“Stronger than lover’s love
Is lover’s hate.
Incurable, in each,
The wounds they make.”

Events are coming to a head as Nick Burkhart and his fellow Grimmsters are dealing with a battle on two fronts and, by the end of the season’s penultimate episode, one thing becomes clear: war has been declared.

We pick up seconds before last week’s fade to black/gun shot, Juliette’s maddening power trip in full effect as she forces Nick to nearly put a bullet in Monroe. Only Hank’s quick thinking saves the Blutbad and, after Juliette leaves, satisfied that her point’s been made, the Grimmsters tell Nick they’re done trying to bring their former friend back from the dark side. But they don’t understand the true complications until after hearing Jack the Ripper’s voice when they try contacting Renard. The three officers rush over to the captain’s condo only to wake him from sleep but no sign of Jack. Surmising the psycho killer’s stalking Renard, the quartet head over the Henrietta’s only to find the Hexenbiest dead, her throat slit.

Juliette rechristens her and Nick’s bed with Kenneth

Henrietta’s death spurs Renard to confess his recent black outs and phantom wounds with Nick and Hank. The Grimm openly wonders to his partner if, someway, somehow, that Jack is actually inside their captain. When Nick returns home, he finds the disturbed bedsheets—courtesy of Juliette’s tryst with Kenneth—but it sparks a memory of Adalind. More specifically, the realization that she would know what’s going down with Renard. She doesn’t disappoint either, explaining that, when Renard died and was resurrected by his mother, something attached itself to his returned soul. Whatever it is has been gaining more control over him and will eventually take over completely. Their only hope is to send it back through the portal. Problem the first? The only way to open the closed portal is to kill Renard again.

Playing off the hunch, Nick and Hank search traffic cam footage, discovering Renard in the vicinity of the first murder not long before it happened. They confront him on it, following up the discussion with Adalind’s take on it. They convince him to go under house arrest until they finish up with a solution—the dead feint toxin Monrosalee’s cooking up—and have Wu watching over him. But through it all, what the Grimmsters don’t see is that it’s Jack, not Renard, behind the wheel, so to speak. The crafty Ripper spirit uses this advantage early on, getting Wu to drop his guard and taking the sergeant on a nice little ride to find prostitute victim number three.

Taking a quick detour to Casa del Burkhart, Kenneth, Rispoli, and Juliette are in place and await Kelly Burkhart’s return. When a hooded stranger approaches the house, Kenneth readies the trap, only to realize it’s not Kelly. He dispatches a goon to follow the stranger and said goon ends up losing his head. The stranger is none other than Trubel, returned to Portland.

Nick finds himself in a ‘Se7en’ type moment. “What’s in the box?”

Back to the curious case of Sean Renard, Hank and Nick return to the captain’s place only to find both he and Wu gone. Activating the trace on Wu’s car, they track “Jack” down moments before he adds another lady of the night to his list. They drag him back to Monrosalee’s and gives him the dead feint, saying it will help with his memories. It seems to be working until Jack rears his Ripper head and uses Rosalee as a hostage. When she gets away, the three officers light up Renard with a dozen rubber ball shots, hoping the dead feint and “bullets” will fool Jack enough for him to vacate the captain’s body. Thin on logic the plan may be, it works and a plume of smoke representing the encroaching spirit, leaks out from Renard’s mouth. But they aren’t long for celebrating as Trubel arrives, relaying the message of something big going down at Nick’s. They arrive to find a box holding the head of Kelly Burkhart.

And getting farther away by the moment is Kenneth and a seemingly remorseful Juliette with baby Diana in the grasps of the Royal family.

The Aftermath

  • So many things to talk about but, the biggest lie in consequences. First off is Renard’s possession by one of history’s most infamous serial killers. Though he seems to be cured of the spiritual hijacker, what, if anything, will they do about the people he’s killed? More specifically, even though he understands someone else was driving his body, how will Renard deal with the guilt of his actions?
  • There’s a saying about something being “too little, too late.” Has Juliette firmly crossed over into this territory? She showed zero remorse early on when she nearly had Nick put a bullet in Monroe but, when she found herself alone in the house she shared with Nick, some of the emotion from her memories there clawed at the emotional wall she’d erected to keep her former life in the past. For a moment it seemed as if she’d go against Kenneth’s plan but she didn’t and, in the end, her actions cost Kelly Burkhart her life. Now, she’s in with both feet and even if she turns on the Royals, after setting Kelly up to be murdered, is there really a way for Nick to forgive her?