Grimm: 3x09 “Red Menace”

“To kill Koschei the Deathless, first you must find his soul,

which is hidden in an egg, in a duck in a lead chest

buried beneath an oak tree.

Hank: “Sounds like his sins
have come back to haunt him.”

This time Grimm’s Powers That Be turned to Russian folklore for inspiration. Koschei the Deathless, the famous antagonist in Russian fairy tales, is a Wesen of the week whose touch can be worse than death but it can also heal. 

Worked once for FSB as a deadly assassin he is now trying to atone for his sins by healing people. He doesn’t take money for treating sick people, more than that, he sacrifices himself bit by bit because every session weakens him more and more. Like Koschei from the fairy tales this one is also hard to kill. Weak, stabbed and poisoned he was still able to go out on his own terms - saving the daughter of a man he once killed. Speak about redemption.

Nice twist with the killer, it was smart to draw attention to the wife when in fact the lover was to blame. The fact that we never saw the face (both at the hospital and when the poison was added to the bottle) was a direct hint that the wife was not the killer. But I totally missed it, or to be honest haven’t thought about it while watching, because the case of the week didn’t grab my attention that much. Radiation poisoning, fistulas and blisters were too much graphic for my taste. But what I loved about this case is Captain being involved in the investigation. I like it when Sean works with the team. The case also delivered some delicious scenes. Like the one when Nick, Hank and sergeant Wu returned to the office looking like aliens or the one during interrogation where Myshkin woged and realized Nick was a Grimm and he asked who the others were. Hank simply answers “No”, whereas Sean says “It’s a long story”. It is long indeed.

The scene in the trailer was a hoot as well. Monroe stole all the good lines, as usual. It also shown us that even if technically, on the surface, Nick is sort of kind of working with Sean, he still doesn’t trust him enough to bring him to the trailer. Good call! I wish we knew what Nick really thinks about this whole deal with Royal Families and the fact that Sean enlisted him in his camp without actually discussing it much or telling what is really going on. Sean thinks “he has a Grimm” and takes is as a done deal. I am not so sure Nick looks at it the same way. Time will tell. 

Sean offered his protection to Adalind, as did Victor few episodes back. The only difference is that even though Victor might suspect she’s pregnant he still doesn’t know that the baby is royal blood. As Sean said she has no value for Royal Families, and she can’t protect herself, not yet at least. I hope she is smart enough to make the right choice. We’ll see which side she picks. I hope she will work for Victor while secretly working with Sean. That would be an interesting turn of events, because quite frankly right now she doesn’t have much to do, and this pregnancy plot is getting very boring.

Juliette’s friend and Fuchsbau by nature runs away from abusive husband and comes to Juliette and Nick for help and shelter. She is obviously terrified of her husband, who is a Klaustreich, and is afraid of what he might do to her friends.  Klaustreich are possessive and prone to violence, they are known in Wesen community for being jerks. We saw one of those in season one. Boy! He is in for a big Grimm-surprise. To be continued…

Some observations  

Opening credits rolled 10 minutes into the episode. 

Hank’s accident was only 8 weeks ago, it felt like 8 years or so – that much out of nowhere his therapy came to me.

And now Nick can run as if hell is chasing him and not even break a sweat. Cool! 

Captain Renard speaks Russian. Of course he does! Grimm is very diverse show languages wise and it was only a matter of time before we heard Russian. Sasha Roiz was linguistically fabulous as always, he spoke Russian much better than “Russians”; the only exception will be Mark Ivanir (Myshkin).

Nick saw Myshkin transform while healing, so why Sean didn't? I thought a Wesen can always see a Wesen.

Sean spent a couple of years in Moscow when he was young. Interesting.

Rasputin was a Wesen!

Sean is connected to the Resistance in Moscow.

Alicia Lagano, who plays Juliette’s friend Alicia, reminded me that I will actually miss The Client List.

Memorable Quotes:

Sean: “Well, the Verrat paid a personal call.”

Nick: “They found out you were there.”

Sean: “Let's just say there was an indiscretion, but we handled it.”

Nick: “I'm guessing you didn't make any arrests.”

Monroe: “Stalin... looks like he used Malin Fatal as bodyguards. That's nice.”

Monroe: “Rasputin was a Koschie.”

Nick: “You know anything about them?”

Monroe: “Huh? No. Koschie are, you know, Russian, which means they're Greek to me.”

Sean: “You okay?”

Nick: “They cleared us.”

Hank:  “We feel like idiots.”

Sean: “No comment.”

Sol’s rating: if we forget about the horror of radiation poisoning, I give it a 4.

What did you think? As usual, comments are welcome!