“And they lived happily ever after.”
We begin with Mr. Adacoff – facing arrest for fraud and
embezzlement, shooting himself. One of the men defrauded, Arthur seems rather perturbed
– especially since his wife, Lucinda, doesn’t realise their money isn’t secure
and is spending it. Everything he had was in Adacoff’s hands and he turns to
his friend, Spencer, for advice. He goes to his wife’s step-mother for money
but she’s far from receptive (not that I can entirely blame her).
Spencer is most displeased with the step-mother and regards the money she has as being owed to Lucinda since the step-mother married Henry, Lucinda’s rich father. As Lucinda’s godfather, he is determined to help her.
That night, the step-mother is attacked by a monster
under her bed which then chases her, screams at her and the scream both
shatters glass, causes her to bleed from her eyeballs and fall off her upper
balcony. Of course, the bleeding eyes could be from the site of the awful
costume and the throwing herself of the balcony could be the actress declaring “no,
I refuse to be part of a show that thinks third rate Hallowe’en costumes make
for good monsters”. Ok, I normally reserve the snark for the end, but really,
early Doctor Who episodes had better quality monster costumes
One of the step-mother’s daughters, Tiffany goes to the
house to check on her and finds the body – time for Nick, Hank and Wu to race
into action. Clearly not an accident – claw marks and exploded eyeballs after
all as well as the massive amounts of shattered glass. Interviewing Tiffany and
Taylor (the other sister) they’re quick to point the finger at Arthur.
At Arthurs they talk to him, Lucinda and Spencer – who is a Murcielago, a bat Wesen. They agree to come to the precinct but want a few minutes alone first – because leaving your prime suspects alone to make sure they’ve got their stories straight is such a great idea.
After much questioning and police rambling it seems the
money all goes to the step-sisters, none of it to Lucinda. Which seems odd –
except Lucinda decides to go visit Tiffany alone – and she’s a Murcielago as
well – and not a happy one.
Nick and Eddie do some research and find some info on the
Murcielago (as a nice aside, we also see that these creatures also have
different names in different languages – so all the German Wesen is not because
they all have origins in Germany, but that Nick’s research and Eddie do) and
the way to fight one is to use a kind of siren – which Nick has in his
collection of weapons. It’s a new toy and yes, they love it – these 2 are such
fun when they’re together
Nick naturally goes looking for Spencer – and Arthur and
Lucinda direct him to Tiffany’s house where spencer has just arrived in time to
see Tiffany’s body, killed by Lucinda of course. Nick finds Spencer and arrests
him.
We do have a great moment in the interview room
though - Spencer says he knows who Nick
is and Nick knows who he is so there’s no need for games – except Hank is in
the room and knows nothing, though he quickly backtracks in response to Nick’s
eye-flicks (damn, sooo close. That was really well done). He confesses,
naturally, to the murders to protect Lucinda. Hank asks how he did it… which is
awkward so he tells the truth – he can make high pitched screams that kill
people. Hank is… dubious. When he leaves he can tell Nick the truth - Lucinda
has no conscience and she is only controlled by getting what she wants – and she’s
the one behind the deaths.
Hank gets the same idea by checking the will showing that
Taylor is the only thing that stops Lucinda inheriting – when a high pitched
scream rocks the police station – Spencer has escaped by screaming and
shattering the windows of the interrogation room.
Everyone to Taylor’s house to play rescuer – Nick, Hank
and Eddie (with the siren) driving Lucinda out into Spencer’s arms who screams
her to almost death… not quite enough since she bites him and rips out his
throat.
Nick, meanwhile, is dreaming about his dead parents and what
he learned about them. Some angsty conversation with Juliette about his
parents and his aunt and Juliette offers to do some research about their
deaths. Because the police detective needs the vet to do his investigating. She
gets in touch with the detective who handled the case of his parents death and
asked him to contact Nick
He does and tells Nick that a year after his parents’
death, the case was reclassified as a murder, there were 4 suspects, 3
of whom were Schakahl thieves seen (and are dead) and the last Akira Kimora
who we haven’t seen yet.
It’s a staple in fairy tales, but the evil, greedy,
grasping step mother is a trope that is so overdone. And it rather ignores the
sense of entitlement that is well covered here – Lucinda is owed the money? Why?
She hasn’t earned it – she’s owed the money for having the good luck to have a
rich father – and then trust her husband and her husband’s investor to lose her
money? Why is Lucinda more entitled to said money than Henry’s wife? Why is
Henry’s wife not entitled to the money? And the step-mother’s motives (Lucinda
and her husband have been together a year but not invited her to visit – they’re
hardly close) for not wanting to be a rescue bank reasonable, albeit harsh? The
bitter step-sisters and cruel step-mother being mean to the beautiful, pure
sister is tired, shaming and full of entitlement and blame.
And Spencer describes Lucinda as “Arthur’s responsibility”
(as she was Spencer’s after Henry died) and that he shouldn’t “let” her run off
alone. The paternalism, the control and the infantilisation and comodifying of
Lucinda is extreme. The sad thing is, Lucinda’s murderous behaviour is
presented as the reason for such control – but the language used isn’t “other
people have to be kept safe” but that the menfolk are responsible for the
woman.
And we have another black man on Grimm! Serving and
sacrificing for the white woman. It’s moments like this that makes erasure not
seem so bad. Of course Hank remains but is, again, a barrier to investigation
not an asset
We do have a brief but pointed comment about class - the
wealth and political connections of the step-sisters makes them untouchable
without an extremely strong case. It didn’t need belabouring the message about
the privilege of power and connection was clear and nicely inserted.
Now to Lucinda. Lucinda is a murderer because she has no conscience - this is the common and simplistic description of a sociopath or psychopath. Now, sociopathy has a really bad reputation - and like most mental illnesses, a very unfair one. The vast majority of sociopaths aren't dangerous but the media has largely painted them as a defacto villain (one of the reasons why "psychopathy" isn't particularly well used now because the term has become almost synonymous with "vicious serial killer". To clarify and repeat - the majority of sociopaths are not violent - but it's a reputation that dogs them especially since old fashioned legal definitions of what might be considered violent, criminal insanity often include the term "psychopath".
