Grimm: Dyin’ on a Prayer Recap

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2si-B03RZs&w=560&h=315]

Grimm: Dyin’ on a Prayer (04×04)

Synopsis: After Monroe and Rosalee’s wedding, the team has to rush back to Nick’s house to figure out what the hell happened to the Captain and the mysterious man Trubel ended up killing. Nick has to deal with his lack of Grimm abilities while a crazy octopus Wesen is on the loose in Portland stealing people’s memories.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

I thought this week’s Grimm was a little lackluster. It makes sense though, given the preview for next week. This week’s episode needed to be full of forward momentum in order to push toward the next big plot point. The case of the week centered on a domestic abuse case. A woman and her child are assaulted by the husband/step-father. Turns out the step-father is actually a Wesen, and a nasty looking one at that. Thankfully, the woman fights back and manages to get her and her son, David, to the hospital. It doesn’t end their turmoil, but it certainly gets them out of dodge.

At the hospital, they are visited by the woman’s brother, Ben, who is naturally outraged. He’s insistent that he will get his revenge. In light of that, he returns to the temple where he practices as a Jewish Rabbi. There he pulls out a scroll and reads it, partnering it with the use of what turns out later to be the remains of a golem. Ben prays a prayer of justice and protection for David, his nephew. This resulted in the step-father turning up dead, killed by a giant clay monster.

I impressed my parents by calling it a golem before the show pointed it out. Less impressive is the fact I get the majority of the other stories incorrect. I just happened to be relatively fond of Jewish folklore and knew the tale of the golem ahead of time. It is one of the things I really do appreciate about Grimm. At first I wondered what they would do once they ran low on original Grimm fairytales, especially since Once Upon a Time takes a lot of the classics and puts a contemporary television spin on them. The writers have responded well to the challenge of finding stories to use every week by branching out into culture-based tales.

The episode about El Cucuy continues to be my favorite and, even though this episode was less than spectacular, I appreciate the use of ethnically-tied stories. It is a nice lesson in other cultures.

Anyway, while a golem is killing people Nick and Juliette discover that Trubel has packed up all her stuff and disappeared from her house. It isn’t really a surprise considering the amount of stuff she’s gone through recently. She did leave a clue, though, which led Nick straight to the trailer. It is there that she tells him about what the FBI agent had done. Nick is naturally concerned, but convinces her to go back to his home in order to keep up appearances. If she suddenly disappeared it would look more suspicious to someone keeping an eye on them than if they continued on as usual. She agrees.

Nick and Hank get put on the case of the mysterious death-by-clay. Naturally, they suspect that a Wesen has something to do with it, but after interviewing the mother and her son to reveal that neither of them is a Wesen, they’re at a loss. The crime is very clearly not a run of the mill murder. Yet the most likely suspects are also the least likely to have been the ones to commit the crime. Though when Ben finds out that the step-father was killed by being filled with wet clay he realized his prayer had worked.

Guilty over his prayer, he calls up Hank and Nick to confess. They don’t arrest him because there is nothing against praying, but they know they have to investigate. With Trubel’s help they begin to dig into the books to try and find any information they can about a golem-like Wesen. However, they aren’t able to find anything and begin to wonder if it is like other magical creatures they’ve come across. Not only are there humans and Wesen, but there are creatures that surpass both of those labels. It definitely adds another layer of intrigue to the show because not everything is as straight forward or as explicable as viewers or the characters would like it to be.

Determining the monster is indeed something that is entirely non-Wesen, they decide to play along with the myth to try and defeat it. It claims a second life, the brother of the abusive step-father, and it becomes all the more important that they defeat it. Ben helps them through it and tells them that the beast is going to defend David, his nephew, no matter what. That is what he’d prayed and as long as David was in danger, the golem would kill to protect him. They have to stop the golem and according to legend, they have to put the name of God written on a piece of paper into the creature’s mouth.

While all of this is going on, Renard returns to work and Wu asks him about Trubel. He explains his concerns to the Captain who agrees to look into it. Of course Renard already knows what’s going on and it is nice to know that he’s willing to watch Nick’s back. On top of that, Renard’s mother is working with Rosalee and Monroe to figure out what it was that Adalind did to Nick and how to reverse it. They make some serious strides and Renard’s mother is able to replicate the spell to a degree, turning herself temporarily into Adalind to show that she’s on the right track.

Adalind is off questioning her life choices as she follows a crazy dungeon-man up some stairs. The walls begin to talk to her, telling her they know where her baby is, and eventually she gets trapped in the stairwell. As she cries, the wall faces begin to cry, and she ends up in a dire situation as the stairwell begins to fill with water. She’s not having a good time.

In other words, everything is progressing with forward momentum in terms of all the micro-storylines the writers have put into play. I think that’s more what this episode was about than anything else.

Back on the case, Nick provokes David in order to get the golem to show up. Once the kid is scared the golem appears and begins to attack. Trubel, who had created a bond with the child, jumps in to try to fight the golem after the initial trick fails. The monster begins to consume her and David, driven by how much he likes Trubel, runs forward and begins stabbing his protector with one of his toys. He overcame his fear and fought something very scary, and in the end the golem disappeared and the spell was broken. David gets to go back to his mom, Ben doesn’t get arrested, and Nick and the team get to wonder what exactly the golem was.

As the episode winds down, Nick, Juliette, and Trubel are sitting down to dinner. Before they can even start there’s a knock on the door and they are told that Renard’s mother, Rosalee, and Monroe have figured out how to get Nick’s Grimm powers back. Unfortunately, it requires Juliette as some sort of ingredient and drama ensues to hopefully be resolved on next week’s episode.