“’Now we’ve got eyes – eyes – a beautiful pair of children’s eyes,’ he whispered.”
It’s time for a retro-50s look, a man taking his meds
rather desperately and a support group in a church. Sounds rather like the
beginning of an inappropriate joke. The man is Andre and the support group is
for the bereaved, and he’s missing his wife, Suzy. But he does meet his fellow
bereaved, Molly and they hit it off.
When he takes her to her home, he’s happy to let her cry – in fact he wants her to and blows some red powder into her eyes that burns and hurts her. She can’t see, has tears streaming down her face, and he woges into a fly Wesen and goes for her eyes with his proboscis. Ew ew ew ew extra ew. He leaves, leaving her staggering and blind – she pulls herself up on a block of shelves and pulls them down on top of herself.
Moving on from these odd people to Juliette, the oddest
person of them all, preparing salad. Oh dear, with all the hallucinations Juliette,
I think you treat yourself to bacon, or cake. Or bacon cake. She’s hearing
things again and, when she goes to investigate, finds a ghostly presence that
vanishes. You know, you’d think she’d be calling Rosalie by now and reporting
the severe side effects.
At Monroe’s there’s a Grimmy dinner time – Hank, Nick,
Monroe and Juliette, discussing that Renard is a Hexenbiest (or, apparently, a
Zauberbiest being male), but it still doesn’t make sense since they’re not
royal. This leads to Monroe questioning who Renard’s parents are and he and
Rosalie realising that, being part Zauberbiest, he wouldn’t be accepted by the
royals. And Nick on side would give him leverage with his family.
Time to be called in on the case; while they think it’s
possible Molly could have had an accident, the bruises on her wrist from when Andre
held her as well as her very red, sore eyes and obvious evidence she wasn’t
alone (2 coffee cups) they’re suspicious that it’s more than just a, as Wu puts
it, bookicide. Checking her phone calendar they find her grief support meeting.
There they don’t learn much except that Andre (they don’t take last names) is
either Australian or South African.
Meanwhile, in Vienna, Adalind is meeting with another
Hexenbiest, Frau Pesch, who knew her mother and can sense that Adalind lost her
beastliness – and is pregnant. Adalind adds that the father of the child is one
of 2 half-brothers. Frau Pesch is impressed – a child with royal blood will be
worth a lot apparently and she’s happy to help Adalind with that.
Back in Portland, Andre is having another blinding
headache and taking pills desperately while heading into another grief support
group. Hank and Nick go to see the medical examiner (it’s her! Where has she
been for the last few months!) who tells them she can’t say if Molly was in a
fight, she died from suffocation – but her eyes are the weird part. She’s
blind, her eyes having no pupil or iris and lined with sand which, when
examined under a microscope, turns out to be tiny parasites.
Oh, this episode is really aiming for new cringe-worthy levels of ick.
The medical examiner has seen something similar in Kenya,
river blindness, parasites spread by being bitten by a fly, but this suggests
direct contact and the parasites were awakened by her tears. These parasites
are dying because the host died, so they died before becoming mature (something
the medical examiner means to be ominous which is a bit silly considering she’s
not in the loop – BEWARE ADULT PARASITES seems an unlikely response).
Andre has picked up and infected his next victim, Kelly,
but he’s interrupted by her sister coming home – he escapes but not before she
sees his car.
Nick and Hank confirm that river blindness isn’t in the
US and that Molly hasn’t been to Africa, having passed off the mundane
explanations it’s Wesen time. And they get a call for the new case and getting
all the information – blindness, grief support and a big shiny red Cadillac.
Juleitte has finally gone to see Rosalie about her
side-effects – this time seeing a ghost. Rosalie goes home with her to check it
out. At her house she describes the things she’s been seeing (including the
floor disappearing) to Rosalie. She hopes Rosalie with her spice shop, can cure
what’s wrong with her – just as the ghost appears again. Juliette chases it,
but Rosalie doesn’t see anything. Meanwhile, Renard’s having his own
hallucinations – of a Hexenbiest Juliette in bed with him.
In the Grimm trailer, research pans out and Monroe has
found the Wesen – a Jinnamuru Xuntee. A
Kenyan Wesen that feeds of tears – but the one mentioned was a priest for some
time before changing. Monroe decides that this is how they feed on tears – the high
emotion of the confessional. He gets squeamish and has to pass it on to Nick
who finds that the Grimm examined the Jinnamuru Xuntee’s brain and found it
crawling with worms. The report also says they visit the families of their
victims, since they’re presumably grieving. Which is when they get a call from
the ME confirming the same parasite – and that these worms in a living host are
growing at an incredible rate.
They go to the hospital to speak to the victim, but while they’re there she screams in pain, bleeds profusely from her eyes – and worms are visibly moving in the sockets.
Aaaie, I didn’t need to see that.
Wu finds the car and they go to another grief support
meeting and find the man, In the chase, Wu, Hank and Nick are separated on
different floors of the building, but Nick catches him in a room, trying to
break a window to escape. He breathes his dust into Nick’s eyes and while Nick
staggers back he escapes. Nick tries to follow, but he can’t see. The wesen
escapes by stealing someone’s van. Hank wants to take Nick to a hospital but
Nick insists on Monroe, a hospital won’t help
To the spice shop where Rosalie tells Monroe about
Juliette and further adds that the worms have barbs that hook into the eyeballs
so they can’t be washed out. Monroe actually tells this to Nick before Rosalie
tells him to stop. One way to slow the worms down is light in Nick’s eyes even
though he can’t see. Even though he’s blind, he can still hear who everyone is
by their footstep (either because of super Grimm senses he doesn’t normally use
or possibly over-done “look blind people have super senses” trope. I hope not
because he gains massive radar, supernatural hearing). Rosalie finds a cure –
they need to take out the eye of the Jinnamuru Xuntee while it’s still alive
and in full woge. With a spoon.
The Jinnamuru Xuntee returns to Kelly’s sister who comes
home, starts clearing up and then cries over a picture.
Nick’s super senses get ever more super until Hank gets a
phone call from Wu about where Andre has abandoned his car. From the other
room, Nick overhears Wu and tells them he knows he’s going after Kelly’s
sister, Casey – and that he has to go because he can hear the noise he makes. Rosalie
agrees that they all need to go – because they only have a few moments after
the eye extraction to apply the medicine to Nick’s eyes.
Casey fights Andre – covering her eyes and pushing him
back, while the gang arrive. Hank tells Nick to stay in the car with Rosalie. He
asks Monroe if he can cover the back – and his eyes glow red. Yes he can. Hank
bursts in and saves Casey from Andre – but out in the car, Nick hears her calls
for help and goes in, guided by Rosalie.
While Hank and Monroe search the back, Nick’s hearing
guides him upstairs in the house and then up into the attic. Where he finds
Andre – and fights him using his hearing and Andre’s constant fly buzzing as a
guide (despite the completely unfamiliar surroundings). They also rather upped
Nick’s fighting skills to a whole other level.
He pins Andre, getting him in a headlock and twisting his arm – just in
time for Rosalie to fetch Hank and Monroe for some eye gouging.
While they make the paste and apply it to Nick’s eye, Andre escapes stumbling down stairs missing an eye – and runs into Casey, with a kitchen knife, which she promptly stabs him with.
Update on Juliette – seeing ghosts which now resolves
into… Nick.
And out to the woods with Nick wearing a blindfold and
smashing fruit Monroe throws at him with a mace. His super-hearing is still going.
Ok… super hearing from blindness is a trope – a pervasive
trope and one that is excessively played upon as a general theme of disability
super-power that goes above and beyond any potential advanced practice a blind
person can get from simply having to rely on their hearing. While it seems
empowering, it also feeds into the whole “rise above it” and “be inspirational”
memes that can afflict the disabled with high expectations as well as a
lessened demand for actual accomodations. It also adds that a disabled person
must have some kind of trade off to “make up” for their disability.
I don’t mind Nick’s super-hearing being added to a Grimm
bag o’ tricks – after all, Grimms wouldn’t be the feared beings they are (or
even able to take down the Wesen they do) if their abilities amounted to “I can
see the scary faces” – but it needs to be clear that it IS due to him being a
Grimm, and not due to a couple of hours blindness.
I’m glad Rosalie is still being shown as competent, if
not a fighter, she’s still the one who makes potions and has answers – I’m also
happy that, in an episode with female victims we had one fight back, hold off
Andre and stab him.
