Well…as much as I hate to say it, and as much as I really want to skip those scenes, lately they are actually weaving into the plot a little more. The scene between them in this episode definitely set things up for some conflict later on, for instance.

Although I’d argue that most of what’s in the actual NA scenes themselves is about character development rather than plot. You can watch Nick’s conversation with Monroe in “Into the Schwarzwald” and know everything that happened in that scene and that Nick doesn’t know how he feels about it.

But you’d miss the completely candid look on Nick’s face when he wakes up beside Adalind and there’s no one there to school his emotions for, the way he kept flashing back to their awful history and how simultaneously numb and conflicted he looks…and how he covers all of that up and pretends to be okay when she wakes up.

Similarly, you could find out from the scene last ep with Adalind and Rosalee that Adalind didn’t want to tell Nick about her powers returning, and from the scene in the spice shop this week that Nick wasn’t supposed to tell anyone outside of Team Grimm about the stick.

But there’s a special kind of emphasis on seeing them actually in a room together and lying their asses off to each other’s faces, clearly uncomfortable and not trusting each other with vital secrets. Even though those secrets could have a profound effect on their child, the other person, and their…relationship, such as it is.

So I will agree with you that MR’s scenes are more about being helpful and proactive and figuring things out than NA scenes, but I don’t skip the NA scenes (although I would never judge or even look askance at anyone who wanted to, for obvious reasons), because they are telling us things about Nick and Adalind as people–and, in my opinion, about why they can never work as a couple (since apparently the blatantly obvious reason isn’t good enough for the writers).