Grimm Season 4 Episode 17 Review: Hibernaculum
Kathleen Wiedel
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I wonder how much the writing staff on Grimm ponder the moral issues involved with Nick's police work.
In Grimm Season 4 Episode 17, as in the previous two episodes, Nick and his compatriots dealt with various Wesen biological issues that would make normal prosecution difficult, if not impossible. In this particular case, the team faced a type of Wesen that stole body heat to survive (unfortunately killing the heat donor in the process).
At the end of the episode, they put all the Wesen back in their hibernaculum, except for their murder suspect... who they allowed to just freeze to death out in the barn. And they all seemed weirdly okay with this. Does this bother anyone else?
Did those Varme Tyvs kill innocent people? Undoubtedly. But the argument could definitely be made that they weren't in their right minds at the time.
Nick, Hank, Wu, and Monroe acted like judge, jury, and executioner, and no one batted an eyelash. Yes, they put the innocent Varme Tyvs back in the hibernaculum, but that doesn't excuse their cold dismissal of the death of the suspect. (Yes, I just made that pun.)
The Varme Tyv are, like Grimm Season 4 Episode 16's Forterseele, one of those bizarre evolutionary dead-end Wesen: concepts that sound like great ideas in the writer's room but really make no sense under real-life circumstances.
This episode definitely wasn't lacking in oddities, either. Take the bit with Juliette and Renard apparently getting it on in the beginning. It seemed to come out of nowhere.
While I'm not totally surprised Juliette would make advances on Renard in her current state of mind, it is totally out of character for him.
Remember their infamous "attraction" after he woke her from her Adalind-induced coma? He hated every second of it.
Plus, he seems to have a thing for blondes: I give you Adalind, her mother Catherine, and Mia (from Grimm Season 2 Episode 6).
So, what? Did Juliette mind-frell him this time or something? Was it all a vision in Renard's head? Because it was just plain weird. I really felt like I was missing something.
And speaking of weird, what in the world was with Renard's vision with the creepy hands? Dude, you got some serious issues going on, to put it mildly. Maybe it's time to call Mom? Like, yesterday?
By far, this episode's best moment belongs to Rosalee, who gave an utterly priceless moment with her private reaction to Juliette's change:
She's a freaking Hexenbiest?!
Rosalee
The line was only enhanced by her earlier state of calm and collection, her attitude of "Don't worry, we'll figure this out!". Yep, turned out that Rosalee was just as freaked out as everyone else! Nice job by Bree Turner there.
I also want to give props to Silas Weir Mitchell, who projected Monroe's moments of PTSD in a fairly understated way. I was glad that Monroe opened up to Rosalee about his issues.
They make a great duo on screen, and this was just one example of why I like them so much together.
Kenneth and Adalind made for a hilarious contrast as a couple. After Adalind moped that none of her sexy clothes fit anymore, Kenneth rolled his eyes and sent her out shopping.
Good thing he sent that guard with her, else she'd be Hexenjam on the pavement, courtesy of Juliette and a heavy gargoyle.
Calm. Down. No one's going to kill you. Unless you keep shouting.
Prince Kenneth
Juliette... Hm. Something curious happened in this episode. After nearly squishing Adalind with the gargoyle, she seemed to (briefly) realize that she'd not only changed into a corpsey witch hag, but a sociopathic corpsey witch hag. She event went to Monroe and Rosalee for help.
The interesting thing was that she lost that moment of clarity as soon as Nick showed up. Coincidence? I'll leave that up to you all to decide. It seemed that she was finally beginning to realize that she's losing her humanity to the Hexenbiest inside her.
I have to admit, I got a good amount of guilty pleasure when Adalind realized that Juliette was hunting her. Yeah, not so fun when you're on the receiving end, is it, Adalind?
So, what do you think, Grimmsters? Did Team Grimm not show enough concern that they knowingly allowed a suspect to die? What's up with Renard and his visions? Did Juliette mess with Renard's head? What do you think will come of Juliette's quest to kill Adalind?
Let us know in the comments below!
Grimm Season 3 Episode 18 is entitled "Mishipeshu" and is slated to air on April 17, 2015, at 8/7c on NBC. Until then, of course, you can still enjoy all the fun and excitement of previous episodes when you watch Grimm online right here at TV Fanatic!
