Grimm "Bad Luck" Review

NBC’s premise for the episode, or maybe the cable provider’s premise for the episode, or whatever department wrote the premise for “Bad Luck,” included a bit about Monroe and Rosalee going undercover in an effort to stop a Wesen who hacks off one foot of another Wesen for the sake of helping Wesen couples that struggle to conceive. I had visions of a multi-act Rosalee and Monroe romp under disguise, elaborate and parodic, but they’re undercover antics last two scenes. It’s far from the hook of the episode. What is the hook of the episode? Well, one wants Nick and Hank to find the killer, for certain; one wants the victim in the teaser’s sister to survive; there’s also Nick’s bad reaction to Juliette’s hexenbiest transformation. The reveal changed the relationship. Juliette regains his trust of her authentic identity by mentioning the nonsense around their proposal. Nick wanders off into the Portland night and recollects their past. The leaps of faith she took for him and so on. Henrietta suggested to Nick, later in the episode, that he accept her for who she is rather than seek out a solution, which doesn’t exist. Indeed, his blood can’t cure her, because that’s dramatically uninteresting. The couple must redefine their relationship.

A lot of the non-case of the week action has moments amid frustrating creative choices. Adalind’s proposal to Renard about working together to find Diana doesn’t make sense. It allows for convenient conflict in the same way Juliette going to Renard first allows for convenient conflict. Nick’s freaked by the hexenbiest news, but he didn’t like Renard’s initial involvement in helping Juliette. Renard and Juliette have a past Nick would like to forget. The plot involving Adalind, Renard, Juliette, and Nick is unpleasantly soapy, but soap is needed to sustain twenty two episodes worth of content and story in a network year. “Bad Luck” dovetails into melodramatically soapy revelations that stem from the roots of Juliette’s unpleasant situation. Nick needed to become a Grimm again after Adalind took his power of sight (or whatever makes a grimm a grimm). To do that she slept with him. Juliette needed to sleep with Nick as Adalind to restore his grimm-ness. She became a hexenbiest, and Adalind became pregnant. She screamed an anguished ‘No!’ at the end of the episode, which anticipated the loud oratory and prolonged “No!” from the audience. Baby stories always disappoint in TV as do stories about conflicts involving the mother or father of that unfortunate baby born from a degree of laziness in the writers room.

The case of the week involved another Wesen acting outside the parameters of what the Wesen Council set. The Wesen Council, though little seen, and only through its mediators (or whatever), have become more prominent in the series. Perhaps Greenwalt and Kouf will involve the council more in season five. The council admonishes cruel Wesens, but the council is not without its cruelty. A confrontation between Nick and the council as a multi-episode arc’d out story in season five that’s focused may be the thing Grimm needs moving forward; however, a single season focused story hasn’t been Grimm’s style. The Wesen Council seems destined to remain a vague threat, a warning to those tertiary Wesen that act out of accordance with the laws. The organizations and Royal Families and et al are fragments, shadowy ideas that need form and substance.

Other Thoughts:

-I guess my Grimm reviews will continue. I’m not sure that I’ll refer to the posts as reviews. I might meander about whatever, or I may not write if I’ve nothing to write. The 5 weeks between episodes helped produce this jawn.

-I made a bet that the high school introduced in the teaser would die. That’s the easiest bet to make whenever a procedural is on.

-Thomas Ian Griffith wrote the episode. Terrence O’Hara directed.