What the hell was that? After weeks of building itself up Grimm plummets right back down into the world of WTF. Serving up the most obvious fractured fairy tales of all times, this might be my most hated episode ever from Grimm. There was good here, what happened?
Possibly the most irritating part of this episode wasn't the Cinderella story itself (which had legs but was underused by bad casting and aggressively obvious fairy tale fare), but the fact that the main characters all took a backseat to screaming bat people. Bat people. Because when I think of Cinderella, I think of bats. Ugh. The lengths this show will go to, to shoehorn a CG-face animal monster in is getting absurd. But I'm getting off topic. The thing that really pissed me off was how close we keep getting to an overarching storyline, only to have bat people smack it out of our hands with useless monster-of-the-week crimes. While Nick was running around solving the most obvious case we've been handed thus far, he's having fever dreams about the Nazi coins (remember them?) and Juliette is doing basic police work. No. Where is the Captain? Where is the Pilates Wolf-Pharmacy Fox love story? Why aren't Juliette and Nick in couples therapy? Why isn't Nick a bitter asshole to Juliette after she told him no she wouldn't marry him for BS reasons? Why hasn't Nick's partner figured out that the hexen blonde tried to KILL HIM AND THERE ARE FAIRY PEOPLE!!!!???? Instead we got bat people. Bat People.
Juliette basically had to do Nick's job for him this week, because if she didn't, she wouldn't have been in the entire episode. Which, fuck it, why not? I would rather no Juliette at all over an entire plot line of Juliette asking Nick if she "find anything" on his parents' car crash. Then she calls a cop about a cop. Then that cop calls Nick. Great stuff. Totally glad there isn't a clan of warring fairy tale families running around the world. Because that shit would be boring. More hot calling action please.
So yeah, I'm kind of bitter about that whole mess. But let's get to the Cinderella story.
The side plot of Cinderella was pretty clever, even though we immediately screamed SHE DID IT when the entirely too sweet Cinderella girl popped up on screen. Still, we loved that the princess was the villain. Fun twist. However, we wish they hadn't forced her to be a bat. Why not make the Cinderella family some sort of part of the fancy fairy tale families. Why must everything have a CG face? Surely some humans are a part of this world, not just Grimms. But sure, ok, Cinderella is killing her step mother and sisters with her bat voice for their money. But while I enjoy Cinders being the big bad, she's also a total nightmare. She's going after the family, for what, money? Eh, make it revenge and I would have cheered for her!
The other HUGE problem I had with the Cinderella storyline was that no one noticed it. If I was delivering pizza to this family I'd be falling all over myself to make glass slipper comments. But instead we got nothing, COME ON. Also, if Nick can see all the Wessen faces, why does he only see the Godfather bat face and not the Cinderella Bat face? Also, what was with the totally gratuitous suicide scene?
Ah well, again I did like the Cinderella story; I only wish it had come earlier. And we could have spent more of this time doing something that mattered. Like playing with the extremely convenient weapon trailer, or hanging with the captain and his many blonde hexen ladies. Or learning why Reapers hate Grimms.
Until next week, when Nick fights SNOWFLAKE FACE!