Kyle’s Thoughts

“Eve of Destruction” did a good job of bringing Grimm back from the mid-season break but it’s morphing into a political allegory and borrowing more from comic books at this point than fairy tales.

Comic books love secret organizations, and Grimm has at least three in play here: democratic revolutionaries (a new government spawned from a secret society), royals trying to hold onto power (we haven’t seen much of them), and a wesen fundamentalist group (Black Claws). Juliette has returned from the dead—another comic book trope—and she’s become the ultimate weapon—ditto. Trubel is Nick’s sidekick of sorts. She’s even been reprogrammed by one of the secret organizations and she shares more with Captain America’s Bucky than she does with a fairy tale counterpart. Some of these developments work, while others don’t, but I liked how Grimm had separated itself from the other comic book shows I’ve been watching, and time has eroded that distinction.

The political allegory generally works because Grimm tends to use a subtle hand. The fundamentalist group borrows from so many historical factions that you can’t pinpoint any one in particular, except for the few times they take on Nazi party characteristics. The royals have stepped into the shadows. Renard has to factor into this group somehow but Grimm won’t say, or show, us how, and as a result, they’re the most opaque. And the democratic revolutionaries acted as if they supported the council (a townhouse level governing body) but didn’t actively defend it. Honestly, I’m glad the fundamentalist group wiped out the wesen council. We needed fewer pieces in play, and I wasn’t a big fan of the council in the first place; I never knew exactly how it worked. Grimm didn’t tie down exact rules for the council, they changed many of them on a whim. Getting rid of the council focused Grimm’s conflict on the two main factions (the revolutionaries and the fundamentalists), while sowing the idea of suspicion throughout the wesen world. Now all Grimm has to do is wait for the dust to settle and focus the swirling tension.

I also like the awkward pairing of Adalind and Nick. They didn’t have a lot of screen time together but the ones they shared were tense, tender, and shined. We saw a lot more of Trubel and even though I didn’t care much for her at first, she’s grown on me, especially when I think of her as Bucky to Nick’s Cap. She’s also the only connective tissue viewers have between the world of Grimm’s secret organizations and Nick. Trubel actually works—for the most part—but I’d like something more than Juliette’s return as a tie-in.

I never believed Juliette was dead or that she’d stay dead, so I wasn’t surprised to see her again. (We did catch a glimpse of her before the break.) What does surprise me is that she’s subservient to the secret society and that doesn’t ring true. Juliette must have a reason for working with these people, otherwise she’s just like Genie from Aladdin: phenomenal cosmic powers, itty, bitty living space.

Ultimately, “Eve of Destruction” was a little plot-heavy for its own good. The episode did too much and since there were only six episodes that preceded it this season, there wasn’t enough to ground the characters once the show went down its many rabbit holes. Still, it held my interest, and I’ll stick with it.