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Life, being the whirlwind that it is, got in the way of reviewing last week’s Grimm episode; that’s a bummer, because “Nobody Knows the Trubel I’ve Seen” did a great job of introducing fledgling actress Jacqueline Toboni as branding spanking new Grimm, Theresa “Trubel” Rubel. In addition to Trubel, we got a lot of Adalind and her anguish over losing demon baby Diana. She went to everyone for help, and ultimately found herself caught up with the Royals again. Trubel and Adalind’s misadventures continue this week in “My Fair Wesen.”
“Wesen” opens at the tail end of last week’s episode with Nick introducing Trubel to Juliette. The new girl sets up some conflict between an understanding Nick and aggravated Juliette. There’s a dramatic, “Where did she go moment?” which quickly gives way to finding Trubel eating Chinese food with her bare hands in the kitchen. Juliette gets the Grimms to the dinner table, where Trubel’s manners remain suspect. Of course, she’s been on the run for a while now, so her response is understandable. Trubel sticks her nose into Nick and Juliette’s relationship and makes things really awkward. Eventually, Trubel says thank you, but the tension between the characters is clearly there. When she tries to sleep, nightmares about her life as a Grimm on the run wake her up; she makes an attempt to sneak out, but Nick busts her. David Giuntoli plays Nick’s new big brother type role very well. His talents as a leading man always impress me, but given how much attention Trubel gets in the latest episode, it’s great to see that Giuntoli can pull back and let Toboni shine too.
The next morning, Nick gives Monrosalee a call. He needs them to give Trubel the “Wesen are people too” treatment that got Juliette and Hank through their struggle. The adorable Wesen couple is justifiably worried, but they agree. The awkward in the following scenes is high, but they provide some good moments between our resident Wesen and our brand new Grimm. The best bit is when Trubel asks a question Nick just asked himself: “How do you know I’m a Grimm?” At least she’s ahead of the curve on that one, am I right?
While there Nick gets a call about a body, which segues into this week’s Wesen criminal misadventure. This week’s case involves a shop lifting ring made up of pretty well dressed young girls and a pair of Lebensauger. These Wesen are pretty gross, but you can’t really expect otherwise from literal human leeches. They gang runs a scam wherein the girls create a diversion in expensive stores and steal as much product as possible while the salespeople are distracted. The whole thing reminds me of the Bling Ring by way of Winona Ryder at a halfway house. One of the girls gets caught, but escapes; unfortunately, that’s enough to get her bounced from the group by Ken, the male Lebensauger and guy in charge. Ken is creepy, to say the very least, and slings around some talk about family and people needing a place to belong, before leeching out on her. Later, her body is found in the woods by a couple jogging with their dog.
Nick and Hank arrive at the crime scene with Trubel in tow. Nick wants to protect Trubel and keep her distant, but Hank—understandably—scoffs at the idea that Wesen wouldn’t be involved in their latest case. I’m scoffing with you, Hank. Wu pops in and we get the first of several great moments between him and Trubel. After looking at Ken’s poor victim, Trubel drops the word “Wesen” with Wu right there. More awkwardness ensues and carries over to Ken’s creepy shoplifting hideout, where his girls are absolutely terrified that they’ll be the next one to get all their blood sucked out. Ken asks Donna to recruit a new member of their family.
Can I just say, I really don’t like Ken? While I don’t hate this week’s case, there’s something about it that I find inherently irksome. Fortunately, we have twice the Grimm power to clean up this mess. At the trailer, Nick and Trubel swap war stories and figure out the bad guy is a Lebensauger like Ryan, the unstable intern, who pretended to be a Grimm last season. I really like how they’re tying these story threads together: the first real case for our real new Grimm involves the same time of Wesen as the last time we thought we were getting a new Grimm. Beautifully done, Grimm writers. Also well done? The way they carve out Trubel’s history after the Lebensauger reveal. While the character goes wildly back and forth from irritating to compelling, she spends most of her time as the latter.
Nick continues to play big brother Grimm to Trubel as they head to a halfway house with Hank to find out more about the murder victim. They don’t get much info, until Trubel spots the deceased girl’s roommate reveal herself as a Mauzhertz. Nick doesn’t catch the woge, so after he and Hank fail to get info, she takes matters into her own hands. She scares the crap out of the Mauzhertz girl, but also gets the information. They had back to the precinct with freshly acquired information and get some additional footage of the shoplifting incident from earlier in the episode. Trubel has another good scene with Wu here, which picks at the emotional and mental scab of his Aswang encounter. I absolutely love how everything feels so tied together. I really hope we get some pay-off regarding Wu finding out before season’s end.
Trubel joins Nick and Hank for a stakeout. They banter about people having affairs and people in love, before they spot Donna. Trubel thinks she’s the one—and she’s right. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it does amp up this new girl quite a bit. First she spots a Wesen that Nick didn’t and now she’s recognizing criminals with searing accuracy? If Toboni wasn’t doing such a winning job with her portrayal, I think I’d be annoyed. Instead, I’m, for the most part, happy with what I see. Nick, however, isn’t; Trubel slips away with Donna and Hank is only able to get partial license plates. Whoops! Trubel introduces herself to Ken as Theresa; he remains creepy as hell. Wu identifies the partial plate, so while Trubel gets a makeover for creepy Ken, Nick and Hank find Donna’s apartment. Ken asks Trubel to let him see her smile and I want to throw up a little in my mouth. Fortunately, it doesn’t take Nick and Hank long to find out where the shoplifting ring’s hideout is. Trubel, meanwhile, even more disgusted with Ken than I am, follows him back to his bedroom, because as he says, “new girls spend their first night with [him].” When she hits him, he woges and he gets the surprise of his life: she’s a Grimm, sucker. Donna, to Trubel’s surprise, is a Lebensauger too, but she still manages to beat the crap out of both of them in one of the show’s best fight sequences to date. The fight ends when Nick and Hank arrive; Trubel dispatches Donna and Nick shoots a few holes into Ken. Watching Nick blow Ken away was incredibly satisfying.
In the midst of all these Grimm and Wesen of the Week shenanigans, there’s Adalind. There’s some shippy stuff going on between her and Renard, but the ghost of the missing baby haunts their interactions. She’s working with Viktor again and has her own twisted revengenda—to poach the vocab of another network’s Sunday night drama—in play. For one, she looks into the state of her deceased mom’s estate, all in the name of finding one Hexenbiesty item: a book. Although she eventually finds the book, she has one hell of a time trying to open it. She even tries to use a shard of glass to pry its pages apart. Of course, she can’t get it open until she accidentally slices her hand open and drips blood all over the damn thing. Whoosh! It opens. This is some evil blood magic at work and that can’t be good.
After Nick, Juliette, and Trubel collect themselves at the end of the episode, we get a closing scene with an old guy and another key. They’re definitely planting some seeds for the last couple of episodes, but I hope the way this episode works isn’t one of them. While I dig Trubel and love Jacqueline Toboni as the character, I am not thrilled with her drawing focus from an already large cast. If they can handle it with nuance—which I know they can—I wouldn’t complain if she becomes a fixture in season four. However, the folks at Grimm sometimes let things go a little too long—like Juliette’s amnesia—or don’t circle back to them to keep them fresh in viewer’s minds—like Nick’s mysterious zombie enhancements. I have high hopes though and look forward to next week!
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