Ghost of TWOP Past

This was refreshing. There are times when I've felt like giving up on the show, but then along comes an ep like this, where the wesen have an interesting emotional story going on, there are some funny lines, and the subplots are progressed. I have to admit, I fell for the red-herring, and suspected the son rather than the daughter. I liked the ep. Though I find myself saddened by the loss of the familiar trailer (and all those ancient books!!!), I like that they've finally been willing to make even a small change from the formula that the series had settled into. Anyway, the wesen dad/group leader was played by Jeff Fahey, an actor who I've always felt has not been given the attention he deserves. He often used to be cast as villains because he can put a half-crazed intensity into his striking blue eyes, but he also had a charming but short-lived series called The Marshal, in which he played a nice cop who prefered to talk his way out of problems rather than resort to fists or guns. Okay, after watching this show for 4 seasons, I give up and have to ask: what is the hexenbiest makeup supposed to look like? A decaying corpse?

I think I am just plain losing interest in this show. The wesen of the week is no longer novelty enough to keep me interested, and that only leaves a) the dreary repetitiveness of Nick/Juliette's on-again/off-again cycle, b) vague semi-magical stuff happening with Renard for which we will never get a proper explanation, c) the stupefying inertness of the the royals and their failure to ever accomplish anything, d) Adalind floating around in limbo, also never accomplishing anything. What drew me into Grimm was the oddball buddy relationship of Nick and Monroe, but they rarely do anything together anymore. Then there was the interesting situation in which Nick was baffled to find himself as negotiator and peacemaker for the wesen population, but that also fell by the wayside long ago. In short, I found myself bored during this week's installment, not caring about anything that was happening.

If the rapists had been attracted to the froggy people, that would have triggered the woge and the rapists would have been cooked. So while there were a lot of things wrong with this ep, I don't believe that was one of them. Anyway, I was mostly just bored by this one. Yadda yadda royals, yadda yadda Juliette angst. That only left the monster of the week, which wasn't one that interested me.

Oh, and there's also the bizarre stroke of luck that, out of a whole bar full of people, the first person wormy tries to hit on is the bait guy trying to catch her.

Well, that was pretty bad. Juliette says she must go to someone who understands what she's dealing with. No, not her sympathetic friends Rosalee and Monroe, or even whatsername the hexenbiest whisperer. No she's got to go stay with the guy she had a semi-affair with, because that makes so much more sense and doesn't promise to make her tension with Nick worse. Gah. I hate it when shows have characters resort to contrivances rather than common sense, just to crank up the emotions. Rosalee is one hell of a chemist if she can whip up a complex molecule like testerone in her spice shop. And it's not like that's permanent. What happens when the dose they gave the guy wears off and he can become she again? It wouldn't be easy for her to explain how she got into prison, but once there she manifestly wouldn't belong in a men's prison, and is guaranteed to be taken out again. Furthermore, since our guys specified that she has no record, the authorities would have to turn her loose, eventually, no matter how many unanswered questions her presence posed. But the biggest WTF moment of the evening is when two trained and experiened police officers go get their untrained and inexperienced civilian friend to act as monster bait. Then they don't think to give him a method to call them if he does get into trouble. This one just wasn't thought through in the writing stage.

Allow me to clarify and expand upon a point that possibly no one else cares about. :) What bugged me about the Chloe scene is that: 1) She had the villain defeated and simply needed to hit him a couple more times. She needn't have killed him, if that is a problem with minor actors. (Are you guys sure about that? I've never heard of it before.) 2) Nick and Hank have plenty of hero moments, including the fact that their detective work brought them to the place in time to prevent her death once already. It wouldn't have diminished them to give the moment to the girl. And 3) because this show does have a bit of Buffy heritage, and they do at times allow their female characters to be strong, I was expecting Chloe to stomp the guy. But instead, despite having already set her up for the victory, 4) she hesitates, loses the initiative, and the victory goes to the men folk. I'm not so much offended on behalf of feminism as I am disappointed that they reverted to the trope.

I get what you're saying, but the girl "failed" in the sense that she still would have fallen victim if the guys hadn't come along. She surprised the villain, had him down, and would only have had to swing the fence rod (or whatever it was) a couple more times. Instead, as written, she pauses for no good reason, allows him to get the upper hand again, and then has to be rescued. If she was that close, why not just let the character have the moment?

I didn't think it was a terrible episode, but it sure wasn't great, either. I was pleased by the cliche-breaking surprise when the girl defended herself. Then I was aggravated that she had to fail so that the men folk could rescue her after all. So dreary. Am I confused, or would the wesen council not care about the fertility shenanigans? Weren't we told that the council only intervenes when there's danger of revealing the wesen world to humans? I agree that we don't need another baby. I don't find the first one interesting, and now there's another. But the most aggravating thing about the episode is Nick and Juliette having issues. Every god damned show does this now. Every couple has to split. reconcile, split, reconcile, split... etc. The thing is, unless they write Juliette out of the series, there isn't a scintilla of tension to any of it. She's a regular on the series. We know for a fact that she is going to get back together with Nick. And then split, and then reconcile... ad nauseum all over again.

Thank you, as well. :)

Okay. Thanks. :)

Sorry if this is the wrong spot to ask, but people keep telling me this show got better. (I gave up on it mid-first-season.) Is there anyplace I can catch up on the back episodes without having to pay because 1) I am cheap and 2) I'm still not convinced I'll like it? Hulu wants me to subscribe, cable ondemand only has the current season, and ABC's own site doesn't seem to be working (I can't click on anything).

I don't get the 'go commando' thing. Is the idea that you won't get skidmarks on your slacks? Because really, I'd rather not put that to the test.

There was some dialog to the effect that Juliette is extra super powerful because she became hexenbiest by an unusual method, or at least that's what I took from her scenes with the witch doctor or whatever Renard sent her to (Garcelle Beauvais).

Thank you all for refraining from pointing out that I should have said "waist up," not "waste up."

Thoughts: They got a lot of little stuff right, like the dialog ("home-made bomb"), so I am willing to forgive some of the big stuff, such as why the guy exploded. He wasn't generating heat, right? He was excreting phosphorous to burn in air. If he was coated with gunk, he should have been just, well, coated with gunk and phosphorous, but cool and non-explodey. I kept thinking that the arsonist looked like Robert Redford's skinny younger brother. (I mean, if he had one.) But what was with the tighty whiteys? That was just comical. It would have been less silly if they'd just done the cheesy tv thing of framing him from the waste up/always positioning something in front of his naughty bits. It bothered me that Adalind only reacted with surprise at Juliette's transformation after Juliette had been smacking her around for a minute or two. Though thank all that's holy that she finally told Nick and put an end to that stupid subplot. Rosalie answers the phone with "Spice Shop"? Just Spice Shop? Like "Hello, Dry Cleaner here." Is that the actual name of the place? Yep, the Grimm house got trashed again. They need to bring Xander in to shim the windows. ANOTHER frigging mid-season break? I swear, it's as if channels are trying to drive viewers away anymore. Have to leave postits to myself to remember where the damned story lines left off.

Maybe he was only a Marechaussee by proxy.

This ep was mostly okay, and I did like the little touch of the wesen using their woge ability to scam people. But am I confused or did a whole night/day/night cycle elapse between the killing of the pimpwesen and our cop heroes arriving to deal with it? On the one hand, I'm a bit irritated that Juliette is going straight from mortal to most powerful hexenbiest ever, but I can't be too irritated about that because I feel this is the first time she hasn't been boring. Still doesn't make a lick of sense that she's keeping it secret, though. And I'm not sure I buy the character's reaction. "I suddenly have the ability to incinerate the cars of people who irritate me? I must be rid of this curse!" I mean, scary face aside, how cool would that be? As others have asked, there is absolutely no way to de-hexenbiest Juliette, including Grimmy blood? I supposed the fact that she became one by unusual means might account for that, though. Nick's blood was already involved in that chain of events. And I do not get prince NotWesley's plan. "Last time we were here for the baby, direct action failed. So this time, we're just going to hang around until you give in." I think Renard sent a resistance agent to find the baby rather than a cop, but I could be wrong. Lastly, I *SO* wanted Juliette to say to the pepper grinder, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Have we been given an in-show reason for Juliette to keep her wild side a secret, or is it just because that's what characters on this show always do? Kind of a reflexive thing for the show's writers at this point? And as for the dream fakeout beheading? That is such a tv cliche these days that I just rolled my eyes and waited impatiently for it to be over.

However, the show has played fast and loose with the idea of whether or not wesen are human. Monroe and Rosalie? Clearly, yes. It's been established that wesen are like humans, in that some are good and some are bad, just like people. Therefore, it seems to me that they should be treated, ethically, just like humans.

I understand that the sister did not feel she was under any threat. But our "heroes" were saying to Acker, "Do what we want, or an innocent party will suffer the consequences of your own conduct." That's what terrorists do. Taking your badge off before you do something immoral doesn't make it okay; you're still bound by common decency, or you forfeit the right to call yourself the goodguys, and you don't get to pick the badge up again and go on your merry way.

She totally went Scanners on his ass. The A story, with our heroes all kicking butt in their own way, was nifty. The B story, with the trial, was excrutiating to sit through. It just filler going nowhere, and went on and on and on. It was the first time I've ever been so bored that I wanted to FF through part of a Grimm ep, but I couldn't because it was on-demand. :/ Lots of good humorous moments, though, with Bud delightful as ever. But time for me to be a downer and drag the real world humorlessly into my fiction; since it was revealed that agents of the US government and military really have been torturing people, I have a viscerally negative reaction to any depiction of supposed goodguys abusing their enemies to get information. You do that, and you are no longer the good guys. Threatening the bad cop's innocent sister is *not* okay. Anyway, very glad that Juliette finally has something interesting to do on the show.

Watching the DVDs from my library to catch up on eps I missed. Although there are a number of things I like about this show, the thing that really kept me coming back is Robert Taylor's sublimely under-stated intensity. I do not understand how an actor can say so little, and yet leave no doubt in the viewer's mind about what the character is feeling. A thing I noticed: the only time Walt is warmly friendly is when he is play-acting to lull a witness or suspect into a damaging admission. That cracks me up. :D So, um, yeah. That was a thing I liked about this show that got cancelled. >:(

Am I hallucinating, or did I really just see a Depends commercial in which they're trying to get people to wear their adult diapers openly in public as a display of solidarity with Depends users? Here's a link. But I'm still half-convinced that I am hallucinating.

Everybody tends to blame network executives for the shows they like not doing well, but this seems to be one of the cases where it's true. I have not seen a commercial for this show since early in its first season, for one thing. They aren't trying to get the word out. But also, the half-assed commitment to 10-13 episodes per season is a big factor (I believe) in viewer dissatisfaction with the pace of the storylines. In real time, we've been strung along about Martha's death for 2 calendar years. But in terms of episodes aired? It's only been 1.5 TV seasons, which is a little over 1 year of real time at the pace of full seasons. If the story arcs haven't developed much, it's at least partially because they haven't had much in-show time to develop them. Also, just as a general complaint, I profoundly hate the way that so many shows are taking multi-week hiatuses in mid-season (Grimm), and sometimes even skipping multi-month spans between seasons (Battlestar Galactica). By the time they finally straggle back onto the air, I have trouble remembering where we were in the storylines, or even why I was once excited about that show in the first place. Longmire's big stretches between half-seasons similarly saps the momentum of viewer interest, and is the main reason I haven't remembered to watch Archer since some time last year.

I agree that killing his wife is an odd way to discourage Walt from remaining sherrif, but they couldn't have embroiled him in a scandal or anything like that. FIrstly, no one would believe Walt was up to no good, and secondly, it would just motivate Walt to exonerate himself. They had to take away his wish to be sheriff rather than his ability to be sheriff. That being said, this Rube Goldberg of a murder doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Barlow pays a guy to hire a guy who hires a guy to kill the wife of the man who's in his son's way? Is that right? It's so odd how this series can do so much so right, and then blow something obvious. No matter how incompetent he's supposed to be, I cannot believe that Ferg, a deputy, wouldn't know what "habeus corpus" means. It needn't even have come up in his deputy training, as anybody who's seen a few cop shows is familiar with that phrase. And was Beck's body naked in the coffin? And if so, why? And yet, I find something about this show mesmerizing, despite its many and painful flaws.