Grimm Sneak Peak: 5×21-22, “The Beginning of the End, Parts 1 & 2″
It looks like some bad stuff is going down in HW HQ for sure, a full-scale Black Claw invasion of the previously-hidden base. Also, Hank is looking a little the worse for wear in that last photo. Could using Zuri to find HW’s location be the strategic move against Hank we’ve heard so much about, or is there more badness in store?
What’s also terrifying is that they seemingly came out of nowhere this season, which suggests they’ve been amassing this kind of power for a while now, completely hidden, and are only showing their faces because they finally believe they are unstoppable.
I mean, they seem to be both global and grassroots. They’re tied up in terrorist organizations, local politics, the foster system…they’re in everything. And it explains why Agent Chavez was so ready to get Trubel on their side last season, too! Perhaps she knew Black Claw would be actively recruiting Grimms as well?
What I never expected was for the way Nick has fought with and helped Wesen to be bent that way, into some indication that he would be willing to side with Wesen against humans if it came down to it.
Right? Also Adalind, totally not there for his entire political race.
SERIOUSLY. Portland, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! Do you have no political activists? Teenagers with internet? NOTHING?
what his rival?! he can’t dig up dirt?!
For real…are we supposed to believe someone that shady would be above some mudslinging of his own? Or that he wouldn’t think of it?
I mean…unless Black Claw is so powerful that they can somehow silence any and all chatter and suspicions about Renard’s mysterious overnight family. Which is just…terrifying to contemplate.
Oh shit. That would be…really terrible. And a smart move on their end. And really terrible.
What do they want with Hank’s computer files and emails? Are they trying to gather intel on Nick? Because there honestly seem to be better ways to go about that.
Or does Hank know something else valuable, something maybe he doesn’t even realize he knows?
(part 2 of 2) Also Renard is REALLY firm that he isn’t a Hexenbeist so maybe he doesn’t have the same issues with his beist side along with the lack of abilities that we’ve seen. Mind it could simply be a gender thing but still I’d really like the show to clarify either way. Also using their beist as an excuse for hurting/killing reminds me of people using mental illness as an excuse and as a mentally ill person I"m finding it insulting… Am I the only one who noticed that?
Renard realized Rachel and Co. were with Black Claw the minute he found out she was part of the plot to kill Andrew Dixon (near the end of “Into the Schwarzwald”), because he knew, via Eve and Meisner, that the man who killed Dixon was a Black Claw operative, as was Lucien, who met with Renard shortly after he confronted Rachel.
And honestly? I would love for that possibility (that he’s working to take them down) to be correct, because otherwise what he’s doing really doesn’t make much sense to me.
I mean, even if he’s trying to take them down, it doesn’t make much sense, but at least it wouldn’t feel like a slap in the face to four and a half years’ worth of character and relationship development. I’m also fine with the notion that he’s with them in order to get Diana back, except that I can’t figure out why he wouldn’t have just trusted Nick and Hank with that information.
As for the mental illness parallel, you’re not the only one to make the comparison. I’ve definitely seen a few different Grimm fans mention that the way the show treats hexenbiest powers seems like a metaphor for mental illness. Although not a very good or well-handled one.
I think they’ve mixed their metaphors too much on this one, personally. Do hexenbiest powers change who a person is? Or don’t they? Who knows! I mean we’ve seen at least two hexenbiests who weren’t doing damage left and right (Henrietta and Elizabeth) and we’ve also seen Adalind do just as much damage while her powers were completely gone as she did when she had them. Not to mention that at the moment she’s just about the nicest she’s ever been, and she has her powers.
Sometimes it does seem to me like a general (and stigmatizing, and again, poorly-handled) mental illness metaphor. At others it seems like they’re treating it like classic possession…with the whole floating “evil spirit” thing that left Adalind when she was de-powered in season one and then re-entered her when she performed the ritual to get her powers back.
And then at still other times it seems like it’s very specifically a metaphor for addictive disorders, with the powers themselves being the object of the addiction rather than the illness itself. But even that breaks down depending on which hexenbiest we’re talking about, and when.
Then again you have characters insisting that being a hexenbiest fundamentally changes you, while having your two principle hexenbiests treat what they did during that time in totally different ways: Adalind doesn’t shy away from responsibility for the things she did, she apologizes for them and expresses regret and a wish to undo those things.
Eve, on the other hand, has distanced herself from Juliette and the things she did as completely as possible, deflects responsibility, and claims to feel no regret or remorse for any of it, although that in itself could be due to a separate mental illness (PTSD, dissociative identity disorder, maybe both).
All this to say that no, I’ve never thought of the whole “the biest made me do it” thing in that light, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a valid interpretation or that your feelings about it aren’t valid. It just means the writing around that topic is so gotdamn convoluted that I haven’t been able to draw coherent parallels about it yet.
Hi Anon – Admin Liz here. I think that Sean and Nick have had a very tense relationship (however you want to define it, romantic, friend, coworkers, etc) ever since Nick presented as a Grimm.
Team Grimm has always been sort of suspicious of Renard, and who can blame them? His motivations have never been obvious, and we really have no idea where his loyalties lie (nowhere in my opinion, I think he’s out for himself, which is one of the reasons I love him).
Ever since S1, they’ve relied on each other out of necessity – they know a lot of secrets about each other. The conflict we’re seeing between them this season is something that seems to have been building for a while now, and I’m excited to see how it gets resolved (whether it ends in Renard being our Big Bad, or in him tellng Nick he has a plan, or something completely out of left field).
Hi Anon! Admin Liza here with my own two cents.
I actually find the tension between them now a little sudden and oddly contrived, given the events of the last two seasons in particular.
Renard definitely did not have the team’s trust in the beginning, but since season two they’ve relied heavily on him to go about their business, and in season three he actually trusted them enough to not only allow them to, but assist them in making off with his infant daughter. That’s a lot of faith to put in anyone.
Not to mention that he was the one who originally figured out what Adalind had done to Nick, and tried desperately to get the antidote to him in time–in fact died trying to do so.
Then, on the team’s side, they have worked very closely with Renard and trusted him with a lot up until this season, and showed real concern and caring when he was shot…not to mention that they went way out of their way to save him when he was possessed by Jack the Ripper, endangering themselves in order to help him.
In fact, Renard’s been involved in one way or another in everything they’ve done up until the magic stick’s discovery. And while the fandom has certainly had its questions about his true motives and trustworthiness over the years, the actual characters haven’t questioned his place as a part of their team in a long time. Moreover, there’s very clearly been a level of mutual respect and understanding there, and an ability to talk about things, even things that were difficult or personal.
So it just seems…odd to me, this sudden turn of events, with none of them talking to each other or trusting each other. Renard suddenly doesn’t trust Nick and Co. enough to tell them what’s going on with Black Claw (specifically that his main reason for siding with them is that they have his daughter)? Nick and Hank suddenly don’t trust him enough to ask him point-blank what’s going on? Monroe and Rosalee suddenly have never trusted him at all, despite two seasons’ worth of evidence to the contrary? It just…doesn’t add up for me.
Honestly, it reminds me a little too much of the way things went with Juliette last season. The writers were determined to sever her ties with the team, and they weren’t overly concerned with how much sense that process actually made in light of everything that came before so long as they got to the ending they wanted.
Never mind that this course of action (and certain other poorly-developed and ill-conceived plot developments) have led to the first real renewal scare this show has had since its first season. They’re still gonna do it again.
(If I sound a little bitter and disappointed, Nonny, it’s because I am.)
Hi, Admin Siobhan here!
I have a horrible feeling that they’re really gunning for the Biests are TERRIBLE PEOPLE BECAUSE OF THE BIEST so therefore Sean must be a horrible person because he still has his Biest and this distresses me
Also, the fact that Black Claw specifically want to use Diana as a weapon, which is the one thing Sean could not abide and yet is apparently fine with this if he’s the one who benefits, not Viktor? Utter character assassination.
Sean Renard has been courting Nick since BEFORE Series One, and he’s gonna throw it away for Black Claw? A terrorist organisation who despise Kehrseite? And presumably half-Kehrseite, like Sean, since Zuri and co think Wesen/Human relationships are disgusting?
Like, I know Renard’s no angel. I know he’s out for himself. However, after all he’s sacrificed, the Key, his daughter, his own life, for Nick, why would he do the two things Nick will despise him for? A) join Black Claw and b) lie about it
Nick isn’t dim, he’d know the value of someone on the inside, especially someone they went to all that trouble to recruit
And Sean, for all his selfishness, does believe in a free world, a world without monarchy and tyrants – sure, he’d probably like a world without the lies like Black Claw do, but there’s no way he’d go for people being murdered just for what they are, not when his own family tried to do it to him
Like, the reason Sean was such a good villain/anti-villian/anti-hero was because most of the time, he thinks he’s doing the right thing. And killing Kehrseite purely because that’s what they are? No way does he think that’s the right thing.
(Also, do you know which particular character’s refusal to talk to Sean is really OOC? HANK! Hank was probably the closest thing to a friend Renard had, like he even specifically asked Hank for his support, and then Hank never asked him why. Not ‘why are you working with Black Claw?’ but ‘Why are you running for Mayor? What are you doing? How does it all work? How are you feeling?’ all of these questions could have helped Hank find out about where Renard actually stood, and Renard probably would’ve told him the truth, but he’s been shown nothing but a blank wall from both of them, so he’s gotta know they know? It’s just…aargh. )
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