Grimm - Season 2 Episode 9 - La Llorona - Recap and Review

Ah yes! Just in time for Halloween! Who doesn't love the retelling of a traditional ghost story. I certainly did! I don't believe La Llorona is too wide-known in mainstream culture, and I'm glad Grimm went for this because I thought the themes of myth of La Llorona lends itself very naturally to the looming tensions slowly consuming Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) and Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz), and their struggles with the illusions of the real and unreal.

Check out the recap and review below:

A Spanish widower, Luis and his son Rafael are fishing as Luis witnesses a sobbing girl dressed in a wedding gown attempt to take her life by drowning herself. Luis rushes to save her but as he is frantically trying the find her under the water, he notices that she re-appears on land, dry and untouched and taking Rafael away. Thus begins Grimm’s take on the classic La Llorona ghost tale – the story (in fact one of my favorite ghost tales) of how a distraught mother who drowns her three children after her husband leaves her for another woman.

In New Mexico, a Wesen (Picture Mystique X Men and a White Tiger) named Valentine is a private vigilante has been on the case of La Llorona abductions for years. Personally having experienced a face-to-face encounter and losing a child to her, she is ruthless in monitoring cases of abducted children and once she gets the notification of Luis’ case, wastes no time and books a flight over.

At the crime scene, Nick (David Giuntoli) and Hank (Russell Hornsby) discovers a video taken by bystanders, which manages to capture the woman taking the child away. In need for a translator to interrogate Luis, Nick asks Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) to take up the role due to her fluent Spanish. Juliette accepts the task, and upon walking into Captain Renard’s (Sasha Roiz) office to report, she almost appears shocked to see him. Odd.

Luis, claiming that he does not know of anyone who has a vendetta towards him or his son, allows Nick and Hank to search the house for more leads. A neighbor, who is highly spiritual and superstitious, confidently claims that the culprit is La Llorona, but Rafael adamantly rejects the idea of a ghost claiming his son.  Her attention is turned as she notices Juliette’s cat scratch on her hand, and proceeds to give her a on-the-spot psychic reading, informing her of the trouble she did not realize she was a part of due to her loss of memory and stubbornness. Juliette denies her claims but she is left with the promise that her acceptance of her past “will save his life.” The question is…whose life? Nick? Renard? You may think it’s intuitive that it’s Nick that the statement is referring to, but I believe Renard is also facing risky dilemmas that may cost him his life, namely his defiance to his kind and his love disease for Juliette. The neighbor is insistent in encouraging Juliette to accept and come out with her inner struggles, but Juliette continues to contest with extreme denial, in many ways reflecting the psyche of La Llorona herself. (To be honest. Does she realise that she was in a coma? That's a pretty big deal and I feel like she never got down to discovering the reason.)

Valentine, who disguises herself as a legitimate detective, arrives at the office, bringing all her research of all the cases that span a large part of the Mid-West. She identifies a pattern of the abductions, claiming that it’s somewhat a ritual that always involves two boys and one girl and occurs near the confluence of the rivers during the period near Halloween. Additionally, no body of the previous cases has ever been found after midnight, which indicates that there is a great time pressure to find Luis. Due to her physical experience, she discards the idea that La Llorona is a spirit but unfortunately, at the same time, she realizes that La Llorona tends to appear out of thin air.

Meanwhile, La Llorona, as predicted, has gotten her hands on the two other children, and they are all confined in some mystic trance, completely hypnotized into believing that she’s an angel. However, it is revealed that La Llorona is a Wesen, and might I add, one of the scariest ones in Grimm history.

As the police, along with Valentine’s help, try and catch up with La Llorona’s path, Captain Renard get the notification from the that Valentine’s a fake detective with no authority to assume any duties. Now detained, she gets interrogated on the suspicion that she’s overly obsessed and knowledgeable with the cases, but she insists that her drive stems from her loss.

Nick consults the book for answers but it appears the ancestors faced the same struggle to identify La Llorona’s characteristics and motivations, but find a clue about her “embracing the river”. They decide to secretly free Valentine and together, they conclude that the quote suggests that the two rivers are the arms, and the point they exactly meet, the “embrace”, is where La Llorona is most likely to be. It’s just before midnight and La Llorona guides the three children to the shore. She calls out to the river pleading forgiveness, and it turns out that she intends to drown the three children to take the place of her children’s spirits, who rise and respond to her cry.

Nick and the team discover her and Nick takes the plunge to leap onto La Llorona and start an exciting underwater battle. As Nick tries to finish her, she simply freezes and fades into thin air, one minute after midnight….

As the kids are reunited with their parents, similar ‘unfinished business’ is still unfolding in the corners of the office, as Captain Renard is now on the tail of Adeline’s (whereabouts, and Juliette beings to take the words of the psychic neighbor a little more seriously, contemplating her commitment and interest for Nick.

To me this was a highly successful episode and I'm so pleased to see Grimm producers adding not only more complexities to the regular characters, but to Wesen! Last week, we were introduced to hybrid Wesen, and this week, (a potentially) spirit Wesen. The norms and expectations of a "normal Wesen", or as we've come to understand them, are progressing and entering unexpected grounds, ultimately mirroring our societal evolution (namely, our development of genetic modification and growing exposure and acceptance spirtuality and afterlife). This suggests that the border between Wesen and mortals may dissolve, and that black and whites will become less obvious on both sides. I am extremely refreshed that we didn't get a full "diagnosis" of La Llorona from the book and that her state of being is still unclear. Nick's ancestors have up till now shown to provide information for everything, and I wish for the day that the records fail to offer the information Nick seeks, forcing him to make his official documentation and personal discoveries. It looks like that might just happen next week! I'm excited! Are you?