Nick’s worlds are closing in as this week’s episode has Nick investigating a murder whose suspect just happens to be a Wesen who can’t change back to human form. Unfortunately, the Wesen look surprisingly like those photos of Big Foot….
**** WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD ****
The episode opens with three people on a Sasquatch hunt videotaping their progress as they search for the elusive Big Foot. They think they’ve come across something when all of a sudden the camera starts shaking and screams are heard. The camera drops and continues to film as we see the demise of one of the hunters as he is thrown into a tree trunk.
Later, Juliette is called to a farm where a horse has been attacked by “something.” She surmises that the horse was bitten by something big. As they go out to where the horse got hurt, Juliette finds some hair on the ground and footprints leading away from the farm. Seeing blood as they examined the area, the farmer releases whatever it was, he might have shot it when the horses were acting spooked. Tom and Juliette follow the blood trail but instead of finding an injured person, they find the three Sasquatch hunters with body parts torn off.
Meanwhile, Nick is in the Grimm trailer still trying to figure out what the designs from the key Aunt Marie gave him all means. The phone rings and it’s Juliette who tells him about her find.
Nick and Hank arrive at the scene and try to figure out who or what could have caused all the carnage. Sgt. Wu finds the dropped camcorder. Just then, one of the Sasquatch chasers comes out of the trees and exclaims she saw the whole thing and it was Big Foot that killed her companions.
At the precinct the detectives inform Capt. Renard of their findings as they watch the hunters tape. In it, they catch “Big Foot” running away but are perplexed that he has clothes on.
Since it’s still the middle of the night, Monroe is in bed having fallen asleep while reading ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” (what one would call bedtime literature) when his super sensitive sense of smell detects an order not normally smelt in the house. He goes downstairs to investigate and when he hears someone trying to break into his house, he turns into a Blutbad to attack the intruder. It’s not until Monroe has the intruder pinned to the ground that he realizes it’s his friend Larry. Monroe helps him onto the couch and notices that Larry is not “retracting” (changing back to human form). Monroe knows this is not a good thing.
The Associated Press has gotten word that Big Foot may have been on the attack and this has other news outlets following the story. Reporters corner Capt. Renard to get a statement of what really happened. In the meantime, Nick gets a call from Monroe who tells him that he has Big Foot on his couch.
When Nick arrives at Monroe’s house, Monroe tells Nick that Larry is hurt but he can’t call 911 because Larry is in no condition to be seen. Apparently he can’t Volga (change into a Wesen which, by the way is caused by a hormonal surge through a Grimm creature) and is stuck in between his human form and his Wesen self. Unfortunately in this state, everyone can see him as he is. Nick surmises that this explains the Bigfoot legend. Nick informs Monroe that Larry is wanted for murder but Monroe insists that Larry is a good Wesen and part of his support group to help on their impulse control issues. As they are talking, Monroe smells the scent of the police search dogs that have been following Larry’s scent. As Nick and Monroe look out of the window, they see the police coming toward the house.
Nick is concerned but Monroe isn’t as he tells Nick that he “marked his territory” and that the scent should freak the dogs out (the image of Monroe marking his territory is freaking me out!). Monroe has a plan to lead the dogs away from the house and puts on Larry’s clothes. He proceeds to run into the woods with the dogs closely chasing after him. When they corner Monroe, he decides to change into a Blutbad and expels a ferocious growl that sends the dogs whimpering away. The sound also frightens Hank who pulls out his gun to get a closer look at what would have scared the dogs. As he walks towards the sound, Monroe (still a Bludbad) knocks Hanks over before he runs away. Hank is in shock seeing a Blutbad for the first time.
When Monroe gets back to his house, he tells Nick that Hank saw him as a Blutbad (Wesens have the ability to allow non-Grimms to see them when they want to be seen and since he was trying to scare the dogs, he allowed them to see him but didn’t transform back before bumping into Hank). As they are talking, Larry comes up to the two of them and begs them to get “it” out. The “it” he was referring to was a long piece of what looked like a wire that he removed himself from the base of his neck. After it was removed, he apologized for killing the Sasquatch hunters saying that he didn’t want to kill them and then died. Larry then transformed into his human self.
While trying to decide what to do with Larry’s body, Hank calls Nick and tells him something strange is happening in the woods as he was hit by something. He thinks it was the same guy that attacked the hunters as he was wearing the same shirt. He tells Nick he is headed back to the precinct. (By the look on this face he may be better off heading to a bar!)
Monroe and Nick take Larry’s body into the woods and place him where he can be found. Monroe is choked up not believing Larry could have gone off the wagon and started killing. As they walked away, Monroe tells Nick that Larry had been seeing a Dr. Brinkerhoff to help him with his urges. Nick decides to give him a visit.
Dr. Brinkerhoff tries to psycho-analyze Nick as he tries to question the good doctor about Larry. As he is about to leave, Dr. Brinkerhoff offers his services to Nick informing him that he can “only walk in darkness for so long” before his inner man emerges for all to see.
Juliette, who just can’t leave well enough along, calls in a favor to have a DNA test done on the hair she found at the farm. They allow her to do the testing herself and she realizes that the hair she found was not a usual piece of human hair.
Now that Larry’s body is found, the case of the murdered hunters is now closed but does that mean the end of Big Foot? Apparently not, as a homeless man is attacked by a half Wesen. The half Wesen creature heads to the second homeless man but he was able to get away by impaling the monster. As the Wesen died, he turned back into his human self.
Nick and Hank investigate the homeless man murder and as they looked at the body of the dead Wesen, they notice the same injury at the back of the neck was the same as Larry’s.
Juliette gets a phone call from the DNA lab who tells her that the hair has two distinct cells similar to a Chimera. Juliette begins to Google para-human DNA for more information.
Monroe, still upset about Larry’s death, heads over to visit Reynaldo, the leader of his support group. He asks him about Larry. Reynaldo tells him that Larry came in one day and tells the group that he was cured after seeing Dr. Brinkerhoff. The news had other member going to see the good doctor wanting this “miracle cure.”
The device that Larry had pulled out of his neck was examined by forensics who told the detectives that it is used to pump drugs into a person’s system. The drugs being pumped were not illegal but the combination wouldn’t cause a human to lose control as Larry did. Monroe calls Nick to tell him about his meeting with Reynaldo and that two other support members, Dan Murray and Alan Evercroft, decided to go see Dr. Brinkerhoff also. Nick tells Monroe that Alan was just found dead and he had the same drug pump in his body as Larry. Concerned, Monroe calls Dan but reaches his brother instead who tells him that Dan died a couple days ago.
The police find out that 4 drug devices were ordered from the manufacturer. Three of the users are now dead and that leaves Nick and Hank to figure out who the last person with the implant is.
Monroe goes to visit Dr. Brinkerhoff who is in his office trying to control himself from turning into a Wesen. We soon find out that he is the 4th person with the drug implant. Once under control, Dr. Brinkerhoff let Monroe in. Monroe is angry that his friend’s deaths are because of him. Dr. Brinkerhoff explains to Monroe that his drug allows the user to no longer have a choice to control his urges and allows them to stay in their human form. The doctor is slowly losing the ability to control himself and tries to inject more of the drug into himself but the urge to change is to strong and he turns into a Wesen attacking Monroe.
Nick and Hank get to Dr. Brinkerhoff’s office just in time to save Monroe but not before Dr. Brinkerhoff escapes out of a window and causes havoc at a function. He manages to drag an unconscious woman into a theater. Nick finds the woman and as he yells to Hank that she is alive, Dr. Brinkerhoff drops down behind him. Before he can harm Nick, Hank shoots him and he falls to the ground below. Nick and Hank head to where Dr. Brinkerhoff landed and they both watch as he turns back to human. Hank doesn’t know what to make of it. Nick tries to play it off and acts as though he saw nothing.
At home, Juliette confides in Nick about her findings with the hair samples and tells him that they weren’t human but they also couldn’t be linked to any known species. She tells him she is now beginning to wonder what if all the stories they heard were real?
After all this time, Juliette and Hank begin to realize that there may be more to the world than what they know as Hank finally sees a Wesen and Juliette begins to believe in Big Foot. The concept that Big Foot is actually Wesens unable to fully transform is an amusing explanation to all the sightings. I wouldn’t be surprised if next season the Loch Ness Monster was explained as a sea Wesen. While we didn’t find out too much more about Nick’s Grimm side, we did learn more about the Wesen’s ability and what causes them to change when they see Nick.
All this is leading up to the season finale where Nick finally gets to confide in someone about his ancestry and the importance of the gold coins come back. If you missed last week’s episode recap of ‘Grimm:Happily Ever Aftermath’, make sure you read it! You never know what tidbit from previous episodes will surface in the finale!
