S04.E03: The Last Fight

[GracieV]

I wonder if Wesen have  unusual "extra" eye cones/rods as they can all see each other? Or is the mechanism different for them. I wonder what causes a Grimm's eyes to look like the depths of hell to Wesen?

Edited November 10, 2014 by GracieV

[Rahul]

It’s driving me crazy that Adalind is stuck in a dungeon & her black pants & shirt are still pristine.

 

Crazier still is that a huge stone in her cell can be poked to instantaneously shift and yield passage. And the loony in the next cell had my rolling my eyes. It's probably Viktor in disguise though. If not, this show has officially become too hokey for my taste.

 

So I guess we know where Trubel is going when her stint in Portland is over.

 

What makes you think she's going anywhere? The writers may have brought her on in a recurring capacity initially, but it seems to me they've decided to permanently integrate her into the Scooby Gang, to my dismay.

 

 

I now believe that humans are the minority in Portland.

 

Wasn't their some vague explanation last season why Wesen are drawn to Portland? I seem to recall some such line of dialogue thrown in to cover the writer's collective asses.

 

I realize that this is Grimm, not the most realistic of shows, but the fact that an early forties actress is playing the mother of an early forties actor really bugs me.  

 

That's Hollywood. It holds women to different standards of youth and beauty. I've seen this tired trope time and time again. In any case, you won't find me complaining about adding more hexenbiests to the mix. I'll take my magick and witchcraft wherever I can get it, especially now that Witches of East End has been canceled.

[johntfs]

 

That's Hollywood. It holds women to different standards of youth and beauty. I've seen this tired trope time and time again. In any case, you won't find me complaining about adding more hexenbiests to the mix. I'll take my magick and witchcraft wherever I can get it, especially now that Witches of East End has been canceled.

 

They kind of hung a lantern on that with the "she's had some work done" line.  More likely hexenbeists probably have spells/powers that allow them unnatural longevity and youthful looks.

 

One thing I loved was Renardmom's declaration "To beat a hexenbeist like Adalind, you need a hexenbeist like me."  At which point we cut to Adalind freaked out and stuck in her cell.  It was almost like the show itself responding with "Why?"  I'd need to watch some Season 1 episode again, but has Adalind ever been clever or self-sufficient?  She's mostly seemed to survive because of the resources/efforts of other people.  I fully expect that in an upcoming episode, Adalind wll show up at Nick and Juliette's home to talk to Nick (who will be out) and Juliette will just start beating her to death with a skillet.

[candall]

As for Renard's introductions, he's actually trusting them with the knowledge that this woman is his mom. Not that Elizabeth can't  take care of herself. It's that Viktor and company are always looking for Elizabeth, in the way they are searching for Diana. It's knowledge of where and who she is that can be dangerous to know.

Well then let's hope Monroe won't go spilling the beans to Bud.

[Hanahope]

So, first, telling Bud about Nick losing his Grimmness was stupid. Bud has no filter and can't lie to save his life, let alone Nick's.  Word will be out in no time. 

 

Nick has to get his Grimmness back.  It looks like "grimmness" isn't just seeing Wesen, its also having some extra strength to fight them (like Buffy).  If everyone is now going to know Nick isn't a Grimm, but could potentially get it back, his life will be in danger.  Plus, even his knowledge puts him potentially in danger.  It does look like Adalind's suppressing the grimmness wasn't just affecting his eyes/strength, but also the extra hearing and whatever happened him when zombiefied.

 

I was surprised Truble didn't tell Nick about the Fibbie Wesen and her offer.  I would have thought she trusted Nick enough to know he could be trusted with that information and it wouldn't hurt him.  She was smart enough to keep her mouth shut when the Fibbie asked her if Nick knew she was a Grimm.  Since Nick already knows about Wesen (which the Fibbie might have assumed he didn't), then he needs to know about them and this group.  They could be working for the Royals (since afterall, the Fibbie knew that the rogue Fibbie that shot Renard was a Wesen, and since he was working for the Royals maybe she is too).

 

I'm curious as to why Adalind is somehow soul-attached to Nick,but not to Juliet, whose likeness she assumed to de-grimm Nick.

 

Amazing how quickly Nick was able to get all his medical exams performed.  Looked to be all within a day.  Since when is medical treatment that expedient?

 

Maybe we will see the boxer again, seemed like a decent guy.

[iMonrey]

 

What makes you think she's going anywhere? The writers may have brought her on in a recurring capacity initially, but it seems to me they've decided to permanently integrate her into the Scooby Gang, to my dismay.

 

I don't know for sure but I'm still assuming Trubel will eventually be written off. She is not in the new opening title sequence (whereas Wu is, just as of this season), which indicates she's not a contract player. I can't imagine they would make such a drastic change in the premise, having her as the new Grimm while Nick sits out on the sidelines. Even if Nick gets his Grimmabilities back, I don't see them having two Grimms in the same town indefinitely. It's redundant.

[tpel]

I'm not bothered by Renardmom not looking her age. We saw Adelind putting leeches on her face in season 1, apparently as a beauty treatment, so I suppose a skilled Hexenbiest like Elizabeth has her method of looking youthful. I'm really enjoying the rapport between Renard and his mom. They seem to . . . dare I say it . . . like and care about each other, in a healthy way --  not something we've seen a lot of in Hexenbiests or Royals. Though she looks like his sister, she acts like his mother, telling him to stay in bed, being tickled to have a grand-baby, etc.

 

I was annoyed at the poor judgement the gang showed in telling Bud that Nick had been de-Grimmed. But then they all got that look on their faces, like what the hell were we thinking, so that made it better -- at least they knew that they'd screwed up.

 

I was amused at the beginning, when Juliette and Wu are hauling Nick off to the doctor, and Nick says, "I'm not going to fall down." and Juliette replies, "You kind of just did." 

 

It was nice seeing Trubel with Clay, interacting with someone around her own age for a change.

Edited November 10, 2014 by tpel

[jhlipton]

I'm hoping Quantico but based on that meet-and-greet we saw this ep I'm thinking that FBI lady may be working outside of her professional capacity.

I'm fairly sure she said that her group was outside of the FBI.

 

 

I guess it would have been too on-the-nose to name Clay's character Ferdinand, or have him dream about a career as a florist. I had a feeling the mom was awful (I got an Unbreakable vibe from her), but I was nonetheless horrified when she started beating her son.  And when he damaged his own arm -- was he just redirecting his rage, or was he injuring himself in some permanent way to keep from boxing?

I got the feeling that he was making sure he couldn't box again.

If they arrest his mom, how are they going to explain how she killed two fit men, and how she made the holes...

 

 

Am I the only one who caught the “Raging Bull” reference?

No!

[Shanna Marie]

While it does seem like the headaches are part of the spell linking Adalind and Nick, from what the ophthalmologist found, it sounds like there might also be an issue with his Grimm powers being blocked being part of what's causing him pain -- there's something there that should be working but isn't. So that may be a factor in what they end up choosing to do. He can't be "normal" without it causing him pain or physical harm because "normal" isn't a natural state for him.

[anamika]

What makes you think she's going anywhere? The writers may have brought her on in a recurring capacity initially, but it seems to me they've decided to permanently integrate her into the Scooby Gang, to my dismay.

 

Like the poster upthread said, having two Grimms would be sort of redundant and the show is already bloated with too many characters and plots to focus on two Grimms. It would be different if the second Grimm was an older, wiser Grimm to contrast Nick (Like Nick's mom), but teenage Grimm who is also learning is just another Nick but with a sadder background.

 

It was hilarious when Hank said that Nick had to teach/train Trubel. Teach her what exactly? She's already more bad-ass than Nick at fighting. She can box, broke someone's neck and she cut off a wesen's head! And they just look at the books in the trailer when they have to know more about a new wesen. I mean, Nick just found out about how wesen know he's a Grimm at the end of last season. She knows as much as he does at this point and technically is an even better Grimm than he is.

 

I do think she will leave by the second half of the season which will be most likely when Nick will get his Grimmness back (Ugh!) . And I think this agent Chavez deal is her out. She will make guest appearances after that, like Nick's mom.

 

 

If they arrest his mom, how are they going to explain how she killed two fit men, and how she made the holes...

 

I thought it was the boxing manager who was killing everyone. He killed the trainer and the trainer (Who was also a bull wesen like the mom) seemed to be scared of the manager.

[mythoughtis]

I want Nick to get his Grimmness back, and I want Trouble to leave and take Juliette with her.   Nick needs to be paired with a Wesen .  However, not a bad one like Aunt Marie fell for.

[theatremouse]

While it does seem like the headaches are part of the spell linking Adalind and Nick, from what the ophthalmologist found, it sounds like there might also be an issue with his Grimm powers being blocked being part of what's causing him pain -- there's something there that should be working but isn't.

I did not interpret what the ophthalmologist said about his rods and cones to have any correlation to the pain. I thought the "special vision" and "blocked" spiel basically meant: even on an MRI she can tell why he can't see them woge anymore. And that factored in to his disorientation because if he usually can see things people can't and now suddenly he can't see them either, well that's disorienting, but also usually impossible to describe to someone else (in a general sense, obviously, he knows the difference since it's specific to seeing wesen). They were sort of fudging it like the visual sensations in question were just to do with him being all "I'm in a dungeon", in terms of what he described to the doctor, but I basically thought they were trying to imply some visible-to-science-without-magic to his deGrimmed state. I mean, I guess it could be both, also causing the headaches, but from what we saw he only seemed to be in pain when he did the mind-meld thing with Adalind. There didn't seem to be any indication he had any other less blinding headaches since the de-Grimming.

Edited November 11, 2014 by theatremouse

[jbrecken]

It was weird that when they were researching the bovine wesen the word minotaur never got used.

[anamika]

I did not interpret what the ophthalmologist said about his rods and cones to have any correlation to the pain. I thought the "special vision" and "blocked" spiel basically meant: even on an MRI she can tell why he can't see them woge anymore.

 

I think she said he had an inflammation in that area which was blocking the light from getting to those extra rods and cones. Any inflammation in that area is going to lead to excruciating headaches. It's like having sinusitis or a migraine. Of course, the headaches also have a magical reason since Adalind is also experiencing them and Nick is getting to see through her eyes. But I thought it was nice that they tried to give a scientific reason for both Nick being able to see Wesen as well as his headaches.

[Rahul]

I don't know for sure but I'm still assuming Trubel will eventually be written off. She is not in the new opening title sequence (whereas Wu is, just as of this season), which indicates she's not a contract player. I can't imagine they would make such a drastic change in the premise, having her as the new Grimm while Nick sits out on the sidelines. Even if Nick gets his Grimmabilities back, I don't see them having two Grimms in the same town indefinitely. It's redundant.

 

That was my initial assumption too, but I'm not so sure anymore. I agree having Trubel around would be superflous once Nick's Grimm powers return, but I'm not sure her exit is a certainty anymore. Not with these writers, anyway. Perhaps the justification for having her stick around is that Portland seems to have an infestation problem--afterall, it seems like one third of its citizens are Wesen.

 

Did anyone rewatch the episode to determine if the guy in the cell adjacent to Adalind's was really Alexis Denisoff in a fake, scraggly beard and awful getup? I noticed his fingernails were long and filthy, so I ruled out it being Vicktor in disguise but who knows.

[hincandenza]

One thing that's been irking me all week is how the tetrachromatic vision (or was it pentachromatic?) that the doctor claimed to have detected in Nick's eyes was just thrown out there.  Not because I mind a sci-fi wank to make the supernatural somehow plausible, such as Juliette dabbling in the Wesen DNA in season 1, but because the doctor was far too nonchalant!  Some guy walks into your office with vision issues and headaches, you find out he has extra cones in his eyes... and you're like "Eh, take two aspirin and call me in the morning"?!?!

 

Tetrachromatic genes were mostly theoretical, believed to be a possible consequence of genetics, but as it happens they've apparently found all of two women in the world so far to demonstrate tetrachromatic cones.  They haven't even proven yet that their resulting vision is especially different, but only one is publicly known (the other hidden behind a number for anonymity).  I know this in particular because I just stumbled across this Metafilter thread about the subject today; I was aware of tetrachromacy as existing and being essentially the female flip side of male colorblindness.

 

But even before reading that thread, my own layman's knowledge told me that if I was a doctor and a man walked in with tetrachromacy- or god help us, pentachromacy if that's what they mentioned- I would already be authoring my Nobel Prize speech in my head, not waving him out the door.  And it's always irked me in TV shows when doctors see a patient demonstrating something almost otherworldy, and seem utterly bored by it all.  Heck, post-Zombiefying didn't some doctor giving Nick a full physical seem stunned that he was jogging on a treadmill while showing signs of being literally* the fittest human being on the planet?  Not even worthy of a "Wow!  Uh, I'd like to run some more tests, maybe get some grant money, and a tenured chair at a prestigious university"? 

 

TV doctors are literally* the least intellectually curious people on earth.

 

* Ann Perkins

[DeeDee79]

The only thing that bothers me about Trubel is the fact that people still refer to her by that ridiculous nickname. I hope they drop that moniker in the near future. I do want Nick to recover his powers sooner rather than later; it was painful watching him flounder around and depend on her to help them figure out who the Wesen was in this case. I would like to see Clay again; they had pretty good chemistry together. It would be interesting to see Teresa befriend a Wesen since she hasn't been exposed to as many good ones as Nick has.

[anamika]

TV doctors are literally* the least intellectually curious people on earth.

 

Think of all the weird things the ME comes across. Dead people coming alive, glowing skin, strange infectious diseases, worms in the eye, mummified corpses etc. The list goes on. She could publish hundreds of papers just on all the strange cases that land on her table. I would add Juliette shrugging aside the alien DNA she found. New DNA! Just imagine how exciting that discovery would be in real life. A Nature paper right there.

 

So the doctor not being excited about the tetrachromatic vision is just par for the course in this show. It's a bit like the X-files in this regard.

[DeeDee79]

So the doctor not being excited about the tetrachromatic vision is just par for the course in this show. It's a bit like the X-files in this regard.

 

How so? If you're referring to Scully's habit of downplaying the strange and unusual in order to find a rational explanation than I completely agree. After determining that Nick's eyes were outside of the norm of normal human anatomy that there should have been a little more curiousity on the physician's part.

Edited November 14, 2014 by DeeDee79

[anamika]

How so? If you're referring to Scully's habit of downplaying the strange and unusual in order to find a rational explanation than I completely agree. After determining that Nick's eyes were outside of the norm of normal human anatomy that there should have been a little more curiousity on the physician's part.

 

It was not just Scully. There was a strange nonchalance among the other doctors and scientists regarding all the strange stuff they would come across. Young looking guy killing people, eating their livers, 100 years old with elongating arms? No problem. We will just put him in prison and then release him later for good behavior. Alien abductions, strange worms living in ice, stored heads in ice freezers killing people. Everyone just accepts it and moves along.

[DeeDee79]

It was not just Scully. There was a strange nonchalance among the other doctors and scientists regarding all the strange stuff they would come across. Young looking guy killing people, eating their livers, 100 years old with elongating arms? No problem. We will just put him in prison and then release him later for good behavior. Alien abductions, strange worms living in ice, stored heads in ice freezers killing people. Everyone just accepts it and moves along.

 

Too true! Despite Mulders off the wall presentation at his parole hearing Tooms should have never been released. Unfortunately everyone was content to just paint Mulder as the eccentric instead of looking a little closer at was going on. Interesting how he was always the only one that was right all along.

[Mars477]

"To beat a Hexenbiest like Adalind, you need a Hexenbiest like me."

 

Immediately cut to Adalind locked in a dungeon.