Grimm "Blind Love" Review

“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.