Grimm Skin Deep

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion
That beauty is goodness.”

Beauty, it’s only skin deep right? Unfortunately for Summer Blake, it becomes a life-draining experience when, after a marathon photo session with Malcolm Caulfied, Wesen, she gets her beauty (and age) sucked from her to the extent that when her roomie comes back after a night out, the now dead Summer looks more like a 90 year old than anything else.

Nick spends a bit of quality time with baby Kelly
Nick spends a bit of quality time with baby Kelly

Malcolm has a clandestine meeting with Forbes, an older man who’s buying the collected “youth” and, despite Malcolm’s warnings, not only has Dr. Forbes turned it around to sell as Foy cream, an age-defying balm that’s made him a hit, but he’s using it himself. Based on Malcolm’s adamant repeat of the same message—taking things slow—it’s only a matter of time before the ish hits the fan.

Now, let’s get to the longer game as it relates to this season. Eve calls Nick into the Hadrian’s Wall HQ to fill him in on the Andrew Dixon conspiracy, including Renard’s possible involvement in the assassination and the captain’s own run as mayor. Nick brings Hank up to speed as well and, as coincidence would have it, Renard calls his two golden boys in to discuss the possibility of running for mayor. Though Hank believes their captain is being played, Nick’s not so sure that he isn’t all in on the entire conspiracy.

During their meeting with Renard, Wu gives the detectives a call about the weird case of Summer Blake. Fingerprints confirm Summer’s identity and the ME taps progeria—a hyper-aging genetic disorder—as the closest thing to this she’s seen. Of course the gents believe it’s Wesen-related and have a study-session with Monrosalee to prove it. They come across an entry on the Musasat Alsh-shabab, a Wesen that sucks the ‘youth’ from its victims, one that is highly addictive and supposedly turns the user of the stolen youth into monsters.

The ending smack down isn't quite as exciting as we're used to seeing.
The ending smack down isn’t quite as exciting as we’re used to seeing.

The detectives dig a bit deeper into any cases fitting this particular MO and come up with half a dozen in the Portland area over the past three years. When they get a call on a second victim, a pamphlet leads them to their first real clue: the photographer Malcolm Caulfield. Though the initial conversation goes nowhere, checking his phone records leads them to Dr. Forbes. Rosalee volunteers for recon into the clinic and, for lack of a better term, things get ugly. First, the now-obsessed Forbes looks like some of the real-life plastic surgery horror stories. When he tries to douse Rosalee with the cream, the cavalry arrives and, being that Malcolm is there as well, things turn into a battle royal that ends up leaving both the Wesen Malcolm and Forbes dead.

The postscript, if you will, shows Renard officially announcing his mayoral candidacy and Eve performing the body changing spell to become…Captain Sean Renard.

Grimmtastic

  • Another monster-of-the-week where the actual Wesen is more interesting than its story. Sure, the CGI for the Musasat Alsh-shabab (say that five times fast) is great, we don’t see it too much. That’s especially disappointing considering there could have been some interesting stories told about this particular beastie.
  • It was good to see Nick spending a bit of down-time with baby Kelly. With the crazy life of our Grimm detective, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that Nick’s a papa to the cute lil guy. One other thing they haven’t touched on as much is his burgeoning romance with Adalind. Hopefully this isn’t thrown by the wayside as Adalind’s had one of the most interesting character arcs on the entire show.
  • Things are starting to head up though as it pertains to Renard and the Dixon assassination. Now that Nick and Hank are in the fold and Eve looks to be going deep cover, it’s only a matter of time before they discover Renard’s knowledge of the assassination (albeit after the fact). This will not be good for the captain’s relationship with his detectives (and Wu) and begs the question, in his ‘playing the game’ for what appears to be the greater good, will Renard lose himself in the seduction the new power brings him?