ottilie

"Also, among the people I know here, Portlandia is not nearly as widely watched as Grimm was. (yes, past tense...)" There is a Grimm connection to this skit. I live in Portland and a man where I work work contributed his volvo to their Portland drivers sketch. What happened is that his mechanic was a brother or cousin who works on Grimm, and Grimm crew socialize with Portlandia crew and they were looking for a Volvo, so they asked him and he lent it.

The actress playing Rachel Wood is also named Rachel Wood so it is hard to differentiate whether you're talking about her TV show character. Rachel was being a poor listener during the scene in this episode. I wonder to what extent that is just her personality, or whether she is seriously underestimating Renard and thinks that she is sweeping him off his feet and getting him under her thumb. She was ignoring Eve starting to ask questions about what they're doing, and she is also in charge of his campaign events and going into the debate. Is this really the mastermind of black claw who will take over the world. "Which, to my mind, makes it all the more mysterious why he'd compromise himself for the political equivalent of 'Manager at a Cinnabon'. He's royal (illegit, but still a player)," This topic is a major stub that they could expand upon in a future season, if they wanted to make the show start to make sense. Occasionally it seems like the writers insert lines to try to explain previously introduced concepts, and here, the lines where Adalind was saying that -biests or witches are attracted to power and are not naturally charitable helped explain their character or role. They previously showed that royals have actual blue blood that can be measured with a test. While they explained that Renard and his mother had been forced to flee Austria or Switzerland to the US by other fighting wings of the royal family, (and also, they killed Meisner's family too... so maybe there is some yet unexplained connection with him too), one thing they haven't explained is how the royal family lost post around WWI. In one episode, they had Renard and Adalind meet at an art museum where he lamented that the royals had lost power, and lost a lot of their art, (although he has a few paintings at his house). So, maybe they could explain it all by saying that the Royals were made royal by magic, by being in good favor with witches who can set spells in exchange for favors from the royalty. However, something happened around World War One which disrupted the balance, so they are not in power despite their blue blood. Maybe the witches also influenced the creation of wesen, who the royal families know about and can use to their advantage (such as the Jagerhunds).

Yes, I thought Roiz did a great job capturing the character Eve, rather than either regular Juliette, or hexenbiest Juliette. The fact that Even cannot act or go with the flow results from the mind-control experience that Meisner put her through. Even is capable of clever tricks but her personality was flattened. Where did Meisner go? He would be more capable of thinking a few steps ahead and rehearsing what to say. He trusts her a lot. It is hard to interpret whether the character Renard is deliberately trying to act naive to the black claw handlers because he totally realizes what is going on and he has his own plan, or whether he actually is working with them because he's like to be mayor. Because, what would his plan be to finally end it, what with the whole city watching the debates.

I have noticed that it seems to rate well on download sites (even though it is on public NBC) and that is probably because they have some aspects where you have to watch each episode in sequence to understand it.

I think this has Bitsie Tulloch's personal french bulldog in the photos http://komonews.com/news/local/new-k-9-named-grimm-visits-set-of-grimm By the way, I think the writers just have a challenging time coming up for things for her character to do. Monroe is a source of information but isn't in a position to fight crime himself, Hank and Wu are police assistants, Rosalee is smart and knows potions and magical herbs. Juliette did some internet research and played the unknowing bystander for a while, but after a while they need other tasks to occupy the character.

"I really keep hoping Nick will go OFF on this chick and not look back. Not dead Juliette is the, worse!" maybe once she is done with fighting black claw, they could somehow coax her into being a super-veterinarian. By the way, I still wonder if Martin Meisner turns out to be a zauberbiest. There are a few bits of the previous episodes that speak against it (he acting surprised by Adalind's daughter or Adalind's telekinesis), but he still has the power to control Eve... and how did he know Renard originally? Why did the royals kill his family?

Juliette's life was ultimately screwed up by Nick though. She originally was a vet and had this nice house before she met him. Anyway, in Portland, here is a google streetview photo of where they originally parked the trailer. They're building something. https://www.google.com/maps/@45.535558,-122.6844146,3a,60y,180h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1siQ0p8ZpbNinEIANoIAqCnA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I can't wait to see Sasha Roiz play Eve attempting to act like Renard. There are a few similarities with the good show True Blood, where the shapeshifter characters typically turn into animals, but sometimes imitate other people. A few times, they had the actor who played Sam have to pretend to be either his brother or female friend trying to act like him, but they still walk like a woman or have an angry or naive personality that they can't cover up. Another thing they could have copied from True Blood is the plot point of wesen trying to come out of the closet. Also, Ophan Black has two actors who each play sets of identical octuplets who each have a different personality. There are some good actors on this show and Sasha Roiz did well suddenly switching into the 19th century british Jack character etc. Maybe someone will come along and speak to him in french or russian or german and then Juliette won't know what to say because she speaks spanish. The reason Black claw are setting up a complicated sequence targeting Renard has to be their awareness of his daughter. They had research material on him in their computers.

I liked the concept of the main story. The actor who plays the doctor plays wonderful smarmy characters, sort of like how brother Eric does evil people well. If it goes like last time, they'll sleep together and Juliette will be pregnant with Rachel's baby. or no, Renard will be pregnant with Rachel's baby. Renard is a half zauberbiest so he must have awareness of some magic techniques even though his real skill is scheming and being clever and plotting things.

Get out the healing stick I thought the script for the blutbad/lycanthrope family was pretty good - you didn't realize it was the mother at first. You do wonder how they're going to explain shooting her in the news.

yeah I dunno. The short clip made it look like he was overheating, whacking at the stuck door to the tunnel. I was thinking some more, and it occurred to me that the writers probably didn't conceive of a storyline of them finding a well attached to a tunnel leading to their dwelling. Instead, I bet that their scouting staff who find the places to film each scene happened to find this interesting factory /warehouse, and an interesting feature of it was a door leading to an underground access tunnel. They must have decided it was so cool that they wrote it into the script by having them move in their to indicate a break with the old place he lived.

Look - apparently Nick B. puts WD40 on the door in his tunnel, gets it open, and finds a deep well. http://www.spoilertv.com/2016/03/grimm-episode-514-lycanthropia.html oh - another thing in Portland. The Grimm crew is setting up to film at the same Tudor house on Thompson st by Irvington club through Friday, where they were already filming in early March (where they previously filmed mermaid swimming speed). That means this spot is coming up multiple times in the script so maybe a main character lives there.

oh, thank, I was having a hard time remembering if the helicopter scene or Kelly going to the house with Diana happened first, but I guess Kelly was killed at the house last so we don't know who had Diana. (weird how these clever people such as Kelly or Agent Chavez or even Marwan keep getting killed in a simple confrontation). Anyway, after Juliette went to Renard and clearly implied that they're going to target the campaign staff for setting up the assassination, that means Renard has to pick a side. He can't naively proceed. He either has to reach out to the secret gov't organization, or pick black claw and be prepared to outsmart them. of course, he is a warlock so maybe he can use magic that he rarely resorts to in this show.

I thought that Martin Meisner was the last one to see Diana. After Kelly Burkhardt was killed, he was with her in the helicopter when she used telekinesis to push the King guy (her grandfather) out. Wouldn't this give him some power over Renard? They still haven't resolved to what extent Meisner and Renard were working together in the past and now. Renard would have to know that even if he became mayor, the black claw people would create havoc right away so he wouldn't be loved and admired

Okay - I don't know if someone mentioned it elsewhere, but the sixth episode of Portlandia, season 6 has a funny extended skit with Juliette/Bitsie in it. It isn't the most brilliant one they've ever done, but conceptually it's pretty good. The idea is that she calls a cab instead of a Lyft (which Fred Armisen's character Doug drives) and at the cab company, it is a scene of historical office furniture, phones, and people from the 70s or 80s who move at a really slow pace and Carrie Brownstein drives in an anemic fashion. ha. oh.. there is a link on youtube but it doesn't show the whole thing and was edited down quite a bit

The actor playing Tony the drug user was great. They could have slightly wordsmithed his lines for better realism but they had to edit it down (e.g. he shouldn't have flipped out and broken things immediately, but he needed to for the story). I liked the line "well, Carlos is dead now!. JJ's in Boise and Byrd's in jail. I have no one else to turn to" (She should totally get him a Greyhound ticket to Boise to stay with JJ. Likewise, the church wesen chasing them in the woods didn't have enough time in the episode to seem relevant but they had to include them to give them a reason to return to Portland quickly or have a sense of adventure. Also, why would the two men by the autos run towards the top of the hill to help when Monroe calls that everyone is getting injured and defeated by the Grimm. I like the Renard plot (what side will he pick, because he has a weakness for seizing power, but also became a police captain because he likes to keep order and he also doesn't like his royal relatives yielding power badly). The Meisner character is like a crossover into marvel comics superhero territory so you can start to ponder whose skills and traits will rival the others. So far, we know that Chavez the steinadler who was in charge of the secret government unit left him probably second in command (although maybe some of the nonspeaking actors in the background also are in leadership, but just are focusing on wesen activity elsewhere on the map). We don't know why he was picked... if he is just a highly effective person, or has some unknown skills or traits still. But consider, we have seen that Chavez and Meisner have a demonstrated technique for putting hexenbiests under mind control (perhaps using what they learned from MK Ultra experiments, or perhaps magic is involved http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2008962_2008964_2008992,00.html). This is shown by the way that Juliette is so fully inline with their program and can be trusted to walk around outside and use her imagination to solve problems. Oh, I liked how Marwan uses a blackberry style phone because that is what I have-good for writing long emails. Why were Juliette's pupils disappearing or going blue when she was causing the bicyclist to lose control? Now, when they clearly set up a situation where Meisner could have a future conflict with Captain Renard, or he could have a disagreement with Trubel over her assignments and communications - that means that Meisner would have the potential of putting Renard under control too if he really needed to, and he could grab him into a steel cell or whatever technique they're doing underground. But what does Meisner want? A paycheck? To establish traditional order in the world. Except, I'm starting to think that a zauberbiest/warlock (who rarely woges) is what Meisner could be. It could explain why Renard originally knew him. And the royals killed Meisner's family and we know Renard's father is attracted to hexenbiests but the rest of the family wanted to kill her. Chavez could have recruited him for this reason. Also, Meisner is good at fighting, and we can see that Renard is better at fighting than many wesen when he's motivated because he easily beat Marwan- so maybe zauberbiests are talented at that.

Okay - don't know how much of a spoiler this is but on the way home from work I bicycled by the Boschke Boyd house (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boschke%E2%80%93Boyd_House) where they are filming today, and some people who looked like the directors or crew were standing on the sidewalk with four unidentified wesen dressed either like gangsters or serious businessmen. They wore black leather trench coats and two had military fatigue style backpacks. This was at 5:30pm so maybe they're waiting until it's dusk? The house looked like it had been set up with lights in the upper storey and I couldn't glean any of the plot. I think this neighborhod which is sort of a historic street with large square footage houses is good for depicting powerful people who are either crime victims or wesen who had successful lives until they finally run into trouble in middle-age.

I think I might have actually seen Sasha Roiz in Portland in a van where I randomly came upon their filming when bicycling home from work, although I might have been mistaken at a distance. And I would feel embarrassed to be a stalker type who actually runs up to bother actors. Of course, the one time I actually saw one of the Grimm actors it was the guy who plays Bud who showed up with his friends at a vegan cookbook release party at Microcosm books on Williams, and I didn't say anything but I bet he actually would have enjoyed talking about his line of work and answering questions. A bunch of universal studios trucks (they apparently require about 20 trucks of equipment) were arriving near Lloyd mall, and they are currently carrying a lot of boards and lights into a house across the street from the Irvington Club on Thompson st. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boschke%E2%80%93Boyd_House. Interestingly, it is directly across the street from another house used in a previous episode, called Henry Slocum's house: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zvv9Zgrd9E4Q.kTqYn5wM2xkM I agree - Sasha Roiz is one of the best actors - demonstrated when he totally had to transform at the drop of a hat in the Jack the Ripper episode, and a few other moments. Letting him display his weakness for seeking great political power would be fun, but it would also be fun if he could be a zauberbiest for a while too.

"I think they did some filming, but I don't think the actors were there. The only external shot that located them in Germany (when I initially thought they were there) showed a partially clear cut hill in the background. It's been a long time since I've been to Germany, so they may clear cut now, but I don't recall ever seeing that, and I spent a lot of time on the road there, watching the scenery pass by from the back of my father's car." Okay - my mother came from germany and my cousin Tom is actually a forester in Wurzburg (he was inspired to go into that by visiting the Cascades and Olympic mtns by Seattle as an exchange student with my parents), although this doesn't provide me with any insight into if they never clearcut or not. Generally though, in germany they carefully selectively harvest trees and control what is replanted. Also - here is a major difference between Oregon forests and many german forests - there is a lot less underbrush there. But the TV show showed lots of underbrush. So my diagnosis is that they filmed this nighttime forest scene in Oregon somewhere, and used the darkness to make it appear less local with conspicuous douglas firs and hemlocks. But, I think they actually filmed them driving in the car in the real village in germany, because how else would they have filmed the actors entering the real church. I bet the range of shots (like you don't ever see them walking around the village) is more limited because it would be elaborate to recruit extras and get permits to do an actual town scene, or a forest scene. But Universal did spring for plane tickets to send actors and a cameraperson to Germany. "I don't care how much "chemistry" Claire Coffee has with David Guintoli. Their characters' histories make them inherently inconceivable as a romantic couple." I think their upcoming plot requires them to be together for a couple episodes before a new conflict arises. It might involve the tunnel

I like the facial recognition software that HW uses because it is partly realistic - they use something like this at large events like the superbowl. It's somewhat awkward that Trubel keeps getting sent around the world and missing out on what's happening in Portland. They should remind everyone the reason why their headquarters happen to be in a facility in St Johns neighborhood of Portland is because Agent Chavez set it up and she was based here. She is an eagle so she is in touch with eagles involved with black claw leadership. They killed her off too soon. I hope they let Trubel ride a motorcycle again. The sniper plot was pretty good. Portlanders have to be used to political violence given the overall high murder rate, with several murders per week. Since the lead black claw guy is a pretty snow leopard, does that mean that survivor of the council massacre who is also a snow leopard will come back? In germany, their dialog with the priest is clueless but probably not any worse than dumb tourists. Nobody would express disappointment and leave when they learn a church is only 500 years old. The hole that they fell into was a sudden transition to Raider's of the Lost ark. Once they triggered it to open, how could the pit ever reset itself - the next hikers are bound to find it. The church wesen are too overconfident with ability to kill a grimm. The key are supposed to lead to hidden wealth, so I wonder if they actually will present the church wesen as also knowing about this wealth, yet hanging around guarding it and not gossiping to outsiders for hundreds of years. Will the keys be required to open a box?

just like Renard's relationship cannot remain stable, due to the principles of television writing, I don't think Adalind's relationship will remain normal either. They have also blatantly revealed that Rosalee is going to suffer some challenges with her old acquaintance from Seattle.

"Why can't Meisner be a plain old badass human? We already have a Grimm that can't take a poop without calling Trubel" well - with the original story of Nick suddenly gaining Grimm powers and not knowing anything, this falls right in line with the 'Hero' myth that Joseph Campbell showed is one of the main stories that crops up over and over again in mythology - including Homer and the Odyssey. The Hero has to originally be a normal person who is called upon to be a special person who has to leave their regular place in society in order to save them, and they typically have a spiritual guide who tells them what to do. You see it in some television and movies such as Star Wars where Luke is advised by Yoda, or Twin Peaks where the FBI agent is given messages by the Log Lady and a couple other characters. In Grimm, Monroe is the assistant who understands everything but doesn't quite have the powers to solve crimes by himself - Nick has to do it. In short, it is okay if the hero protagonist is rather uninformed and needs helpers to clue him in http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm

okay - Capt. Renard is a half zauberbiest, half royal, and one of his weaknesses is a moderate thirst for power. It is known that he gains some strength and fighting skills when he woges, but otherwise, he doesn't seem to have obvious powers at telekinesis or spells or potions like female witches. I think they should reveal that his powers really center around charisma, hypnotism, strong mental persuasion to make people do what he wants. In a previous episode, they briefly showed a powder at the spice shop that was truth serum for canid wesen - called serum exomologesis. They never used it so far . They should have Renard fight black claw by targeting a member who is a blutbad, coyotl, anubis, an apgadniaks (like the Peter Pan kid who was recruited to black claw), or fox and turn him into a double agent by first getting some information with truth serum and then hypnotizing them into working for their side.

"Renard should be more in the loop with the Scoobie team, and find out what is going on with Meisner and HW." --very true. He did work with Meisner extensively before, and he has now only spent 5 minutes with him since he moved to the gov't project in Portland. I anticipate that show writers are deliberately stretching out explaining what his purpose and goals are, just like they spent about 3 episodes hiding the operations of the HW bunker, and slowly revealing that Juliette had been put under mind control and transformed into Eve. It was actually fairly good suspense writing. Maybe they could explain that Meisner is mostly a mercenary, and Capt. Renard sensibly stays at a distance so they don't reveal that he ordered the hit on his brother Eric. The angle that I would find the most satisfying as a story would go back to Sebastian's remark that Meisner used to be a bohemian in Berlin, and Meisner also mentioning to Renard that his royal family killed his parents and girlfriend. We just don't understand why they killed his parents yet. Maybe Meisner has a complicated revenge motive where he decided to train to be a warrior to retaliate against the people who harmed him. There was a reason why Chavez picked him out. The other thing though (which just might not be possible to answer in the script) is that female witches and probably male zauberbiests too are so powerful that you'd think they could quickly cast a bunch of spells and solve problems right away (leaving no plot or challenges to resolve unless it was entirely witch vs. witch). Yet, they seem so restrained, given their powers.

Capt Renard's mother could technically come back from wherever she's been and announce "oh my goodness, I guess my spell that transferred the identity of these two women did not work right, and it's because I forgot one ingredient in the potion. Here, let me correct that" and she could set them back to their original condition. She is a hexenbiest after all.