“Blind Love” arrived at the right time for me. I feel mired
in the daily doldrums of the American politics between websites, social media,
and podcasts. The other show I write about on the blog, The Vampire Diaries,
only has time for its ‘serious’ exploration of morality and hell. It took bringing back one of the show's most purely evil characters last night to return levity and humor to the show. Conversations
with friends, family, and wellwishers invariably dovetail into the subject of
our terrible president, our terrible congress, and the general overarching
pessimism and cynicism of the present. Sometimes, a dude needs an escapist
episode of TV with silliness and a sense of humor. Much of the humor in general
right now is tinged with darkness. Grimm gave me what I needed.
The A story has been done before in TV and movies. A spell
takes possession of the characters that causes them to act out of character
until the spell is broken and all returns to normal. These stories are easy,
fun, and light affairs. I find it easy to feel entertained by them. I really
liked the reversal of the ‘kidnapped child’ trope in TV procedurals, though.
Grossante, the lieutenant who killed for Renard back when Renard was 100% evil
(now he’s at 45%), kidnapped Diana to force Renard into giving him what he
wanted and was promised: Captain of the Precinct. Renard didn’t bother with the
demands. Instead, he let his powerful daughter handle it, and she did. She beat
her kidnapper senselessly throughout the day.
Nick, Rosalee, Eve, Hank, Wu, Adalind, and Kelly spent the
weekend at a hotel for Monroe’s birthday. The son of one of the men Nick
arrested years ago worked at the hotel and gave them a love spell. Their
mad-love passion for each other would’ve eventually killed them all if not
Rosalee not drinking the wine because of her pregnancy. It was a fun, slight
story made near-legendary by Russell Hornsby’s turn as a Hank in love with
himself. I could’ve done without the in-media-res
opening, (That device is tired out in network TV) but that’s my only gripe.
The birthday dinner scene also briefly transformed “Blind Love” into a
throwback flashback episode with Nick recalling the time him and Monroe met in
the “Pilot”, the time when Rosalee saved Monroe, and the time when they first
kissed. It was a nice easy breezy nod to the show’s past as it begins its
countdown to the last episode on March 31.
I didn’t like the gates of hell opening in Nick’s bathroom
mirror as Juliette looked into it. I’m all helled out. Will any genre show
resist using hell as a final season Big Bad? Diana showing Renard the symbols
of death will likely increase Renard’s evilness to 50% if not more. (I presume
the writers returned him to his default state of morally ambiguous). I’m
grateful that the writers gave us a fun, silly, inconsequential episode before
hell comes for Nick, Eve, and the gang in Portland.
Other Thoughts:
-The epigraph quoted Shakespeare’s A Midsummers Night’s Dream. Wu quoted several lines from
Shakespeare. His knowledge of the Bard isn’t limited to Shakespeare’s
aforementioned wonderful comedy. He quoted Hamlet as he prepared to jump from
the cliff. Monroe, too, quoted Shakespeare’s aforementioned wonderful fairy tale
comedy. He could’ve thrown in Sonnet 33 as well in wooing Juliette.
-“Blind Love” was not without awkward dialogue and awkward
character interaction, which is one of this show’s marvelous peculiarities.
Diana, out of nowhere, told Juliette, the person responsible for beheading
Kelly, how much she liked Kelly. I’m sure Diana will never learn about what
happened there. Also, Diana told Juliette that she’s sad because she, Juliette,
is not Nick’s anymore. Well, that’s because of the whole beheading thing.
-Sean Calder wrote the episode. Aaron Lipstadt directed it.
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