“The enchantress was so hard-hearted that she banished the poor girl to a wilderness, where she had to live in a miserable, wretched state.”
And so starts this episode of Grimm which handles the retelling of ‘Rapunzel’ when a homicide leads Nick and Hank to reopen a missing person’s cold case.
In the woods, a couple head to a lake where they plan a tryst. All of the sudden they are confronted by a marijuana growing drug dealer who points a rifle at them. Upset that they have wandered into his “garden,” he ties them up and takes them to his camp where he is about to kill them. The couple frantically begs for mercy. Just as he is about to pull the trigger, he hears a twig snap. The drug dealer goes to investigate when unexpectedly something hits his head, wraps around his neck and pulls him down. Back at the camp, the terrified couple hears a gun shot and looks up and sees a shadow of something in the tent throwing around the contents inside. They hastily untie the ropes around their wrists and run for their lives.
Hank and Nick are called to the area where the couple was taken. They find the drug dealer dead due to a broken neck. The deformity and abrasions cause Hank to assume that a heavy rope was used to kill him. The deceased is identified as Delmar Blake, a drug dealer that the police have been after for 3 years. As Nick looks closer, he finds a stand of hair around the deceased’s neck.
Nick returns to the where the body was found and finds blood, more hair and some buckshot. Something drops behind him and as Nick turns, it starts to run. It gets away, but not before Nick sees that it’s a female creature with very long hair.
At the station, Blake’s brothers demand that the detectives tell them how their brother died. Nick and Hank tell them they are still trying to determine the cause of death so they insist on seeing their brother’s body. They head to the morgue and are upset an autopsy was performed. Hank asks if they knew that their brother was “involved in the illegal cultivation of a controlled substance” (don’t you just love police jargon?) but they don’t care. They just want to know who killed their brother. They leave angry while Nick and Hank decide they should run a background on those two.
Sgt. Wu comes in with the results of the hair that Nick found and it matches a missing person named Holly Clark, a young girl who became missing 9 years ago when she was only 7. This case hits close to home for Hank as it was one of the most depressing cases he has worked on. He asks Sgt. Wu to bring up all the files about this cold case to re-examine all the evidence. While Hank plans on going through the files, Nick decides to find out where Delmar was on the night Holly disappeared and if he had any connection to her or her family.
Since he now suspects Holly is a creature, Nick heads over to Munroe’s home where Munroe seems very reluctant to let Nick come in. Even after Munroe tries to turn him away, Nick casually barges in and is surprised at how decked out Munroe’s home is with Christmas decorations (loved what he did with the lights!). After talking about who Santa really is (no spoilers here in case the kiddies are reading!), Nick shows a picture of Holly at the time she was missing and asks Munroe if she could be a Blutbod. Unfortunately, Munroe can’t tell from a photo but does answer Nick’s question that if she wasn’t a Blutbod, she probably wouldn’t have been able to survive in the woods alone for 9 years. Munroe also tells him that if she has been alone all this time, she would be extremely wild as she wouldn’t have had anyone to guide her. They talk about the first time Munroe knew he was a Blutbod and he remembers how scary it was. Nick surmises that if this happened to Holly, she would be afraid as she wouldn’t know what was happening to her and it would probably explain why she never came out of the woods. Nick decides to go back into the woods to find Holly and wants Munroe to come but he doesn’t want to. He comes up with some good excuses until Nick shows him her picture. Eventually Munroe agrees but tells Nick not to go out in the woods at night, so they agree to go in the morning.
At a bar, the refrigerator repairman from the last episode is telling his fellow creature friends that he was in a Grimm’s house. They don’t believe him because he’s still alive. He tells them the only reason he is alive is because he made like a bread truck and hauled buns (not his words). His friend thinks he’s full of tree sap (yep, his words). The repairman takes his friends to Nick’s house and sees Nick arrive home. Afraid that they may get seen, the three friends drive away quickly.
Hank and Nick update Captain Renard about the case. They want to keep this low key until they have definitive proof the person they are looking for really is Holly. Hank decides to track down the adoptive parents and see if a family member might have been involved with her disappearance while Nick states that he is going back to the crime scene to see if he can find any more evidence to confirm it’s her.
Nick shows Munroe where Blake’s body was found and the direction he ran while chasing the Blutbod with long hair. Munroe picks up a scent and as he walks along he sees Burdock Root which is used as a pain killer. Munroe continues to track the scent while Nick follows. They come across a bone yard which has special spiritual meaning, according to Munroe. The scent gets stronger as Munroe tells Nick that they are in an area that she has definitely marked as hers. Suddenly, Munroe sees the creature with long hair run away and goes after it with Nick not too far behind. As Munroe catches up, the female Blutbod turns and looks at Munroe. He changes into his true Blutbod self and they begin to growl at each other loudly. Nick watches in amazement. The female Blutbod takes one last look at Munroe and runs off. The experience leaves Munroe shaken.
They continue to chase the female Blutbod through the woods and she begins to tire. When it looks like they lost her, Nick realizes that she climbed up a tree to get away. The two look at each other and before they can play rock, paper, scissors, Munroe volunteers to go up first.
Munroe reaches the tree house where the female Blutbod (ok, by now you probably guessed it’s Holly but I didn’t want to spoil the recap for you) has passed out and tells Nick he’s going in. Nick follows inside and finds a pink barrette. Munroe takes a look at the area where she has been shot when all of the sudden she opens her eyes. When she sees Munroe and Nick her eyes turn red. Munroe calms her down and notices she has a high fever.
Hank, in the meantime, visits Mrs. Clark, Holly’s adoptive mother. He asks Mrs. Clark if they ever spent time at Tillamook Forest and she confirms that they camped there a couple times as Holly seemed to like it there. Hank asks if she knew where they might have camped, but she doesn’t remember. He asks if maybe the neighbor they borrowed the camping equipment from would know but Mrs. Clark said Jimmy Addison moved away several years ago and she doesn’t know where he lives now. Hank reveals that he was one of the officers assigned to Holly’s case and he’s never forgotten about her. Mrs. Clark tearfully thanks him.
Hank has Sgt. Wu look up Addison in the files. He finds out that Addison had an alibi the night that Holly went missing but as they looked closer at the details, they find holes in his story. Hank is upset that he was never considered as a suspect. Sgt. Wu was able to locate his last known address.
Munroe and Nick notice Holly has been shot and treat her wound. Nick calls out the name Holly but she doesn’t respond. Munroe tells her that they’re there to help and Nick lets her know that he’s a police officer but she obviously doesn’t understand and begins to growl. Sensing a language problem, Munroe decides to communicate the Blutbod way. He turns into a Blutbod and growls at her. When she turns and growls back he returns to his human self and explains that she is Holly Clark and that they are there to help her. Nick shows her the pink barrette to make her realize who she is. She croaks out her name then passes out. They were able to get through to the wild child.
While treating Holly, Nick notices a camp stove with the name Addison written on it. Since Nick can’t get any cell reception, he tells Munroe that she needs help so he’s going to get some. Munroe argues that Holly is not ready to be with civilization and she could hurt someone but Nick tells him that she’s hurt badly and he can’t just leave her there. Munroe, not liking the choices, grudgingly agrees. Munroe is concern with Holly’s rising fever so with Nick gone, he decides to get Burdock root for her.
Hank and Sgt. Wu find the Clark’s old neighbor, Mr. Addison, the one who would let them borrow the camping equipment. They question his alibi and began asking him about what he was doing and where he was on the day Holly went missing. When they get to the questionable part of his alibi (why he drove 100 miles to get a wild dog bite treated instead of someplace closer) Addison begins to get agitated and they bring him in for questioning.
On the way to find help, Nick sees the Delmar’s brothers’ truck. He’s now able to call Hank (who’s at the police station with Addison) and lets him know of the situation and asks him to look up the name Addison. When Hank confronts Addison, he begins to freak and begs them to keep Holly away from him as she was the one that bit him and was trying to kill him. He tries to make a run for it but is subdued by Hank and the other police officers.
The Blake brothers snoop around where their brother’s body was found in hopes to find out who killed him and hear a noise. It’s Munroe digging up Burdock root for Holly. They follow him to Holly’s tree house and demand he come down. When he doesn’t respond right away, they shoot at it. Nick hears the gunshots and rushes towards the area. Munroe climbs down and the brothers begin to aggressively question Munroe about their brother’s murder. When they hear a noise in the tree house, one of the brothers decided to check it out. When he reaches it, he doesn’t see anyone there but he recognizes his brother’s belongings inside. Enraged they are about to kill Munroe when Nick comes onto the scene. He tells them to put down their weapons as Munroe had nothing to do with the murder. All of the sudden, a whip of hair winds around one of the brother’s neck and pulls him backwards. Nick takes this opportunity to shoot the other brother. Munroe rushes to Holly who is almost passed out on the ground. When she sees him, she reaches out and starts to hug him. They’ve finally gotten past her wild demeanor and reached her humanity.
Hank visits Mrs. Clark to tell her that Holly has been found. On the way to bring her back to her mother, Nick drops Munroe off at his house and just as he is about to get out of the car, Munroe tells Holly to remember that she’s not alone. Finally, after 9 years, Holly is reunited with her mother.
Maybe it’s because it’s the Holiday season, but I really enjoyed this episode. In the past, I’ve always wanted to see more of Silas Weir Mitchell’s character Munroe as he always seems to steal the scenes he’s in. This was a perfect episode that gave you a glimpse of both sides of Munroe: his beastly Blutbod self and his quiet reformed humanized persona. Munroe is a good example that not all creatures are bad and it will be one of the obstacles that Nick will have to overcome as a Grimm. As Aunt Marie told him in the pilot episode, he needs to determine the good ones from the bad.
Unfortunately no new light was shed on Captain Renard’s mission to bring Nick down. I’m hoping this story arc gets moving as I’m very curious about his high position among the creatures (remember in ‘Lonely Hearts’ he told the Reaper he should kneel before him). We’re half-way through the season so I’m thinking things should be speeding up soon. Who do you think Renard is?
If you missed the previous episode, be sure to read our ‘Grimm: Three Bad Wolves’ recap. Next week will be a repeat of the pilot episode but if you’d rather, you can read my Grimm: Pilot episode recap instead. I’d love to know what you think of the series so far, so comment below and let’s discuss!
