Directed by: Michael Waxman
Writers: Alan DiFiore & Dan E. Fesman

Picture credit: Daemon’s TV

 

Each episode begins with a quote and for today’s episode, inspiration is drawn from “Bluebeard” by Charles Perrault in 1697:

“There she paused for a while thinking…but the temptation was so great that she could not conquer it.” – “Bluebeard” by Charles Perrault  

Today’s episode begins with someone locking themselves in a house, before we see a woman am her hand through a glass window and run out into the dark down a bridge, and she’s scared, deathly scared in fact. She sees a tentacle monster and a buzzing saw blade and acts as if they’re attacking her, but we can see nothing is there. But then, a car knocks her down, and as the distraught driver goes to check on her, a shadowy figure appears and tells him to call 911 as the woman is still alive. The figure caresses her cheek and we see something happen between his touch and her, and she whispers for him to kiss her, but instead the figure kills her.

Its light when Nick, Hank and the ambulance etc arrive, and we see Leroy, the driver is being bandaged – er, slight continuity problem here, it wasn’t that close to bright morning when the accident happened, woops! But anyway, Leroy tells them about the accident, and that the figure disappeared.

From examining the body, Hank and Nick discover wounds in her arms not from being knocked down by the car and realize she was running from something.

Next up, a man walks into an empty hotel room with a briefcase. He gets a call, and tells the person that he will call when “its” finished. There’s a glimpse of a report of what looks to be Nick’s shooting of the Grimm Reaper in episode 1 – hello continuity, it’s always a pleasure to see you – before the guy takes out his own sickle/blade hidden in suitcase and transforms into a Reaper.

Harper is giving Nick a report on the body, and the most interesting thing is that there was no lung damage from the accident, but there was evidence of asphyxiation. Just as Nick realizes that they have a homicide, Hank walks in and Harper confirms Nick’s take. Hank tells them about the victim, Faith. She lives a mile away from the accident and a husband, Roy, with a record for spousal abuse; the reason Hank believes Faith was running.

Hank and Nick go to visit Roy at his job, where he immediately assumes Faith lodge a police complaint about him hitting her again. The guys inform him of his wife’s death and ask when he saw her last, and a visibly distraught Roy tells them he saw Faith last night. He says he was hungry, and wanted dinner, but Faith was on the computer talking to 322 friends via social media, I’m guessing, something Roy isn’t afraid of. They fought, and Faith left, but Roy says he stayed, but he has no alibi as he was waiting for Faith to return. He realizes that they think he killed Faith, and when they ask him for a line-up, he refuses.

Nick and Hank are reporting to Renard about Faith, about her credit cards being used at a bar, and Renard opines that this is beginning to sound like a battered wife wanting to break the cycle of abuse. There were no calls on her cell, but Nick thinks they should check her social media and sure enough, they find a picture posted from 11:37 the night before which leads them to an address as close to the bridge as her own house. It’s a Bed and Breakfast and they immediately go check it out.

It’s an enchanting house, along with a very beautiful Roadster parked in front. Inside, the owner, Billy, is telling them she came in late when he was getting ready for breakfast the next morning. Billy says he showed Faith a room and a garden, but she didn’t say. Billy says Faith seemed a little troubled, and as he walks past Hank to lead them to the garden, something happens, I think, because a bewildered expression comes over his face.

The garden is magical, like something out of Disney, until Hank steps on a little frog. Billy cringes and in the water of the pool, Nick sees Billy change into something supernatural. Nick gives Billy his card before they leave, and when they do, Billy eats the dead toad.

The Reaper comes to the precinct looking into the death of a friend who was shot by Nick. Wu takes the article to Renard, and asks for advice on how to handle the Reaper. Renard asks that Wu get his personal details, and that Wu tell him that Nick isn’t in, but that as soon as he returns, they will contact the Reaper.

Hank and Nick Return to the station, and as suspicious as Nick is about Billy, Hank isn’t. Nick walks right by the Reaper leaving, but neither recognize each other.

That night, Nick return to the trailer to do research and finds an entry in Marie’s diary about a Ziegvolk, who were responsible for the death of some women, and that she was not able to determine how this “oafish” man was attractive to beautiful women.
And cue Monroe; wonderful snarky Monroe.

Monroe has a story about a Ziegvolk, who he equates to actors. He has a story about one he knew in high school who was a nerd, yet got all the girls all over him. It is because of the pheromones they secrete, and if they touch someone, the person dies. They’re not killer though, because they’re players essentially.

Nick and Juliet are in a supermarket, and Juliet catches him staring at young couple kissing. Nick says he’s thinking about chemistry, and this launches them into a conversation about their first loves, and a romantic night together.

The next morning, Nick has a lab report stating that the glass in Faith’s arm was regular window glass and Hank says all the information he has on Billy is that he moved to the city about 18 months ago, and that he must have changed his name because he has no other information on him. Hank however also found a cluster of missing women and that launches them into an investigation of other clusters like this in other cities. They report to Renard their findings about different clusters in different cities, but of the women in the other cities, they were all found alive, pregnant with babies who had the same father. No one can link Billy to these other cities, for the women who were alive were kept isolated and gassed so they didn’t know what or who was holding them.

At the B&B Billy is prepping breakfast, only he takes it to the basement and not any of the rooms. There he gives women, trapped in cages, their food and then outside the room, turns gas lines on.

Outside, Hank is placing a tracking device on Billy’s roadster and Billy dressed to the nines appears and heads out. Unfortunately, he bypasses the car much to Hank’s disappointment, and while Nick heads out to follow Billy, Hank stays to check out the house and find the broken window they think Faith cut her hands on.

Er, by now guys, don’t you think he would have fixed it?

Billy makes a pit stop and eats his toad, and Nick sees him, while in the garden, Hank finds evidence of glass on the floor and sees a fixed window it could have come from. He goes inside. While following Billy, Nick sees him transform and ready to woo his ladies. Nick calls Monroe, asking for help and offering to pay him to follow Billy into a bar and to spy on him.

We cut to the Reaper returning to his room where Renard is waiting for him. Renard, we see is powerful enough, to make the Reaper kneel before him even as he claims his revenge for the death of his fellow Reaper. Renard denies it, and cuts off his ear and orders him to go home and not come back.

Monroe appears, and is eager to get involved in “Grimm work” as he terms it. Nick tells him that Billy ate a toad, which makes him a herder as well as a breeder. All Nick cares about is he’s a serial rapist. Monroe heads inside.

Inside the house, Hank finds a window with evidence of being repaired.

Inside the bar, Monroe is enjoying himself as he moves in closer to Billy who is chatting up a girl at the bar. Hank calls telling Nick what he’s found and that he’s going searching for DNA.

Meanwhile, Billy is touching the girl he’s chatting up, which changes things for the girl and she is completely magicked under his spell. Monroe it appears is falling under Billy’s spell until he realizes it.

Inside the house, Hank heats moaning coming from the basement through a vent in the floor and follows it down to where Billy earlier took food to. It becomes recognisable as a woman’s moan and when Hank goes into the basement, he unfortunately breathes in the gas Billy floods the place with. He sees a four poster bed which gets transformed into a snake, which he thinks attacks hi, and he falls, glimpsing a woman in a cage.

Monroe appears, scared at the effect Billy is having on him inside the bar. While they’re arguing, Billy appears and despite Nick ordering Monroe to go home, he goes back into the bar to try and chat up the woman Billy was talking to earlier and crashes and burns.

Outside, Nick is trying to call Hank to warn him Billy is returning, but Hank is close to unconscious. His phone though is within reach of one of the women in the cages.
Nick follows Billy home, and sees that Hank is not yet in the car. This time he calls the station to track Hank’s cell, while inside Billy goes down to his basement and released gas into his torture room again. Meanwhile, outside, Nick sees a woman (from the bar) go inside to the house and asks that the station call him back with Hank’s position when they have it. Inside, Nick interrupts Billy’s “date” with the woman and asks to talk to the woman, who doesn’t really know what’s going on. While they go outside, Billy grows angry, knowing he’s in trouble and stalks off, while outside, Nick tells the woman that she’s walked into a police investigation and asks her to leave. Bewildered she does, while the station calls back and informs Nick that Hank is still in the house.

He goes back in, gun drawn, but Billy is nowhere to be found. He tries Hank’s cell again and hearing the ringtone leads him to the basement prison cell. Screaming for Hank, he finally hears Hank and sees the women in the cage, unfortunately, Billy locks him in with Hank and turns on the gas. Hank wants to get the women out now, but Nick wants to shut off the gas first.

Upstairs, however, Billy who is trying to escape is waylaid by the woman from the bar who, under the spell of his touch, can’t stay away. They head to his car, while inside, Hank is having delusions of things like the door handle trying to attack him. Together, he and Nick succeed in breaking down the outside door and shutting of the gas.

The next morning, the women from the cages are being taken care of by the paramedics, while Hank reports that Billy is completely gone. Inside their car, however, they try the tracker Hank planted on Billy’s car and follow him to a beautiful park, still with the woman from the night before. The woman is completely enamoured by Billy, and everything seems fine, until Billy sees Hank in the crowd and flees …only to run into Bick. Cornered, he goes off the path, transforms and escapes by jumping over buildings and into the road, where he is knocked down by a car.

Karma I approve of!

As he is carted off by the paramedics, we see the female paramedic caress Billy’s forehead and his magic begin to work on her, giving him his escape route.

Aside from continuity snafus with timing of crime scenes that amused me, I enjoyed this episode immensely. The writers took the story of Bluebard and transported it to the world of Grimm in a downright creepy way, amplified by how normal and non-threatening Billy looks. What I’ve consistently enjoyed with this show is the atmosphere that they created with what is in essence a very simple story. Music, lighting, and their choice of guest stars is getting much better. 

Another talent of the writers of this show is the skill with which they felesh out the bag guys, no matter how little screen time they may have. Today’s epsode is Renard’s turn to shine, and we that instead of simply being someone out to kill Nick because he is a Grimm, Renard id powerful enough to have Reapers bow before him and heed his wanrings to leave Nick alone. Whatever is behind Renard’s interest in Nick just grew so much more interesting in a few scenes.