Article first published as GRIMM Review Season 4 Episode 11 Death Do Us Part on Seat42F.
NBC’s GRIMM is back to case-of-the-week
stuff in this week’s “Death Do Us Part,” unfortunately. A team of ghost
hunters encounter a Wesen that murders one of their own. When Nick
(David Giuntoli), Hank (Russell Hornsby), and Wu (Reggie Lee)
investigate, they discover a love triangle and a man gone insane in the
creepy house. From there, it’s not hard to stop the haunting.
The main plot of “Death Do Us Part” is
utterly predictable and trite. Right from the beginning of the hour,
there is never a doubt in my mind that the husband is the killer and
still hanging around. The official ruling from the connected original
case five years ago is that the lover killed a husband and wife in bed,
but that makes no sense to anyone who ever watches crime shows. It’s
always a jealous spouse who is the guilty party, as it is here.
There is also no reason to ever suspect ghosts are real here. It would be cool if Grimm
were to expand its world and the crazy man, Stetson (Derek Phillips,
Friday Night Lights), really did see his dead wife, but he didn’t. This
universe is full of strange creatures, but only living strange
creatures, which keeps it somewhat grounded. It’s hard to complain about
that choice, but since the episode is so annoyingly boring, I was
hoping for a hint of something cooler.
In the end, Nick and his colleagues
don’t even stop the killer. The dead lover’s spouse, Lily (Rebecca
Wisocky, Devious Maids), shoots Stetson, thus ending his reign of
semi-terror. Then they let her get away with it.
In this specific case, it’s true, the
killer Wesen couldn’t really be jailed in the traditional sense. But he
was mentally ill, not evil, and needed help and sympathy. Instead, he’s
just executed. And the cops don’t do what cops are supposed to do, which
is seek justice. Instead, they sweep it under the rug. There are very
legitimate reasons that Nick, Hank, and Renard (Sasha Roiz) have gotten
used to taking the law into their own hands, and a lot of times, that’s
acceptable. Not here.
I was hoping Wu would be the voice to
speak up and remind the others about the responsibility of the badge.
Instead, in a mere couple of weeks, he’s settled right into being the
gopher again, albeit a gopher in the know. There’s a scene in the
trailer in “Death Do Us Part” where Nick ‘graciously’ allows Wu to read
what he found about the Wesen they are hunting. This is the most Wu ever
gets acknowledged by his co-workers, despite the fact that he finds the
baddie in the book and an image on a melted camera. Wu is highly capable; now we just need to see him come into his own.
The one part of “Death Do Us Part” that
is interesting is the thread where Renard introduces Juliette (Bitsie
Tulloch) to the mysterious Henryetta (Garcelle Beauvais, Franklin &
Bash). But, as has become the case for such stories, it’s relegated to a
few little scenes, moving forward very slowly. It’s also worth
mentioning that Nick, a trained detective who isn’t that consumed with
his case this week, continues to ignore Juliette’s strange behavior,
which is completely unrealistic.
Once upon a time, Grimm
was growing into a series to watch. In the tradition of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, it was crafting a compelling mythology and an engaging
narrative. Now, it’s mostly gone back to being a police procedural that
just happens to have supernatural creatures in it.
This follows the same trend of Sleepy
Hollow over on FOX, about which a studio exec told the press it had
become too serial. This is a disturbing trend for the broadcast
networks. I’ll speak more in depth about this in my Jerome-ing column on
Blogcritics.org this week, but at a time where choice in programming
has never been broader, cable and internet companies are cranking out
high-quality shows that earn accolades and legions of passionate fans.
The Big Four continue to ignore that, looking at an outdated
commercial-based model where only the least technologically-literate
people looking for easy “fast food” television turn. This pool is
shrinking as evidenced by the rampant ratings erosion. Forcing GRIMM
back into a restraining box is not the answer.
GRIMM airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
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