This weekend we said goodbye to the first season of Grimm. Let's be honest, it was a long road with this series. After a promising pilot and collection of cute monster-of-the week episodes, Grimm kind of waded in its own juices for awhile. Not knowing what characters to build upon and which story lines to flesh out, we were less than optimistic about this little fairy tales' future. But then it started to get dark. Really dark. About three quarters into the premiere season, someone lit a match under Grimm's ass and shit got hot. The Hansel and Gretel episode (where human organ harvesters burned bodies in their front yard) and the Adalind episodes were easily two of our very favorite. So how did they end the season? Did Grimm go out with the same bit of newly found fire? Sort of.
There was a lot going on in the finale episode of Grimm, possibly too much. Between the balancing act of Nick finally coming out to Juliette, Adalind getting her revenge, Snowflake face and the brand new character, we got a little... exhausted. It could be personal, but the payoff we were hoping from would be more Captain Renard just kicking so much ass all over town. They've been sprinkling these warring fairy folk families forever, only to ignore them in the end and bring back the coins. Oh the magical coins, a great tool for casting some light on Nick's past and Renard's potential crazy hopes for the future, but we didn't need them to come back. We certainly didn't need some guy with a snowflake running around saying "WHERE ARE THE COINS" over and over and over and over.
However, we did love Adalind coming back with the clever kitty caper. What an excellent little moment that was, and you know she wanted Nick to find out exactly what she did to Juliette, why else would she leave the milk out? Any guesses as to what this black-eyed, yellow tongue curse will turn Juliette into? The actress was criminally underused on this series (reduced to making Nick's phone calls two episodes back). Let's hope they bring her back as something dark and wild.
The other great thing about Adalind poisoning Juliette was the fact that this forced Nick to tell Juliette he was a Grimm. Unfortunately for Nick he goes about explaining this secret part of his life in the most manic "I'm not crazy" crazy. It's just more wood for the Nick is kind of a shit cop and an idiot bonfire. "I need to prove that fairy tale creatures exist, these drawings should definitely be enough." He should have taken her to Pilates Wolf IMMEDIATELY. That being said, it isn't really a full Grimm episode unless Nick does something unethical or blindly idiotic. We don't love Nick for his cop skills we love him for his closet full of Earth-toned jackets and Prince Eric jawline. Now shhhh pretty baby and lets go yell at each other in the rain. Of course before Juliette can be CG monster faced, she passes out. Which is convenient for everyone, because once snowflake face showed up there was no doubt that this episode was going nowhere.
While the yellow tongued kitty caper was under way, Nick's partner was suffering from some serious fairy tale post traumatic stress disorder. Hank ends the season sitting in his house with two guns starring dead-eyed into the night. Yay? Exposing Hank to the Wessen world has been pretty ho-hum. Unless you were really attached to Hank's closet, which he put three holes in Friday night.
The biggest thrill of the finale was possibly the uber reveal of the "woman in black," it's Nick's Mom. And, sure why not? It's fun to have someone karate chop dance in ninja clothes only to be BUM BUM BUM The main character's presumably dead mother! It would have been even better had they introduced this woman in black much earlier on in the season, so the reveal would conjure up bigger feelings than "huh, cool." But they didn't, so OK.
That's pretty much how I'm leaving Grimm: supremely charmed by 50% of what this show offered. I loved Pilates Wolf, Pharmacy Fox, Cpt. Renard, Adalind and the whole fairy tale monarchy that this series refuses to let me participate in. But that's OK, because at one point Cpt. Renard ripped off someone's ear so he would remember to RESPECT HIM. That's awesome. And I'll say it again, Pilates Wolf is awesome. There's lots of awesome in this season, like the beaver people, that was a lovely pay off. The charisma and brief flashes of innovative darkness makes up for the lack of over-arching big bad or big bad plot... for now. I'll tune in next year for the charm sprinkled with the blood of fairy tales creatures, but not to meet Nick's Mom.