Recap & Review
When we left off at the end of last season, Renard was newly initiated into the gang – although with trepidation. Nick had learned that Renard was a royal, and Renard was trying to make himself useful by helping Nick. We also ended the season with Juliette remembering her past with Nick, along with his Grimm secret, and coming to some kind of acceptance of it. Nick’s mother was still off in areas unknown, having left town on a mission to destroy the Coins of Zakynthos early in season 2. And the royals were getting antsy – suspicious of Renard’s stalling and motivations, and determined to put more pressure on him. Renard’s half-brother Eric had arrived in Portland with apparently a double purpose. He invited Renard to come back to the royals to claim his birthright, but he also had a more insidious purpose, which we saw was to set off a mini-zombie apocalypse as a diversion to kidnap Nick. Nick went down, was put in a coffin for safe shipping back to Europe, and that’s where we left off.Season 3 launched with a two-episode arc of zombie Nick being rescued and cured by Monroe, Rosalee, Juliette, and Renard, but not before he killed someone in his zombie state. After this concluded, the show for the most part went back to a case-of-the-week structure, with most of the mytharc movement occurring in Europe as Eric was murdered by Renard; Adalind underwent trials to return to her hexenbiest state; and a new royal was introduced, a cousin by the name of Viktor.
Royal Murder – After Renard’s half-brother Eric dared tread on Renard’s turf and attempted to kidnap his Grimm, Renard retaliated. He called in a hit on Eric to a reluctant ally back in Austria and told him to have a character named Meisner take care of it. We later see Eric’s murder on the news (apparently he really is a royal to humans too), and he’s thought to be the victim of a car bomb. The thing about car bombs on TV is that they are almost always revealed in the end to have been faked, with misidentified remains. And the problem with trusting allies a continent away, especially ones who have reservations about your plans, is that you really never know which side they’re playing for.
My assessment of this subplot – the murder didn’t do much other than remove an interesting character, played by the talented actor James Frain. My guess is there might have been actor scheduling conflicts since Frain is one of those actors you see everywhere, but this is just speculation on my part. While his absence paved the way for the introduction of Viktor, played by Angel’s Alexis Denisof, there’s surely room for more than one bad royal on Grimm.
My speculation – We’ll see Eric again someday.
Nick’s Extra Powers and Zombie side-effects – Last season we saw Nick develop enhanced hearing after being temporarily blinded. This season he awoke from his zombie state with some unanticipated side effects – he keeps temporarily “dying” with his heart slowing to a near stop. He was told by a doctor that he has a metabolic rate about half of normal. This gives him super running powers – able to zip past red-hooded joggers without breaking a sweat.
My assessment – So far the show hasn’t done much interesting with Nick’s new powers. I’m not sure how I feel about them. On the one hand, I like the idea of Nick’s friends and community being his secret weapon. But on the other, the ability to see wesen’s true faces always seemed a little flimsy to me in explaining why Grimms were so dangerous.
My speculation – This development is less about Nick’s habit of dying than about evening the odds a bit with a Royals-Grimm battle heating up. The dying doesn’t seem to be hurting him much, and I’m sure the running and slowed metabolism will at some point come in handy.
My assessment – My biggest issue with the Adalind-baby subplot is that I can’t figure out why she would want to do all of this to herself. I understand her powers are her identity, but she’s very quick to let Stefania do things to her baby that are turning it into something scary while it’s still inside her body. Yet she doesn’t seem too bothered. Another critical point is that this storyline has dragged out just a bit too long, but the special effects of the baby trying to get out of Adalind's womb are cool. This plot needs to have good payoff in the end to be worth it, so we'll have to see, once the baby is born/released.
My speculation – The doctor heard a second hearbeat even though Adalind isn’t having twins. We had an episode this season in which children were thought to be possessed by spirits of wesen. It turned out to be a parasite, but maybe something similar is going on here. My prediction is the wesen baby will be just that – a normal baby wesen – but that something extra evil is in there growing along side of it - maybe a parasite of sorts - and the evil leech will need to be dealt with when the baby is born.
My assessment – I’m mostly in favor of this growth, since I want Juliette to stick around, and she has to make herself useful. However, Juliette’s super quick adaption has minimized the struggle Hank went through when he first learned about wesen – which I thought was a compelling story. So mixed feelings here.
My speculation – I don’t really have much to add here, other than to say I’m more confident now that Juliette is here to stay. For a while last season I was wondering if Juliette and Nick might be headed for a permanent break up. I can’t wait until Juliette meets Mama Grimm.
My assessment – The two are really sweet, and I’m almost at the point of saying that I can never get enough of them, but I’m not quite there and getting antsy to move beyond this nice side plot and see some real action. I want more with Nick and his Grimm heritage, and this first half has been disappointingly slow-paced.
My speculation – Rosalee’s box of secrets that we saw a glimpse of last season will soon become a issue. If you recall, when Rosalee was asked by Nick to hide the key last season, she put it in a box that had a lot of cash and documents/passports. We know Rosalee’s family has strong ties to the resistance. We’ve also seen her more inflexible than Monroe in breaking with wesen rules. In one case she split with Monroe on an issue and called the Wesen Council on the child who was thought to be possessed by a Grausen. Things have been going so sunnily for the happy couple, I’m forecasting some bad weather ahead.
Spoilers & Speculation
Our first episode when we come back on Friday is called Revelation. NBC has released a combination promo for the episode and Hannibal that shows Renard telling Adalind that he’s the father of her child. There's also a press release that says Monroe will still be dealing with his parents while Nick continues working his "cop-killing scalper investigation."We’ve also learned from an earlier article on TV Line that Nick mom will be back for multiple episodes this year. She is in contact with Juliette now and appears to be in some sort of danger. This is good because although I love the royals, the storytelling has been too unevenly weighted toward focusing on the royals with little development on the Grimm side. I’d like to know more about Nick’s heritage and whether there are other Grimms out there. Where do they stand, and will they be allies when things heat up?
One of the interesting threads throughout this first half of the season is the focus on hearts. Nick’s heart periodically stops. The heart of the murdered hexenbiest Frau Pech was a critical component to the spell we’re told was about reinstating Adalind’s powers. Finally, the doctor heard a second hearbeat while examining Adalind. I’m wondering if this this theme of hearts may come back later in some form – maybe tied to the secret behind the key and treasure, or with what Kelly Burkhardt has been up to.
What are your thoughts on the season so far? What are you most looking forward to?
