Grimm "Nobody Knows the Trubel I've Seen" Review

No one knows the trouble T. Rubel has seen, Grimm’s newest character, who arrives in Portland when Viktor’s plotting an attack against the one current known grimm in Portland. No one knows the trouble Nick’s about to find himself in. Oh, that was lame.

Nick, Juliette, Monroe, Rosalee, and Sean, look like they’re walking on a pond of ice that may possibly break apart under their feet, which would send each to an unpleasant icy death, whenever Adalind stops by to scream and cry about her lost baby. Adalind’s among the least sympathetic characters in the series, but the baby storyline has done wonders for the characters. She’s relatable, a victim, and she’s been strung along, controlled by men, a passive observer when she should be the active force. Her baby’s gone. She seeks the help of people she thinks she can trust, unaware of their role in whisking the baby away with Nick’s mother. Adalind, desperately sad, calls on Prince Viktor to beg and plead for her baby. Viktor won’t tell her he’s without the baby, because he’ll use her anger and desperation to settle scores without leaving his palatial Austrian estate. His initial act of manipulation with Adalind is to set her on Nick, the Grimm he views as a problem. Adalind, with grimm blood in her, has the strength to complete Viktor’s mission.

Nick and Hank spend most of the episode free from baby-drama. A double homicide draws their attention, involving two violent Wesens, who in the teaser seemed about to pounce on a skinny, unsuspecting, vulnerable girl, but wind up dead. The mystery of the case is who would have the strength to take out these nasty Wesen. Another girl who picks a fight with Trubel is killed, because the Wesen girl wanted Trubel’s pair of shoes. The audience should wonder, too, about what exactly this proficient killer is. David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf reveal she’s a grimm early in the episode when Hank tells Nick he’s only seen him kick ass the way this anonymous murder has—with these beastly creatures. Nick nods and doesn’t follow that line of thinking. The NBC promos gave away the woman’s secret two weeks ago, a reveal that’s not directly discovered until the second to last act break.

The majority of the episode follows the soon-to-be-named Trubel from murder to murder. She’s a loner, eager to avoid trouble, but unable to control what happens when trouble finds her. Two men, the aforementioned dead bodies at the crime scene, try to force themselves on her. The other girl tries to take what isn’t hers. Trubel’s body language is as troubled as her life. She walks with her shoulders slumped, her head dropped, trying to be invisible in a visible world. Two scenes in her apartment show her vulnerable and shaky. Her body’s cut and scraped. Her hands looked burned. In the shower, after the second murder, she sits down and cries. Trubel wandered from state to state, without a home, with nightmarish images in her mind that she rendered on paper, with sentences about how the monsters won’t destroy her. She went to psychiatric wards.

Nick finds her at the precipice of madness. Monroe sees she’s a grimm after he woges. Nick and Hank followed the tip to get their murderer, but they instead find a victim in need of counsel and understanding. Nick has a companion of Trubel’s notebook in which she drew monstrous creatures. Nick has stories to share. He can bring her back and show her the different ways of handling Wesen. Nick stood out in the show because he treated his role as a grimm differently from his ancestors. His mother represents the old guard of grimms, fiercely unsentimental and proactively murderous; however, Nick forged bonds with different Wesens, and he’ll serve as best man at Monroe’s wedding. He’s a perfect antidote for Trubel’s perceived madness, which isn’t at all madness. She doesn’t understand the role she has in a specifically unique world to her and Nick. By the end of the episode, Nick convinces Trubel to listen to her after showing her the items in the trailer.

“Nobody Knows the Trubel I’ve Seen” continues a recent string of engaging and entertaining Grimm episodes. Quite a bit of the episode is reminiscent of Greenwalt’s previous projects with Joss Whedon, which isn’t bad at all.

Other Thoughts:

-The baby fall-out continued as a strong aspect of the back-end of Grimm. Adalind’s desperation for the baby was moving. She dreamt about Diana’s return to her. Viktor’s uncle surprised him with a visit that oozed with foreboding. C Thomas Howell wants to kill Renard.

-David Greenwalt & Jim Kouf wrote the episode. Norberto Barba directed.