The second season finale of Grimm (Tuesday, 10/9C) – Goodnight, Sweet Grimm – finds Portland in the midst of its very own zombie apocalypse – Wesen style.
There a lot of stuff going in Goodnight, Sweet Grimm: Baron Samedi (Reg E. Cathey) has turned a lot of people into Wesen-style zombies and they’re beginning to wreak havoc; Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) and Rosalee’s (Bree Turner) relationship is kicking it up a notch; things are going really well for Nick (David Giuntoli)and Juliet (Bitsie Tulloch); and Frau Pech and (Mary McDonald-Lewis) and Stefania (Shohreh Agdashloo) ramp up their fight over Adelind’s (Claire Coffee) royal baby. To further complicate matters, Captain Renard’s (Sasha Roiz) brother, Eric (James Frain), is in town – ostensibly on family business.
One of the reasons that Grimm works is that the characters are increasingly well drawn. We care about couples Nick and Juliet and Monroe and Rosalee because they feel like real people – whether they’re human or Wesen; we don’t like care much for Captain Renard because he has some agendas we can’t sympathize with; we intensely dislike Adelind for being an evil bitch – though we respect her intelligence and resourcefulness, and we loathe Eric because despite his intelligence and wit, he is both evil and enjoys it too much.
Another reason that Grimm works is that Wesen mythology plays some very interesting variations on myths, legends and superstitions – we’ve seen original takes on werewolves, alien and now the Voodoo Master of the Dead, Baron Samedi. Always, the variation is fresh and delivered with panache – though sometimes, we have to wonder why Nick doesn’t always think to take some obvious precautions. One of those instances keeps Goodnight, Sweet Grimm from being quite as good a finale as it might be.
Other factors more than make up for Nick’s gaffe, however – not the least of which is the way that Juliet jumps into the whole Wesen thing. She has quite the learning curve ahead of her and she gets a bit too enthusiastic about it. In combination with her not wanting to be the one left behind anymore, that is purely charming.
Another element that comes into play is Adelind’s intelligence and counter-intuitiveness (about which, I’ll say no more). Then there’s the sweetness we’ve come to expect between Monroe and Rosalee – for a blutbad, he sure is tentative when it comes to relationships…
We also get a lovely (?) reminder of Eric’s casual evil and a not-entirely-unexpected connection with The Baron. Both Frain and Cathey really have fun with their characters in a way that translates to both ickiness and goosebump moments.
Giuntoli and Tulloch have more than a few great moments, too – especially when he accepts her need to learn more about his world. And Mitchell and Turner continue to play one the sweetest, most entertainingly odd relationships on TV.
The finale moves briskly, too, without sacrificing pacing for character beats. Both writing and direction are crisp and muscular and the ep comes to its cliffhanger conclusion with another appropriately funny To Be Continued graphic.
For its combination of character/relationship beats and pulse-pounding action, Goodnight, Sweet Grimm is a tidy enough season finale to keep its fans’ anticipation for season three at a very high level – Nick’s (seeming?) appalling lack of caution/preparation notwithstanding.
Final Grade: B+
Photo by Scott Green/Courtesy of NBC