“We shall see the crumbs of bread… and they shall show us our way home again.”
Yes, it’s time for another Grimm and by that introduction it’s Hansel and Gretel
Well we have gone dark this time – 2 young men fleeing monsters through the woods, one falling into water and then a body in the river having its eyes plucked out by ravens. Definitely going to the dark, as is appropriate given the nature of the original Grimm’s fairy tales before Disney got its fluff and glitter all over them.
And we switch from darkness to angst – Nick is consulting Grimmopedia Eddie about telling Juliette that he’s a Grimm because the monsters have gotten a little too close to home. Eddie doesn’t endorse this silly idea, because he’s awesome and has common sense. And Eddie can’t just show his wolfyness because not all human brains can handle the reality of the supernatural in front of them.
Enough angst, let’s go to a gruesome crime scene where Nick joins Hank and Sergeant Wu in examining the corpse. And it turns out the corpse – 18 year old Stephen, a petty criminal - has lost a lot of blood – and he would have been very weak from loss of blood before landing in the river. Following a trail of unusual necklaces they track him back to a free clinic and a new job he had so they could speak to Dr. Levine who treated him for a spider bite. It looks like his new employers just snatched him off the street
And then they’re called to a car accident driven by monsters transporting human organs. Of course the plates are fake and so is his identity. Very little information – and I do like how Sergeant Wu comes to add to their depression and mock them for it. I really like him whenever he shows up, it’s just a shame that he only shows up for 10 seconds at a time. The driving monster is a Geier, a tree living organ harvester and generally unpleasant creature.
Time to call on the Grimmopedia! Y’know Eddie makes this show. Even as he complains that Nick only talks about monsters – though Eddie fills in the gaps about the Geier’s organ trade; human body parts are used as medicine and enhancement by monsters. Time to get Eddie to do some undercover work buying human gall bladder – yummy! And yes, 2 and 2 is finally put together and the idea of harvesting street kids for organs is raised. I do feel that they were, perhaps, just a little slow coming to this conclusion.
They track down another missing street kid that pretty much confirms the theory. Following their leads they find the processing plant where the organs are being prepared (and for reasons unknown, the Evil!Chief joins them). Points go to Sergeant Wu for the “cannibalism… I think it’s pronounced capitalism” line. See why I want to see more of him? But lo they find evidence that the clinic is involved. Now, personally I’d have suspected the clinic first in organ harvesting since you’ve need some way to verify that the victims are healthy – especially in the homeless population.
And, of course, the next victims are Nick’s pet homeless siblings. Time to ride to the rescue – cue exciting fight scene! And tacky special effects. But still an exciting fight scene.
And the link in to the title? The kids dropped a trail of shells from the necklaces to show them the way. Rather a leap but still. And in the meta-plot, evil-chief gets a reaper box with an ear in it – and he’s done his own ear slicing in the past. And someone calls him threatening him about Nick, the Grimm that the chief has to control. But then it gets complicated – a Grimm on his own is like a samurai without a master, implying they like Grimms but not loose cannons. Especially when the chief says he has a badge and a conscience – is that a good thing or a bad thing to the reapers? MORE META PLOT! C’mon enough of these little hints that don’t go anywhere, more plot, more plot!
There’s a lot of vulnerable homeless people in this programme and precious little analysis of it – of the whys or the resources or anything else. We get Juliette and Nick playing nice saviour folks but not a lot of real analysis or consideration. We have pity but not much else, not much look at what homeless people need, not even much analysis of the free clinic they use as a resource, not even much into the causes of homelessness or anything. Sure I don’t expect a long documentary on homelessness, but if you’re going to include so large an issue, a little more thought would be nice. Also the homeless depicted seemed to be extremely lacking in minorities which is problematic, especially considering how extremely erased Grimm is, especially in relation to GBLT people.
I’d like to see more of Nick’s conflict between acting as a Grimm and acting as a cop. We got a nice glimpse of how he separates his identities in this episode and we’ve looked at it in the past but I think it could stand to have some greater development.
Again I think it’s past time that Hank was let in on the big secret somehow. I’m glad he was present through much of this episode, but the secret is getting in the way of any plot development or character development. In the end, we always have the scenes where Nick goes off alone or swaps Hank for Eddie simply because of the secret
