Grimm: 2x01 "Bad Teeth"

“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,

and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned”

Monroe: “Isn’t she supposed to be like not so alive?”

What a terrific season opener, quite a match for last season finale. Episode started right where it was left off, actually even a bit before that. The whole fight sequence was replayed. And once again we saw “woman in black” to be revealed as Kelly Burkhardt – Nick’s mother. Apparently she did not die in the car accident with her husband, it was her friend who was killed instead and mistaken for a Grimm, so Kelly had to “stay dead” and walk away to protect her son. And now she’s back. I really like this turn of event, totally unexpected and therefore very interesting.

Nick hasn’t seen his mother for 18 years, it is obviously hard for him to adjust to her all of a sudden being alive and cooking him breakfast and cleaning the house and almost killing his friends. I really hope she stays in Portland for awhile because I would love to learn more about her character.  “Is she good?” or “Is she not so good?” It took her 18 years to track those responsible for the death of her husband and her friend. Really? 18 years! Nick figured it out and found all of them except Kimura over the last part of season one. Her trying to get the coins off of Nick was also a bit suspicious and some of the shots of her face made it look like she has her own agenda, yet at the same time she’s been so nice to Nick and seemed very genuine. It might be my personal perception of how Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio played the part. Either way I am intrigued.

Come to think of it, we actually desperately needed a character like her to fill in some blanks in our knowledge of Wesen world, because so far we heard only bits and pieces. Aunt Marie died before she could say much of anything, if it wasn’t for Monroe Nick still might have been very much in the dark. It is season two now, and it wasn’t enough anymore to just drop words like “Royal families” or “Verrat” or “key”. So I find it so fitting that this character turned out to be Nick’s mother which added an additional layer to her character but also allowed writers to give us some explanation and background information without making it feel forced, because she is a Grimm and automatically has more expertise than many.

And indeed we learnt quite a lot. The ability to see Wesen of this world is inherited, but not specific to male or female line – (but just for the fun of it let’s follow the succession of ability [as we learned]: Nick’s great great grandmother Hilda, then Nick’s great grandmother, then Nick’s grandfather, then Kelly and Aunt Marie and now Nick (so woman, woman, man, woman, woman, man – I just might have figured it out). No one knows who’s got it and if they’ve got it at all. Women though know sooner than men. The impression I got from the pilot, is that Nick’s ability started to manifest because his aunt was dying, and that triggered the succession of the power to see evil [so to speak], but here we learn that it is not necessarily the case. Nick’s got it better though than his mother who learned about her ability at the age of ten. Poor child, that must have been horrendous, I guess the only thing that kept her sane was that her father was there to teach and explain.

Grimmology

Kimura had tattoos on his back - talk about an employer’s stamp. Wouldn’t it be smarter for security reasons not to have such huge sign of your affiliation on you back? Anyway Akira Kimura died and took with him the information on who betrayed Grimms 18 years ago (not that I matters all that much now) as well as the fact that there are two Grimms and not one. 

The Wesen of this season opener was Mauvais Dents a saber-toothed tiger like killing machine sent by Royal Families to kill Nick and steal the key. His “watch and play” approach to the case at hand was very different from some other Wesens we saw who can barely control their urges. This one is like a cat plans his actions and sets a trap for his target.

Meanwhile, Juliette is still in the coma and her condition is called “l’esprit ailleurs” or “spirit elsewhere” – no kidding. That whole dinner scene where Nick literally gets erased from Juliette’s memory was one creepy sequence. Friends and enemies working on both sides to “wake the sleeping beauty”. I loved the bit where Renard confronted Catherine about her daughter. It gave us a nice clue into what is his interest in Nick. Based on Renard Juliette ties Nick to Portland to his precinct to him – that makes sense.

Renard: “A Grimm on his own is dangerous for all of us.”

Catherine learned that first hand when Nick stopped by and threatened her acting more as a Grimm than a cop.

However watching Monroe and Rosalee working on cure was much more fun and added a light tone to otherwise dramatic episode.  

Some observations  

“You see, legend has it that there are seven keys, forged by the knights who fought for the seven royal families in the fourth crusade. When you put the maps together, they make one big map, leading to the location where the knights hid the precious wealth they took from Constantinople after they sacked and burned it. Those knights are our ancestors. Some of them worked for the seven royal families. Wesen fought for the royals and the royals needed the Grimms to control them, as they do now, but there was one thing in the treasure the knights hid.  There was one thing that was more powerful than anything anyone had ever seen. If the royal families got a hold of it, they could control the world. Royal Families are trying to regain control they had in the last century”.

(Check!)

New opening credits! The montage is good, but the voice over feels a bit forced and artificial.

Nick is still referring to his ability as “problem”.

Hank is having nightmares and popping pills – what’s next?

If Mauvais Dents works for Royal Families why would he be travelling in the locked container on the ship? Couldn’t he just fly?

“Dent” is masculine so the plural in French would be Mauvais Dents not “dentes”, as it was written in the books.

Memorable Quotes:

Kelly: “Who's Juliette?”

Monroe: “Oh, wow, so you two really haven't caught up in any significant way, I guess.”
 
Monroe: “Family reunions can be brutal. Our last one, we lost two cousins and a sheepdog. No one missed the cousins, you know”

Nick: “What about the coins?”
Kelly: “ They've already taken up too much of our lives. They need to be destroyed. The sooner you give them to me, the better.”
(I wouldn’t give them to her just yet)

Hank: “ I may not be awake, but I’m right”

(Poor Hank)

Kelly: “Then you were the one who returned the heads to mannheim.”

Nick: “You know about that?”
Kelly: “News travels fast.”
(Proud mom-Grimm of her son-Grimm)

Eric: “All you have to do is give us their names, and you will walk out of here. Well, maybe crawl out now, but at least you'll be out.

(He gets great lines, second great after Monroe)

Nick: “She said she doesn't know where Adalind is.”

Kelly: “Did you threaten to kill her?”
Nick: “Yeah, of course.”
Kelly: “Want me to take a crack at her?”
Nick: “No, she's telling me the truth.”
(Lovely afternoon conversation between a mother and a son)

Terrific episode! Lots of things happened and main plot has moved slightly forward, which can only be good. I hope they will keep up with the tone set in this episode.

Sol’s Rating: 5 out of 5