Grimm

Grimm

Episode 1: Bad Teeth

The Second Season Premiere

By: Carlos Uribe

Grimm is a show about a man, Nick, who hunts monsters which look human.

Spoilers Ahoy!

This episode's Opening Quote*: “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”-William Butler Yeates in “The Second Coming” (1919)

This Episode's Monster(s)**: Mauvais Denters: a saber-tooth tiger creature

“There once was a man who lived his life so strange, it had to be true. Only he could see what no one else can--the darkness inside, the real monster within. And he's the one who must stop them. This is his calling. This is his duty. This is the life of a grimm.”

That's the introduction to the season premiere of Grimm. The first season always just had the title of the episode come up to serve as the opening credits of the show. It appears that the producers have decided that the best way to introduce any new viewer to the show is to have this introduction. It certainly makes sense but I do have one criticism: the music was a bit loud which made it a bit hard to hear what the voice-over was saying. It was also a bit odd that this narration didn't actually begin the episode, but it appears right after the show's cold open. While it's understandable that this is how future episodes will work, it simply feels that for this episode alone the opening narration goes at the beginning. This would have certainly benefited any new viewers. This episode wasn't very friendly for any people who haven't seen the series before. Not only does it deal with last season's finales multiple cliff-hangers but it continues to develop the Grimm mythology. While it does introduce a monster-of-the-week, many of the plotlines are left dangling for the next episode. In many respects, the season premiere was stalling for next week.

The previous episode had two effective cliff-hangers: Nick's mom reappearing and Juliette's eyes opening pitch black. This episode doesn't pick off immediately after either cliff-hanger. It instead picks up two weeks before the events of the episode. It promptly moves forward to a day before and then an hour before. This is to establish the monster-of-the-week: a barbaric Mauvais Denters that leaves body parts laying around everywhere and has some nasty teeth. This monster was sent by the royal families after Nick's message had gotten to them. Nick's mom has her own theory and that's that they know that he's in possession of the key that he had gained in the pilot. A key that the previous season had largely ignored but only brought up when it was important. She believes that what the royal family is really after is this key. According to her, the map on the key would lead them to a device that would let them control the world. The monster-of-the-week draws Nick in and manages to successfully ambush him. Who wins the fight is up in the air, as the episode closes just as Nick is about to get struck. While it's nice that this story did end up being relevant to the Grimm mythology, it filled up what was already a pretty busy Grimm episode.

The cliff-hanger for Nick's mom is recreated in this episode, but this time from the perspective of the mom. She's seen entering Nick's house. It's clear that she's not to be messed with. Nick is surprised to learn that his mom is still alive but there's some interesting tidbits given out by the premiere. What is nice about this cliff-hanger is that it explores just how Nick's mom had been able to fake her death. The reapers had taken the head of the person they presumed to be the grimm and the body of her friend, which was believed to be her by the world, was burned beyond recognition. Aunt Marie knew that Nick's mother was still alive and she had spent the last eighteen years hunting the people responsible for their deaths. Not only that, but she knows that the coins are important. There's some drama where Nick has to process this information, but it feels very rushed since the episode is so busy. While this makes sense to a point, it would have been nice to have been able to spend a little more time to see how our protagonist is fairing.

If you're left wondering about Juliette's health, this episode doesn't really do anything to improve her condition. She's still in a coma by the end of the episode. It takes Monroe and Rosalee the entire episode to come up with the remedy. The episode ends with them claiming that they only have fourty-five minutes to give it to Juliette or they have to start over. This means that Nick has to deal with the monster-of-the-week and get to the hospital in time. Adding a time limit can be an effective way to create tension. Considering that she's forgetting Nick more and more the longer he waits, Nick realy does have to hurry. Her condition does scare the captain as he's afraid that without Juliette, Nick would have no reason to stay in Portland and remain a cop. He's afraid of losing his grimm. This leads Adalind's mother to try and buy ingredients to do the remedy. Nick discovers this and threatens her in probably the best scene of the episode. Despite his discovery of the mother, there is no other development in Juliette's story. If anything, the story was left largely in the background and was sometimes brought up just for the episode to remind the viewer that Juliette's life is still in danger. This deflated a lot of the tension that the plot should have had.

Overall, the season premiere of Grimm was just as scattershot as the finale. It hasn't gotten any better at juggling multiple plotlines at once and this left the premiere to not be as good as it should have been. The last episode had ended with Hank going crazy over what he had seen and this episode made one reference to that storyline. If it could have better balanced all the stories while delivering all that information then it could have been better. As it is, it would have been nice if the season premiere had settled on not introducing the Mauvais Denters until the next episode. It would have at least let the series concentrate better.

*From now on, each review will contain that episode's quote.

**From now on, each review will contain that episode's monster-of-the-week