Sunday, February 12, 2017

Grimm, Season Six, Episode Six: Breakfast in Bed


"Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would
 to have never been born at all." 

Clearly, Breakfast in Bed, deals with the difficulty of trying to hide the fact that you're seeing something that no one else does.  It's made worse by the belief that telling the truth and asking for help will lead to even greater problems.  Though the majority of the story focuses on our typical Wesen of the Week storyline, it's clearly meant to link in with Eve and Renard's ongoing problems.

It begins when Dan rushes into a cheap hotel as he is warned that he has to keep the noise down. As Dan makes his way to his room, a neighbour woman snaps at him about the noise, as an elderly man sits in a wheelchair and stares at him. Dude in the wheelchair just screams creepy as fuck. 

A nervous Dan employs the numerous locks on his door and then nails a chain around the window. Dan then peeks under the bed and in the closet before climbing into bed clutching a hammer. Dan fights sleep but eventually succumbs, only to be awakened by a green mist. A disgusting creature climbs on top of Dan and then opens it's mouth in a four way split, revealing a row of glowing green terrifying teeth.  No wonder dude is paranoid. 

While Dan is having his appointment with the creepy creature, Nick sneaks out of the room he shares with Adalind, to head into the tunnels to take pictures Eve's carvings.  He is joined by Eve and the two discuss the potential meanings.

It's time to have a little chat with Monroe and Rosealee about what the hell these glyphs mean. Looking at the images, it's Monroe who recogises the Pleiades constellation, which ancient civilizations associated with mourning. It coincides with the fact that seven Grimm buried the artifact and seven keys lead to it. They begin to ponder if perhaps they are looking at a calendar and it's Eve who suggests that maybe it marks a time in the past.

The next morning Dan, who is properly freaking out runs out of his room wearing only an under shirt and boxers.  He makes his way outside rambling about someone in his room. A man who works with the homeless notices Dan and approaches him to try to help. Dan immediately comes to the conclusion that the good Samaritan is the person who has been slipping into his room and goes on attack, in the process killing the man. 

At the precinct, Nick brings up the carvings to Hank and it's clear that Hank would much rather stick to real world problems.  They get interrupted by Wu, who tells them all about Dan's murder.  After some brief investigation, they manage to track Dan back to his hotel room and take him into custody. Nick and Hank debate whether Dan is dealing with a mental illness or if there's Wesen involvement. Of course, they decide that some random Wesen had a role to play in this. 

Nick and Hank stop to talk with Scott, the manager of the fleabag hotel about Dan and about Charles Link, the creepy dude in the wheelchair, who was eyeballing Nick in the hall when he went to apprehend Dan.

Back at the precinct they learn that Dan has no criminal record, causing Nick to wonder if Dan possibly had an episode after seeing a Wesen. Hank and Nick head to an interrogation room to see Dan, who tells them that he was attacked by Satan, with disgusting breathe and a huge sleep.  Dan adds that he cannot sleep. Dan then goes on the attack and Hank is forced to punch him, thus knocking Dan out cold.

It's back to the spice shop for the cops to find out what kind of Wesen they are looking for.  Monroe is quick to determine that they are looking for an Alpe - a creature that Monroe has personal disgust for because one killed his aunt. Alpe's paralyze their victims before feeding on the proteins the brain creates during REM sleep and are particularly attracted to melatonin. The victims of Alpe's go insane and if an Alpe doesn't feed they go insane. Nick and Hank now know what they are looking for but what they don't know is how the ALPE got into Dan's room. 

Renard is still in deep trouble and he is operating alone thanks to his defection to the dark side. Anselmo Baledin (a Blackclaw operative) marches into Renard's office under the auspices of cleaning up the mess that Renard made. Anselmo is pissed that Renard is no longer the mayor, that Bonaparte is dead and that Nick is still alive.  Renard is quick to blame Nick for Bonaparte's death and claims that Nick should be dead and that he doesn't understand how it is that Nick is still alive. It seems that despite all that's gone wrong, Anselmo is still interested in getting Renard back on track; however, Renard announces that he is done with Black Claw and kicks Anselmo out of his office. 

In the hallway, Renard gets into an argument with our favourite ghost Meisner. This time however, Meisner isn't there to taunt Renard but to warn him that there are two men waiting in the garage to kill him. Sure enough, when Renard enters the garage, there are two armed men. Before the men can shoot Renard, Meisner does some ghost mojo thing, thus giving Renard the chance to take out the men there to assassinate him.  Renard is puzzled by Meisner's intervention and is simply told that this time he chose the right side.  Renard asks if things are good between them now and Meisner walks away without answering.  

With Dan gone, the Alpe needs to feed on someone else and so chooses the nosy neighbour who gave Dan a hard time in the morning. So yeah, there's a part of me that enjoyed that. Unfortunately, things don't end well for the nosy neighbour because when she is finally able to move again, she runs out of her room, trips and falls down the staircase before promptly dying. When Nick and Hank investigate, Nick notices that in the nosy neighbour lady's room that there are nail holes along the window. Back at the precinct, they learn that there have been a few suspicious deaths at the hotel.  Nick and the scoobies decide that this means that it's time to run a sting on the hotel.

Of course, it's Monroe who is selected to go under cover at the hotel. Monroe heads to his room, sets up the surveillance camera, locks the doors and windows and checks to make sure that Hank and Nick who are waiting outside can hear him. Monroe then settles down to bed. I don't know about you, but I don't know how Monroe was able to close his eyes knowing what is coming for him. 

Outside, Nick and Hank talk about how boring the stake out is. It's not long before they see the camera shift, indicating that someone is in Monroe's room. Inside the room, the Alpe has unleashed its mist and climbs on top of Monroe. Nick and Hank rush to the hotel, only to find the door locked. With few options, Hank shoots the door which alerts the Alpe that something is going on. By the time the cops make it to Monroe's room the Alpe is gone. Nick and Hank discover that the dresser in Monroe's room is hollow and that behind it is a tunnel. The cops rush into the tunnel, leaving a paralyzed Monroe behind. 

Inside the tunnel they find the manager Scott and chase him down. Scott woges into a Hundjäger and the battle is on.  By the time Monroe catches up with Hank and Nick, Scott is dead on the ground. Monroe is confused because he's certain that he was attacked by an Alpe and not a Hundjäger.  The cops head back into the tunnel with Monroe on their heals and this time they find an upscale room, which is a shock considering the state of the hotel. It turns out that they are in Beverly the owner's private suite. Monroe takes a deep sniff and announces that Beverly is the Alpe that they are looking for and that he wants justice for his dead aunt.

Beverly is completely feeling herself and points out that the cops cannot charge her with anything because they cannot prove that she harmed anyone. Nick offers Beverly two options:

  1. Sell the hotel and donate the proceeds to a homeless shelter and then leave Portland forever.
  2. Die because Nick is a Grimm and no one is going to miss an Alpe
Beverly meekly agrees to call her realtor in the morning.  It turns out however that she was just playing possum because the minute Nick lets his guard down, she moves to attack but stumbles and hits her head on a coffee table and dies.

Back at the spice shop, Rosealee suggests to Eve that they use a computer program that she has to track the stars to figure out what date the astrological map is pointing to.  When they move backwards, they are unable to make a match. Rosealee accidentally moves the clock forward and they find a match for this coming March 24, which means that the map is detailing something which has yet to happen.  This means that all of you who thought that the stick was part of the cross Jesus was crucified on are probably WRONG.  Some shit is about to go down.

Now that Renard has renounced Black Claw and it seems as though Meisner has forgiven him, I wonder if it means that Renard will become part of the scoobies again? I think that they just might need all hands on deck for the big event which just magically occurs on the series penultimate episode.

We still don't know a lot about the magical stick but at least the writers have confirmed that they will wrap this all up before the series ends.  It still leaves the question of where this has all been building to. Personally, I think that the Wesen will become public knowledge and all people will be able to see them, not just Grimm.  It would explain why exactly it is that Black Claw is desperate to get Wesen into positions of power.  Clearly, despite the strength and skills of Wesen, humans finding out about the existence of Wesen might not be a good thing for them and therefore; having people in power would help to forestall great disaster. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

It seems that Eve is being changed by the stick.  Each time she appears on screen, I see less and less of Eve and more of Juliette.  It leads me to believe that before the end, Juliette will be herself again and at some point, Nick is going to have to choose between her and his rapist. As much as I don't want Nick not to choose between these two, I like seeing slivers of Juliette making a reappearance, particularly because she's not playing the vulnerable Juliette but one who's in the know and is empowered.

I very much wish that Grimm would drop the Wesen of the Week routine. We have precious little episodes left and it all feels like such a waste of time given what's going on with the freaky stick.  I did however enjoy this episode with its misdirection with the creepy dude in the wheelchair, who woges into a red fish like thing at the end.  I also like that the writers are having the characters lampoon the idea that every single crime is Wesen related because on this show, it's always Wesen related.