Grimm "Kiss of the Muse" Review

Nora Zehetner never plays the honest woman. Zehetner's brought onto a show or a movie to play a character that'll mess with the male leads. Zehetner portrayed the femme fatale in Rian Johnson's film debut, Brick, and essentially sealed her fate for the type of female character she'd portray for the rest of her career. Zehetner was excellent as Brick's femme fatale, a woman so sweet and nice-looking but who also packs a deadly kiss. From the second she appears on screen in Grimm, it's certain who Nick will become dangerously obsessed with by the final act. Zehetner's other notable role, for this blogger, was her stint on TheWB's Everwood. She portrayed Colin Hart's sister who dated Ephram for a short while before taking Amy to parties in season two, and then she disappeared entirely from the show, along with the Harts. Her role as Layne happened before Laura role in Brick. She was cute, flirty, had the style of the early 00s 'scene' girl,' and was exactly my type. I pursued a Zehetner type for a stretch of time near the end of 2003.

I did not act like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Brendan in Brick nor David Guintoli's Nick in "Kiss of the Muse." The highlight of "Kiss of the Muse" is the backstory of Khole's (Nora Zehetner's character) musai nature. Grimm delights me when it goes for broke with its concept, e.g. when Hitler was revealed to be a wesen. The musai has its origins in Germany. Simply, musai's are muses; you know, Homer addresses a muse in the beginning of The Odyssey. Countless authors, musicians, and painters, have their own muses. Grimm traces the musai back to Van Gogh. Van Gogh cut off his ear in a fit of passion for a musai he met, but his musai inspired his greatest works. Nick's finds Khloe, the musai, after an author's found dead at a book signing, and the suspect's found threatening Khloe. Khloe's not afraid, though. Nick doesn't understand why she's not afraid of what's happened. She tries to feign it, but she's a bad actress. She's at her best when she's sensual and seductive, one kiss away from sending a man into madness.

Khloe's a plot device, though. The other creatures can't affect Nick the way musai can. Last week's "Endangered" introduced endangered wesen. Musai's are notable because they get in the head of a Grimm like no one else on the planet. Nick's irritable, curt with his friends, barely paying any mind to Juliette during their dinner date, and cares only to be close to Khloe. Nick's turn as a cold and distant character was disconcerting for the fan, but a nice change for Guintoli. He's been criticized the most, besides Bitsie Tulloch, but he showed his range again. Khloe's created to bring Nick and Juliette back together. So, she serves two roles--as a threat to Nick, and as the catalyst for Nick and Juliette's relationship (sort of).

The Juliette amnesia storyline has felt endless and bottomless, like that time Juliette saw the bottom of her house drop out into blackness. The storyline had the pace of a race between a snail and a slug. Juliette couldn't remember Nick, then she fell for Renard because of magic nonsense, and then she slowly started to remember but became so freaked out by the deluge of memories that she pushed Nick even further away from her. The coupling would never progress until she remembered and accept his Grimm secret. The amnesia-of-everything Nick storyline did little but delay the resumption of their romance for a hell of a long time. Khole's entire purpose crystallizes as Juliette remembers the conversation with Nick in the trailer: Juliette will save Nick with True Love. Alan Matthews would be sick to his stomach.

The emotional climax between Juliette and Nick misses the mark, mostly because of how long it's taken to get to their emotional climax. The Khloe element is frustrating. Grimm clearly threw in another obstacle because that's what TV shows do. It reminded me of the episode of Boy Meets World in which Cory and Topanga get together but fake breaking up only to actually break-up, all in an effort to make Shawn feel like he brought Cory and Topanga together. It's conflict for the sake of conflict, and character development's practically non-existent.

There is a bright side to Juliette becoming aware of what's going on: every major character knows what's going on in Portland. Juliette's memory of Nick in the trailer is followed by the lighting of the trailer. Sun shines through the windows and everything is lit. Grimm's finally got all their ducks in a row. I'm excited for dinner scenes wherein Hank and Juliette join Nick, Rosalee and Monroe for veggie steaks and shoot the shit about the wesens and blutbads and other such creatures populating Portland.

Obsessive behavior is a decent change for Nick's character; however, Khloe fails as a character. Her motivations are rote and generic; she's the type of girl who thrives on chaos, of a boy acting madly and stupidly without her. She defends herself by citing the creations she inspired but also by ignoring their deaths. Renard's threatened enough by her to Volga for her when he demands she leave Portland and never return. Grimm's populated with psychotic half-man/half-wesen/whatever who sell organs, kidnap girls, kill, steal, etc. The biggest danger of all is still lust and desire. Nick's never been more vulnerable than in his scene with Khloe after she kisses him. Ah, love is a bitch.

Other Thoughts:

-Russell Hornsby missed two episodes because of an injury he suffered. Hank's walking around crutches after tearing his achilles in Hawaii. Did Hornsby tear his achilles?
-Musai's are more dangerous than hexenbiests. Good to know.

-I adored Bree Turner’s acting during Rosalee’s first time in Aunt Marie’s trailer. Turner played Rosalee with such wonder in her eyes. I was quite taken by Bree Turner in this episode. She’s a lovely looking woman, and I’m sure she’s a lovely person.

-I forget who wrote and who directed tonight’s episode. Apologies. 2024 update: Tawnia McKiernan directed the episode. Sean Caleder wrote the episode.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK