Sunday, April 2, 2017

Grimm, Season Six, Episode Thirteen: The End


"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me"

It's official, Grimm is no more and now all I need to do is pretend that the entirety of season six didn't happen because I think it will be remembered as the worst season of Grimm.  I absolutely don't forgive the writers for how they ended this series. Yeah, I know that fairytales are supposed to have a happy ending but there are also supposed to be rules when you create an alternate universe. What the writers did was simply throw shit against a wall repeatedly and make shit up to fake their way through this final horrendous episode and season.  

You may well recall that at the end of Zerstörer Shrugged, I was pretty damn pissed because both Hank and Wu died. Given that Hank and Wu were the only two reoccurring characters of colour, seeing them dead on the ground made me so damn pissed. Well, as I'd hoped, Nick pulled out his magical stick except this time, for some unknown reason, the damn stick didn't work.  Why it didn't work, we were never told. It simply stopped working.  See what I mean about the writers just faking shit.  

While Nick was busy with the Zerstörer, the scoobies come up with a plan to mix Grimm blood with Hexenbiest blood and the blood of a Wesen, in order to create an uber spell to kill the Zerstörer.  Given that guns seem to have no effect on the beast, I think they're all a bit over confidant that this will do the trick.   It's Truble who suggests that they need to rely on the tactics of their ancestors and cut off the damn Zerstörer's head.

Eve has stayed behind to give Nick the heads up. They have a brief chat about the fact that she isn't a hexenbiest anymore and Eve is once again adamant that she's going to come through this just fine.  This might as well have been famous last words because the Zerstörer  shows up and shoves a knife into her gut before disappearing. Once again the Judas stick doesn't work and Eve stays dead. And why doesn't it work? Because the writers decided to suddenly take away the uber magical powers of the stick for the purposes of angst. 

Nick is quickly running out of allies and so he heads to the cabin in the hopes of finishing the spell and stopping the Zerstörer at last.  Just as the scoobies are finishing the spell, Diana waltzes in to announces that the Zerstörer is on his way and has been tracking Nick using you guessed it, the stick. Diana, being the ever helpful child actually opens the door for the Zerstörer. Did no one have the stranger danger conversation with her?

Renard goes into full on Dad mode and decides to attack the Zerstörer to defend his daughter.  Renard tells the Zerstörer  that he's willing to die to keep his daughter safe and that is precisely what he does next. NOOO! Not Renard.  So if you're keep track, that leaves Adalind (who I don't care about), Rosealee, Monroe and Truble.  Seeing that shit is getting real, Adalind calls out for Truble to grab the baby and run.  Unfortunately, the Zerstörer promptly locks Truble in the cabin, cutting off any possible escape.  Adalind goes Hexenbiest and uses her power to attempt to chuck an axe at the Zerstörer but he kills her.  Given that Adalind is a rapist, I cannot get too worked up about this, but I will admit to getting into my feelings a little bit when her last words to Nick were for him to make sure that her children are safe. Rosealee picks up the staff when the  Zerstörer  drops it and he promptly turns it into a snake which bites into Rosealee's neck. Monroe woges and tries to free Rosealee but the snake turns on him next. Nick rushes over to Monroe and Rosealee, who is already dead. Nick takes Monroe's hands and begs him not to go but Monroe dies. Nick lets out a howl of pain at Monroe's passing and this is the most vocal he's been at the loss of one of his loved ones, highlighting just how much his relationship with Monroe has come to mean to him.

Well, this means that Truble is the only ally Nick has left and right now she's trapped in the house with baby Kelly to defend.  The Zerstörer  makes his way into the house with Diana by his side.  Diana instructs Truble to stay away from her brother because now she likes the Zerstörer and has decided that Kelly will as well.  Truble isn't about to listen to orders from the demon child and goes on the attack. Truble holds her own briefly but is quickly killed.  Nick arrives to find only the kids left alive.  Nick walks over to Kelly and strokes his face saying that he doesn't want to lose his son.  Am I the only one who noticed that he didn't even mention the demon child? 

This is when the Zerstörer plays his trump card.  He acknowledges at this point that he's taken everyone that Nick loves but that he doesn't have to take Kelly. The Zerstörer promises that he can bring everyone back and proves it by bringing Truble back to life.  At first, Truble is disoriented but she's quick to object when the Zerstörer suggests that he can bring everyone back to life if Nick will just hand him the stick.  Nick realises that the Zerstörer cannot kill him while he has the stick and that the Zerstörer cannot take the stick from him either.  

We're going to pause right there. What a steaming crock of shit.  Up until he started killing the entire cast, we've really been given no reason to believe that the Zerstörer is truly evil, even though the writers had an entire freaking season to make this case.  Then to add to the problematic bullshit, they make it so that the Zerstörer must be given the stick willingly. There's no explanation for this, the writers just decided this for shit and giggles and we're all supposed to go along.

Truble being Truble knows that something is up right away and is quick to counsel Nick not to hand over the stick. Nick however is so caught up with everyone that he's lost that he's perfectly willing to make a deal with the devil if this means that he'll get everyone back.  Truble actually has to put her body in the way and snatch the stick. Truble takes off running and Nick is quick to follow. The Zerstörer is calm while he waits for the two Grimms to fight it out.  Truble doesn't get far because the stick starts to burn her hand.

Okay, pause number two.  Truble is a Grimm so there's no reason to believe that the stick would go on an attack against her. The same blood which flows through Truble's veins flows through Nick's. This is yet another situation that makes no sense that the writers set up in order to create a conflict between two people who should be on the same blood side.

A fight breaks out between Truble and Nick and it's awesome at first as they trade blows.  Nick ends up with the upperhand with Truble prone on her back. Nick stops himself from punching Truble in the face but gets up and grabs the stick to make his way back to the Zerstörer.

Okay pause number three. What in the actual fuck? Yeah, on one hand Nick and Truble fighting is totes awesome but on the other, we're actually watching as a man is punching a woman repeatedly. This isn't cute. This isn't fun and this most certainly is not okay. Yes, Nick stopped himself from punching Truble while she was down but the fact is, he had to stop himself.  I don't care how bad he wanted that damn stick, he shouldn't have been punching Truble and fuck the writers for creating this scenario in the first damn place. 

Okay, having defeated Truble, Nick is on his way back to hand over the stick when he hears a familiar voice. Yes, it's mommy Grimm and Aunt Marie. Woot. Marie and Kelly tell Nick that he can defeat the Zerstörer with the power of his blood and by that they mean the collective power of the Grimms which both he and Truble are heirs to.  The epic battle begins with the four Grimms taking out the Zerstörer . When it's all over, the Zerstörer lies dead and Kelly instructs Nick to take care of her grandson, remarking how much she likes his name. Nick turns to Truble for a moment who is elated at having defeated the Zerstörer. It seems that Nick and the devil child are the only two who realised that Kelly and Marie came back from the dead to defeat the Zerstörer.

Okay, pause again.  Look, I loved seeing Kelly and Marie again, particularly Kelly because I hate the way that her character was summarily killed off.  I have always felt that Kelly deserved way better than what she got.  My problem is that now all of a sudden Nick can see dead people?  What is this, The Sixth Sense? You don't get to pull out new powers in the freaking series finale for the purposes of fan service with no explanation. Yes, fans wanted to see Marie and Kelly again but groundwork needs to be done before just pulling them out of the coffin and putting them on display. Yes, this is the writers just throwing shit against the wall once again.

Nick is happy that the Zerstörer is now dead but that still doesn't mean that he'll get back all of the people he's lost. Nick takes a knee next to Adalind and removes Bonepart's ring from from her finger at long last.  Suddenly, the Zerstörer's body turns into ash and creates a portal.  Nick feels himself pulled towards the portal and though he struggles against it, Nick gets drawn in because he won't drop the damn stick.

When next we see Nick, he's crashing through the mirror with Eve by his side. Now we're time travelling because it's apparently now a thing because hey it's the series finale and fuck the rules.  Nick's absolutely ecstatic to see that everyone is still alive. He takes turns hugging each person, clearly reveling in his, It's a Wonderful Life moment. Every time a devil dies a Grimm gets his wings. It only gets better when Diana announces that the Zerstörer didn't follow Nick and Eve this time and that Eve has returned to being a Hexenbiest.

Grimm has always been about playing with fairy tales and so a happy ending is in order.  We move forward 20 years to see a young Kelly writing in the Grimm book in the trailer. He's writing down the story of the Zerstörer and in the background is a computer. Yeah, I'm actually excited about this because the Grimopedia should have been digitized the moment Nick came into possession of it. Diana shows up to collect their brother because they have a rogue Wesen to deal with. Diana grabs the staff as though it's any other weapon in the Grimm arsenal and announces that the triplets are going to join them on this mission. So I suppose alls well that ends well cause the kids grow up and follow in their parents footsteps. 

I really and truly feel robbed by this ending. Yes, I'm glad that everyone lived (with the exception of the rapist) and that Eve got to stay a Hexenbiest; however, considering that Grimm has supposedly been building to this ending for the last six years it's all so very ridiculous. Am I really supposed to believe that this is what the writers had in mind when they introduced the keys so many seasons ago?  Really? Nope, I don't buy it for one moment. 

Am I supposed to find closure in the fact that Kelly and Diana grow up to follow in Nick's footsteps and in the case of Kelly, with his father's horrible season one haircut as well? Nope. I'm not happy; this is slapdash. We're expected to believe that the adults are happy in the lives they've chosen and have passed on the mantle to the kids now.  That's it. That's all. No explanation about the world. No explanation on how the Wesen came into being.  Just everyone is happy let it go and now you know the riddle about the damn keys. Fuck the keys and fuck this ending.

I also think it's telling that we're left with no idea of what happened to Hank and Wu.  Why should I concern myself with what happened to the only two characters of colour right? Did Wu finally get himself a girlfriend? What about Hank?  Are their lives happy? Are they still cops? It seems that Nick has retired from being a Grimm, so does that mean that they've stopped being involved? What about the fact that Wu can woge into something else now? How has that impacted his life?  We don't learn anything about Hank and Wu because it's clear that the writers didn't view them as important enough to include in their faux happy ending.  I could give a damn what happened to the murderous demon child.

Speaking of forgotten people, what about Truble and Renard? We did learn that Truble is in fact a distant cousin on Nick's mother's side and that it.  Truble was so misused this entire season. She showed up and announced just like that that Black Claw was finished.  Think about the time Grimm spent turning Black Claw into a thing to just have Truble summarily declare that it's all over with now. By doing this, they actually turned the whole thing with Black Claw into little more than a bloody filler. Truble could have added so much to the final season but instead they crammed her into the plot box.

As for our conflicted and sexist captain Renard, we have no idea.  We know that Truble was surprised to see him at the cabin and made it clear that she doesn't trust him. We know that Renard died temporarily for his daughter and that's it. Did he ever really work his way back into the scoobies? Did he ever become mayor? Who knows.

Finally Eve, I suppose because she decided that she's going to be fine she's fine. All of that time building up emotions because Juliet became a Hexenbiest and then became Eve and we get no final word on her? Eve's happy ending is that she's decided that she doesn't need to be happy nor does she need Nick in her life romantically.  Really Grimm?

For six seasons, Grimm has really just flown by the seat of its pants. Far too often the story got lost in the Wesen of the week storyline. At times, I'm not sure if Grimm wanted to just be a police procedural and the fantasy stuff got in the way of if it secretly wanted to be all about the fantasy and simply didn't know how to go about it. This last season in particular highlighted everything which has been wrong with Grimm since the very first season. The writer failed to work on the meta, properly establish rules in its universe and then follow them, thus forcing them to crap in an ending which was ridiculous. At this point, the only way I will forgive them is if they release video of all of Wu's snarky comments for the last six seasons.