State of the Blog: Grimm Conclusions

You've probably noticed that over the last few weekends we've only been posting the Haven recaplyses. When we first started this blog we made first a tentative guideline, then (after some experimenting) a hard and fast rule that we would not hatewatch for the blog. And, honestly, we don't enjoy Grimm anymore. Many of the qualities we used to love about the characters are gone, new storylines keep forming as fast as old ones are dropped without consistency or conclusion, and you can go back and look at the recap for 4x03 which we flatly refused to deal with as it was blatantly fucking racist. That's become more typical of the show, and with all of those factors combined, it's not fun anymore. And if we're not having fun writing it, you're not going to have any fun reading it.

While there's always a slim possibility that'll change, we don't want to commit to anything: by the time the show finds its feet again (if it does), there's a significant chance it won't be a show we're interested in blogging anyway. We still adore the cast, and we'll be interested to see what else they do in the future - just not, sadly, on Grimm.

Archives and the show page will remain up and available for the foreseeable future.

Choose Someone Else Haven S5E13 Chosen

Previously on Haven! Audrey is sick. Audrey is undergoing Spiderman-style clone decay, I forget the exact name for this, really you guys? Mara wants aether to fix Duke. Nobody believes her except maaaaybe Duke, and he really shouldn't. We get reminded of the existence of the open thinny in Manteo, which has apparently been nothing but a plot device to get us to Bad Decisions time at the end of the episode? I really hope they pick that up next season. Dave has Weird Shit and visions and Croatoan and no, none of that makes sense yet either. Even at the end of the ep. Cue showdown with Charlotte, who turns out to be one of the… whatever aliens/superhumans/whatever the fuck they are, from the other side where Mara and William came from. Why? Because she's Mara's mother! Well, she phrases it as Audrey's mother, but even for the heinous villain Charlotte turns out to be I can sort of forgive her eliding that when confronted by a woman with her daughter's face.

This week… okay I'm going to be upfront with you guys: for us, this was a giant fucking mess of an episode, the magic rules don't make SENSE, they break their own rules at every turn, and given that we've spent four seasons with every woman who isn't Audrey Parker and is on the show for any length of time getting completely fucked over by the narrative, this is… really kind of gross, by the time we get to the end. Apparently if you're not a self-sacrificing empathetic savior figure, you don't have worth as a woman on this show. I'd try and point at Gloria as the exception except she's raising her grandson in the twilight of her life and gave up a peaceful retirement to come back and be the coroner in the middle of the worst bout of Troubles; if that doesn't scream the Crone version of sacrifice and empathy I don't know what does. So if you don't want to read a lot of snarling punctuated by cheering for Dwight going NOPE YOU LIED IN A BIG WAY I'M OUT, GOT SHIT TO DO, I suggest you skip this recapaplypse.

Fatal Attractors Haven S5E12 Chemistry

Previously on Haven! Mara manipulated Duke into letting her off his boat. This has historically been regarded as a Bad Move. Dwight keeps getting manipulated by Charlotte and not wanting to admit it, which is also a Bad Move, though possibly not as bad as Mara. Insufficient data, which is our current and perpetual refrain. And now, Vince's as well! Oh, and Mara managed to seduce Duke.

We'll take it, apparently, from the morning after. Where Duke is already dressed and Mara is naked and using her sexuality as a weapon again. Some more. I'm honestly pretty skeeved out this ep by the extent to which that's portrayed as both the natural inclination of women (I mean, there's good reason for that in our society when you're a woman working to ensure power over men, but still) and portrayed as a horrible thing. But we'll get to that point in awhile. The main point here is, Duke is feeling vulnerable and therefore, dressed and heading out after the aether rather than hanging around for cutesy morning-afters, or the second bout Mara tacitly offers, or anything else. You can just assume that every time we hear about assumptions the boys are making about each other's motives this ep, we're sitting and swearing about TALK TO EACH OTHER. Duke thinks he knows where Dwight and Nathan moved it! Duke, Mara is playing you and using someone else to do it. Duke. No? No. She keeps insisting that she's in this to fix Duke and for the sex, which is kind of fucking ridiculous given her early behaviors. You know, the ones where she murdered and assaulted at least a dozen people in her attempts to get back through the thinny and get William? Those? C'mon, people. The remainder of this scene is what I would consider, and I'm pretty sure some part of Duke considers, transparent attempts to manipulate him into believing that she's on his side and wants to fix him. No really. No really, you do believe her, seriously, what is this, remedial HUMINT? Okay, the distract with snark tactic is slightly better, I'll take it while Duke makes his escape. Thinks he makes his escape.

Trust But Verify Haven S5E11 Reflections

Previously on Haven: how do you solve a problem like the CDC? If you're Dwight, you adopt the new person and are all YES PLEASE YOU ARE SHINY AND PRACTICAL AND NOBODY ELSE AROUND HERE IS. Gee, it's like she was kind of tailor-made for Dwight. Or he was handpicked by her. Or both? Vince was investigating things. Mara was a manipulative fuck at Duke some more, who at least for now seems to be giving in rather than playing her, which is mildly irritating. And Nathan is freaking right out over Audrey still being sick even after Pete's contagion Trouble got, um, dealt with. This seems reasonable, honestly! I'd be pretty freaked too.

We open, oh, probably a day or two after the last episode, not more than that judging by lack of decomp on the body in the crime scene photos. Plus these seasons have been getting what feels like increasingly compressed in their timeline. Nathan is bringing case files instead of coffee and they have one of those quiet, adorable bantering moments. Except Audrey being tired, not just tired of the Troubles and the murders and wishing she could still fix them the way she used to, not just with the barn but with her immunity and the sense of purpose it gave her. At any rate, Nathan's the one holding the intelligence and willing to say shit straight out here while Audrey reaaally would rather not be thinking about what Duke's up to. Whether that's using his Trouble by choice or letting Mara off the boat; I wonder for the umpteenth time how much knowledge of who Mara is and what she's willing to do Audrey learned while she was fighting for her existence. Because I'm sure the answer is "lots" but she's also not talking about it to anyone. About much of anything. Though she will still almost pick a fight with Nathan about whether or not he thinks she's a really real person. Oh Audrey, have you been paying any attention? Nathan will believe you're real with his dying breath. Has! Several times, depending on how you measure it from what happened to Nathan versus what he was expecting to happen. But she is still sick, has a racking cough and probably fatigue, judging by the snippiness, and Nathan, now that Audrey is in need of a kind of support he's better able to give, has picked up the common sense ball! Oh Nathan. It's true, too; they don't know the details of how that Trouble affected Mara and Audrey, and with the loss of her immunity who the hell knows what else might've happened to her. Long term effects are never any fun.

A Grave Man Haven S5E10 Mortality

Previously on Haven: there was a plague! That affected Troubled people! We sat and grumped at the TV about how IT'S PETE, OKAY, DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT while everyone was busy trying to make the assorted Troubles emerging not, you know, kill everyone in town. So from an outside the situation POV we were prepared to cut slack. The CDC showed up in town, Dwight got put on cleaner duty because that's exactly what the guy who's gone from Ranger to Guard/cleaner to chief of police and leader of the Guard wants to go back to. Haven gets put under quarantine because that many Troubles are not, in fact, possible to hide. Oh, and creepy fucking dancing bears. Also Dwight broke, tased Duke, and may have broken Duke. I'm still holding out for Duke is playing everyone, personally, but this ep put some laaaarge dents into that theory.

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.

Dishonor On You Dishonor On Your Cow Grimm S4E03 The Last Fight

Yeah no.

Look, this episode's cop plot was a racist, sexist, classist clusterfuck MESS from beginning to end, and we established when we did Once Upon A Time that we don't do hatewatching. That never ends well. We're not even sure if the writer or the casting director is most at fault on this one, though the writer has historically been pretty close to this bad. If asked, we can try to enumerate at not too great a length why we feel this way, but for now we're putting this down and moving the fuck on.

And then we're going to go address the Hexen/Zauberbiest scenes, because we established at the beginning of the season that that's what we're here for, and frankly they're semi-competently written to the point where I wonder if the room didn't simply ask for x pages to be left blank here and there.