By Joe Gibson
Introduction
Hi and welcome back to
Plan9Crunch, where today our exigence is a little different than usual. Cult
followings are often established over time, sometimes long after the stimulus
itself has even ended. NBC’s Grimm was a show running from 2011 to 2017 that
unfortunately failed to leave the same cultural impact as Buffy or Angel
(despite being better than both of them), but the reason we are talking about
it today is because of the recent news of a Peacock revival movie (and its
small but passionate fan-base makes it the kind of cult we talk about here).
Lasting six seasons, it
is very unlikely we will ever cover all the episodes here. Today, I will review
the first episode of the show, share my thoughts on season one as a whole, and
basically write to convince you to watch this show if you have not already (and
even if you have, the rewatchability of this show is great, as I also hope to
demonstrate).
Grimm is the story of
Nicholas Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), a Portland cop, who realizes that he is a
Grimm/Decapitare, which means he can see the Grimm’s fairy tale monsters living
amongst humanity (and the traditional role of a Grimm is to decapitate or
otherwise dispatch the violent monsters called Wesen). His coworkers allow the
show to explore the ramifications of revealing or keeping secret this hidden
knowledge about the world, the Wesen friends he makes allow for exploration of
the different cultures that exist in this world, and scheming police captain
Sean Renard (Sasha Roiz) demonstrates the aspects of both the criminal
underworld and high society. There are a lot of moving pieces, and I will get
into what I think sets this show apart from the competitors at least in regards
to season one at the end of this review, but, if any of this interests you,
please check the show out on Amazon Prime Video or the physical six season box
set available through Walmart among other places.
Grimm is evidently a
multimedia franchise already, as my forays into the Grimm wiki looking for trivia
on the first episode led me to the discovery of multiple series of comic
spinoffs, some as prequels following Marie Kessler (Kate Burton) and others are
midquels about Nick and his friends as we see them in the show. The movie is
not even the first time a revival concept has arisen, but, hopefully, this
movie does come out. Funnily enough, Wikipedia describes the show as not only a
police procedural but also “occult detective fiction.” A much clearer
designation to me is urban fantasy (where fantastical elements blend with real
world settings) or possibly paranormal romance (urban fantasy that focuses on
love) if you gaze deep into those subplots and imagery, but the day to day
episode to episode conflicts are very much procedural dramas.
The pilot of Grimm is
the Little Red Riding story adapted to police procedural format. We have read
from Little Red Riding Hood on our YouTube channel already, link at the bottom
of this article. Little Red Riding is, simply put, the story of a young girl
drawing the attention of a ravenous wolf that outmaneuvers her, impersonates
her loved one and finally eats her. The earliest known recorded version (from
Charles Perrault) simply ends there, but the version recorded by Jacob and
Wilhem Grimm introduced a happier ending: a hunter figure emerges to save
Little Red Riding Hood. That makes this the perfect pilot for a show about this
mythical hunter of the fairy tale creatures. If there was any doubt of the
inspiration, the episode begins with a quote from the tale “The wolf thought to
himself, what a tender young creature. What a nice plump mouthful…” The wolf’s
predatory behavior, in some versions of this tale, is sexual or purely hunger
induced. The wolf’s motivations in this pilot will oscillate accordingly, where he feeds on one victim and kidnaps the other for different reasons.
Cold Open
The cold open centers on
college girl Sylvie Oster jogging through a wooded region of Portland to
Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams wearing a bright red jacket. A small toy/statue
distracts her, and, suddenly, a big bad wolf whizzes past to brutally murder
her. We do not see much of the actual attack or the wolf itself; it is a
jarring image meant to set our expectations of the show, as the shot returns to
the IPod playing Sweet Dreams. The murder was quick, brutal and realistic, but
the show did not revel in the grit and gore, and that describes this show
exceedingly well (with the exception of a season 4 arc that is meant to be
uncomfortable to watch by contrast to the rest of the show due to that arc’s
heavier themes).
Character Establishing
Moments
Next is our introduction
to Nick and his partner Hank (Russell Hornsby, who you may know from small role in Creed
II), and this is very significant in a way that it is easy to overlook. Nick
has all sorts of childhood baggage that the show will later explore, but that
is not our first vision of him. He has procured a ring with which to propose to
his girlfriend Juliette Silverton (Elizabeth Tulloch, probably most recently
known for her version of Lois Lane in the show Superman and Lois), but that
connection is not the focus of the scene.
Nick’s faithfulness
contrasts Hank’s womanizing, and yet Nick’s eye does wander to Claire Coffee’s
Adalind Schade. Nick justifies this by studying her personality based on her
appearance and his gut (this is the playbook he will use as a cop but also as a
Grimm), and he is mostly correct with his assessment: she does make money and
is falling for an older man (just not a senior partner).
However, she then
becomes a horrifying hag in front of him, another thing that only he sees in
her, seeing it instantly. Adalind is a Hexenbiest (essentially a witch), and
their rivalry will be a major part of the show, but it is Nick’s fluctuating
perception of her and her background that will define their rivalry over the
course of the show. I do not want to spoil the character work between them, but
she was Nick’s first steps into this world, and this chance meeting affects the
entirety of the show from here on.
Nick and Hank arrive at
the crime scene and then back to the station where Nick sees another Wesen
and literally bumps into coworker Drew Wu (Reggie Lee). The show employs some tension
when bald woman Marie Kessler brings her trailer to and breaks into Nick’s
house, while Nick and Hank identify Sylvie Oster officially. When Nick finally
arrives home, the scene is dark with foreboding music. Blue and red dominate
the shot, while Marie sits at a table chopping a tomato, but it turns out Marie
is Nick’s aunt, and Juliette is also in the kitchen. Accordingly, the colors of
the scene become less hostile and more well-lit and vibrant.
Aunt Marie takes Nick
for a walk, explaining that due to her cancer, she does not have much time left
and needs to exposit to Nick about Grimms. She warns Nick that he must end
things with Juliette. Notice how Juliette is treated in this episode: there is
no meet-cute, Nick is introduced checking out another woman, and now whether or
not the relationship will continue is up in the air. This makes for effective
tension about the relationships of these characters, because we cannot rely on
a sappy clichéd “love conquers all” that got set up before the actual stakes arose (like it is in so many shows). Anything
could reasonably happen here, making it harder for us as the omniscient
audience to predict what happens, which grounds us in Nick’s perspective,
making him a singularly relatable character).
Suddenly, a Wesen known
as Hulda (Danny Hernandez) attacks Aunt Marie and Nick, gravely wounding the
former. Hulda wields a scythe and is hunting the hunter. He is part of a
faction called Reapers that unfortunately drops out of the story around the end
of season one. Nick finally kills Hulda with several gunshots (by season six,
guns are framed as one of the most effective weapons against Wesen, but this discrepancy
technically makes sense because Hulda is an elite Wesen that has already
survived multiple encounters with Marie, and, honestly, the early season one
Wesen that require several shots or a special gun to go down are probably still
some of the strongest ones encountered by the end of the show).
Aunt Marie tells Nick his parents did not die in a car crash and gives him a key, explaining that Hulda’s people will be after it (even though the Reapers leave the show, other factions remain focused on attaining the key and what it unlocks, so the stakes still map to the rest of the show). They continue their conversation in the hospital. While Marie alludes to “the stories" being true, I do not think there is evidence to support that she means the Grimm Fairy Tales we know about it in our world, since she directs Nick to her trailer containing different books and different stories than what Jacob and Wilhelm published. Grimms are their own thing in this universe, but there are some later moments in the show that I can recall do imply the Brothers Grimm exist (hopefully I'll have an answer if I do another one of these).
Police Captain Sean
Renard checks in with Nick after the latter’s shooting of Hulda, and, while I
have already shown my hand about Renard’s shiftiness, it enhances the scene to
know that (and it is revealed by the end of the episode anyway). The first
thing we hear Renard say is that Nick chose the right person to shoot. As we
will learn, Renard is aware of Reapers and the other organizations after the
key (and not necessarily on the same page as them), but there is also an interest he takes in his subordinates (insisting Nick
see the police psychologist and get some rest) that can communicate either a
fatherly disposition or a calculating one. The subtle tension Nick has with the
Captain clarifies which we should read it as, but the dichotomies we can see in
the different motivations Renard acts on motivate much of the drama in the
show.
Nick dreams of Juliette
in danger from a Wesen, and that motivates him to go into Marie’s trailer where
he learns the word Hexenbiest and reflects on Adalind. Some viewers have voiced
confusion about the dream as foreshadowing a future event as a dropped plot
point. Maybe that was the intent, but the dream itself in context seems like
the clearest way to visualize Nick’s burgeoning struggle to keep her separate
from this new world that will define entire seasons of this show. Can he keep
her out of danger while still keeping her near? Check in to NBC every week for
the answer.
At the precinct,
progress into the investigation is poor except for the realization that the
killer wears a specific boot, and we now see the owner of this boot (obviously
a Wesen but specifically a Blutbad) chance upon a young girl wearing red while
dressed as a postman. He begins to follow her. Meanwhile, Marie, in a coma, is
revealed to have sustained many knife wounds despite being a librarian (more
evidence to support the mounting case for Nick that monsters are real), but
Nick has to go to the crime scene about the kidnapping.
Later, Renard holds a
meeting in the precinct breaking down the details of the kidnapping, which
sends Nick and Hank to the area to scope around the perimeter including a
wooded park. Nick and Hank splitting up leads Hank to discover the girl’s
backpack labeled RH for Robin Howell (or Riding Hood) and leads Nick to
discover the Blutbad Monroe, who Nick tackles.
Monroe was originally
named Eddie Monroe, but Eddie must have changed around the time that Captain
Ericson changed into Captain Renard. Based on clues later in the show, it makes
the most sense if Monroe’s name is Monroe Monroe, but that seems very strange.
Nick is convinced that Monroe is the kidnapper because he is a Blutbad (I
personally would hold off on reading cop race relations into the show until
season 5, but it is a valid reading of this meeting), and, as Nick’s next steps
into his journey, he ignores Juliette in order to spy on Monroe. Monroe
outmaneuvers him, jumps through the window to tackle Nick…and then invites him
inside for a drink.
Two Blutbaden Not One
It turns out Monroe is
not a pedophile kidnapper but instead aware of Grimms as a bogeyman type figure
from his family’s bedtime stories and religious texts. Monroe is under the
impression that a family member has to die for a Grimm to activate, and that
might be true, but Monroe is by no means the authority on Grimms, just a well
educated “reformed Blutbad.” It surprises Nick to learn Monroe goes to church,
and, actually, jumping ahead, the differences between his religion and
Judeo-Christianity become important in the final arc of the show. Monroe’s
backstory gets some later focus too, but the show (mostly) has a great
attention to detail especially in terms of the mechanism for how Wesen
recognize Grimms clearly demonstrated when Monroe first lays eyes on Nick but
not explained until season 3.
Now that the show has revealed that the Postman, played by Tim Bagley and known as Errol Ditmarsch in a previous draft, is a different character than Monroe, we see his hideout, a moss covered cabin in the woods where he holds the little girl captive in the basement. I know Bagley primarily as the comedic character Harold Krenshaw on Monk, so the revelation of his chilling pedophile character on this show was truly surprising. Monroe explained earlier that Blutbaden lose control with the color red, and the Postman removes the girl’s red jacket to hang in a closet alongside other identical ones.
Monroe and Nick take great lengths to obscure their arrival, lengths that no one will ever go again after this episode, and that is Wolfsbane to hide scent and wading through the river rather than walking down. Monroe even has to leave to avoid the pack instinct. These are mostly dropped concepts, but Monroe and Nick’s caution is appropriate for this point in their respective journeys. (Just because it might seem a bit contrived the way that I explained it, I should clarify. Monroe's involvement as it runs counter to the Postman is not a contrivance: Monroe is important to the story because Nick sought him out, thinking he was the other Blutbad. All else is the natural consequences of Nick profiling Monroe, and Monroe convincing him otherwise.)
Nick calls Hank in, and
the sequence is mostly tension built from the Postman managing to seem normal,
which makes Nick seem unreasonable. As I mentioned, much of this show seems
focused on grounding us in Nick’s perspective. He has a very limited view of
the world that increases over the course of the show, and there is a certain
utility toward that end in drawing frustration from the lead being correct but
unable to prove it. The Postman does give himself away eventually, and the cops
kill the wolf, setting R H free.
The episode closes on
Nick talking to Aunt Marie in the hospital as a cover of Sweet Dreams begins to
play. A mysterious blonde girl preps a syringe for Marie, and it turns out to
be Adalind, who sticks it into Nick instead after a struggle, knocking him out.
Adalind joins Captain Renard in a car, revealing their connection and
intentions. 1. They want Marie dead for some reason. 2. Sean Renard is the
older man Adalind has fallen for (though that gets confirmed only later in the
season).
Grimm Season One
Thoughts and Conclusion
This is not exactly a
traditional pilot that pitches you on a specific arc mystery based on a
specific childhood trauma interspersed with a specific romantic goal. Nick’s
parents’ deaths are important and do eventually feed into one of the season’s
plot threads, the romantic connection with Juliette is an important component,
and there are ongoing mysteries unfolding throughout season one with the keys
and Renard, but the focus was on Nick entering this world and us along with him.
The lore and worldbuilding of this series is rich, but it does not go for a
title crawl info dump either. The season as a whole reads to me as “we’ll build
up the friendship of Nick and Monroe and the rivalry of Adalind and Nick, and
see how that weaves us into the finer details of how this world works.” I find
that very unique and compelling as a format.
If any of this sounds
interesting to you, I encourage you to watch the pilot. Obviously, I have a
deep respect for the show, built in large part on where the show goes from
here, to the point that I can gloss over or retroactively justify some of the
elements that do not fit as cleanly as I would like, and I will own up to that.
If/when I review episode two of this show, I will take some time to give an
overview of the largest plot holes I can recall on the show and how those do
impact some of the payoffs, but Grimm, as I see it, is this extraordinary show
that takes a source material so ingrained in our culture that following it
verbatim would come off as cliched but warps it into a unique take with
fascinating storytelling decisions I have not seen elsewhere. It is also a show
that gets better as it progresses. In my estimations, the show’s quality peaks
during season five into season six. On our YouTube channel, we have read from
Grimm’s Fairy Tales (so this is not entirely out of left field for us to
cover), and you can watch that by following the link here: https://youtu.be/51qOdmtau6g?si=6HSS7ulZHsy4uaW9
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