Grimm Season 5 Episode 5 Review: Rat King
Kathleen Wiedel
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Meisner is awesome. Can I say that again? Yes? Okay! Meisner is awesome! I just really like the guy when he shows up, and he doesn't disappoint in Grimm Season 5 Episode 5. And that fight scene? Can I watch that over?
What? There was a Rat King in this episode? I'm sorry, I didn't notice over the awesomeness that is Meisner.
The whole Rat King story felt like a distraction to the whole Trubel-returns story, though in actuality it was (at some level) a branch of the same tree. The Reinigen apparently only become the Rat King when they are collectively terrified, which in this instance was almost certainly a symptom of the brewing Occultatem Libera uprising.
Monroe won the award for Best Quote of the Night with this little gem:
Are you kidding me? A twenty-foot-tall rat-zilla that can't be stopped? I mean, where's a thing like that gonna hide?
Monroe
Monroe also earned points for his hilariously matter-of-fact reaction when the Rat King demonstrated its existence by literally rearing its ugly head.
There really wasn't any mystery at all to this case, even from an in-universe perspective. It was pretty obvious to everyone what had happened. Even the Rat King (rat-zilla?) was incapacitated fairly quickly. It was as if the writers themselves were impatient to get back to the important part of the episode.
Which is, of course, Meisner. I mean Trubel.
I knew if I could just get to you it would be okay...
Trubel
That quote took on almost tragic proportions by the end of the episode, naturally. If you have a phobia of hospitals, I would imagine this episode would not do anything nice to your peace of mind, given what happened with the doctor and nurses treating Trubel. And by "treating," I mean "kidnapping."
I seriously doubt that they had any clue that Nick was also a Grimm, else they would not have been so blase about what was going on. It really wasn't clear what they thought of Nick, given that he specifically identified Trubel as an undercover police officer.
Trubel herself didn't have much to do, being incapacitated as she was; she seemed little more than a MacGuffin in this episode, but she did bring a good deal of mystery with her reappearance. Where had she been? What had she been doing? Who attacked her?
The answer to that last question is almost certainly the Occultatem Libera clowns. This also firmly answered what side of the fight Meisner is on.
Nurse Christy Kane: [defiantly] Occultatem Libera!
Meisner: You know, I'm getting a little sick of hearing that.
Wasn't that fight scene just great? Meisner and Nick, fighting back-to-back to save Trubel. All this just made me like Meisner more. Is it just me, or is Meisner the Hero of Another Story?
Meisner's role here is incredibly curious, given what we already know about him. He is a member of (or at least affiliated with) the Resistance against the Royals, yet he is clearly opposed to the Occultatem Libera Wesen uprising. Hopefully, he will explain just what is going on in the next episode.
He got a bit lucky that Adalind answered the phone and was so willing to vouch for him with Nick. (That initial phone call was pretty funny: "...Adalind?" "Meisner?!" *click*) And their interaction when he showed up in person was just a reminder of how much I liked them as a pair.
Hopefully, someone will remember to mention Meisner to Captain Renard, who has his own complicated relationship with him...
Speaking of Renard, he was being courted by that mayoral candidate again. This time, Andrew tempted him with an offer of running the police department as chief! Renard continued to play hard-to-get, possibly because he knew that there's got to be something incredibly hinky with this guy.
I hope this actually amounts to something at some point, because otherwise it's just a little weird, and definitely distracting. Please, Grimm writers, find something interesting for Sasha Roiz to do besides sit behind his desk at the precinct!
A few assorted thoughts before I turn the discussion over to you, my fellow Grimmsters:
- Nick's super-hearing made an appearance when Team Grimm went to the junkyard to search for Johnny and Selina.
- Selina, a cat-like Klaustreich, shares her given name with DC's Selina Kyle... better known as Catwoman.
- Meisner found Nick and Adalind's cozy little hideaway by tracking the GPS on Trubel's motorcycle, but it wasn't revealed how Trubel found them in the first place.
- Reinigen first appeared in Grimm Season 1 Episode 5, "Danse Macabre," which was based on the Pied Piper legend. Monroe described them as being on the bottom of the Wesen food chain.
- Klaustreichs first appeared in Grimm Season 1 Episode 16, "The Thing With Feathers." They're known as the big jerks of the Wesen community.
So, what did you think of "The Rat King"? Were you glad to have Trubel back? Were you disappointed that she spent most of the episode unconscious? And what about the Rat King? Let us know in the comments section below!
The final episode of 2015, Grimm Season 5 Episode 6, "Wesen Nacht," is scheduled to air on Friday, December 11, 2015 at 9/8c on NBC. If you missed the awesomeness that is Meisner in this episode, you can watch Grimm online to catch up!
