In this week’s episode of ‘Grimm,’ a trail of homicides leads Nick and Hank to pursue a deadly heartbreaker and Nick’s growing recognition of being a Grimm threatens his and Juliet’s safety.
***Warning: Spoilers Ahead!***
A man is attending an art gallery opening and is talking to his girlfriend who was not able to go with him on the phone. As he speaks, his eye wanders to the many females in attendance. Once he hangs up, he notices an attractive lady all dressed in black admiring a piece of art. Making conversation, he comments on how he hates the piece but she politely tells him that she likes it. As she walks away to admire other pieces, the man briefly turns into a Wesen (creature). He follows her and asks her out for drinks but she turns him down and tells him that she has to leave. Outside the gallery, the Wesen catches up with her and continues to make conversation. Finally he wears her down and she goes with him to his place to see his “etchings” …er, paintings.
The Wesen makes his move and the two begin to kiss. As the kiss deepens, she pulls away and begins to leave but the Wesen will have none of that. He begins to forcedly come on to her and as he does, he shows her his true self. As he attacks her on the couch, she pushes him to the floor and straddles him. Just as he thought he would enjoy this new position, the female changes into a spider creature. They struggle and he bites her finger. Angry, the spider creature forces his mouth open and spews a white substance out of her mouth into his (and it looked as gross as it sounds!).
Later, we see the lady walking home crying and upset, wiping the tears from her face. As the camera pans down, we see part of her index finger is missing.
Nick is trying to set up his TV set when he and Juliette see that their house is getting egged. Nick, not too happy with the situation, pulls out his gun and tells Juliet to stay in the house as he goes outside. Of course she doesn’t listen to him and follows him out the door. He sees two kids hiding and yells at them. The kids are startled and one of them turns into a Eisbiber (beaver like creature). Nick looks astonish as the boys run away. Nick wonders if it’s the gun or the fact the kids may have known he was a Grimm that made them run away.
The next day, Nick tells Monroe about the incident and Monroe tries to explain to him that a Wesen (creature) has never really seen a Grimm before and to them, Grimms are the scary stories that parents threatened their kids with in order to get them to behave: “Be good or a Grimm will come and cut your head off!” Nick is not happy that his new found identity is getting around in the Wesen world. Just then, he gets a phone call (or “death call” as Monroe likes to call them) to come to a crime scene.
Nick arrives at the apartment of the man we saw earlier. The officer tells him that according to the victim’s girlfriend, the only thing that seems to be missing was his rolex. His body is completely dessicated and as they examine it, they find a part of a finger with nail polish on it. As Nick is holding the finger it begins to move. Hank puts the finger in an evidence bag so they can get a print off it.
Dr. Harper (the medical examiner) tells the detectives that the victim was made to ingest something highly corrosive and acidic that liquefied his organs that were then sucked out of his abdomen, which could explain the body’s condition. The incision in the abdomen looked like teeth marks.
Hank and Nick tell Captain Renard about their findings. As they fill him in, an officer tells them that they got a hit on the fingerprint from the disembodied finger. The prints match a crime scene case that occurred 5 years ago in Phoenix. The file from that case revealed that the body was in the same condition as the one they had. The only thing missing from that victim was a ring. The report also stated that the body contained an amino acid that is found in spider venom.
Later that night, Nick heads to Aunt Marie’s trailer to do some research and finds his answers in a very old book that describes a meeting a past Grimm ancestor had with a Japanese doctor who encountered a spider like creature.
Lena (our spider woman) is getting ready to go out and puts on a wig to disguise her look. She had bandaged her finger so no one would know it was missing. As she looks in the mirror, she begins to get upset. Later we see her strolling through a restaurant wearing a little black dress and making sexy eyes with a gentleman alone at a table. In the next scene we see her graphically devour the gentleman in the same manner as our first victim.
Some time later, housekeeping knocks on the hotel room door for turn down service. When no one answers, she walks in. Sensing something is amiss, she cautiously walks towards the room and finds a body.
Nick finally decides to visit the address of the orange truck that Juliette had seen watching their house in the last episode. When he knocks on the door, the man that answers realizes who Nick is and tries to slam the door in Nick’s face. Nick immediately recognizes that this person is a Wesen and pushes his way in demanding to know why he’s been watching his house. As his friend comes into the kitchen, Nick recognizes him as the refrigerator repair man that was at his house. He confesses to Nick that he was the one that showed other Wesens where Nick lived as they’ve never seen a Grimm before and he didn’t know any other way to prove he was telling the truth. Nick threatens them by saying they better make sure whoever they told better not come near his house or he would have to pay them another visit.
Captain Renard tells the boys that there are two more similar murders in Phoenix and 3 more in Albuquerque 5 years before that. They notice a pattern: 3 murders every 5 years. Since 2 murders have already occurred, they know that the killer will kill again.
Nick visits Monroe to discuss the case just as Monroe is making homemade vegetarian sausages (yummy!). He shows him a picture that was in the old book in Aunt Marie’s trailer and Monroe identifies it as a Spinnetod, a Death Spider. Nick asks him if he knew any habits that Spinnetods may have and Monroe told him he didn’t know too much about them, but does know someone who knows about spiders…his friend Charlotte! (Bet you didn’t see that coming!)
We go back and see that Lena (our Spinnetod) actually leads a double life as a normal soccer mom with a loving husband and daughter. During a nice dinner, she tells her husband she has a gift for him and when he opens it, it is the first victim’s Rolex. As she kisses him, he tells her how fantastic she looks.
Monroe takes Nick to a Clousterhause, a retirement/monastic retreat home for Wesens to visit Charlotte. When he introduces Nick as a Grimm, Charlotte changes into a Spinnetod but Monroe assures her that he is a “modified Grimm” and won’t hurt her. Charlotte tells Nick that Spinnetods need to feed every 5 years to interrupt the mortification process. Spinnetods have a condition that unless they suck the life out of young men, they will rapidly age. Charlotte tells him that Spinnetods don’t take pleasure in this practice (it’s actually heartbreaking) but the biological needs of this ritual is too hard to resist. She also asked if anything else was missing from the victims and Nick tells her that a Rolex watch was gone from the first victim. Charlotte is not surprised as Spinnetods like shinny objects.
Hanks gets a lead on the Rolex that was missing. The principal from a middle school called the police as one of the students had traded his mountain bike for the Rolex. When the boy’s mom saw the watch, she turned it into the principal who called to make sure it wasn’t stolen. Nick asked who gave the boy the watch and the principal said it was a girl name Sally.
Sally was called to the principal’s office and Nick questioned where she got the watch. She tried to lie her way out but the principle reminded her that she told the other boy that she took it from her father. The detectives arrest the dad at their home as Spinnetod Lena looks on. As Nick catches a look at the wife, he sees her change. They noticed the bandage on her finger and ask how she injured it then asked to see the cut. When she removes the dressing, her finger is almost fully back to normal.
At the precinct, the father is questioned about the Rolex but he insists that he got it at a swap meet. Nick is determined to pin the murders on the wife and finds that the wife’s prints taken from the house match the fingerprint found from the finger from the first murder scene. Hank asks how can that be when she had all her fingers but Nick doesn’t tell him the real reason. Nick goes back into the interrogation room and confronts the husband.
Nick tells him that he knows Lena is a Spinnetod and the husband’s face changes. He’s one also and now knows that Nick is a Grimm. Nick asks why is he still alive if Spinnetods kill their mates. He said that the only reason he’s alive is because Lena loves him.
Lena’s car is found at the marina and she is with a young man on his boat. The detectives quietly board the boat hoping to find Lena. Nick is searching throughout the boat when all of the sudden Lena jumps him. She tries to get away but Nick is able to trap her into a net to arrest her.
With both parents in custody, Nick takes the daughter to her grandmother’s. As they get into the car, she asks when she could see her parents. Nicks tells her maybe tomorrow and as he looks at her in the rear view mirror, she turns into a Spinnetod.
In jail, unable to stop the mortification process, Lena is now looking quite old and in despair.
This is a rare episode where the fractured fairy tale really wasn’t from an actual Grimm story but from an old Japanese fairy tale called ‘The Goblin Spider.’
Here we see Nick really becoming more comfortable with being a Grimm and the ease of the deepening friendship between him and Monroe. What worked in this episode was that the gruesomeness of the kills were offset by the Spinnetod’s biological need to feed. That duality of a normal mom who killed to survive was a humanistic allegory to what happens every day in the animal kingdom and reminds us that not all Wesens are evil.
It was great to see ‘Angel’ and ‘Dollhouse’ alumni Amy Acker as she is a wonderful actress and was able to give Lena that sense of self hatred of having to feed but still unable to fight against that biological urge.
So what did you think of this week’s ‘Grimm’ episode? If you missed last week, then make sure you read the ‘Grimm: Organ Grinder’ recap here!
