents jokes.

Monrosalee have finally changed out of their wedding finery and are looking through the infinity of books. Yay! None of that looks like anything that's a gun on the mantel for later. Boo. Especially considering the work props had to put in. I like that we slowly get their hands revealed as they start working together on brainstorming how to figure this shit out, showing the wedding rings about the same time as we see them clicking past the frustration and worry and fear. I will be over here wincing at how they're better at detective work than Nick at this point, though granted there's also some emotional distance from it. Yes! Let's find out where the potion was made, if nothing else that might give Rosalee the ability to play sympathetic magic potion games with it, yes? Mind you finding out where Renard reverse-engineered the potion and/or made the antidote isn't going to be the helpfulest because, again: Zauberbiest. Enjoy that clusterfuck, you guys.

Trubel is eating a sandwich outside the door of Octoface's hotel room. Trubel, honey, that is not how you eat while on stakeout. That is also not how you shadow someone, although admittedly it's not like she can hear what's going on in the room otherwise. Still. She's so going to get made, this is so going to bite her, we can see it happening. Another phone call to another person in this defense company who we are also probably never going to see again, and it's the head injury story again. Imminent crisis is usually a good way to get under people's guard, and in this case it's a good way to get into the guy's house. Although if the address was in his head already, why did he write it down at all? So Our Heroes would have something to look at of course. Trubel, sensing imminent door to the face if she remains there, books it down the hall. Leaving her sandwich behind. Oh boy. Deprived of his car, Squidman has to hoof it to the address. Trubel you are the least inconspicuous shadow ever. Can't you at least pretend to be talking on your phone or something?

We interrupt this critique of her espionage skills for the Captain to wake up and gasp out "Mother?" at the woman who revived him and is now petting his face. Well that's not creepy at all.

Back at the precinct "Lawrence Anderson"'s cover is slowly falling apart due to a lack of sufficient background paperwork. No DMV record, an address and employment record that connects him to the Satellite Defense technologies thing, therefore to the victim Slocum, etc. Trubel continues to be obvious. Nick puts the SatDef employee on speaker so that Hank and we can hear what's going on, turns out Lawrence Anderson also suffered a head injury a couple weeks ago. And yet he's up and walking around now, gee, I wonder how that happened. Oh dear, Mr. Anderson had MilInt clearance. Wespionage! Yes, I went there. This tracking of the Red Octopus will have to wait till after the Steinadler Chavez pulls Nick out of there. Hank will liaise with Trubel in the meantime, attempting to put the brakes on her sticking her neck further and further out there. If nothing else, she can at least check in at regular intervals. Fifteen minutes is a good amount of time to set up a quick alarm if she goes dark.

This part is at least sort of a nice nod to the assorted times Nick's hauled a Wesen into interrogation for the express purpose of getting them to woge! Except now Chavez would like to know what it is Nick knows, both about the shooting and his house turning into a crime scene (again) (I would so have moved by now) and, under that, about Wesen in general. Well, he might work with her as a Grimm as well as as a cop, except… he's not a Grimm right now. Line busy. Try back later. Complete with woging out and giving herself plenty of time to prepare for what she might see when she looks at him! Nick suggests conspiracy, cough Royals cough, you fail your subtlety check, Nick. Fine, what about Trubel? ...what about her? Yeah, this is just going for a lot of stonewalling and nowhere useful, and while I assume eventually this will have some payoff, it would be awfully helpful if Nick had Grimm powers right now. Alas. His innocence, on the other hand, is inarguable as a result! The woge camerawork is very nice, I will admit.

While all this is going on Wu is putting together the pieces about the "criminology student" and the suspect from the footage from the stolen truck of the dead guys, remember that? Yeah, they might want to tell Wu, sooner rather than later. Not that they will.

Back at the castle of excessively hammy villainy we are apparently going on old stand-bys and feeding Adalind slops. She is the kind of scornful and defiant you get when you've only been a prisoner for a couple of hours. Viktor snarks and leers and snarks some more, and apparently is keeping her for her information on the Resistance? That actually shows kind of a want of imagination. I'd argue for that being just what he tells his henchman, except Viktor's never shown any kind of awareness of his henchman as a person. Then again, apart from Sean, none of the Renards really have.

Hank is still trying to track down the international and defense related espionage angle, but isn't getting anywhere. Wu would like to interrupt Hank for answers, starting with Teresa Rubel and her alleged criminology degree. That's not going to happen, Hank will now interrupt him to plead investigation and run away. Very blatantly, as soon as he sees Nick come in the room. At least he knows he's been obvious. So first they get to quietly freak out about Wu is going to figure it out, never mind that the worst risk isn't that he figures it out but that he figures out something else and runs with that, and they can't provide evidence to the contrary. And then Nick gets to freak out about Trubel is running around amateur detecting in the middle of an international espionage case. Oh you guys. Best worried foster parents.

Chavez is going to make sure that she knows who the Grimm is. We're going to have a moment over no, seriously, who the fuck is she working for? All of the major players so far know Nick's a Grimm. Or was a Grimm. And have worked with him extensively in the past! Or against, but the point is, the Royals (Eric Renard and Viktor at least), the Wesen Council (the hitpanther, deGroot) (... having seen Guardians of the Galaxy that's suddenly a lot funnier), a vast majority of Wesen in Portland (duh, and also Bud and the Beavers), the Lauffeuer (Ian Rosalee's friend), the Verrat (Edgar Waltz if he reported back, the voice on the phone for the ear conversation), even Wesen police in other states (the Balam), take your fucking pick they all KNOW. So what the fuck. Either this is the left hand and right hand of some agency aren't talking to each other (plausible), the writing is fucking sloppy again (also plausible) or we have yet another fucking player in the game, in which case I'm glad that Kitty stopped updating the murder dot-plots a long time ago because no, we fucking need a fucking Jarvis. Or a 3D rendering, and neither of us are architecture majors.

Juliette is going to the spice shop! Oh my god that is an adorable sign, even if they aren't on their honeymoon. Monroe continues to be the most adorable of awkwards, and Rosalee admits no, they haven't found anything, but they're still looking. What follows is the most awkward, uncomfortable, depressing, emotionally stressful conversation about how maybe they shouldn't cure Nick of not being a Grimm, mostly because she is tired of this shit interfering in their lives and she isn't yet ready to deal with Grimming being a part of her normal life. I do appreciate, however this looked on paper, that no one involved is trying to make it be okay, because it really sounds like Juliette is trying to dictate Nick's ... innate self? Body? Whichever. But no one is entirely okay with that, but no one is prepared to say, in the absence of input from Nick, that he didn't tell her he's thinking about quitting, and everyone is sympathetic towards Juliette and what she's been through. And Juliette is trying not to be That Person, and quick to reassure both of them that this won't have anything to do with their friendship. It's performances like this that keep us coming back, you guys. Poor everyone. Monroe opts to keep looking anyway, which is probably good. They, of all people, are some of the best at sitting on information when it involves quality of life or life choices rather than immediate life or death issues.

Renard continues to recover in his hospital room, with that annoyed face over what, no, why the fuck should a few bullets and being declared legally dead slow him down. I sympathize. He's also having a hard time believing she's here. Fuck, I'm having a hard time believing it, because what the everloving fuck she looks like his slightly older sister. Or his wife. Not his mother. Please, please let the later snark about this have dividends, because otherwise the only thing I can think of is both atrocious casting and directing. Apparently all Hexenbiests are blonde, ambitious, and incapable of playing on anything but their sex drives until they reach the age of full Cronehood or unless they're being cast in a remarkably racist role. I… yeah, I got nothin. Seriously that is creepy stoppit you guys. I'm at least impressed by how young Renard manages to look next to her, which is at least half the acting job. Snark about childbirth ensues, that's at least a little bit cute. The dialogue throughout is pretty fucking awful, Maman Renard would like to know who did this so she can go murder them, Sean would like her to get off the subject of the Family. Not that I entirely blame him. Also, what the fuck, lady, as far as anyone knows you've been in hiding for the last 30? ish? years so that the Royals don't kill you, you know the fucking answer is no. Bad dialogue is bad and should be taken out back and shot. Oh, and Renard needs to go do that thing. You know, the thing where he saves Nick's Grimm ass for the umpteenth fucking time. No, I'm with your mother, Renard, lie back and get better, you had bullets through your vitals. Well, now it's the hour of playing catchup in short order from last season again, at least that one's going to mostly take place off-camera and be presumably horribly emotional. Because ow. And it's a faster catchup than last episode, which I'm still grumpy about.

Back in the suburban neighborhood of bland in which Trubel sticks out like many hands worth of sore thumbs, Nick is trying to convince her that now is not the time for amateur hour. He does at least manage to get a location out of her (which is accurate to the neighborhood as seen on streetview!), and then she goes off to pick up the trail again, Trubel, honey, you are not a spy, you are not even a hunter, leave this to the experts. Such as they are. No, she's going to go follow him up to the house where the Squidee is playing Anderson some more and giving the head injury story again. And then sending the new victim out for a glass of water so he can track down, sneak behind Trubel, and hit her over the head with a log. Or that's the rough sequence of what happens, with a short break to incapacitate his next victim. After the break Hank and Nick drive up, see no sign of Trubel, and inexplicably upon not getting her on the phone decide to leave the area. Both of them. No, apparently taking five minutes to scan the area and/or leaving one of them behind to assist while the other one went back to check the hotel, or even sending a uniform to check the hotel, was too much of a stretch. Ugh. Just... ugh.

Back in the dungeon which is not at all like the hotels to which Adalind would like to become accustomed, she has rats. Big ones. Not quite rodents of unusual size, but they're working on it. I think Viktor specially imported those.  This, understandably, sends her into an "I just want my baby" mantra and a few camera angles of descending into madness. But wait! What's that scratching sound over there? No, not more rats, that's a peephole swinging open. Scraping open. Something. There's a cackling person on the other side of it. Robert Carlyle, is that you giggling from the Once Upon a Time set? Given that "my name is for me to know and you to find out" is a very Rumplestiltskinish thing to say. Grimm already did that story, though. Maybe it's Mark Hamill again. Adalind is the least impressed.

Sure, let's have some incredibly creepy spy!squid!Wesen moments. He's got a good point here about how what the fuck is a girl like her doing following a guy like him. That might be the only good point made in this entire subplot. Especially since for the love of god, Montressor, no, USE your creepy Grimm deathstare! In a mob it just makes the mob worse, with one guy he might haul back enough to get kicked in the face. No? No. She's established as too terrified to be a threat so he'll go poke the other guy's brains out with his face tentacles while the hotel manager flails about at the cops and the cops flail about at a cursory search. For this, you left Trubel on her own with a known to be dangerous spy? Seriously you guys are not being helpful at ALL right now, nor are you being very good cops. It's apparently time for the bad techno music of Trubel's asskicking, which she will deliver because squidman was dumb enough not to duct tape her legs. No. I have no explanation for this. I just need a new desk again. The one sort of benefit here is that she's still their best stunt fighter and it makes a cool scene, but fighting without your arms, even as a baby Grimm, does tend to make you lose. In this case lose consciousness again, that's three concussions in a few days, I don't know about you but I'm wincing for her brain cells. At least it provides an excuse for her not to be conscious at the time of brain-sucking, and now we have a montage that serves as a reminder of Trubel's rather traumatic life just going off what we've seen of her onscreen thus far, that's without going into less recent memories. He will now proceed to relive these while the cops finally get there and secure the fucking scene, and confirm at some greater length than they really need to that yes, in fact, both of tentacle man's latest victims still know who they are. They get to deal with horrible head injuries! But, y'know, aside from that they're still themselves. We'll call that a win, though a win by sheer fucking luck. I have no idea how they're explaining this shit in court. At least we get the detectives being adorable foster parents some more.

Back at police headquarters they finally get an actual name to the Octospy, which gives us nothing except that he was a well established and bad spy, seriously, how bad do you have to be as a spy to have an international record that size? With your picture and details attached. Natasha Romanoff is ashamed to share a profession with you, dude. A brief and purposeless reprise of the assault by Grimmemories later, we're over in the hotel room with Nick and Hank visiting the Captain! Which suddenly gives me all the mental images of a steady stream of police visitors stopping in to say hi and glad you're alive. I hope that happened. Pleasantries are exchanged, everyone is happy to see he's alive, he's behaving himself and staying in the fucking bed for once. Though not with the relaxing, he asks if Nick got the potion and, no. Not so much. Renard is not the happiest about this, but also blaming himself, oh, sweetie, no. We're laying this on the shoulders of no one in this room. Everyone can agree that they're glad the Captain is alive, at least, including the mysterious blonde! For a second there Renard has the most hilarious oh god I can't believe I have to do this why did you stick around face. Yes, in fact, he will because he is the ONLY one in this show who freely shares information, despite having the MOST reasons to be paranoid about it, but he will introduce her as his mother. Whose name is apparently Elizabeth Lascelles. Scelles, for the record, can be roughly translated as sealed. Elizabeth for, what, the English queen(s)? I'd've gone with Eleanor or Catherine, or maybe Mary, but I have a thing. And introducing this woman who looks to be about his age as his mother gets exactly the looks you'd expect. Apparently we're going to explain this with "she's had a little work done", with exactly the yes-I-know-this-is-absurd face you'd expect, and right in front of her, which is rude, but really what else is he supposed to do. You know what my biggest question in this scene is, actually? What the hell is that necklace?

Next morning we have some brief domestic tranquility of the checking on Trubel with her other foster parent, shut up, we're going to get all the mileage out of this we can because humor value. She will now steal all the bacon and take off on Juliette's bike so they can have some alone time to discuss Trubel's rash behavior and whether or not it matches Nick's. (Hint: he went into being a cop before he ever knew he was a Grimm. The answer is yes.) The dialogue here is written so clumsily I can't tell what it's meant to convey; the acting is aimed toward trying to be comforting toward and accepting of each other. Oh honeys. But that's not the intended focus of this scene; we have Wu watching the house so he can go talk about Trubel behind Nick's back. This is going exactly nowhere good. Yes, do tell Wu. Please. For the love of god. No, no, there will be no telling this time because of this… immense pain in his head? I'll even admit that my first thought was some kind of weird sympathetic Grimm-shared pain from octoman, but no, this is Adalind's spell fucking with them both. And this, children, is why you don't fuck around with mysterious zaubertranks when you don't know the side effects! I can't actually tell if this is shared vision or switched bodies. Or to lead to switched bodies eventually. Well, this should be hilarious and end extremely well for everyone involved! Juliette meanwhile has a the fuck have you been not telling me expression for the surveillance photo of Trubel. Who will now be Grimmnapped into the back of a van shotgunned by Chavez. No seriously who the fuck is she working for. Inquiring minds.

Next week… that does not look like answers. That looks like maybe Adalind has Grimm powers now, by the voiceover, certainly there's ongoing repercussions to the zaubertrank of doom. Time will tell if those bring any of the zombie!Nick repercussions into play, the guy's had so much done to and with his powers and we've barely scraped the surface of what could be long term results. Also Nick wants normal back, whatever that qualifies as. Well, that should be an interesting conversation or three.

A Grimm Feast: Awkward Bratwurst (S3E12)

Click here to jump to Just The Recipe.

Hello, Murderlings.  Guess what I did today?  I donated blood!  Yay!  Why am I sharing this?  Because while some people go through the donation process and shrug it off quite easily, I do not.  I take at least half an hour longer than normal before I can safely stand up, and for the rest of the day, I’m a bit…slow.  I was okay for most of the day but I’m especially punchy right now, because I’m tired and hungry and…I forget where I was going with this thought.

Anna: “So why did you decide to do a blog post and donate blood on the same day?”

Elle: “It happened to be a Wednesday.  I didn’t plan this.”

Anna: “Just checking.”

What are we doing today?  Oh right.  Awkward Bratwurst.  Awkwurst!  The entrée that Rosalee served to Monroe’s parents at the most awkward dinner party ever.  Oh, Monroe.  I’d like to make some snarky comment here about how you should’ve handled things differently when introducing your über-conservative Blutbad parents to your Fuchsbau fiancée, but to be honest…I think it went pretty well.  Eventually, anyway.

A Grimm Feast: Prodigal Green Beans (S3E11)

Click here to jump to Just The Recipe

Yay, awkward dinners!  In this episode, Rosalee brought Monroe with her as she was reunited with her mother and sister whom she hadn’t spoken to in seven years.  Mama Fuchsbau was more than happy to let bygones be bygones and embrace her returning daughter.  Sister DeEtta, on the other hand, was less thrilled—having been the one who sacrificed her career and social life to take care of their parents when Rosalee was struggling through her drug addiction.

Monroe did his best to make the family’s reunion dinner a positive occasion (even though he couldn’t eat the main course) by complimenting the green beans.  When he asked what marvelous ingredient they’d used to make them so delicious, DeEtta disdainfully replied: “Salt.”

“Oh honey,” thought I.  “We can do better than that.”

A Grimm Feast: Explosively Good Beef & Mushroom Tartlets (S3E3)

Click here to jump to Just The Recipe.

This is the episode when Monroe and Rosalee went to a fine local establishment for a romantic dinner…only to discover later that the restaurant was run by vengeful Bauerschwein who were using their culinary know-how to murder Blutbaden.  Apparently there is a certain truffle from the Black Forest that is toxic to Blutbaden, for definitions of “toxic” that include “complete loss of faculties followed by exploding.”

This truffle was served up in an irresistible beef tartlet to all customers, though only the Blutbaden were affected.  Fortunately, Monroe brought along his trusty vegetarianism and an adorable Fuchsbau who was more than happy to eat his tartlet.  Remember, folks: if your significant other steals food off your plate in a restaurant, it’s because they love you and are trying to save your life.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes Grimm S3E22 Blond Ambition

Previously on Grimm: parents drama! Wedding drama! Royals drama in the form of a target-fixated Hundjager! Baby drama mama drama Viktor's face is getting ripped off. Ahem. It's a highlights reel of all the doom, gloom, and poor decisions people have made over the back half or so of this season. Awesome. There's no possible way this can go wrong. Also, let's just stop briefly to note that regardless of Claire Coffee's hilarious Twitter campaign, Adalind doesn't actually know that Nick stole her baby. As far as she knows, the only person she has to blame for this directly is Renard; she can blame Nick and Juliette for not helping her but really, what fucking reason has she ever given them for wanting to? Yeah, not so much.

Three Grimms! Chug the Bottle! Grimm S3E21 The Inheritance

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?

What Child Is This Grimm S3E18 The Law Of Sacrifice

Before we get started, we heard via another fan about the tragic death of Burk Biggler, one of the circus performers two eps ago. At this time there's no known memorial fund or place to send flowers, but remembrances can be left on his Facebook page, and more details can be found here. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

And now, previously, on Grimm! Mostly, the baby, and the various people who want it. Also the epic clusterfuck that is everyone catching up to speed with what's going on and trying to grasp all the implications.

Speaking of implications, today's quote is from Rumpelstiltskin, which considering the deals Adalind's reneged on to keep her baby seems rather appropriate! Still wondering if there's going to be some magical backlash from that, or if Stefania's going to come calling now that Viktor... well, I'm getting ahead of myself. We pick up where we left off, though there's marginally less of Sasha and more of Renard as he holds the fascinated baby, and now I kind of wish he was wearing a tie that the baby could play with. More, now he looks like Renard's had time to get used to the idea of a) holding a baby and b) holding his (alleged) baby, and is somewhat more relaxed. Meanwhile Adalind is raiding Renard's fridge, which, he has actual food in there? Considering the conspicuous lack of anything resembling used cookware in his kitchen I'm faintly shocked. Though what she pulls out is more along the lines of easily throw-together-able snack food rather than anything that would require cookware. Strawberries, cheese. I think there's a bowl of grapes on the counter. Renard apparently has to ask her about the delivery, birth, whatever, only it comes out in the same tone that he uses for asking his detectives about cases and I have no idea why (insufficient emotional attachment to the mother? insufficient comfort level with discussing such things? since usually the father of a child has some degree of lead-up to the birth to get used to the idea), but I may have laughed at that. Adalind is about as snarky as you would expect. Dude. Bowling ball. Between the legs. Not ever fun, especially not in the woods with nothing but hot water and an assassin for a delivery nurse. Renard seems to not so much wish he could have been there for Adalind's sake as because his baaaaaaaby. Noting the fact that he barely looks at Adalind as he murmurs about the whole thing, because baaaaaaaby. Assuming it even is his. No one has questioned that since it was decided on screen by people who have no actual factual reason to know, but we're going to keep doing so! Adalind is more pragmatic and less squishy, and would also like her baby back now plskthnx. Which is probably practical but also slightly mood foreshadowing, heh. And she would also like to know what Renard intends to do to protect her and the child. Not an unreasonable request, I feel. Especially since he's more up to speed on the factions coming after her and the baby than Nick and company are or tend to be at least. Renard, what the hell with the stay away from the windows, your entire fucking condo is 75% windows. I can only assume he's saying that because he's tired and startled, as a security reflex, rather than paying more specific attention to his words because someone clearly didn't think about the layout/construction of Renard's penthouse when they wrote that line. Stay away from the windows in Renard's condo means get the hell out of the condo. For that matter, neither Adalind nor Renard are entirely with it, the next few lines of dialogue are the sort of distantly-connected-ideas, half thrown together by exhaustion and attempting to think their way out of their problems with only half their resources. Having done that a few times myself over the last week to ten days, I can sympathize. Adalind actually looks more with it than Renard, calm and much more self-assured than she has in most of the previous few days, if still tired and frazzled. Renard has all of the tiny stress lines on his face twitching. Not even kidding, the facial tension here is a couple steps away from jaw-clenching and teeth grinding, though he does seem to slightly relax when he looks at the baby. So, how did Adalind get to the condo? Well, stolen truck. I would like to point out that having just been in Portland, it's not unreasonable for Adalind to have taken public transit rather than a stolen truck, though admittedly it seems to have been after midnight. Someday we'll get a shot of someone who isn't the victim of the week in Grimm using the MAX or the bus and die of shock. They also re-establish that Kelly would totally have murdered the shit out of Adalind if she'd known she was a Hexenbiest. Well. Yeah, probably, given her reaction to Renard. And then! The doorbell rang!

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.

Celebrate Relentlessness Grimm S3E16 The Show Must Go On

Previously on Grimm: a lot of baby conspiracy stuff! And this, kids, is why we've been calling Sebastien the canary ever since he first showed up on our screens: when he's captured and tortured, you know shit's gotten real. Frankly, I'm surprised he made it as long as he did. (I'm also still waiting on payoff for that list of names he gave Renard back in 2x17, but alas, it seems unlikely at this point.) (K: And on the comment he made about Meisner. And the inexplicable buttling.) Oh, and Monroe was the dorkiest clockmaker Blutbad ever; I guess now we're focusing on the existence of their relationship more than the family issues surrounding it? I'm a little torn on how those have been shoved to the back-burner for the last several eps, though I will definitely say that Silas and Bree have been playing up a heightened sense of how much danger they could be in. Not quite to hypervigilance levels yet, but likely to get there as they continue to be under pressure from a variety of directions? Oh yes.

A Boy's Best Friend Grimm S3E14 Mommy Dearest

'fraid you're stuck with just me this week, kiddos. Kitty's off seeing her family, which means you get nothing but pure undiluted batshittery on my end. It's okay, we're all mad here, and you wouldn't have come here if you didn't like the flavor of crazy we provide, right? Of course right. Apologies for the resulting delay, though honestly it's not as bad a delay as I feared it might be. Apparently doing this a lot means building up the muscle to marathon it alone if necessary. WHO KNEW. One note before we get started: neither one of us knows a great deal about Filipino culture, nor do we know Tagalog at all. (Or, for that matter, anything in the Austronesian language family; it's not something that comes up much in either our general geographic areas or in our specific social circles.) That said, I'm trusting that the people in cast/crew/writers' room with Filipino background supplemented whatever research Brenna Kouf did for the ep, and that the script went through many notes as a result. (Based on what I watched, it seems like she was willing to listen to those notes, which is a feat of grace for any newbie writer to accomplish. Ask K sometime about the early years of our partnership.) If any of our readers cares to offer a more informed opinion about culture and language than can be acquired through brief immersion in Wiki and its sources, please feel free! All I've got is the usual round of generalized anthropological blather. (Edit 3/18: go read the comments for Kris Q's extensive explanations and analysis, all of which were awesome and incredibly cogent!)

What Rough Biest Grimm S3E13 Revelation

Previously on Grimm! Adalind has clearly never seen Rosemary's Baby. Stefania should not be trusted at all. The police have no idea what kind of serial killer they're dealing with, and Monrosalee are still the adorablest. Although Monroe is rather swimming in denial at this point, until he has his nose rubbed in it by his parents' bad behavior. Aaaaand fight!

Or not. Monroe does manage to keep everyone from doing serious physical damage to each other, though his "Nick is a friend" sounds eerily like someone trying to calm a dog, and Nick apologizes about as profusely as he can when he's not the most emotionally intuitive in the room. Monroe's parents aren't really in a mood to listen to reason which, aside from the species prejudices of last episode/very shortly earlier in the night, is reasonable. Grimms have a history of beheading first and sticking the heads on poles to answer questions later, and let's all not forget the entry about the peaceful turtle Wesen species on the Galapagos, about whom the one Grimm wrote that their peaceful nature only made them easier to kill. Because they looked at that Grimm funny? Yeah, no. Monroe has reasons for defending Nick the way he does, but his parents have reason for reacting the way they do, and when everyone's blood is up no one's that inclined to listen to these reasons. Monroe doesn't help with essentially tacitly threatening to have Nick kill his father, though I'm sure that's not what he meant. While the most emotionally intuitive and the heart and center of the show in that respect, he still manages not to figure out the right words during times of stress. Better would have been "Nick would not like to take it outside because he's a cop," but Nick not wanting to take it outside because he would murder Monroe's parents is probably valid, too. Nick wouldn't like to murder the parents of his friend because they're the parents of his friend. There's some interesting hospitality laws that are being tacitly stated here, too, mostly of the I Am The Ruler Of My Castle variety. Now, actually, while I'm thinking of it, a potentially decent way to prove that Nick's not like the other Grimms would be to have him arrest them for assault, at least long enough to drive them around for a while. Surely there's a protocol at the precinct for "situation got heated we're holding these people for 24 hours to make sure they know attacking people is wrong"? But then we couldn't have the later action, so we don't do that. Meanwhile the parents are shocked that Monroe has just confessed to hunting with a Grimm, at least inasmuch as he's witnessed kills, and that seems to be the last straw. This does, too, serve to highlight just how far from Wesen norms Monroe has come in the last two? years, year and a half, whatever we're running on for in-universe chronology. (Yes, we've given up keeping track. It doesn't seem to matter.) Nick continues to be incapable of diplomaticking his way out of anything. Nick, honey, saying you don't want to cause any problems without providing evidence or at least something to back it up more than your word is not going to help, and maybe nothing you can say will help right now, so please don't make it worse by giving Monroe's parents something else to be stubborn against. Yes? Yes. Monroe's parents storm out with their luggage, not the best sign ever, and with his father saying that whatever they're doing is wrong in the sort of tone that speaks to an underlying fundamentalism, and the mother taking more of a soft stance of not recognizing who her son has become. That, at least, can be eased back down and she can be slowly introduced to Monroe's view of the world. The father will take some doing. Let's all take a second here to shake our fists at Silas Weir Mitchell for selling this entire episode amazingly. You bastard.

All Happy Families Are Alike Grimm S3E12 The Wild Hunt

We open with a high-speed chase and a quote from Brother and Sister, which is not Hansel and Gretel no matter how much the two get confused. It is, however, from the section of fairytales that's about a sister saving her brother after they're exiled/lost in the woods/fleeing from a murderous stepmother. I'm not quite sure who I'd count as the sister in this episode - we might need to wait for the second half of the two-parter for that - but I'll take a guess at it being maybe Juliette. Maybe even Adalind, considering she lies to save her ass which has the benefit of saving Renard's ass as well. Or there's another player to come in the WotW plotline! Who knows. We're discounting Rosalee for the moment, since she's out of the picture at the end of the episode, but that's not to say things couldn't change drastically before the end of this arc. And we're beginning under the assumption that the Wild Hunt refers to Herne the Hunter, I'll leave you to wiki-wander around that one. Because I'm giving like that. This assumption, granted, is largely based around a conversation with the Grimm Writers account and Herne's hunt being the more common in fiction, but that's where we're starting from.

Another Such Victory Grimm S3E11 The Good Soldier

Previously, on Grimm! Well... nothing, apparently, relevant to this episode. We start instead with a quote that sparks a debate between us at Murderboarding over whether this particular phrasing is Biblical or the original Hammurabi, thereby cementing us as overeducated for this show forever. The point, whichever the original text, is justice. Or possibly vengeance. On certain shows, this episode being one of them, I get the two mixed up.

We will also, now that we've established ourselves as paying fine attention to detail, note that this episode contains at least one fairly graphic portrayal and some discussion of self-harm, so if you're triggered by such things this would be a good episode to skip. You're not missing much in terms of the Royal plot, little more in terms of the Monrosalee. If you like, you can skip down till you see a picture of the Monrosalee and start there, which may be the first time we've ever used the pictures in that particular context. Usually they're just there to break up the endless walls of text. Huh.

Dirty Little Secrets Dirty Little Lies Grimm S3E10 Eyes of the Beholder

Previously on Grimm: Hank made sad faces at Zuri, nobody was enamored of that choppy cutting or what it implied, Juliette's friend Alicia showed up and attempted to explain to them about abnormality, everyone facepalmed but thought maybe they'd get through this without anyone shrieking about DON'T DO THAT.

Page And Monarch Forth They Went Grimm S3E08 Twelve Days of Krampus

From the first ep straight into the second! Or at least that's how it was put out and how I'm choosing to interpret it, given the conspiracy goings-on. Which puts last ep taking place a day ago, unless Portland time and Austria time are running on two separate tracks right now. Who knows? NOT US. Isn't it great? We open on a Christmas shopping scene with O Tannenbaum lyrics which are more focused on the original steadfast/faithful aspects of the German folk song than on the Christmassy themes it's been coopted for. Yes, I said it. You wanna get in an argument with a cranky, tired blogger about folk music? I didn't think so.

We have a couple teenage boys breaking into a car to steal presents and looking, frankly, like they've done this before. They're not completely inept at avoiding detection, is what I'm saying, though they could stand to move a little slower and look like they belong. Also, there's a Santa. And apparently this takes place in the Northwest Christmas Village, which a quick google does not inform me is an actual thing in Portland. It does look like a standard shopping district/affluent neighborhood, though I question the word "normal" in relation to anything in Portland. Anyway. Kids, stealing. Kids under a bridge, emphasizing that they're total jackasses. One of them hears something. One of them is gearing up to smash a snowglobe. I continue to be unimpressed, both with the length of this setup and with the kids themselves, though okay, they do not deserve to be switched and stolen and eaten. Tossed in juvie and taught to be productive members of society, sure. I'd be more inclined to interpret them as broke homeless teens if they weren't obviously well-clothed and well-fed, and if this ep weren't all about Krampus coming to take the naughty children away.

When Life Gives You Gators, Make Gatorade Grimm S3E07 Cold Blooded

This week's previouslies are a) full of conspiracy but b) start out with Renard delivering part of his lecture to Nick. So we know what our big themes are going in, then! Alright then. The title quote is out of Dryden, who was a Restoration-era poet and I find it very interesting that the better part of the non-fairytale quotes actually come out of British authors. That's probably just personal bias from the writers, though, since that's the sort of Western canon most frequently taught to overeducated fuckers like ourselves. You can hit up Wiki for a rough summation of his influence and work, but let's just leave it at incredibly influential for his time, to the point of being credited with the invention of the heroic couplet, and move on to some sewers. Otherwise I'm going to spend an hour dissertating on the implications of this poem to the conspiracy plot and nobody actually wants that, right? Of course right.