Grimm - Season 4

[Thestral]

I think if they'd been Grimms something would've been said by the stepfather or the uncle - considering the instinctual horror and revulsion wesen have. The mom at least; I don't think the son was old enough to have manifested his powers.

ETA: ^ agreed.

My impression was that the mom occasionally saw the "monster," too, but was afraid to say anything for fear of having her sanity questioned. And maybe even doubted her own senses afterwards.

She couldn't believe she'd really seen what she thought she saw, and doubted that anybody would believe her anyway.

Agreed - especially in the hospital scene near the start when she's talking with her brother, she refers to him as a monster, and it seemed more than metaphorical.

 

[Christopher]

Grimms freak out wessen. Monroe described it last season as something about the eyes. A black pit reflecting back. If the mom or son were grimm, a rage filled wessen would have just killed them instead of waiting for them to find their power.

Good point. I forgot about that.

 

[Taylirious]

Trubel is kinda scary! I still like her.

 

[JD]

I enjoyed the last couple of episodes.
As for the debate about the mom and kid seeing the guy woge, I don't think they have to be Grimms to see him woge. The next episode, with the Luison brothers also had a non-Grimm seeing them woge, so apparently if they want to, Wesen can let non-Grimms see them woge. I kind of wish they would address that, they make such a big deal about Grimm's seeing Wesen woge, but we keep getting regular people seeing them too.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, yes, it has been explained before that there are two levels of Woge -- the partial Woge that only Grimms or other Wesen can see, and the full Woge that everyone can see. What confused me about that episode was which of those we were seeing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Spoiler: About next week

Anyone curious if Juliet is carrying Adalind's child?

1. If Juliet was completely converted to Adalind on a genetic level, then Nick was firing Grimmspunk at Adalind's egg and not Juliets this week.

2. If Juliet was using a current template of Adalind and not an old one, any baby Adalind might have been carrying from her coitus with Nick before the wedding, would have been doubled as well when Adalind's physical form overmapped Juliets, and after all the fun, the foetus might have stayed due to a glitch when Juliet got rid of all that blond.

The trailer for next week had me gasp!

 

[Taylirious]

^ Ew!

Glad Nick has his Grimm back.

 

[Christopher]

This show has too many subplots running at once. The episode started out with the "cross"-burning on Monroe and Rosalee's lawn as the catalyst for Nick getting re-Grimmed, but then did nothing else with that story thread, instead veering off into a case-of-the-week that was a lame rehash of old racist stereotypes about Kali cults. They should've kept the hate-group story front and center.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

This show has too many subplots running at once. The episode started out with the "cross"-burning on Monroe and Rosalee's lawn as the catalyst for Nick getting re-Grimmed, but then did nothing else with that story thread, instead veering off into a case-of-the-week that was a lame rehash of old racist stereotypes about Kali cults. They should've kept the hate-group story front and center.

You forgot to include "The Subplot that will NOT Die" of Adalind, her super-baby, and the Royals. Every time the show cuts to an exterior shot of a generic European castle, my interest level in what follows dips to nil. Enough already.

I actually enjoyed a lot in this latest episode. The Monroe hate- group story is an interesting development. The cult story had some effective set pieces, if nothing else. It was nice that Juliet made the whole poly-juice scenario positive instead of melodramatic. Unusual to see Nick and Juliet having fun and flirting around in this show -- a welcome change, in my opinion.

Thankfully Nick is now re-Grimm-ed and Trubel still has a significant role on this series. I'm a big fan of the Trubel character and the actress that plays her, so I'm hoping she sticks around for a long time.

 

[Greg Cox]

The problem with the "Austria" subplot is that because it rates only a few scenes a week, it's inevitably proceeding at a glacial pace. It's not that the Royals and their intrigues can't be interesting, but this slow-drip water torture approach is not working.

Better to go all-out and only show us Austria when something momentous is happening, and when they're prepared to devote most of the episode to it, than keeping doling out one or two brief scenes a week . . ..

But, alas, because our leads are situated in Portland, on other side of the world, the show can't really do an "all-Austria" episode unless Nick catches a plane.

 

[Christopher]

^The perennial problem with Grimm, though, is that all of its subplots proceed at a glacial pace. Sometimes they attenuate a subplot to such an extreme degree that they completely forget they were doing it (or hope that we will), like that whole Nick-zombie-powers thing that was touched on a bit early last season and then totally abandoned.

 

[Greg Cox]

^The perennial problem with Grimm, though, is that all of its subplots proceed at a glacial pace. Sometimes they attenuate a subplot to such an extreme degree that they completely forget they were doing it (or hope that we will), like that whole Nick-zombie-powers thing that was touched on a bit early last season and then totally abandoned.

True, and the Austria subplot has the additional problem of being literally distanced from the regular cast and the rest of the show. And it doesn't help that, aside from Renard, Nick and his crew are generally unconcerned with the Royals' intrigues except when it directly impinges on their own lives.

I mean, it's not as though Nick has ever seemed passionately committed to the cause of the Resistance. He's usually just interested in solving the case-of-the-week. He's not really a big-picture guy . . ..

 

[DWF]

This show has too many subplots running at once. The episode started out with the "cross"-burning on Monroe and Rosalee's lawn as the catalyst for Nick getting re-Grimmed, but then did nothing else with that story thread, instead veering off into a case-of-the-week that was a lame rehash of old racist stereotypes about Kali cults. They should've kept the hate-group story front and center.

The "cross" burning was a mere cliffhanger, Juilette made the decision. We know that the general Wessen population are against Monroe and Rosalee's marriage, I doubt if that's going to go away anytime soon.

 

[cylkoth]

I mean, it's not as though Nick has ever seemed passionately committed to the cause of the Resistance. He's usually just interested in solving the case-of-the-week. He's not really a big-picture guy . . ..

It's been 3 seasons and I still don't have a clue what the Resistance....are resisting!
What are the Royals doing that they haven't already been doing for all these hundreds of years? The general Vessen community has (seems to have) abided by the rules-no revealing their existence, obey all laws. If a Vessen breaks the rules, they're reported to the Council, the Verrat are sent to deal with the malcontents, with the ultimate punishment- a Grimm being dispatched, the final straw,

So, if it's worked all this time, what's going on that a group has formed to resist it? The show hasn't explained that very well.

 

[DWF]

I mean, it's not as though Nick has ever seemed passionately committed to the cause of the Resistance. He's usually just interested in solving the case-of-the-week. He's not really a big-picture guy . . ..

It's been 3 seasons and I still don't have a clue what the Resistance....are resisting!
What are the Royals doing that they haven't already been doing for all these hundreds of years? The general Vessen community has (seems to have) abided by the rules-no revealing their existence, obey all laws. If a Vessen breaks the rules, they're reported to the Council, the Verrat are sent to deal with the malcontents, with the ultimate punishment- a Grimm being dispatched, the final straw,

So, if it's worked all this time, what's going on that a group has formed to resist it? The show hasn't explained that very well.

This is just a guess on my part but it seems like there's a class struggle going on and some members of the Royle family want total control over the rest.

 

[Vendikarr]

I mean, it's not as though Nick has ever seemed passionately committed to the cause of the Resistance. He's usually just interested in solving the case-of-the-week. He's not really a big-picture guy . . ..

It's been 3 seasons and I still don't have a clue what the Resistance....are resisting!
What are the Royals doing that they haven't already been doing for all these hundreds of years? The general Vessen community has (seems to have) abided by the rules-no revealing their existence, obey all laws. If a Vessen breaks the rules, they're reported to the Council, the Verrat are sent to deal with the malcontents, with the ultimate punishment- a Grimm being dispatched, the final straw,

So, if it's worked all this time, what's going on that a group has formed to resist it? The show hasn't explained that very well.

This is just a guess on my part but it seems like there's a class struggle going on and some members of the Royle family want total control over the rest.

I thought the thing with the Royals is that they had stepped up their pursuit of the keys that are supposed to lead to and unlock some power. But when they added Adelaine to the cast as a regular, it became all about her and her baby.

The Royals storyline exists solely for Adelaine to have something to do. I wish they would just be rid of her already. The show grinds to a halt whenever the "action" returns to Austria.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What exactly are the Royals anyway? They don't seem to Woge or have any special abilities. Why are they in charge of the Wessen?

 

[Greg Cox]

The Royals storyline exists solely for Adelaine to have something to do. I wish they would just be rid of her already. The show grinds to a halt whenever the "action" returns to Austria.

I actually like Adalind, but she's not being well-served by being stuck in her own subplot, cut off from the action, for the better part of two seasons. They need to bring her back to Portland and get her interacting with the rest of series regulars again.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Or they are getting us ready for a spinoff called the "Royals".

 

[JD]

What exactly are the Royals anyway? They don't seem to Woge or have any special abilities. Why are they in charge of the Wessen?

The Royals are all humans, they just have Wessen working for them. I'm pretty sure they dealt with the Royals' history and their connection to the Wessen somewhere, but I don't remember what it was.
As for the episode, I enjoyed it overall, although I do agree that the stuff in Austria is kind of getting annoying. I don't mind the story itself, but it would just be nice if they devoted more than one or two scene to it each episode. It's honestly kind of hard to keep track of what exactly is happening, because things are done so quick and spread so thin.
I didn't mind the story with the Wesen cultists, it's always nice to see Erik Avari. I was expecting them to do a little more with the Wesen who don't like the Monrosealee marriage, but I have feeling what we're getting right now is a set up for a bigger story later.
We also now have the stuff with the other Grimm's son, which looks like it might be bringing back the hunt for the keys. Hopefully that also means they'll be bringing Nick and co. back into the conflict between the Rebels and the Royals, since the Keys seem to be the biggest ties into that arc.
EDIT:
Here's the description of the Royals form the Grimm: The Essential Guide: Seasons 1 & 2

Seven Royal Families
Until the 20th century, Royal Families controlled much of the world, their power absolute and unchecked. The Royals expanded their empires by using the fiercest Wesen warriors in their conquests. Unable to identify Wesen, the Royals aligned themselves with the Grimms to coerce and control Wesen within their empires. The Royal Rule came to an end during World War I, bu the seven Royal Families vowed to regain the power they once possessed. Working with secret Royal police, known as the Verrat, they instilled fear, enslaved Wesen and killed on behalf of their goal. The Royals now have turned their attention to finding the seven keys that reveal the hiding place of the precious wealth once taken from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. It is said that this treasure has the ability to make the Royals more powerful than ever before.