Grimm season 3 episode 2 review: PTZD

This review contains spoilers.

3.2 PTZD

This second episode of the new season of Grimm picks up right from where we left off last week, with Nick preparing for a zombie-style home invasion. However, with episode entitled PTZD – presumably standing for Post-Traumatic Zombie Disorder – we can predict early on that Nick won’t be left to run rampage in his zombie state for too long.

But first, back to last week’s cliff-hanger. Despite my doubts last week that Nick would randomly attack an innocent family in their home, he goes ahead and does it. And for the life of me, I can’t work out why.

Perhaps the writers were going for ‘edgy’, but the whole attack feels incongruous. It’s so completely divergent from Nick’s character, which on the whole is blandly likeable. Yes, I know he’s infected with a virus that causes massive levels of rage among humans. And perhaps it’s that simple; just like The Incredible Hulk, he just can’t control his ‘NICK SMASH!’ instincts. Perhaps.

For whatever reason though, he attacks. Luckily Hank and Monroe are on hand to save the family – or Nick – from death with a rescue effort that sees them eventually trap Nick in a barn (despite his being fenced in with a gate with bars wide enough for the actual Hulk to slip through.)

Despite a few punches being thrown in the struggle, Juliette administers the antidote and all is calm once more.

As the title indicates, this instalment focused on the aftermath of Nick’s bad-boy behaviour as one of the undead. The episode then centres on how Nick deals with the fact that he beat up a lot of people, including his friends, boss and girlfriend, before learning he actually killed someone.

While the gang briefly discuss the problem of lying to the police, but really we all know they’ll cover for Nick. Nick has no such moral ambiguity and is prepared to hand himself in to the law, until the persuasive Captain Renard convinces him otherwise.

“Sometimes justice isn’t obvious,” he tells Nick. And if anyone should know, it’s Renard.

True to form, the Captain proved himself to be the most clear-headed and calculating of the ‘good’ guys. He stole the surveillance flash drive from the bar, covered for Nick with the father of the family, and, oh yeah, had his half- brother assassinated. (Or maybe not, as we didn’t see it first-hand, and there’s plenty of opportunity for evil Eric to make a dramatic return later this season…)

Meanwhile, in Europe Adalind continued her quest to regain her Hexenbiest abilities. The corpse of poor Frau Pech could almost have done with a zip lock fitted to her stomach, for the amount of times she’s been slit and done up again in Adalind’s pursuit of power. Despite the tasks becoming ever more disturbing, she gamely carries out each one under the instruction of Stefania, who looks like she’s enjoying every minute of it.

A point to note was that we saw a skull appear on Adalind’s pregnant belly after she applied Frau Pech’s blood to her stomach, indicating her unborn child may also be a force to be reckoned with.

This episode clearly focused on Nick’s struggle of “walking in two worlds”, as Reynard put it. It provided the main characters with scenarios that had no obvious resolutions, and set a tone for the season where decisions are more likely to be more open to ambiguity. Which makes Grimm a much more interesting watch.

Read Christine’s review of the previous episode, The Ungrateful Dead, here.

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