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| What lies beneath: The B&B with a dark side |
The last “Grimm” post reacted to its opening
three episodes. Recall, casting your mind back a whole six evenings, the way I thought
it opened strong, dipped a jot and then excelled itself for a third viewing.
The following three episodes were all firm and indisputable tens. Number four,
“Lonelyhearts” opened with the mowing down and death of a nightdress-clad
damsel. After ruling out her fisticuffs boyfriend, Nick and Hank wound up at
the B&B she had checked herself into before coming a cropper and face to
face with its smirking yet slimily sinister owner. Soon exposed was his savage
ability to charm the pants off whomever he picked, and the whole host of
beauties banged up in his basement. The episode was based on the French
folktale, “Bluebeard”, in which a bestial aristocrat lures new wives to his
fortress before doing them in. I could prattle on at length about the
astuteness of plot choice and its being an indictment of casual sexual
relations in the 21st Century, but if you’ve even so much as glanced
at my last “Grimm” post you’ll know its sagacious stories are a given. Suffice
to say, it was reassuring to note that producers were open to incorporating
fairytale elements not exclusively compiled by the Brothers Grimm without
budging a smidge on quality. What jutted out in “Lonelyhearts” was Nick’s
settling into the role of competent hero; when his buddy Hank became locked in
the aforementioned death-chamber himself (providing urgency and eventually an
“Ahhhh!” moment as cop and cop were reunited), Nick was left to sort things out
unaccompanied. When he disregarded police decorum and stormed the B&B
because he had clocked its owner’s boorish side, it was taxing to believe only
three episodes back he had been relying on a frail old aunt. I must mention the
resolution of episode four, too, for its symmetry and open-ended brilliance.
When the supposed Bluebeard looked set to escape Nick and Hank’s pursuit he was
himself struck down by a car- what a karmic way to go. To see our villain on a
stretcher, apparently bewitching the paramedic tending to him unbeknown to Nick
and Hank, enabled also a faultless close.
Parallel to the Bluebeard comings and goings was
the increasingly suspect Captain Renard, Nick’s boss. During “Lonelyhearts” a
bloodcurdling, axe-bearing foreigner became fixed on avenging his friend’s
death; remember the guy Nick shot dead to protect his Aunt Marie? He had pals.
I casually lamented the series’ lack of an obvious big bad in the last post,
and this guy looked set to fill the vacancy with aplomb. In a shake-up it would
have been unthinkable to foresee, Renard forced this unnerving newcomer to his
knees and unmercifully lopped his ear off. By having the bona fide baddie usurp
the supposed one in a heinously Van Gough manner, the show’s producers
instantly lined Renard up as a formidable future nemesis for Nick. “Better the
devil you know”, perhaps, but what about the devil you know, trust and report
to? Poor Nick.
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| Follow the leader: Rats hung on Roddy's every word |
“Danse Macabre” proved to be the churning out of
out another gem: it’s premise being “The Pied Piper” gone awry and its featured
death the most gruesome thus far. A music teacher was torn to shreds by rats as
he prepared to leave at the end of the school day, after they had been planted
in his car by school bullies wanting to frame the musical virtuoso son of the
local rat catcher (and most teachers bemoan the amount of marking they are faced with when the day is ostensibly done). The
aforementioned violin-playing genius turned out to be a Wessen with the eerie
aptitude to command rats and a sizeable chip on his shoulder thanks to years of
being teased. When mulling over the series’ pilot I extolled its inclusion of
red-herrings and omission of predictability, and this episode followed the lead;
the Wessen was cleared of being his teacher’s assailant but demonstrated a propensity
for cold-bloodedness by eventually luring his framers into a sea of gnawing
rats. Nick and Hank were the good guys, plainly, but the bad guy label was more
cumbersomely awarded. Equally commendable about episode five was Nick’s
eventual dilemma. As a Grimm he knew rat-boy Roddy had orchestrated the
nibbling to death of his classmates but as a detective he couldn’t charge the
teen. Nick’s being torn in a literal life-or-death scenario a couple of
episodes back was noteworthy, and it was refreshing to see the conflict still
ticking over even in the absence of a showdown culmination. Aside from its
chilling aesthetics and multifaceted plot, the episode managed to sow several
seeds for the wider harvesting of the series, notably Hank’s dining with siren
slash known-Wessen Adalind and Nick’s fiancé Juliet beginning to clock changes
in her fiancé. Even if the storyline had taken
a bash in this one (and it categorically did not), it would have enticed me
back on the promise of hefty things to come.
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| Enough of the huffing and puffing: The piggish cop turned tough |
After spending 1000 words harping on about the
show’s general agility and percept, this next comment cannot go underestimated: if you watch one episode I’ve blogged
about, make it “Grimm’s” sixth, “The Three Bad Wolves”. But first, hear me fail
to adequately summarize its virtues. The show went off with a bang, literally,
with the explosion of an apparent good-for-nothing’s (Hap’s) abode, and his
revelation that an elder brother had fallen victim to an identical plot on his home a few weeks before. Nick
discerned speedily that this chubby now-homeless Hap was in fact a Blutbad (the
wolfish Wessen-type that acquaintance Monroe had already announced himself as).
Quickly, it was revealed that Monroe and Hap were old buddies, and that the
former used to date the latter’s sister Angelina (who made a show-stopping
entrance by tearing Nick out of his car and denouncing Grimms far and wide).
“The Three Bad Wolves” took its shape from the inversion of “The Three Little
Pigs” tale, and its assailant turned out to be a piggish Wessen working on, and
sabotaging, the police inquiry into the explosion (mining the nickname “pig”
for police officers was one of those moments of sheer but subtle genius “Grimm”
won me over with). The two families, wolves and pigs, were continuing an embittered,
age-long feud, and Nick, Hank and the team were tossed about as collateral
damage. The episode fueled the running “day job versus night job” conflict of
Nick’s, as one scene witnessed him act as spectator of a showdown between
family members, wanting to remain objective as a Grimm but required to act
lawfully as a cop. Monroe’s character gained cavernous dimension by invoking
his own Wessen-core and hunting in the woods, shaking off the crown-jester role
he had occupied for far too long and morphing instead into a viable and
engaging card in his own right. Episode six didn’t skimp on cohesion and symbolism,
either; when vet Juliet was seen bandaging a cat-beaten terrier at the midway
point her embedded narrative reiterated the inversion-based, expectation-defying
ethos of the wider program. It was witty, fresh, thought provoking and character
defining (the resolution is worth a look, too). Watch it.
Do I regret tackling “Grimm” for the second time
in a week? Despite my initial hesitation, not a jot. If it keeps going at this
pace, expect a third before Saturday.
One Line Wonder
Hank (after
dealing with an irate, meddlesome and marginally superfluous mother wanting to
report an incident at the station): I haven’t had that much fun since that
drunk threw up on me at the Christmas party.
The Fortune Telly-er
It goes without saying that Renard and Adalind
will be rearing their ugly heads again before too long, but I’d still like Nick
to delve into his ancestry for more potential nemeses. What ever happened, I
ask again, to his parents’ murderer? I’m eagerly watching this space.
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