Grimm: 4x02 “Octopus Head”

“A Man’s real possession is his memory.

In nothing else is he rich,

In nothing else is he poor.”

Nick: “Be careful!”

Trubel: “I know. I'm the only Grimm in town.”

She might be the only Grimm in town, but she is not the police. After she confirmed the suspect is Wesen, there was no reason why Hank and Nick couldn't run the surveillance themselves. Instead they left her there with no car, no money, no weapon (granted, she doesn't need one), so she could do their police work for them. Come on! 

Reign: 2x04 “The Lamb and the Slaughter”

Kenna: “We were forced to be together anyway. What a surprising journey that was.”

You can judge by the lateness of this review how very unimpressed I was with this episode.

The theme of this one was people forcing themselves to do things they didn’t want. That usually isn’t pretty.

Grimm: 4x01 “Thanks for the Memories”

“Knowledge is power”

Nick: “It's weird, you know, not being weird anymore, just being a regular cop”

Welcome back Grimmsters! It’s season 4! Finally! 

Grimm might have lost the tradition of finishing the season and starting the next one with the endless “to be continued” loop, but one other tradition lives no matter what. Every season finale and next season opener Nick’s house gets trashed. Someone always brakes in, someone is always getting shot at or doing the shooting, vases and furniture end up broken and sometimes someone dies. This time it was all of the above. 

Reign: 2x03 "Coronation"

Francis: “I want the same world as you do, the better one. And the only way to build it is together. We do greater things when we act as one, when we trust each other as equals. This is not a coronation for a king. It is for a king and queen.” 

For an episode called “Coronation” the coronation took only about 3 minutes of its entire length. But the ceremony itself was not as important as the state of mind and state of marriage of our royal couple by the time they got to that finish line. They went into it together, hand in hand, united by the idea of making this world a better place and being different kind of rulers.

Reign: 2x02 “Drawn and Quartered”

“Same thing happens every plague. Justice suffers and dies with the rest of us.” 

The plague has come and has already gone, the pandemic didn’t last as long as it might have been expected. Things have pretty much come back to normal. The loved ones were buried and  people were dancing and drinking and celebrating the safe return of their King. 

Reign: 2x01 "The Plague"

Catherine: “Welcome to your rule, my queen. And welcome to the real France.”

Mary on the throne of France, alone, gazing at an empty throne next to hers…. What a haunting image of things to come, because it will almost always be like that, well of course if history is any indication here.

Reign started its sophomore year on quite a strong note. The theme followed the main idea behind the season one finale: power shifting to two young kids, who just starting to get a grasp of what being a ruling monarch is.

Grimm: 3x22 “Blonde Ambition”

“Turn back, turn back, thou pretty bride,

within this house thou must not abide.

For here do evil things betide.”

Trubel: “If you could choose to be a Grimm or not, what would you do?”

You don’t need to be super strong to take out a Grimm, all you need is a woman. Here it was “chercher la femme” in action. Prep some potion, smoke some fumes through the witchy hat, add sex to the mix and you got yourself a recipe for Grimm no more. What a simple way, although a bit easy, not to mention ridiculous, but who cares? It’s the consequences that matter.

Reign: 1x22 “Slaughter of Innocence”

Henry: “Betraying someone you love blackens your soul. It's a weight you carry all of your days.”

It seems as almost every single television series this year decided to pass on the big cliffhanger in their respective season finales. All the shows that I watch tied up the plots nicely, opened doors for new possibilities and strangely didn’t leave me hanging. I kept thinking about times when every season of Alias ended with me saying “Wow!” followed by “How am I ever going to wait until fall?” This year I haven’t said it once. 

Reign’s first season finale wasn't an exception, as it left things in quite an organized manner. No ‘on the edge of the seat’, no ‘I can’t wait to see what happens next’. Well, I do want to see what happens next, but I CAN wait.

It doesn’t mean I didn’t like the episode. I liked it quite a lot. It felt a bit slow, but at the same time appropriate, since the episode took its time and paid attention to every character and each story and sub-plot somehow was nicely brought to an end. The episode resolved the main issue, set up several new developments for the next season; it surprised me few times, and it even had a total OMG moment that I didn’t see coming. Let's look at an episode more closely.

Grimm: 3x21 “The Inheritance”

“‘No,’ said the King. ‘I had rather die than place 

you in such great danger as you must 

meet with in your journey”

Rosalee: “I have this feeling something awful is going to happen.”

Of course it will. It is a finale, a wedding with all sorts of wesen attending, not to mention two  Grimms, and that very special guest in disguise that no one invited. Hell will certainly break loose. But I believe that will be the next episode. Let’s catch up on what happened in this, penultimate one. 

Reign: 1x21 “Long Live the King”

Francis: “There are risks that you take... for the people that you love. You used to know that.”

For a penultimate episode this one felt disjointed. The task of the last few episodes is usually to tie up the loose sub-plots and to introduce new ones that will be developed in the next season. I think it somewhat failed at both.