Grimm: Trust Me Knot

"Whatever happens to Nick is gonna happen to you!"

Wow. Firstly, that was awesome. Secondly, it was clever, with a last minute twist that upends everything. Thirdly, as I suspected, this final short season is blowing apart the tradition of epic stuff for a season's first two episodes and then the arc plot taking a back seat to stories of the week; this episode's climax utterly blows apart the status quo.

The "previously on", by emphasising the fact that Rachel Wood's room had Renard's fingerprints all over it, sort of gives away what Hank and Wu are going to do; dramatically arrest Renard for her mirder and use him as a bargaining chip for Nick's seemingly inevitable reinstatement into the police, with all charges dropped. That this doesn't happen, and that Renard ends up free, powerful and with everything he wants, is deeply unexpected. And the question of how Hank and Wu can continue to work under him is suddenly answered; they're fired. It seems that Grimm is no longer a police procedural.

There's some interesting stuff about the stick, too, and hints at some unholy origins, whether from the symbols hidden on the cloth or the fact that Nick seemed reluctant, Gollum-like, to part with it. More is clearly set to be revealed about the season's MacGuffin. Diana is scary, too; she may be a sweet little girl but she's powerful, and it's only a matter of time until she surely ends up as the season Big Bad. Oh, and Rosalie ends up publicly announcing her pregnancy, in typical TV fashion, at a moment of high danger.

There's a long way to go, though; Nick is still on the run, Hank and Wu are no longer cops, Trubel has buggered off, and the city's establishment is right behind Renard and Black Claw...

Grimm: Fugitive

"You chose the wrong side, Sean."

Things keep on moving fast with no sign of a new status quo emerging; normally we can expect things to settle down after the first couple of episodes of a new season, but this season is both much shorter than usual and the final season. Anything can happen.

Nick is a fugitive with Sean using the full weight of the Portland police force to "shoot to kill". Things don't look good for Nick, especially after the cliffhanger, and a big question mark hangs over both Hank and Wu; how can they carry on as cold when their boss is such a blatant baddie? And yet... there are signs that Sean isn't really sure that he's on the right side. One thing is sure; Adalind is definitely still with Nick.

There are other curiosities; Eve is still Eve but is losing her powers and seems to be getting more and more Juliette-like. And why did Renard shoot Bonaparte instead of Nick at the end of the finale? Could it have been Diana controlled by her own father? That little girl is getting creepier and creepier. And this is a compelling start to the season.

Although apparently the artist formerly known as Bitsie Tillich is now going by "Elizabeth". That's buggered up all my tagging...

Grimm: Cry Havoc

"If it's any consolation, Kenneth is dead..."

... And now so is Juliette. Who saw that coming? It's quite a twist, as is her entire character arc throughout the latter part of the season. Bitsie gets to bow out with an awesome death concluding an awesome storyline. Yes, Kenneth dies too, but that's less important; he's just an ersatz Prince Viktor, and still feels like a blatant replacement, filling in a part originally planned for Alexis Denisof.

This is a big season finale, a highly entertaining one, but it's sadly devalued by both Debisof's absence and the fact that it opens with the revelation that Kelly is dead through means of showing, not telling, as Mary Elizabeth Madtrantonio didn't even appear in the episode in which her character died. These things matter, to put it mildly.

Still, everything else is sufficient to bring the standard up. It's a good finale, it really is, but there's a certain epic quality missing through the lack of said personnel. The dogs of war bark, and bark well, but they don't quite bite.

It's nice, and near, to see the late Kenneth being framed for the Jack the Ripper murders. And it's nice to see Kenneth getting arrested (his fake surname, from his passport, is "Bowes-Lyon", the late Queen Mother's maiden name!), but then taken to an honest, old-fashioned bout of fisticuffs with Nick. In which Nick, predictably, kills him.

Meanwhile, Juliette seems to be getting on with the deliciously evil King, who, it seems, is called Frederick, and who casually abandons Kenneth to his death. There's one more twist, however; just as we think the King has won, and is leaving Portland in a helicopter with his granddaughter Diana... she kills him. It seems this little princess, the child of Sean and Adalind, is firmly with the resistance.

Nick, though, has lost everything- both his mother and his fiancée. Still, it seems to be all over... until that FBI woman arrives, indicating that Trubel may have accepted her offer. What's been happening with Trubel? We have an agonisingly long wait to find out.

Grimm: The Waking Dead

"How did they come up with the name, do you suppose? They have a port. They have land. Really put a lot of thought into that one..."

The season will be over at the end of next episode, so we'd better get on with the arc plot; after an unusually long "previously on" we turn to the pregnant Adalind, planning to get her powers back but, at the moment, busy shagging Prince Eric Renard until his dad the King calls at an awkward moment. And there's a nice brief moment of domestic bliss for Juliette and Nick. Then we get the zombies.

The zombies are fun. I love the sight of seeing Grimm forget its usual format and just wallow in zombie tropes. This being Grimm, though, the cultural source of the zombie meme is remembered, so we get a suitably voodoo Haitian chap called (what else?) Baron Samedi. We know from very early on that this is going to be a good 'un. And all this is juxtaposed with a bizarre, episode-long magic spell in which Adalind succeeds in regaining her powers.

Another subplot, our little bit of comedy to counterpoint the epic, features Juliette diving headlong into Wesen lore and insisting on seeing all of her friendly neighbourhood Wesen with their bestial faces. But it's all about the zombies, Baron Samedi and their employer Prince Eric, all of whom touch down in Portland, sparking off a zombie outbreak. We've had the set-up; time for the season finale. ..

Grimm: Danse Macabre

"Guess they're going to face the music."

"You went there!"

I really liked this one. A hardcore techno DJ as the pied piper: what's not to love? We get a potent mix of gabber, glow sticks and whatnot mixed with scenes of grinding poverty and some nice social commentary on the bleak life chances of those born into it. Social inequality is an insidious and terrible thing. It's the first time we get something like this with Grimm, and I appreciate it. It's appropriate, too; the original story has hints of squalor (the rats) alongside apparent glamour. But the glamour that Roddy enjoys as Wretched Cat is a transient thing, happening in underground, one-off raves. There's a marked contrast with the world of privilege and elite culture evoked by the violin lessons; Roddy gets a glimpse of another world but his expulsion confirms his social exclusion.

This one is much more story-of-the-week: there's not an awful lot of arc stuff going on, aside from our mysterious lady's seduction of Hank! But it's gripping, socially aware and well constructed plot-wise. This is my favourite episode so far by some distance.