Grimm: 5x05 “The Rat King”

“Rats! They fought the dogs, and killed the cats”

Rosalee: “I think it means the whole is worse than the sum of its parts.”

According to TV Line’s report Grimm dipped to series low with this one…. but I rather liked the episode. Actually I liked it quite a lot. So for me the whole was better than some of its parts. And, yes even the giant rat didn’t change that.

The case of the week went from violent bullying to more violent bullying and ended up with Grimm administering his one version of electroshock therapy to a bunch of rat-people in the form of one King-size rat. Yes, it was exactly that ridiculous! So, aside from providing some fun moments (all of Monroe’s as usual) and only confirming (what I knew) that Carlson Young of Scream the TV series can not act or rather acts on one note, the case was meh…. at best.

So let’s move to the good parts.

One can assume that Trubel got her fake identities and all those stamps in the passport back when she kind went to protect Josh (what happened to him by the way?) but instead was working for Chavez. Then she briefly came back, but since Grimm is critical to their cause she was brought back and that’s were we learned about the uprising and Meisner working with Chavez.

Now, that we are up to speed to ‘previously on’ let’s move to the aftermath of Trubel meeting the Big Bad. Wearing the body armor and heavily bitten she literally fell into Nick’s arms and ended up in the hospital. The explanation of her condition that Nick gave to the doctors was very smart. Just two words “police undercover” and it was literally the answer to any follow-up questions they might have had.

The huge minus of all this pleasant mess was Nick’s police skills. Bringing her to a hospital – good idea. Leaving her there without so much as a patrolman at her door (considering she’s undercover police officer) - sloppy mistake. Come on. That nurse screamed BAD and Nick with his perfect hearing didn’t hear it!

Thankfully Adalind was smart enough to trust Meisner and so did Nick (though he mostly trusted Adalind and was scared for Trubel). Meisner is a good ally to have, and that fight was splendid!

By the way, how did the nurse find Trubel so quickly? And what would they want with Trubel’s brains? I can only assume they think that where her powers are and want to use it for themselves. YAK, but isn’t at all crazy, all things considering.

I thought Nick knew that Meisner helped Adalind. Why did I think that? I have no clue, but it turned out he didn’t. The problem is that every character holds a piece of information and no one is willing to share or even thinks to bring it up. Like why wouldn’t they all get together in the Spartan warehouse that is now Nick’s place and put the cards on the table, if not for the sake of the story, but at least for our sanity, because it would have been nice to know what the heck is going on. So far it looks like Meisner and Co. are fighting the uprising in the form of something so unspeakable that even a Grimm barely got away. 

Some observations  

How cool was Trubel’s bike! Can it fly?

I laughed out loud when Nick when to take a look at the bike and killed bunch of barrels in his garage by mistake.

The question about how exactly did Trubel know where to find Nick’s new house was asked, but not answered.

Among Trubel’s identities were: Lauren Cole from Portland (USA), Novara Gianna from Florence (Italy) and Rebecca Ryan from Calgary (Canada).

Among countries travelled were Malta, Spain and bunch of others.

The birthday on the fake ID’s was always the same - July 23^rd 1993, which makes Trubel 22 years old. I thought she was younger. Did we know how old exactly is she?

The fridge door that led to the tunnels and under-dump house was cool!

Still not sure what they are doing with Andrew Dixon (the future mayor) and why he so badly needs Sean to endorse him.

“These Reinigen have little genetic diversity. In their woged state, they appear to stimulate

the growth of cancer-like cells. As these cells cannot differentiate which body is the original vector, they merge into each other, causing the individual to become part of the greater whole."

WOW! The writers are grasping at straws…. 5 seasons of Grimm and Wesen are getting peculiar and peculiar.

We all remember how powerful Diana is, so why Meisner didn’t send her instead of Trubel? She sure would have had better luck considering all the magic.

What's up with Adalind and Meisner? There was not the sparks between them, there was fire!

The number of the episode was Trubel’s (a.k.a. Lauren’s) apartment. 

 

Memorable Quotes:

Wu: “I checked Lauren Cole's apartment. Address is real. Name's on the mailbox. Mailbox is empty. Her apartment's on the fifth floor, but it is a secure building.”

Hank: “So you didn't get inside. Oh, I got inside. Couldn't get in the apartment. The way to get in is to break in, and since you wanted to do this incognito, didn't push it. But somebody's gone to a lot of trouble... the other trouble... To make Lauren Cole seem real.”

Nick: (about the victims) “They're pretty traumatized.”

Wu: “So are their clothes.”

Sol’s rating: though ‘Trubel fighting THE fight while our heroes catching rats’ isn’t the perfect scenario, I give this episode a 4 because I loved it.