Grimm
Fridays @ 9/8c on NBC
Tarantella (#111)
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This week’s episode of the Portland-based Grimm lived up to the previous ones, but it wasn’t much more than that. Of course, the guest appearance of Amy Acker (Angel, Dollhouse) was a highlight as well as the use of Broken Social Scene’s Sweetest Kill during the first not-so-sweet kill scene (it involves vomiting acid into the victim’s mouth). However, Grimm is unsurprisingly falling into the trap that most episodic series fall into. Each episode is simply more of the same. Occasionally there might be a sort of “sweeps” episode where the writers pull out all the stops and put on a spectacular show, but from week to week it’s a simple formula of death, investigation, red herring, discovery, capture. That’s not to say that the show is boring or perfunctory. In fact, Grimm’s modernization and particular interpretation of classic fairy tales is always interesting and at times brilliant.
In Tarantella we meet a Spinitod, a sort of Black Widow. Every five years she must kill three young men within the course of a few days time. This is to halt her natural accelerated aging. These female Spinitods don’t want to kill these men, but often once they start it is nearly impossible to stop. In the end, Nick is able to stop her from killing again and she runs out of time to stop the aging, but he notices that her daughter is showing signs of coming into her own which could be a concern in the future.
In Nick’s personal life he deals with the creatures who are fascinated by a real live Grimm after his house gets egged. He informs a couple of them that he won’t hurt them if they don’t give him reason to. A bit of an anticlimactic ending, yet an interesting dynamic for the future. Juliette even unwittingly compares him to the scary old man on the street.
Overall, the episode worked and had some nice moments like when we find out the murderous Spinitod is actually quite literally a soccer mom with a minivan and that while female Spinitods usually eat their mates, true love has kept her from killing her husband. How sweet.
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