‘Grimm’ Review: ‘Maréchaussée’

After taking down ghost hunters last week, this week’s  Grimm episode “Maréchaussée” opens with the murders of a couple of phony psychics at the tail of a vicious Manticore. Now, I know I’m getting ahead of myself here, but do you think the writers are trying to tell us something? To be fair, these supernatural shysters have a pretty sweet gig going for themselves. Using the ability to woge to fake connection to the spirit world, they tell people what they want to hear and rope them into future appointments. Their mark here is a grieving widow. I feel bad for her, but when she leaves and the Manticore enters, my well of feelings dries up pretty quickly. After the Manticore kills them, he takes a picture of their bodies with his tablet and leaves.

While bad people are getting a taste of overly aggressive murderous justice, Juliette’s meeting with Henrietta that began last week continues. Henrietta wants Juliette to understand who she truly is, but the brand new Hexenbiest is reluctant and wants to return to normal. Henrietta gives Juliette a lesson or two on woging, before she does this cool trick to extract some of Juliette’s blood. It’s a bit like she’s gone to the witch doctor. Henrietta sends Juliette off and tells her she’ll contact her later. Garcelle Beauvais brings some major presence to the Henrietta character. I’m becoming very curious how she and Renard’s involvement will change the direction of Juliette’s character even further.

The next morning, Nick and Hank arrive at the scene of the Manticore murder. Wu, always sassy, now comes equipped with Wesen-based spoilers for the murder too. Although his presence always felt integral to the show, it now feels integral to the group as well. Inside the fortune teller storefront, our trio checks on the corpses and scrape up some evidence. When they return outside, we get a delightful back and forth between them and the dead pair’s erstwhile landlord. He’s a real character. After their exchange, they go to the home of the fortunetellers’ last client. She describes her session with them to Nick and Hank. Once again, I really feel for the woman. I want them to catch the killer, but I don’t feel bad for the recently deceased.

While Nick and Hank are on the job, Renard gets an email notifying him that Viktor and Adalind are in Portland. Also at the same time, we check into the Manticore’s hotel room. He’s sending the picture proof via email too. I can’t remember the last time I got a really important email. Anyway, the scene shifts again to the fancy pants Wesen Council offices and the familiar faces of De Groot and Alexander. There’s German with English subtitles galore. Apparently the Manticore is a bounty hunter named Jonathon Wilde. Wilde offed the two frauds for money and has hopes to kill another guy too. It’s all very cutthroat.

To counter act the darkness of Manticore bounty hunters, dreadful Royals, and Hexenbiest drama, we get to spend a little quality time with Monroe and Rosalee in the scenes that follow. It’s kind of a bummer the Monrosalee honeymoon only listed one bad green screen video chat session, but what can you do? We need them back in Portland. Monroe immediately wants to get in touch with Nick and Rosalee lets a couple of snark bombs fly about it, though she wants to get back in the loop too. Nick’s at the precinct updating Renard on the case when he gets Monroe’s call. He asks if he and Hank can swing by for help. It’s nice to know things are back to normal, right?

Despite that email, I wasn’t fully prepared to see Viktor and Adalind back in town. I’d be lying if I wasn’t thrilled we weren’t getting another five minute “in Vienna” scene with these two. It’s so much more fun when they can play with the other kids. Viktor’s working hard to reconcile with Adalind after all of those dungeon shenanigans earlier this season, but I’m not sure if it’s really working. They both want Diana and that’s all that’s really keeping this ball rolling. Before they can start nefariously twirling imaginary mustaches though, there’s a knock on the door. Viktor, eager to answer the door like a regular person, is greeted by Renard. The cousins make small talk—Renard’s death half brother Eric provokes some pretty good chit chat—but things really get going when Adalind walks into the room. Pointed words are exchanged, but Renard is unwavering. He gave Diana to the one woman who could protect Diana and keep her out of the arms of any particular faction. Of course, Adalind and Viktor are both snippy about Nick’s mom Kelly having her, but what are you gonna do? Viktor keeps Adalind from attacking Renard and then tries to boss his cousin around.  It’s all very tense and serious. Kind of like every family reunion.

Nick and company arrive at Monrosalee’s place to talk Wesen of the Week, but we get a nice little person-to-person moment when Monroe asks Wu how he’s adjusting to his newfound knowledge first. I love the kinship within this little group of characters. After pleasantries, Nick fills them in on the Manticore murder and Rosalee shares some details about the Wesen Council. It’s essentially a brief info dump for those just tuning in or still not up on their Grimmology. Rosalee agrees to make a call and find out what’s going on. Later, Rosalee makes the call about the murders and Maréchaussée. Monroe has a sinking feeling that it might end up being a bad idea, but Rosalee did what she had to do. We’ll see.

At Nick and Juliette’s place, Juliette is cooking dinner and trying out her telekinetic powers on a pepper mill. Unfortunately for her, Nick comes home and the pepper mill proceeds to hit her in the back of the head. What follows is a painfully awkward explanation of what happened. David Giuntoli, master of facial expressions that he is, displays quite an array as Juliette delivers her story. As much as I love this Juliette arc, I do not love all this weirdness going on between them.

Elsewhere, an even more dysfunctional relationship is on display: between a pimp and a prostitute. I guess they’re also a couple, but this guy is clearly an abusive douchebag. In fact, he woges to terrorize and keep her in line. He’s pretty gross and he’s also the next guy Wilde wants to kill. After the terrified woman hobbles off to find a john, Wilde appears and yanks the phone of the guy’s hand.  Then, in one of the series’ most poorly acted death scenes, he does that whole scorpion tail to the chest thing. I’m not going to weep for this guy’s death. In fact, the look on his face when he bites it kind of makes me want to laugh. Kind of.

Nick and Hank are combing over details about the murdered fortunetellers at the precinct when Renard rushes in. He drags them into his office to drop the bomb about Viktor and Adalind’s return to Portland and the fact they know about Kelly and baby Diana. I love that Renard is keeping them in the loop on this. He could be playing the middle, but in my heart he’s Team Nick. Worried about Juliette, Nick gives her a call about Adalind’s return. She’s at the vet’s office, tending to a dog named Henry played by Bitsie Tulloch’s own dog Henry. How meta, right? Anyway, Nick fills her in and she reacts as one would imagine: she woges and makes a scary Hexenbiest noise. It’s kind of awesome actually. Nick, having told Juliette to wait a little bit before coming home, arrives and shoots an email off to his mom about the Royals hunting after Diana. Juliette arrives and remains incredibly angry over the news of Adalind’s return. She even says she’ll rip her rival’s throat out. You know, like in that dream where she murdered Rosalee a few episodes back? Just like that. Moments later, Nick gets a response back from his mom that includes a picture of Diana that mellows things for a minute, but news of the dead pimp drags Nick back out to work.

At Monrosalee’s place, Monroe gets a call back for Rosalee from the Wesen Council. It isn’t sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. When Rosalee picks up, the Council threatens Monrosalee in a way that essentially confirms the worst. Meanwhile, Wilde emails off his photographic proof of his latest kill, just as Portland’s finest are inspecting the scene. Moments later, Monroe gives Nick a call to tell him about what happened. Although it’d be better for them all if he dropped the case, as a cop, he can’t. Bad things are in the offing here, folks. Like, immediately in the offing.  A shift to Alexander and De Groot at the Wesen Council shows us the Council has put a bounty on Nick’s head. Probably not the best idea on their part, but oh well. Nick’s a wanted man now.

Completely unaware of his new status, Nick continues to pull apart the Manticore case at the precinct with Hank and Wu. The latter of whom comes bearing gifts: the identity of the Manticore as Jonathon Wilde. Apparently, Wilde’s been picked up for murder before, but never successfully charged. The police put out an APB on vehicles registered to Wilde and the hunter is now the hunted. While all of this is going down, Renard sends his guy Sam to find Kelly. Sam leaves just as they get a return on Wilde’s motorcycle. Nick heads out to the hotel to arrest Wilde, who they find in his underwear clipping his toenails. He plays dumb and Nick starts getting rough. Wilde won’t woge though, regardless of how much he gets roughed up in his hotel room or in the interrogation room. Wu, having cracked the bounty hunter’s iPad, shows them all the proof of the previous murders. Then he reveals the bounty on Nick’s head, which explains the fact he hasn’t woged. Sadly, while they’re putting the pieces together, a nameless cop who didn’t listen when being told to stay away from Wilde gets murdered. Using his tail to drag the dying cop closer, Wilde steals his keys and escapes.

While all of this business with the Wesen Council and the Royals is bubbling up, so are things with Henrietta and that magical blood test from earlier. Instead of coming together like it’s supposed to, it foams up and stars to overflow. Based on Henrietta’s face, this might be bad news. At home, Juliette practices her woging in the mirror. I love her immediate reaction, “Ewww! So ugly!” Poor Juliette. You’re still beautiful on the inside. She gets a call from Henrietta and heads over to find out the news: Juliette is an extremely powerful Hexenbiest and the process cannot be reversed. Juliette woges in her anger and frustration, causing the house to shake. In one of the campiest moments I’ve seen on this show, Henrietta proceeds to slap her across the face. She does everything but tell her to “Snap out of it!” The slap works though and Juliette storms off.

At the precinct, Nick and Hank update Renard on the iPad and the bounty on his head, but this conversation is cut short when they find Wilde’s escaped and that cop who didn’t listen is dead. Nick calls Juliette, who’s back home, and warns her. Unfortunately, Wilde is already in their home. Pissed off by Henrietta’s news, Juliette shows very little patience with Wilde. He tells her to behave herself and he says something about it being his business. You know, because murdering the man she loves is totally unrelated to her. She fights back and he threatens to kill her, when things get really crazy. Juliette woges, uses her telekinesis to freeze the scorpion tail in midair, grabs it and overpowers Wilde. She impales him with his own tail. It’s an awesomely unexpected conclusion to this particular bad guy. A few moments later, Nick arrives and finds Juliette chilling on the couch with Wilde dead in front of her. When she explains what happened, there’s an almost sinister edge to what she says. She even says she’ll have to protect herself. It’s an intense moment. Back at the Wesen Council, a picture of Wilde arrives, revealing his failure. De Groot says he hopes the Wesen Council don’t take it personally, to which Alexander says the same of the Grimm.