‘Grimm’ Review: ‘Death Do Us Part’

After the culmination of the Wesenrein story arc last week, Grimm returns to a familiar rhythm with a Wesen of the Week caper called “Death Do Us Part.” Of course, while Nick and company have a case to handle, that doesn’t mean another continuing storyline—Juliette’s transition into a Hexenbiest—doesn’t get a significant amount of play.

However, before we can get to that, we first have to meet a group of young ghost hunters on a mission at the abandoned Donovan house. Fun fact: Suzanne Acker, the real estate agent sister of the dirty cop from the Wesenrein arc is the one trying to shill this potentially haunted house. The house was the site of a murder wherein the couple that lived there were found together totally fried in their bed. Perfect fodder for a ghost hunter show, right? Unfortunately, these self proclaimed Ghost Seekers are all kinds of annoying. Especially their leader, who I’m going to call White Guy Ghost Seeker.  The rumored haunting involves the ghost of Stetson Donovan, the male victim, being unable to pass on after the loss of his wife Patty. As White Guy Ghost Seeker meanders upstairs alone while recording his own pompous narration, Black Guy Ghost Seeker and Token Girl Ghost Seeker remain downstairs getting creeped out by the potential ghost. The lights in the house flicker and the burners on the oven turn on. Upstairs, a ceiling fan spins with no open window or power to make it go. This is when things go south for White Guy Ghost Seeker, as a mysterious glowing guy grabs him and proceeds to electrocute him with his touch. His charred corpse tumbles down the stairs to the horror of his buddies. Token Girl Ghost Seeker screams bloody murder. I am unmoved.

While those schmucks hunt for ghosts, Nick returns home to tell Juliette that Monrosalee are finally getting that honeymoon they deserve. I love Nick’s excitement for his friends here, but sadly, Juliette isn’t there and she isn’t picking up her phone. As you know from either watching last week or reading my recap, she’s off at Renard’s sharing her witchy woman secret with the one guy she thinks can help her out. Although I’m all about Nick and Juliette, I do love that Juliette and Renard are getting the chance to share screen time again after their magic induced affair a couple seasons back. Bitsie Tulloch and Sasha Roiz work well together on screen and this Hexenbiest stuff is so much better than that amnesia storyline.

After the secret meeting, Juliette returns home with groceries for dinner, but Nick is cleaning up from eating dinner alone. Nick slyly makes the suggestion that he and Juliette should have a getaway like Monrosalee, but she does a poor job of concealing her own uneasiness regarding her current situation. Next we see them lying next to each other in bed, Juliette still uneasy and Nick asleep. Well, faking being asleep. His eyes pop open and next thing we see is him at the trailer digging through the weapon’s closet. He returns home with an axe and heads upstairs to chop Juliette’s head off as she sleeps.

Wait… what?

Yeah, it’s another Hexenbiest induced nightmare on Juliette’s part. Startled awake, she finds a really sweet note left by Nick. Then she calls Renard. Renard explains how he has someone she should talk to, all the while checking out Nick in a rather nice blue sweater outside his office window. Okay, maybe “checking out” is the wrong choice of words, but it’s a really nice sweater and he is having clandestine exchanges with the man’s girlfriend. Renard sets up a lunch meeting with Juliette and Nick heads off to the Donovan house.

At the crime scene, Nick meets up with Hank and Wu. Nick asks Wu if he’s getting enough sleep and we get a callback to his night spent in the trailer scarfing down fries and learning about Wesen from the end of last week’s episode. Inside, they find the crispy fried remains of White Guy Ghost Seeker. Heading upstairs, they find the cameras the dead guy dropped before heading back out to talk to the remaining Ghost Seekers. Black Guy Ghost Seeker explains how it was the now deceased White Guy Ghost Seeker’s passion to hunt ghosts. I remain unmoved. I am, however, moved by Wu’s excellent side eye when Black Guy Ghost Seeker asserts how it was a ghost that did his friend in.

Renard and Juliette arrive for their meeting at about the same time. A rather unpleasant nameless gentleman also shows up, speeding past Renard and nearly running down Juliette in the process of claiming his parking spot. When Juliette confronts him, he first ignores her and then says he’s busy. An infuriated Juliette woges and causes the man’s car to explode. It’s not a huge explosion, but it’s enough for the front hood to go flying. In this moment, I think we are all Juliette. The man whines while Renard drags a disbelieving Juliette to lunch. Once they’re at the café, Renard explains to Juliette that his mother’s friend Henrietta is willing to council Juliette through her current situation. He proceeds to give Juliette her phone number and tells her to memorize it. Once she does, the numbers immediately scatter on the paper. It’s a cool party trick, especially since it is Henrietta’s doing and she isn’t even there.

At the precinct, Nick and Hank revue the history of the Donovan house, including the murders of its owners and the mysterious lights and noises that caused calls from neighbors for years after. They agree that contacting the detective who covered the original case is a good idea. It doesn’t take long for the man to show up and he guides Nick and Hank through what happened, but he doesn’t offer much more than the fact Patty was having an affair and it wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. It’s no surprise why the Donovan case went cold. However, the house is still full of life, as what appears to be a homeless man wanders in. His hair and beard are unkempt and he carries a black garbage bag over his shoulder like some demented Santa Claus. He proceeds to curl up on the same bed that the Donovans were barbecued on. After a while, the man sees Stetson and Patty dancing to music. Lights are flashing and he screams out. Considering all of that ghost talk, I’m pretty sure they’re trying to tease the idea that they’re real, but the sequence just ends up feeling disorienting to me as a viewer.

While the homeless man is off to a troubling night, Juliette and Nick are having some minor troubles of their own. While Juliette reads, a shirtless Nick crawls into bed next to her. He’s clearly feeling frisky, but Juliette continues to be distant and shuts him down. Between this and the scene when she returned home earlier, you can already see the strain the secrets she’s keeping are putting on their relationship. It’s an interesting reversal of their situation before Juliette knew he was a Grimm. That said, it has the potential of getting old very quickly. Right now though? It’s working for me, even though I want to give both of them a hug.

The next morning, Juliette catches up with a blissful Monrosalee via video chat. It’s great that even though they’re out of the picture, they’re not.  Nick conveys how much they miss them and the chat ends not long after. Here’s to Monroe and Rosalee enjoying the hell out of their vacation. If any couple deserves it, it’s one that has weathered what they have. It’s a shame that crazy Grimm life will never let Nick get the break he really needs though.

Back at the precinct, Nick and Hank continue to work away on the case at hand. They’re discussing the current whereabouts of Lily Hinkley, the wife of the man Patty had been cheating with, when Wu shows up with footage salvaged from the melted camera. We get the pleasure of seeing White Guy Ghost Seeker get fried again from a different point of view and a grainy close up of the culprit that did him in. Wu excitedly proclaims it to be Wesen and even that he sort of recognizes what the creature might be. After Wu prints out a screenshot, the three cops head to meet Lily at the restaurant where she works. The conversation goes in circles for a while, until Wu whips out the photo and they start talking Wesen. Turns out Lily is a Scharfblicke—an owl Wesen—and so was her husband Theo, which means he can’t be the culprit behind the electrocutions. In fact, it’s Stetson who is a Matança Zumbido—an electric eel Wesen—who did it. While Nick gets the information, we get a really fun exchange between Hank and Wu about the way Wesen react when Nick sees them. This case is finally getting interesting. Or it was, until we’re reminded of the other Ghost Seekers, who want to prove the existence of the ghost. Can we get back to the crazed crime of passion talk?

We can’t, yet anyway, but we can see what Juliette is up to at the trailer. She’s researching Hexenbiests when she gives Henrietta a call. Henrietta knows exactly who is calling her and gives her an address where they will meet. Of course, Juliette has to memorize it, because it turns into a jumble moments later. It’s still a cool trick the second time around. Nick and company arrive shortly after, startling Juliette and providing yet another awkward exchange between the show’s leading couple. When Nick realizes what Juliette was studying up on, Nick and Hank reminisce about how heinous Adalind is. In fact, when Wu says he’s never been her victim, he finds out that one time he was literally eating carpet was because he had eaten her cursed cookie. Once the Hexenbiest talk is out of the way, they get to the books and finally find the Matança Zumbido. In the entry, we find out a previous Grimm was slain by one such Wesen, before his Grimm associate was able to figure out how to resist the Wesen’s electric charge. In this instance, Nick will have to pierce his ear and rub in a special paste made out of poison dart frog. I’m not sure Nick can rock a piercing, but a hero has to do what a hero has to do.

While the guys are doing their necessary research, Lily shows up at the Donovan home planning to finally kill Stetson herself. Knowing how this show works, we can all realize this is going to get really messy very quickly, correct? Scraggly homeless Stetson is outside and proceeds to talk to himself while trimming his beard with a knife. Meanwhile, Lily encounters Token Girl Ghost Seeker and tells her to get out. In that moment, we are all Lily. Unfortunately for us, Stetson enters as the girl departs. He grabs Lily and takes her gun, before things get even weirder. He drags her upstairs, where he sees the couple going at it in their bed. He gives this whole spiel about what they did to him they did to her also. While technically true, that doesn’t make Lily any less upset about the murder of her husband and Patty.

For the second time after getting out, Token Girl Ghost Seeker makes herself useful by calling Nick. Grabbing the ingredients he needs, he and the other two head to the Donovan house. They should probably hurry though, since Stetson has Lily and Black Guy Ghost Seeker is watching from inside the closet like some kind of creepy voyeur. Elevating the creep factor even further is the fact Stetson wants Lily to put on the last thing Patty ever wore for him. While the whole ghost angle is a mess, the twisted nature of this murderous Wesen love square is pretty damn compelling.

When Nick and company arrive at the scene, Hank pierces Nick’s ear and the rub the frog goop in. Token Girl Ghost Seeker remains annoying and asks what kind of cops they are. Well, lady, they’re the cops that have to put up with people who have too much free time on their hands and end up electrocuted by a deranged Matança Zumbido. That’s what kind of cops they are. Inside, Stetson dances around with Lily as if she’s Patty. He’s full on lost it at this point.  Black Guy Ghost Seeker interrupts Stetson’s delusion and almost gets fried like his buddy when Nick rushes in with a pretty solid tackle. We get an awesome little fight scene that includes Nick delivering a head butt to the fully woged Matança Zumbido. Who knew what a pierced ear and some poison frog paste could do? Nick comes close to arresting Stetson when Lily proceeds to shoot him in the back. A blast of electric energy sends her flying and destroys some stuff, but otherwise everyone else is okay and Stetson’s dead. At the precinct, they talk of exhuming what is certainly Theo’s grave and not filing any charges for Lily’s murder. Nick makes a fair point when he says they can’t really hold a Matança Zumbido. As the case closes, we see that the Ghost Seekers posted footage of the incident online, but Renard isn’t worried. “No one believes in ghosts,” he says.

Meanwhile, Juliette arrives at Henrietta’s place.  I’m excited to see where this goes next week, but that isn’t the only thing at play for future episodes. Renard arrives back at his place and has a flashback to the shooting that ended last season. He soon looks down and sees that blood from where he was wounded is soaking through his shirt. He tears his shirt off—this is more Shirtless WTF than Shirtless Rage—and asks exactly what I’m thinking. “What the hell is going on?”