Grimm season 5 episode 7 review: Eve Of Destruction

This review contains spoilers.

5.7 Eve Of Destruction

“We are at war.”

And so our favourite fairy-tale-based procedural returns following its break for the holidays, and bloody hell, it’s back with a kick!

I’m not sure who spiked the writers’ punch over the festive period but this week’s episode was twisty, tense and satisfyingly dark in places. More importantly, it hinted at its biggest and most ambitious storyline to date.

To recap, Portland is under threat from the Wesen uprising. Nick, Monroe, Renard, Hank and Wu are trapped and all in serious danger until Juliette appears – blonde and back from the dead – to save them.

We discover Juliette was still alive when Chavez took her and Trubel from Nick’s. Somehow they managed to turn mild-mannered Juliette into their own Nikita, a weapon designed for one purpose only: to kill.

As you can imagine, Nick’s more than a little surprised to see his ex-girlfriend reincarnated as a ruthless killing machine. The new Juliette – now called Eve – is cold, dead-eyed, and robotic. So not too much of a stretch from the old Juliette, really.

Adalind should have cause to be concerned too, if she had seen the way Juliette whipped through twenty Wesen. And she certainly shouldn’t do anything silly like kiss Nick… oh.

This episode saw the plot about the uprising explode in violence. The group, we discover, is called Black Claw, and a key player is the mysterious Lucien (played by Buffy’s own Graham Miller, Bailey Chase.)

We see the huge scale of the problem with images of unrest and rioting all over the world – with seemingly ‘normal’ middle-class Wesen supporting the cause.

As a sign that Black Claw don’t give a hoot about the rules, they are woging in public. This kind of reckless behaviour is, according to Rosalee, crossing “a very dangerous line”.

It also seems there’s a rat (figuratively, not an actual Reinigen) in the police department, leading the violent death of poor Xavier – the only man to make Bud look tough.

Shockingly, the Wesen council, too, is gunned down in cold blood. This means there’s no help coming for our heroes. So Nick and the gang will be forced to work with Meisner to fight Black Claw, regardless of his feelings about the resistance man turning his ex into a deadly fembot.

This story feels like it has so much potential, and could easily take over the rest of the season with characters like Lucien, Meisner and Eve bringing a darker aspect to the proceedings. It’s on a grander scale than the Wesen-of-the-week stories, and could build to an epic showdown towards the end of the year’s run.

It also feels much more cinematic in places with sweeping shots of the city, time lapse photography and dramatic music all helping to build tension.

On the home-front, yes Nick and Adalind kissed. Perhaps I’m on my own here, but I couldn’t be more bored by this developing romance. I’m also a little perplexed as to why Adalind put the moves on Nick when she seems to have the hots for Meisner – who it appears feels the same way. In my mind there’s very little competition, but maybe this is something that the writers feel needs to play out.

Also, do we think Meisner is a Grimm? He matched Trubel in their fight, and we know humans are no match for a Grimm…

Nick is eventually tested by Meisner, which results in his killing of two Wesen. It seems like Nick is now aligned with Meisner and his shadowy fight club, unwilling participant or not.

This uprising storyline has great potential. It’s darker and just… bigger than anything we’ve seen to date. Done right, it could deliver some massive thrills to Grimm’s loyal fans.

Read Christine’s review of the previous episode, Wesen Nacht, here.