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Grimm ep02.12 ‘Season of the Hexenbeist’: Out With a Whimper, Not With a Bang

Grimm ep02.12 ‘Season of the Hexenbeist’: Out With a Whimper, Not With a Bang

Grimm Episode 02.12 ‘Season of the Hexenbeist’

Written by: Jim Kouf

Directed by: Karen Gaviola

Airs Friday 9.00pm EST on NBC

Don’t let the photo fool you. This is what the makers of Grimm wanted you to think the season finale was all about: Nick Burkhardt finally reaching inside and taking firm hold of his Grimm heritage.

This was not what the season finale was all about.

Granted, Nick did have a kickass moment. When he opened the Grimm armoury, Wesen-bashing on his mind, we all collectively willed him to choose the big baseball bat embedded with studs and he obligingly did just that. Then we collectively willed him to brain some Hundjagers with the bat and he did that too. This, along with one moment scary enough to make me spill my apple juice (and that doesn’t happen very often), was as exciting as the show got.

As evidence for my underwhelment, what was Nick’s reaction to his eventual discovery that Juliette has been making out with his (much taller and more handsome) boss? Was it:

a) Nick applies the baseball bat to Renard?

b) Nick eases the pain by seducing the nearest available lady-Wesen (who are all animals in the sack)?

c) Nick tersely packs a bag and moves in with Monroe?

Yes. It was c). Nick is now officially the poster-boy for Passive Aggressive Male syndrome. You know, sufferers are the guys who think the way to deal with a problem isn’t to be extra nice to you but is instead to get all huffy and immerse themselves in their work. Now I get that part of the point of this is to make us all tune in to season 3, in the hopes that Nick is going to start doing something to win Juliette back, but actually my reaction is to hope that Juliette and Renard go off together and raise little Wesen-demi-royals together, so that particular hook didn’t work for me.

But I will probably be back for season 3, if only to see Adelind Schade get her comeuppance. The plot now hinges on complicated skullduggery involving the Verrat (Wesen badasses along Nazi lines) trying to get hold of a key left to Nick by his Aunt Marie. Adelind has enthusiastically enlisted herself in the scheme, for reasons which are not quite clear, but which probably relate to her hoping to gain back the Hexenbeist powers Nick deprived her of in an earlier skirmish. Cue Claire Coffee treating us all to the kind of smug grin the Grinch wears when he steals Christmas, as she gets the better of first Renard, then Nick. We all badly want Adelind to be put in her place, not permanently because Coffee is very entertaining to watch, but at least so we can see that annoying Cheshire cat smile wiped off her face.

I’ll also be coming back to see how Juliette reacts to finding out that not one, but both of her love interests are not quite what they seem, even though Bitsie Tulloch practically makes an art form out of playing perplexed . The finale held out on this revelation, with Juliette still none the wiser about the existence of the Wesen world (although she must be wondering why Renard dragged her into the spice shop after babbling about them both needing a cure). Similarly, Nick is in the dark about Renard’s Wesen connections. And one further point: Nick’s actions as a Grimm, which include concealing murder and hiding evidence, mean his days as a cop are numbered if anyone gets wind of them. He hasn’t hit rock bottom yet, so taking away his job as well as his girlfriend might be the ideal way for the writers to force Burkhardt to reach inside for that inner Grimm.

Cath Murphy

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