Grimm - Season 3 Episode 9 - Recap - Red Menace
Grimm - Season 3 Episode 9 - Recap - Red Menace
Grimm returns to NBC after a surprisingly short break, introducing new and complex plots to carry us through the rest of the season. To ground us properly, the show opens with a clever little callback to beginning of the series. A woman in a red sweatshirt is running in the park when a hooded figure approaches from behind, oh no! But, oh, it's just eponymous monster-viewer Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli). A clever little reference to the Red Riding Hood inspired pilot episode! Nick returns from his run completely unsweaty, surely a leftover side-effect from his brief time as a voodoo zombie.
Meanwhile, in the Russian part of town (how often do you get to say that?), an unknown beastie (presumably a new kind of Wesen) is curing a young girl of I'm assuming cancer. She offers payment, but he refuses. At a celebration later, we learn this man's name is Boris Mishkin, and he's known as a great healer in these parts. Taking a brief respite from the festivities, Boris is attacked by a knife-wielding waiter. When Boris Volgas into his creepy monster form, the would-be assassin's reaction tells us he did not know that Boris could in fact turn into a creepy monster. Boris throw the guy out a window, and the assassin runs off, nursing some burning wounds that have formed where Boris touched his arms and lays dying covered in boils just a few hours later. The next day, the real waiter (ah, so that's why the assassin had that uniform) is found dead in the freezer of the restaurant. Hank and Nick and Renard are called in to investigate, naturally. They come to see Boris while he's in the middle of a healing, so Nick sees the glowy skin thing and Renard clues the group in to what sort of Wesen this dude is.
Doing the research, they find that he's the same kind of Wesen as Rasputin! Renard gets some info on Mishkin, learning he's a former assassin. When a hotel cleaning lady finds the assassin from earlier, Hank and Nick get called in (man, they're so busy this week!) and discover that the gross-looking, boil-covered dude is alive and thoroughly irradiated. He hasn't got much to say, but apparently someone at Boris's house is in danger. That makes sense, since his wife turned out to be some other kind of Wesen, and she's also pretty mad at Boris for having a bunch of groupies with whom he's always fooling around. The danger, however, turns out to be the main groupie! She poisons his vodka and feeds him most of the bottle. She's quite upset when he doesn't die, as Boris killed her father and brothers when he was still an assassin. Everything gets all topsy-turvy when Nick and friends arrive. Boris runs out of the bedroom with scissors in his torso, then the assassin-maid gets her throat cut by the wife's long fangs, then Boris uses the last of his lifeforce to heal his dying lover.
There's three little plots, one starting a new thread for Hank, another following up on Analind, and yet another with Juliette and some new characters.
Little Plot 1: Hank's going through physical therapy to recover from his autumnal leg injury, and he's clearly sweet on his physical trainer. She shoots him down and it's really awkward. Poor Hank! Nothing else with this, weirdly, but I'm sure it'll develop over the next few weeks!
Little Plot 2: Captain Renard meets up with his erstwhile (and very pregnant) lover Analind, partly to learn the parentage of her offspring, partly to issue a warning. He lets Analind know that there are some dangerous people who want to get their paws (sometimes literal paws) on that royal baby.
Little Plot 3: Juliette (with new, darker hair??) gets a stressed call from her friend Alicia. Alicia's got a black eye and needs a place to stay. Some time later, Alicia shows up. She hasn't spoken to her abusive douchebag guy Joe, following Juliette's advice. She's stressed and upset, and that's when Nick notices that she's Wesen. After a nice day or two, Joe calls the house. Nick and Juliette try to convince him that Alicia isn't there, but the episode closes with Joe going Volga outside Nick and Juliette's house. Wuh oh! Weird plotline to leave on a cliffhanger (and to bookend the episode with), but I'm betting it turns out to be more than meets the eye.
This was a worthy return for NBC's third season fantasy action drama, but nothing can quite beat last month's Krampus episode. I'll have to put that one out of my mind for the rest of the season, lest I be continually disappointed by the comparison! This was a pretty cool episode. Check out the preview for it below!