“Papa Ghede is a handsom fellow in his hat and coat of black. Papa Ghede is going to the palace! He’ll eat and drink when he gets back!”
Vienna and Adalind is still in so very good with Eric but even her charms can’t hold him when he gets a call from the king (though he did check which king first – but he can’t deny his father). While he takes the call Adalind listens in and hears that the families have agreed to something – and that his father is criticising him for sleeping with a Hexenbiest though Eric points out that his father did exactly the same.
I’m a little surprised Eric is speaking English, since Renard and all his contacts language of preference is French. And their home being in Austria. Is this just American “Europe” again or is there a reason?
In Portland Nick and Juliette arrive home with a whole lot of new revelations and events in the air. Now she’s beginning to remember, Juliette apologises for what she said when she didn’t remember him – he says she doesn’t have to, he understands but she realises how hurtful they must have been. They’re going to go back into a relationship – but slowly, so as not to jog Juliette’s memory too badly.
The next day after all that sweetness, Wu gets a call out with his partner to a domestic – a wesen inside is trashing the place. Rushing in they find a dead woman on the floor. The Wesen attacks them and Wu’s partner is forced to shoot him. The man has odd, inflamed red eyes and green goo spilling from his nose. Nasty.
Back in Vienna, Adalind meets Stefania (the gypsy queen) who has found a way to restore Adalind’s powers in exchange for her baby. Which involves signing a contract she doesn’t understand – Adalind, a lawyer, objects and Stefania slams her hand on it – the contracts pulls blood from her veins forming a hand print. The contract is binding. As Stefania leaves, Frau Pesch watches.
In Portland the gang arrives at the crime scene and it seems the dead woman was dead before the Wesen freaked out – there’s not a mark on her. Leaving the scene there’s a Black Man in a top hat watching them – this is relevant because the ominous music tells us so and the camera focuses on him.
I’m going to take a massive guess and take the title, the top hat and the opening rhyme, I’m going to go with Vodou.
At the police station they identify the victim as Lilly O’Hara with a colourful history of drug use. The man, Richard Mulpus, has a similar colourful but minor record. Neither of them have a history with each other or the house they were found in. Except Richard Mulpus has already been registered as dead – 3 days ago.
In Vienna, Adalind sits in a fancy restaurant and Frau Pesch joins her. She warns Adalind about betraying her and how hard it is to get her powers back – and adds she can’t trust Stefania and she needs someone like Frau Pesch – she woges and shows her Hexenbiest face – who understands.
Portland and awesome pathologist puts the whole 3 days dead already down to a clerical error. And so far they haven’t found what drug he’s on. At Monroe’s Juliette comes to call. She remembers that Nick brought her to his house to show her something – so what was it?
Which is when Bud comes through repairing something in Monroe’s house and asks if Juliette needs anything, what’s she here for? Why she’s here for a Woge. To which Bud has a little panicky freak out right in front of her which is awkwardly comical. Which gets more fun when Juliette reminds Bud that he was the one who told her Nick was a Grimm. Bud desperately tries to convince Monroe not to tell her but Monroe thinks it’s time she learned. Bud at least advises to woge in the spice shop with Rosalee where she can get medical help if needed (yes, he overreacts). Monroe agrees – but the panicking Bud is coming with them.
Meanwhile Nick and Hank are checking with the doctor who pronounced Richard dead, but he can’t recognise the face – he sees far too many in the ER. They head to the morgue to check on the body, see if it’s still there – and Nick sees the Black man in a top hat again who is ominous because the camera follows him, but he’s gone by the time Nick turns a corner.
At the spice shop, Rosalee sees Juliette and assumes trouble. Bud hopes to convert Rosalee to the not showing Juliette side but Monroe is much more convincing with his calm, collected (yes I like this Monroe – when he’s serious but not excited, we don’t see it often) “it’s too late for that.”
Big dramatic moment, Monroe prepares to Woge – and Rosalee stops him. Monroe should not go first (given that he’s a Blutbad and, well, scary). And Rosalee will talk to Juliette first – about what a Fuchsbau is.
To the hospital – and yes that’s some wretched teasing. And Richard’s corpse is missing from the morgue. The morgue attendant dismisses the idea the corpse just got up and walked away. Whiel in the police morgue, awesome pathologist is preparing to autopsy Lilly when she sits up.
Back to the spice shop and with Juliette filled in on wesen and woge and lots of reassurance, it is time. Rosalee woges. And Juliette runs out the shop. Everyone panics about what to do. And she comes back. She took a second, she’s not calm but she’s kinda handling it. Stage 2 is when she asks if Monroe is a fuchsbau. He says no, he’s a Blutbad – but Bud should probably go next since Monroe is, indeed, scary. To which Bud, with all his escalating panic, actually full woges by accident and even forgets that he’s an Eisbiber. She turns to Monroe and asks why the lead up and he warns her he takes more getting used to. Monroe makes Juliette back off a little but she deals – and asks if Nick is Wesen. Time for drinks.
Back in Austria, Adalind calls Stefania to tell her Frau Pesch has threatened her and warned her not to trust Stefania. Stefania takes that in stride but adds that Frau Pesch is a Hexenbiest and Adalind should know how unwise it is to trust them. She reassures Adalind, but when she hangs up she has a tantrum.
Frau Pesch goes to meet with one of Prince Eric’s aids – who’s secretly working for Renard – asking for an audience with Eric. She tells him she knows about royal blood on the open market for sale and the havoc it could cause – something he’s quite worried about. He calls Renard to let him know, in French, – a woman outside the family is carrying a royal blooded child, but he doesn’t know the father or the mother. He adds that the child is up for sale. Renard suspects Eric will make an offer – and then steal the child without paying.
In Portland, Nick and Hank learn that Lilly has woken up and been taken to hospital (leaving Wu behind, poor Wu). And in the hospital the man in the top hat goes into Lilly’s room and says “welcome back, ma chère.” When Nick and Hank arrive, she’s gone. They check the CCTV and see the man in a top hat wheeling her out in a wheelchair. And Wu calls with the tox report on Richard, of the many chemcicals in his blood including datura – which causes hallucinations, can make someone appear dead and can cause erratic behaviour.
On the road, the man in a top hat has car trouble and called a mechanic – but when the mechanic gets in and turns the key, the car starts first time. The man in a top hate woges into a kind of blow-fish creature and spits green goop into the mechanic’s eyes.
In the Grimm trailer, Nick reads a report from one of his ancestors about tracking a Voudo priest, referring to the priest as “the baron” with several names – including Samedi, one of the family of loa that welcomes the spirits of the dead. He was a Cracher-Mortel, whose spit could cause death-like comas that rise as zombies. At this point Monroe wants them to visit the spice shop and the Cracher-Mortel gets on a full bus and starts spitting.
At the airport, Eric gets off a plane and calls Renard. Family reunion! Everyone plays nice and they arrange to meet with neither of them mentioning how much they want to kill the other. How nice. Renard calls his contact to push to find out why Eric is in Portland – and what he’s up to. He searches Eric’s office and finds files with blank passports and death certificates. He takes photos.
While the Cracher-Mortel fills up an entire storage container with zombies, Hank and Nick take what they know to Renard. And from there to the spice shop where Monroe, Bud and Rosalee explain the woge-ing to Juliette. They reassure Nick she took it well, wasn’t scared and wanted to know.
Time for Nick and Juliette to have dinner with lots of nervousness. And Juliette makes a woge joke which is probably a good sign.
At his hotel, Eric amusingly expresses his contempt for Portland where he meets up with the Baron, the Cracher-Mortel, who greets him by his title.
Ok, first thing first – I hate hate hate 80% of media depictions of anything resembling Vodou, Santeria or any related faiths because it always come down to a) zombies, b) voodoo dolls and c) general black magic. And the only loa you ever ever ever ever ever see is Baron Samedi with lots of scary undead. It is hardly ever treated with respect as a full belief system, a full religion.
Storywise – the meta is certainly moving interestingly and Juliette is finally in on the picture! I loved the Juliette scenes and would much rather have spent more time on them than on the main plot itself – but I’m glad even that is feeding into the meta with Renard. I loved how she reacted, how she coped and how she dealt with it even with Bud’s comic relief keeping it light, it was well done. And I hope it means Juliette can be more of an active participant in the show than she has been.
