Grimm - Season 2 Episode 7 - The Bottle Imp - Recap and Review

After making appearances in American Horror Story, and most recently, the movie Looper, the unsuspecting demon child trope is back in this week's episode of Grimm.
Oh and also, Juliette remembers!!

Check out the recap and review here:

False Alarm

Psyche! The episode begins with Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) and Nick (David Giuntoli) watching fireworks. Nick raises a story about a previous bird calling experience which sparks Juliette’s memory and trippers her to leap for a full on kiss. She reveals that she remembers everything, including Grimm’s identity and states that she accepts him for who he is. But, it turns out this is just a dream. Yawn.

Continuing from where the last episode left off, Rosalie (Bree Turner) and Monroe (Silas Weir) catch up with each other over phone, and Rosalie comforts Monroe over his loss of Angelina. Rosalie informs Monroe to manage a special order at the spice shop for a man called Leroy, and the elixir involves a concoction of confusing ingredients. Monroe makes the elixir, and an unbalanced weird man, and whilst trying to finish the mixture, he takes the wrong ingredient.

False Leads

This week, Nick and Hank (Russell Hornsby) are on the chase for a father, Bill and his daughter, April who have just been involved with a murder at a gas station.  It was triggered by a problem with processing Bill credit cards as he tried to pay. Everyone knows how frustrating and humiliating that can be! Bill storms off grunting (I don’t blame him), and the next thing you know, the gas station attendant is dead. Now, the father is depicted as a violent man with a short temper, and it doesn’t help that he’s some kind of gorilla-esque Wesen. Meanwhile, the daughter, with blonde hair and puppy dog eyes accompanies him and acts as the innocent and fragile victim.  So what are we led to think? I personally knew the daughter was up to no good, and it was a rather conventionally placed character contrast.

As they escape from the scene, April remains extremely calm. (Red flag number 1!) She reassures that everything is all right, and emphasizes that his dad should not worry. Bill tries to find a way to escape by ambushing a man, and he uses the April’s coy factor to persuade him.

Nick and Hank rush to Bill’s house after identifying him from his car plate filmed on a security camera, and find the place trashed with stains of blood. His wife, Mrs Granger, is found bruised in the bathroom. She desperately asks for her and before she goes unconscious, reveals to Nick that she’s a Wesen. Additionally, Hank comes to a quick assumption that this was a case of domestic abuse. (Anyone catch that? Perhaps an interesting commentary on gender norms!)

Back on the car that Bill and April are on, the driver hears about them on the radio. Despite playing as calm as he can, Bill smashes his face on the tire and takes control.  Bill dumps his body in the wilderness; April stays in the background and witnesses the whole process, still appearing very collected.

Retrieving Bill’s laptop, Nick finds out that his computer full of weird orders for guns, and hardware and discovers photos of some sort of hideout. Juliette arrives at the office suddenly in hopes to find new ways to spark her memory. However, she quickly changes her mind when she sees Renard and leaves looking flustered.

As Nick sees Hank’s growing trust and loyalty, Nick shows Hank his trailer and encourages Hank to join in the process of Wesen identification. Hank’s attitude is commendable, as he just goes for the ride and enjoys the wonders handed to him and also providing a more practical and frank approach to Grimm’s pursuits. Renard (Sasha Roiz) gets his ”mysterious” call of the week, this time from Adeline (Claire Coffee) who demands to know who kills his mother. It’s good to hear from like Adeline and have missed her. Renard wants to know why Adeline poisoned Juliette, and she plays another cheeky little dare “Why don’t you ask my cat? You’ll be having some fun, and so will I”?” Inciting suspicion, Renard realizes that his computer just spelled out a whole page of the name Juliette.

Hank finds out that Bill and his wife are rangzorn, who are recognized for their short tempers and tendencies to escape underground when troubling situations arise. As Nick shows more of his arsenal of weaponry to Hank, he identifies certain ammunition, and he recognizes the gun used to shoot Stark, a man in an earlier episode, who almost to kill him. Hank demands to find out who saved his life, and Nick reveals that it was Monroe.

Bill maneuvers his way through weird tunnels to a secret bunk, which is his form of a ‘safehouse’, as suggested by the books. He secures April and tells her that he must leave to retrieve a few additional items.  The driver that he knocked out recovers and wakes up and informs the police. Apparently, GPS systems are also embedded in photographs and they find the location of his bunker whereabouts. Bill realizes that his cover has been blown, and prepares to shoot the police, but makes a last minute decision not to and escapes. Nick finds April and takes her to the police office.

Back to the spice shop, Monroe informs Rosalind about his progress with managing the shop, and when he recites the ingredients he used, he realizes his mistake of mixing up ingredients and Rosalind stresses the gravity of the mix-up.

Monroe tries to check up on Leroy but hears weird laughing noises in his room. He realizes he’s gone completely nuts in his room, and Leroy is in some kind of trance of destroying things. He offers the antidote, but Leroy tries to attack with a pan, but Monroe slams the door on him and gives him the antidote.

At the office, Nick tries to get answers, but April cleverly still reveals very little (Red flag No.2) and places the emphasis on seeing her mother. (Smart kids…these days.) A representative from child services takes her away. Nick gets a notification that Bill went to find the wife only to find out she’s been taken to the hospital, which apparently infuriated him. He visits her at the hospital, and transforms into beast mode before entering her ward.

g anything but violent as he is seen caressing the arm of his wife. Mrs. Granger reveals that it wasn’t his fault, and implies that April was the culprit behind all the crimes, continuing to state that her out of control violence is part of premature Wesen puberty. Bill is in reality the one who is trying to hide her away from the world and protect others from her rages. April, now at child protective services, gets taunts from a boy as she arrives at the front door, quickly boiling up her violent side. As she starts to get more offensive in reaction, she gets reprimanded by one of the caretakers, leading her to transform and go completely ballistic. Nick and Hank arrive to a chaotic scene, and find April on the swings, as calm as ever, smiling with bloody teeth and essentially tells Nick that his life is spared as he was nice to her, They assign a juvy supervisor to watch her, and she assures Nick she’s got her under control as she happens to be a Wesen.

False Hope

Juliette prepares dinner for Nick, and makes increasingly greater steps to initiate more romance and action in the relationship. She prompts him to dance, and they start to cozy up. Now, Juliette does actually start to remember something, as they go in for the kiss, She suddenly recalls the sensation of kissing Renard. Looking startled, she backs away and realizes that there are some lurking inner secrets and feelings she must sort out.

Now, the story and the crime was not particularly interesting for me and I guess I've seen it too many times before. Will this be the new vampire craze? Monster children?  Nonetheless, I am beginning to accept Grimm for what it is, and I need to stop expecting some complex deep and subliminal messages in their plots because that's just not what fairytales are meant to be. That was certainly one of the more provoking cliffhangers Grimm has shown in a while, and I'm very excited to see what the relationship between Renard and Juliette may become. As much as Adeline can be slightly irritating and overact the coquettish, mean girl role too much, I didn't realise how much I missed her little antics. Now that we've witnessed how others, particularly the Royals, try and eliminate Nick, Adeline is definitely the most creative and 'sassy', which brings a humorous element to the show. Besides, she's now the only human villain which is refreshing. I enjoy Hank's character a lot, and I'm so glad that he's taking it so easy. Personally, I would do that too if I knew my friend could see cool monsters. I'd want a slice of the fun, even though I may be mistaken for crazy. I'd love to see  him reflect on his experience sleeping with Adeline, because that's probably the closest experience he's had with a Wesen.