Grimm season 2 episode 12 review: The Season Of The Hexenbiest

Grimm’s mid-season finale delivers its best episode since season two began. Here’s Frances’ review…

This review contains spoilers.

2.12 The Season of the Hexenbiest

Do you want to know how good this week’s episode of Grimm was? It was Buffy good.

Snappy dialogue with a glint of humour in its eye, an overarching story with something for everyone to do, actual plot progress, no inconsequential Wesen-of-the-week case, Adalind running the show like a teeny smirking ex-evil witch Kylie Minogue… Lord, it was glorious, and everything Grimm could be if its seasons had just twelve episodes, and showrunners Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt wrote every single one.

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When the words “To Be Continued…” flashed up at the end of the episode, joined shortly by “Sorry”, it was a message of confidence, warmth, and humour to Grimm’s fans. The mid-season finale picked up where Kouf and Greenwalt’s exciting series opening two-parter left off, and made the intervening episodes feel like what many of them were: filler.

You could tell the episode was above-par because Juliette’s predicament was written in a way that suddenly made sense. The idea of her character being potentially driven mad by the obsession spell (a neat one-two punch delivered by Adalind’s Nick-erasing coma) was a great one, if only the preceding episodes had staged it like that. Before The Season of the Hexenbiest, Juliette’s obsession had manifested in little more than her putting on the slightly uncomfortable face of a woman in the ‘pre’ shot of a digestion-easing yoghurt ad every time Renard was around. This week? You felt for her.

Juliette’s still not the sharpest tool in Nick’s cupboard of threateningly sharp-looking tools (check out his studded baseball bat this week – very on trend). In another mind-bendingly incurious display, she happily served up answers to Adalind’s suspiciously keen line of questioning about her ex-boyfriend’s dead aunt’s trailer with nary a fluttered eyelash nor a quizzical stare. I bet she’d happily tell you her mother’s maiden name and pin number if only you had the front to ask…

Front is certainly not something Claire Coffee’s Adalind lacks (particularly in that cleavage-y number she wore on Hank’s doorstep). Her reappearance in Portland this week was so enjoyable to watch, it makes her season regular status real cause for celebration. Adalind cockily strutted around the city flanked by leather-wearing Hench-Wesen while her plan to roundly mess up Nick and Renard’s lives unfurled. Watching a well-dressed, pun-happy, über-evil but not-at-her-usual-powers petite blonde slink about on the search for a key was like tripping happily back to Buffy’s fifth season. Joy.

Oh, but there was so much more fun besides. The script fizzed with life where so often Grimm’s dialogue falls flat. “You wanna arrest them or what?” asked Monroe, “Or what” replied Nick, brandishing a weapon from his bountiful collection. “You’ve seen my brother?” said Renard, “All of him” came back Adalind. It was pithy, playful and most importantly, it carried Grimm’s previously-stagnant plots forward. Nick’s description of his and Juliette’s relationship being in a holding pattern was an apt choice of words, as overarching plot-wise, much of the season has been too.

Nick now knows half of Renard’s secret (the non-Royal part, though surely that can’t be far behind), and Renard has discovered the existence of Aunt Marie’s trailer. Adalind’s on the verge of spilling everybody’s beans, Nick and Juliette have separated, and best of all, my prayers for Nick and Monroe to move in together have finally been answered. To sum it all up in a single word: hallelujah.

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Read Frances’ review of the previous episode, To Protect And Serve Man, here.

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