“To kill Koschei the Deathless,

First you must find his soul,

Which is hidden in an egg,

In a duck in a lead chest

Buried beneath an oak tree.”

Welcome to 2014, folks and the return of everyone’s favorite detective and hunter of the preternatural. The first ‘Grimm’ of the new year has Nick and his gang investigating a new Wesen, the Koschei, whose touch can not only heal the sick but cause the most horrible of deaths as well.

Renard puts Adalind on notice–she has to pick a side

After Nick comes home from a hard but interestingly sweat-less jog,  Juliette tells him about her good friend Alicia, whose current relationship continues to spiral out of control due to an abusive husband. Juliette opens her home to Alicia, telling her to come to Portland and stay with them. Still in Vienna, Renard meets with Adalind and shocks her when he brings up her pregnancy. More to the point, though, he reminds the hexenbiest, that a time will come where she’s “gonna have to choose a side”, a time where she will need a friend. After he leaves his shaken former lover, events return back to Portland where the Russian—Boris Myshkin—heals a girl from a ravaging head pain, absorbing the sickness from her. That night he’s celebrated for his accomplishments but everyone’s not impressed. He ends up being attacked by a man though Boris defends himself well, transferring a harsh sickness to his attacker, one that eats at the young man as he returns to his motel and faints from his failing body.

After some tense waiting, Alicia arrives at casa del Nick (and Juliette). When emotion gets the best of her, Nick is surprised to find that she’s a Fuchsbau. On to better things, Hank continues his rehab for the miraculously healed Achilles tear and, yes folks, that’s sarcasm. Any who, he does a bit of flirting with his therapist and offers the less than subtle “let’s celebrate” idea to cap his final session. Despite her obvious attraction to him, she turns down the offer. He returns to work and interrupts Nick and Renard’s chat—the latter catching his detective up on the fun-filled trip to Austria, about a dead body found at the restaurant Boris and friends were at the night before. The detectives question the owner who gives them the security footage which ends up showing the possible murderer and his initial attack on Myshkin. When told of the Russian’s involvement, Renard joins the case while, alone in his room, the would-be assassin is nearing death as his body is a sea of boils and lesions. He calls someone and tells them that he loves them. There’s a cut to Olga, Myshkin’s wife, who wipes away tears and eventually shows her disdain for the beautiful young maid who obviously has something going on with her healer husband.

Renard, Nick, and Hank arrive at Mila’s home, where Boris and his wife are staying and they arrive in time to watch him perform a healing. Renard shows off some of his Royal education, speaking Russian to Boris for a time. The healer is truthful about the attack and, based on Nick’s description of the healer’s appearance, the Captain suggests the main is a Koschei, whose healing abilities reputedly increases the libido, which may be why the maid is receiving his attentions. Speaking of attention, a maid walks in on the assassin’s disease riddled body.

After finding some info in the trailer about the Koschei, including one’s ability to kill with its touch as well as Rasputin’s true nature as Koschei, Renard calls Nick and gives the cops more on Myshkin; he once worked with the FSB (Federal Security Service of Russian Federation) who employed him as an assassin. The investigation leads them to the motel body—Alex Ranko—and the murdered restaurant worker’s suit. Despite his fantastically destroyed body, Ranko is alive and seriously hot with radiation and the cops on scene—Hank, Nick, and Sgt Wu—all need to be treated for exposure. Dying in the hospital, someone close to Ranko visits him and he tells the person that Myshkin “will kill you, too”.

While Juliette and Alicia hang out at the vet hospital, Renard and his top two detectives question Myshkin about his past. He hides nothing, admitting his sins from long ago and how he vowed to atone for them.

The grand finale where -ish hits the fan

After he leaves, the hospital calls to let Renard and Co. know Ranko is awake. Renard questions him and he tells them Myshkin murdered his father “and he’s going to kill her, too.” At Mila’s house, Myshkin and the maid get ready to have some fun times and he picks up the vodka bottle someone had poisoned earlier. Before getting lost in the nubile maid, Boris makes eye contact with his wife, looking away in shame as he’s slave to his healing libido. It doesn’t take long for the poison to have an effect and the stricken maid almost wills him to die. She reminds Myshkin of one of his victims, Sergie Kamarov, her father. He burns with shame, getting on his knees and begs her to understand that he’s not the same man. She rams a pair of scissors through his chest and this is when pandemonium breaks out. Nick, Renard, and Hank enter the house as Myshkin stumbles down the stars, Olga then slashes the maid’s throat with her serious tusks. The maid is dying and, showing how he’s changed, Myshkin comes to her aid and heals her, despite Olga’s pleas that the healing will kill him. Her warnings are correct and Myshkin dies in his wife’s lap.

At Nick and Juliette’s, the crazed Joe calls, searching for Alicia. The battered wife is terrified, telling her friends that Joe’s “not normal”. That abnormality just so happens to be the fact that, just like Alicia, Joe’s a Wesen and seething with rage as he waits outside the house.

Grimm News

  • So on top of the super sensory abilities, greying out like a corpse and having no noticeable changes in his heart rate despite strenuous activity, now we find that Nick doesn’t sweat. He’s becoming a veritable Captain America and one can only wonder how much more his abilities will improve.
  •  So we have three new Wesen to catalogue; the Koschei, Olga’s tusked beast and Alicia’s hubby. One of the most interesting aspects of ‘Grimm’ are the freedom to continually add to our pantheon of fantastical creatures.
  • Despite only a cursory examination of the political machinations of the Royals, Renard’s discussion with Adalind will play a major role in the upcoming battle. The young hexenbiest will have a choice to make as events come to a head.

So what did think of ‘Grimm’ second half of the season return? Was it worth the wait?