This week’s “Grimm” didn’t do much to move us along to the big climax we know is coming, but we did see glimmers of Nick (David Giuntoli) feeling even more conflicted about Juliette, er, Eve, who’s played by Giuntoli’s real-life fiancee, Elizabeth, formerly known as Bitsie, Tulloch. No wonder the poor guy’s confused.
But most of Episode 8, titled “The Son Also Rises,” was devoted to Hank (Russell Hornsby) and Sgt. Wu (Reggie Lee) investigating a case that put a Portland spin on the classic “Frankenstein” tale.
(Let’s pause to note, as usual, that spoilers are coming up, so if you haven’t seen “The Son Also Rises” yet and want to be surprised, you know what to do.)
Just in case we might miss the reference, the killer was the son of one Dr. Victor Shelley, whose name combines Dr. Frankenstein’s and that of his creator, author Mary Shelley. The not-so-good doctor and his fellow scientists made the mistake of trying to bring Shelley’s dead son back to life by stitching him together with body parts purchased from a Portland cemetery.
In a refreshing touch, the scientists who created the monster weren’t Wesen, and didn’t even know about the supernatural creatures.
Finally! “Grimm” crimes committed in Portland by miscreants who aren’t Wesen!
But, of course, there was still a Wesen element, as Dr. Shelley’s son had been re-animated with body parts of dead Wesen creatures, which meant he was able to kill — with superhuman force — two of the scientists who were part of the team that revived the young Shelley.
Overall, this felt like another marking-time episode as the series finale approaches. Here are notable moments:
Something’s coming, but it’s not good (maybe): At the start, Nick, Eve, Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) and Rosalee (Bree Turner) are at the spice shop, still puzzling over the cloth, and its marks that seem to parallel constellations. The markings and the stars indicate a big event is on its way in March. But what? Nick ponders whether it might be plagues, a rain of frogs, locusts or an IRS audit.
Nick prepares to leave, but Eve says she can’t stay with Nick and Adalind any longer at the loft. They need their space, and Diana needs her bed back. Eve decides to stay at the spice shop, where there’s a cot and a bathroom. And not many customers, from what we’ve seen. How are Monroe and Rosalee going to support those triplets, anyway?
Left alone in the shop, Eve gazes into a hand mirror, and says to herself, “Who were you? Who are you now?” Before she can mull this existential issue further, that awful skull appears in the mirror, just like the one that showed up in the bathroom mirror at Nick’s loft in last week’s episode.
Eve smashes the mirror. But then the pieces take on a life of their own and reassemble. Eve bends to examine this, and a deadly hand reaches up to grab her throat, choking her. Eve woges into her Hexenbiest self, bites the arm, and is able to escape. It looks like that whole “death grip” thing Eve experienced has opened up some kind of portal, and it’s not lollipops and rainbows on the other side of it. After her ordeal, Eve crashes to the floor, hitting her head, and knocking her out.
Monroe’s daddy dream: OK, who was fooled for even a second during the weirdly long sequence of Rosalee supposedly waking up and telling Monroe she was giving birth, right that minute, way ahead of the due date? In a panic, Monroe tries to rise to the occasion, and he’s helping his beloved deliver baby after baby after baby, until at (too) long last, we realize IT’S ONLY A BAD DREAM. Well, duh.
Nick’s unresolved feelings: With Eve acting less like her robotic warrior self, and more like the Juliette Nick knew and loved, it’s not surprising that he has conflicted emotions about her. Yes, he’s living with Adalind and their baby, Kelly, but he and Juliette, er, Eve, sure went through a lot together.
Wu and Hank are noticing it, too. At the Portland Police station, Nick has to leave because he gets a call that “Juliette’s hurt,” after Monroe and Rosalee have found Eve unconscious at the spice shop. Nick heads off to “Overton” hospital right away.
“Did he just say ‘Juliette?'” Wu says.
“Yeah,” Hank replies. “He did.”
At the hospital, Eve, er, Juliette still hasn’t awakened. Nick sits by her bedside all day long, keeping watch, and having flashbacks to earlier seasons, when he first told Juliette he was a Grimm, and Aunt Marie and his mother both cautioned him about what being a Grimm means, and how it would expose his loved ones to danger. Nick’s flashback also includes Trubel killing Juliette, and Nick holding her seemingly dying self in his arms.
Finally, at night, Eve, er, Juliette wakes up. She tells Nick she wants to get out of the hospital right now, because she has a feeling that “something is starting,” and “I don’t think we have a lot of time before it gets here.”
Renard’s Siberian Skype connection: Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz) is still super-curious about the drawings Diana made when she was over at his house. Via Skype, Renard dials up an apparently old friend (or something) named Dasha in Siberia. They speak in Russian, with subtitles. Renard wants Dasha’s help in figuring out what Diana’s drawings mean. Later, after studying the drawings, Dasha tells Renard that they indicate something big is on its way, but “I can’t tell if it’s good or bad,” adding, “probably bad. Or worse.” And Diana is a part of it somehow, so “watch her very carefully.”
Lines of the Week
“Don’t mess with a man’s afterlife” — Hank, after he and Wu discuss the relative merits of cremation vs. being buried in a cemetery;
“Dead guys don’t woge, do they?” — Wu to Hank, wondering why dead men’s fingerprints were found at a murder scene;
“In case you forgot, neither are we” — Rosalee, answering Monroe’s exclamation (in his dream) that her giving birth so early isn’t “normal.”
— Kristi Turnquist
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