“O, from this time
forth,
My thoughts will
be bloody
Or be nothing
worth”
Nick is massively dramatic about finding his mother’s
head in a box (I kind of have to laugh at Truble and Hank quietly having a
conversation while Nick is on the floor screaming. Way to ruin the moment
Grimm) they then realise this could be a trap
Just as evil Kenneth tells his men to kill them all (Juliette actually dares to have a guilt face). They then return to base (Juliette really impressed by the huge ominous gated house and Kenneth “it’s a rental”).
Nick & co escape out the back and don’t just massacre
the Hundjager and instead go to investigate the dead Hundjager Trubel already
killed. Along with Wu they collect the body to take to Adalind (Wu reintroduced
to Trubel with a head in her hands). And Nick is very much done with playing
cop on this one. They go o Adalind and tell her about Kelley and Diana – and
she tells them about Kenneth (rather belatedly)
Kenneth introduces Diana and Juliette to the King
Frederick (carefully cutting off the title) who is all fussy over his
granddaughter. Everyone’s much less happy with the news that Nick is still
alive.
Frederick tries to recruit Juliette as a powerful
Hexenbiest and holds up that they’d always valued Hexenbiests in the family.
Juliette isn’t so naïve – pointing out that the king is Renard’s father- and
tried to have Renard and his Hexenbiest mother killed. Frederick blames his
deceased queen even as Juliette gets all menacing; Frederick calls her rotting
face beautiful.
As part of the plot, Adalind plants a head in the hotel
room where Kenneth was staying – then pretends to find it and screams.
Of course the police are called and Wu, Hank and Nick show up to “investigate.” Which gets them all the information the hotel has on Kenneth et al – and arrest warrants for them. Adalind also offers her condolences for Nick’s mother (though since Nick’s mother killed her mother it’s all a little awkward). With the info they can draw up the information on Kenneth Bowes-Lyon (whoa, Bowes-Lyon? Really Grimm?)
At the spice shop Renard is still angsting over being
possessed by a serial killer. There’s also the problem that the police aren’t
going to stop looking for a killer. He goes to the police station to see that
the investigation is still continuing.
Bud and Trubel head to join them – and Trubel is getting
ominous phone calls she’s hiding. Rosalie and Monroe take a break reflecting on
the many times they have had to provide woo-woo back up and decide to drink “to
something” (I approve). They’re taking a well deserved 5 minutes before Trubel
and Bud knock on the door to bring them up to speed and bring them to Bud’s
house (since Bud is under everyone’s radar)
At the police station, Nick realises there’s only one way
Kelley could have been lured and ambushed – Juliette.
Kenneth gets arrested but not by conventional channels as
Wu takes on a happy little trip out of town. The king is quite happy to let
Nick have Kenneth for the sake of “closure” which is ominous
Personally I think royal families should be packing some serious diplomatic passports.
Wu takes Kenneth to a deserted site in the middle of
nowhere and dumps him on the floor. He then lets Kenneth go and drives off, not
shooting him in the head as Kenneth expected. Leaving someone in the middle of nowhere
isn’t usually a way to kill them unless it’s Canada in the winter or Australia
(at any time, anywhere.)
Of course Nick is going to confront Kenneth who reminds
us all he’s the villain with some clichéd taunts. They fight while outside Hank
and Wu wait – Wu has doubts but Hank is willing to do it Nick’s way, and finish
Kenneth off if Nick loses.
Nick does win – forcing a hidden knife into Kenneth’s
throat.
Next step, Hank stops Nick just racing off so while Wu
goes to find the royals, Hank and Nick go to get Trubel. With everyone now
filled in on past history they head to where Wu has found the address (outside
of jurisdiction, of course not that Nick cares).
Wu stays at the precinct, Rosalie, Adalind and Bud at Bud’s
house (Bud has lots of domestic musings about Adalind and Nick and the baby –
Rosalie copies my facial expression exactly) – leaving Nick, Trubel, Hank and Monroe to
stock up and attack. Trubel asks Nick what they should do if they find Juliette
– and Nick says “kill her”
On the way they’re joined by Wu – armed and out of
uniform. He doesn’t want to be left out of this after what happened to Kelley.
They take down a few guards while, inside, Diana shows
off her fancy powers to her doting granddad before they prepare to leave by
helicopter. Nick & co charge in and more hundjager die (I especially like
Wu’s contempt for the fancy but silly knife with multiple blades). Chief
hundjager is lured in by Monroe and Trubel and Hank throws him to his death
But the King, Juliette and Diana escape on the
helicopter.
Lots of angst – Hank reports to Renard and they conclude
there’s no ballistics (only shot was a shotgun) so at least they don’t have to
cover it up. At least Kenneth is dead. Who is usefully Renard’s height, with a
British accent – why a perfect scapegoat for the Ripper killings.
On the helicopter, Diana gets creepy and shows the king
his reflection – as a skull, just before one of the pilots throws him out of
the helicopter. That wasn’t very nice. It’s Miesner (sort of resistance, sort
of Renard’s friend, sort of has a crush on Adalind) who Diana recognises.
Juliette was not on the helicopter.
Nick goes home to the box on his floor – and Juliette.
She greets him by saying she didn’t know Kenneth was going to leave Kelley’s
head in a box. Seriously, Juliette, what did you expect? Him to ask Kelley
nicely to hand over the super baby? Really? Nick grabs her by the throat and
strangles her – she manages to gasp “do it, kill me”. Despite her request, he
stops strangling her
Juliette then decides to mock him saying “I hope you’re
not going to tell me you’re still in love with me”. She refuses to leave and
then turns Hexenbiest and attacks. After smacking him around a little she goes
in for the kill – while he announces he’s done fighting
And Trubel shoots her twice with a crossbow. Trubel’s not done fighting. Juliette falls and Nick is super sad as he catches her.
And a large squad of men arrive lead by a woman who says “get
her”. We assume Trubel.
I’m actually kind of surprised by how Nick killed Kenneth
– he’d set up such a fair fight and then used a hidden weapon to finish him off
– in some ways I thought it was good because it showed how much Nick has
snapped. He’s taking this as a Grimm – not a police man, not even playing by
nebulous “honourable” rules – he’s a Grimm which, in the ways of his ancestors,
means killing the enemy by whatever means necessary.
I think I am glad that it was Trubel who killed Juliette, she was always more ruthless and more focused and had less rules.
Ok, so Juliette is dead. Now I am the last person to be
sad about this. I’ve made it clear a couple of times now that I am past done
with her and have been merrily hoping for one of the other cast to kill her off
at any time. I also think, after her actions, her redemption would have had to
be epic and I don’t trust Grimm to
actually handle it especially well.
But it kind of underscores all that is wrong with this
character since season 1. First she was a frequently victimised and kept in the
dark – generally being a damsel and rarely used character, there only for Nick
to worry about and protect. Then she found the big secret and kind of sort of
got involved sometimes…. But not often. And then we hit the whole Adalind drama
which involved her being sad and mopey and ineffective and uninvolved except to
occasionally glare at Nick for being victimised. Because the writers need a
swift slap upside the head.
When she finally gains power, when she finally gets involved in the plot, when she’s finally capable of doing something? She becomes a villain – and it’s a transformation that boggles the mind. Even accepting that becoming a Hexenbiest may change her – look at Renard, his mother, Adalind – it’s not like they’re incapable of showing familial or romantic love! Her whole arc has been a trainwreck – helplessness to begin with becoming evil when she actually gets power
I won’t miss her, but her arc has been a hot mess
And I hereby deem this the entire season of the hot mess.
We’ve covered this in individual episodes and will be writing more on it – but between
the so-sexy-they’re-raped-frogs, the trans-analogue-forced-gender-presentation,
the whole wesenrein Nazi-Klan wannabes, Nick being raped and now being all nice
to his rapist and Kelley being killed OFF SCREEN and frankly it feels like the
writers are TRYING to be awful.
Bright spot is Wu learning the big secret, but he and
Hank are still very much periphery characters and other POC tend to appear when
there’s woo-woo to mine (Latinos and Native Americans respectively). There are
still no LGBT characters – and we’ve just finished the fourth season of 80
gazillion characters
This is the season of the hot mess. Do better writers. Do
a whole lot better.
