Grimm season 4 episode 22 review: Cry Havoc

This review contains spoilers.

4.22 Cry Havoc

From the beginning this week’s title, Cry Havoc, taken from the famous line from Julius Caesar, “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war,” makes it perfectly clear that this episode is all about revenge.

This action-packed season finale picks up directly after Nick’s discovery of his mum’s head in a box. As you might imagine, this leads to a serious case of revenge on Nick’s part.

Lots of theories of varying degrees of plausibility currently abound on the Grimm forums, with many fans convinced Kelly isn’t really dead at all. Instead, they say, she created a ‘body double’ to trick the Royals, or that she’s teamed up with Trubel – and some go as far to say she has inhabited Trubel’s body, given how well she handled herself this episode, and how Kenneth claimed he expected more from ‘Kelly’ before he killed her.

We also never actually see the actress – Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio – in any of the flight scenes, as she is killed off-camera.

But while you can never rule anything out with Grimm – and to be fair, Kelly did ‘die’ once before – it’s more likely that the writers decided to kill off the character, because making Juliette culpable in Kelly’s murder not only makes it impossible for her and Nick to ever reconcile, but it goes a long way to justifying Juliette’s execution. Yes, ding-dong, the witch is dead.

Juliette was never a fan-favourite. In the early days she was irritatingly clueless about Nick’s secret life hunting monsters. She never really felt like a fully-rounded character in the same way as the rest of the Scooby gang, lacking the humour of Monroe, or Truble’s feistiness. She was there as supportive girlfriend, but she never contributed much to the show. She became a metaphorical punching bag for Adalind (she was naive to the point of stupidity), and a frequent damsel in distress for Nick to rescue.

It was only when she was let in on the secret that she started to contribute more, earning her place in the ensemble. And ironically, it was when she first gained her powers as a Hexenbiest that we really started to enjoy the added dimension is brought to her character – particularly her long-awaited arse-kicking of Adalind. It was the end of poor, bullied Juliette.

But of course you can have too much of a good thing, and Juliette’s decision to go Vader ended up turning her into a full-blown villain. Even if she could have been saved, by the end of the season we’d had enough.

Still, it’s a jaw-dropper when Trubel takes her down with two arrows to the chest. It’s the first time Grimm has killed off a major character and it seemed more than likely that Juliette would take off with the King back to Vienna, plotting all sorts of trouble from the castle in season five.

Maybe the writers thought they had gone as far as they could with Juliette, which is probably fair. It certainly opens the door a crack further for a Nick and Adalind (Nadalind?) romance as they look to co-parent their new baby in Portland.

To be fair, Juliette wouldn’t have got very far if she had decided to leave with King Frederick. The King found himself unceremoniously ejected from the helicopter in which he and Diana were travelling, courtesy of the Resistance. It’s the return of Meisner – yay! – whose heroic persona appears even to have a winning effect on Diana.

Back in Portland, Nick’s insistence that they “do things his way” (like they don’t do that every week) leads him to a one-on-one showdown with Kenneth. After the prince lobs some insults Nick’s way about his momma and ex-girlfriend, the anticipated dust-up ensues. This ultimately results in the demise of Kenneth, probably the most interesting, and certainly the most actively violent royal we’ve seen to date.

It would have been great to hear, “My name is Nick Burkhardt. You killed my mother. Prepare to die.” But alas, an opportunity wasted.

One mystery that remains: who was Trubel talking to on the phone when she was in the truck with Bud? It’s a woman’s voice on the end of the line, leading many to speculate it was un-dead Kelly. It could be likely though it was Agent Chavez, who has continued to pursue Trubel in a bid to recruit her to her secret organisation. Hence, she knows where to turn up at the end of the episode to “get her”.

Elsewhere it’s a shame that Renard was left out of the action this week, demoted to dealing with the repercussions of the Jack the Ripper storyline. He stared moodily out of his office for much of the episode, trying to reconcile his murdering three women while under the influence of Jack. But more than that, he was trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the investigation.

Early in the episode Monroe tells the Captain “you need a somebody” to take the blame for the killings. It then takes a really long time for the penny to drop that there’s a perfect scapegoat lined up in the form of handily tall, English-accented Kenneth. Well, we got there in the end – and it is sweet revenge for the beating Renard took a few weeks ago.

(Incidentally, the writers included a fun royal reference when we see from his driving licence that Kenneth surname is Bowes-Lyon – the family name of the British Queen Mother.)

So where are we at the end of season four? With his girlfriend dead, and Adalind carrying his child (and suppressing her inner Hexen-bitch), Nick’s Facebook romantic status probably reads ‘it’s ‘complicated’. Bud’s wife will have to come home at some point, and its likely Adalind will move in with Nick, one he gets those windows fixed again.

The Resistance has Diana, though our heroes don’t know yet this. Chavez is on Nick’s doorstep with a bunch of heavies in suits, but this may be less of a threat than we think is she is already working with Trubel.

Monroe and Rosalee just want a glass of wine and to put their feet up.

This was a satisfying end to a series that perhaps dragged out one or two story arcs longer than it should, and maintained its ‘Wesen of the Week’ sub-plots when we really wanted more focus on the developing storylines among the main characters. (However kudos to the writers for the Wesenrein story arc, which delivered well above any other Wesen-based tangents this season.)

Grimm picked up the pace over the last few episodes, neatly tying up some loose ends. If anything season five should pick up where this episode left off, and let the show continue to explore its darker side.

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

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