“The beasts were loosed into the arena, and among them, a beast of huge bulk and ferocious aspect. Then the slave was cast in.”
Ok no idea where that quote comes from, so I’ll have to see on the fairy tale. And so we open with some men on horseback hunting down a Grimmy creature – who kills an older couple and wastes some very nice looking steak in the process. I hate wasted food (and dead people, of course, but that was a really nice looking steak).
In comes the police, who, at this point, really should be wondering why Portland of all places is the centre for so many weird monsters. In comes Nick and Hank to find the poor gnawed steak – and the dead people. Go go Grimmy police work (well Hank police work, anyway) follows a chain of evidence from a print to a man called Dmitri, to a parole officer, to a gym to talk to a black Vesen (and one of the few POC we’ve seen on the show) who leads them to a running trail with horse manure down it. At least the trail of evidence is more sensible this week.
A few more trails of evidence (again sorta sensible albeit somewhat coincidental) leads them to a large warehouse and an arcane, bloodstained circle on the floor with latin around it That hank and Nick declare looks like and arena *head tilt* whiiiich I’m not seeing. I see arcane circle. I think “arena” here is less a leap of logic so much as a death-defying plummet of logic. And a broken Morningstar – medieval weapons arena.
Reaper-Maybe-Evil-We-Don’t-Know-Because-We-Never-Get-Any-Damn-Meta-Plot Police Chief (Captain Renard) speaks Latin and plays babelfish for the circle. Maybe-Evil boss hunts down Dmitri’s parole officer (Tamor) who is running these fights. He is not a happy Maybe-Evil-Guy, this is his Canton and he tells them who they can use in their fights. Canton? Oooh, is this meta? World building? Be still my heart!
One thing to note here is who is considered expendable. The gang bangers and drug addicts on Captain Renard’s list are disposable and unimportant. There’s no comment on this beyond a throwaway line, which is a shame, more could have been said.
Nick goes to check his own stash of medieval weapons and invites Eddie, who is awesome and instantly begins rhapsodising about being invited to the Bat Cave (well, the Grimm Caravan. Which doesn’t have the same ring to it). And he researches Lowen, vicious, wild, Lion-Vesen – that were dragged into gladiator fights back in ancient Rome.
Move to the arena and our POC Vesen (one of the few) has been kidnapped to fight and killed. This is my shocked face. I totally didn’t see that coming.
Captain Renard is not having this in his Canton (yes I have a world building word. I will cling to it and use it to death) and is happy to throw Tamor, the naughty parole office to his pet Grimm (clever Canton ruler). Hank investigates and finds horses and medieval weapons which is pretty conclusive. Meanwhile Eddie’s contacts to connect them to where the fights will be held result in him being captured as a gladiator monster where the Vesen are fed dead combatants – nasty.
Eddie vs Dmitiri in the arena and Nick runs in to offer himself in Eddie’s place. I’m a little saddened about this, part of Eddie was that, though he was a vegetarian and trying to be nice now, he is actually a Bludbad and a dangerous dangerous Vesen. Especially when Nick takes over and his Grimmyness lets him do much much better than Eddie managed. Yes, I’m pouting.
Far more interesting than the arena – Captain Renard has a fascinating scene with a priest and after a very very fascinating conversation (did I mention how desperate I was for meta?) who seems to be some kind of enforcer/police. Tamor gets ripped into itty bitty pieces. Shame we didn’t get to see what by though
Juliette (for those who don’t remember who Juliette is, and I don’t blame you since she hardly ever appears, she’s Nick’s girlfriend) finds the engagement ring. We can also tell Nick has been in a relationship a long time, he has mastered the art of saying sweet nothings to his girlfriend while paying only slight attention to her. That’s a skill, that is. Sadly he misses their big anniversary/engagement dinner and is all angsty
Do I have to say it again? META PLOT. Y’know, this would actually solve a lot of my beefs with the show – if the meta-story developes, Nick could actually get round to telling Hank, Juliette and even Sargent Wu about the Grimmy things and we’d have Captain Renard pulled into the story more. That would have the story move forwards, get rid of the monster-of-the-week feel, vastly increase the participation of the female and POC characters and give loads more people for Eddie to be awesome with. It wouldn’t add any GBLT people, but other than that it would fix so many of what is wrong with Grimm. MORE META! MORE REVELATION! Monster of the week can only last so long!
