Grimm: Organ Grinder

“It seems like this town is just getting weirder.”

I’m going to let you into a secret. Before I blog on an episode of Grimm, I always do a teeny weeny bit of research so that I’m completely sure about which fairytale inspired the episode in question. But this time, it’s so bleeding obvious that we’re talking Hansel and Gretel that I’m just going to dive straight in. That’s the sort of chap I am.

Our wicked witch of the woods is a rather nasty doctor who lures the homeless (this episode has a bit of a social conscience) with false promises and shoves them in the oven, true to the fairytale, before getting her just desserts. We all know the story, so the episode can just go through the motions of the basic plot while spending most of its time with characterisation and arc stuff.

I begin to fear for the future of Nick’s relationship with Juliette. Nick’s aunt told him to break up with her; the last episode established that the family home is no longer a sanctuary and that Nick’s work and family lives can no longer be kept separate; and Nick, advised by Monroe is not going to tell her about him being a Grimm and all that because apparently most “normal” people are unable to cope. We all know how dramas work; all these things together have to mean that the relationship is doomed.

It seems there is a trade in human organs in Portland. Nick knows this because of his ever- increasing use of Monroe as his unpaid sidekick, which some may consider to be not entirely ethical. There are good reasons, I think, why I like Monroe and Hank as characters much more than I like Nick. This is partly due to the fact that Silas WeirMitchell and Russell Hornsby are charismatic actors and David Giuntoli, er, isn’t, but also because Hank and Monroe, as characters, are just, well, cooler.

A couple of quirky little points regarding this impressive little episode; we find that the mysterious Captain knows full well that Nick is a Grimm. What’s his game? Secondly, the homeless kids being taken away in vans by nasty evildoers to be shoved in to a furnace reminds me of the Doctor Who episode Rise of the Cybermen. Are two examples enough to declare the birth of a TV trope?