Grimm "Where The Wild Things Were" Review

Were the wild things in Pylea?

Grimm returned to a favorite old standby in “Where The Wild Things Were”.  You know the one. Characters stand around and tell another character various things that the audience watched happen throughout the season. One could argue that the scenes between the gang and Renard existed this time specifically because of Renard’s past duplicity. Would the gang, as well as the audience, trust him? Could he earn that trust? Renard has been feeble and passive since “Oh Captain My Captain” so he seemed sort of eager to help the gang save Nick and Eve from The Other Place. Plus, his daughter is the destined bride of the devil. That’ll make someone put aside old grudges.

This episode set things up for Grimm’s endgame. Amazingly, Kouf and Greenwalt seem committed to tying this wacky and insane world together via The Other Place, Zerstorer, the stick, the cloth, the symbols, and the keys. The Other Place is clearly The Black Forest circa 1204—the time of the stick, the cloth, and the keys. The world then was full of wesen in their pre-woge nature. Zerstorer, the devil, is a creature the resident humans would like dead. Nick proved his killer aptitude by shooting dead a few Blutbaden. The villagers eagerly pointed Nick in the direction of Zerstorer.

All of “Where The Wild Things Were” anticipates Zerstorer’s appearance in The Other Place. Essentially, nothing much happens besides characters repeating information and plot details that the audience already knows. At Nick’s loft, the other characters imply or suggest things that likely will figure into the next two episodes.

The one significant character scene belonged to Nick and Eve wherein the writing finally addressed the divide between Juliette and Eve. Nick’s history with Juliette motivated his stepping through the looking glass to help her, but Eve emphasized that she’s not Juliette, that Juliette’s gone, while confirming that she remembers and “hates” what Juliette did. That will allow Nick to find a measure of closure about what happened at the end of season four without the writers pulling an about-face and admitting that they created Eve specifically to rehabilitate Juliette. The scene’s notable for clearing away any confusion about Eve’s characterization since season five’s finale yet the thin threads that remains between Juliette and Eve marred the scene.

The writing last season never addressed what happened at the end of season four. Instead, the writers introduced Eve, gave her a wig, had different characters repeat that she was a different character, even though it seemed like an overt attempt to rehab the character by giving her a different identity. Anyway, that’s evidently not the case. Beyond the confusion, messiness, and problems of Eve’s existence, the scene sneaked in a relatable real life thing about two people growing apart and becoming different people in the Nick/Juliette scene. People change throughout a relationship, except in Grimm the change is noticeable. Nick became a Grimm. Juliette became a hexenbiest. Genre shows such as Grimm and that other fairy tale show on ABC, and the many genre shows before both fairy tale shows, used larger-than-life metaphors to tell stories about the everyday. Grimm is such a loose, weird, and discombobulated show at times that one (i.e. me) overlooks how this or that thing in Grimm mythos informs something about a character or a relationship. Of course, Grimm’s writers never seemed to start breaking a story by asking how this or that thing will inform or highlight a character or his or relationship.

Sometimes Grimm got lost in the weeds.

Other Thoughts:

-Nevertheless, I liked seeing Renard interacting with the rest of the cast. The initial reluctance by Monroe, Rosalee, Adalind, Hank, and Wu to share crucial information with Renard quickly disappeared, and everyone freely shared each detail involving The Other Place.

-This episode's quote came from Shakespeare's The Tempest, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. The Tempest and "Where The Wild Things Were" had altering realities in common. Check out the audio dramatization of the play starring Sir Ian McKellen as Prospero if you can.

-Wu had a line about Alice in Wonderland tonight. Did you know Vladimir Nabokov translated that book into Russian in his early 20s? There was a time in 2014 when I drew parallels between Adalind's adventures in Viktor's castle and Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading. Ah, memories. Anyway, the obvious 'through the looking glass' metaphor connects Grimm and ANGEL yet again. One of ANGEL's season two Pylean episodes is titled "Through The Looking Glass". 

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-Brenna Kouf wrote the episode. Terrence O’Hara directed.