Grimm 2.17 "One Angry Fuchsbau" TV REVIEW
Episode 2.17
Writer: Richard Hatem
Director: Terrence O’Hara
THE ONE WHERE Rosalee is on jury duty for a domestic violence case when a dodgy defence lawyer uses his Wesen wiles to manipulate jurors. Meanwhile, Monroe shows Juliette the trailer at long last and Eric Renard plots a trip to Portland to see his brother.
VERDICT In what becomes a very fun Twelve Angry Men homage, Team Grimm work together to neutralise a Ziegevolk lawyer with what Rosalee describes as a “pheromone vasectomy”. It's a rare return of a previously-seen Wesen species and after a few weeks of bleak serial killer type shenanigans it is surprisingly light-hearted, even though the defendant is a murdering leonine Wesen.
The caper is wittily clever. We have a welcome return for Bud, who helps collect some of the lawyer's sweat on a handkerchief (“My wife gave it to me as a birthday present last year. For Christmas.”) after Monroe “attacks” him to get him running and sweaty. The sweat is given some Rosalee treatment, then needs to be injected into the frogs that the lawyer eats to give him his supernatural powers of persuasion. So Nick and Hank head round to the lawyer’s apartment to question him about being attacked (with increasingly silly questions), while Monroe to plays poison toad roulette (he doesn’t know which one to inject).
In a show where the quality of the ensemble inevitably means each week it feels like I'm complaining about someone being overlooked, there were pleasing moments for Hank, Monroe, Sgt Wu and Rosalee, and the pace and fun of the episode made for a definite series highlight.
Elsewhere, Juliette sees the trailer. I guess there goes the hope of her leaving Portland, although so far, apart from seeing a lot of cloudy Nicks (including one, disturbingly, playing the guitar) she's not worked through her confusion despite the help of the creepy woman who gave her similar fortune-cookie style pronouncements in “La Llorona”. Her plaintive, ‘Why put all this stuff in a trailer and haul it around?” is a fair point though – not since Giles' days in Sunnydale Library has plot exposition fodder been so well organised.
Across the Atlantic, Adalind pays a visit to Eric Renard (the always-good-value James Frain) and gives him an update on the ongoing and so-far fruitless search for the key. For a brief moment it seems like the Machiavellian royal has figured out Adalind has a baby on board, but not yet. All the pieces are being aligned though for a potentially barnstorming finale, especially as Nick gets a cryptic email from his mother too: could she head back to Portland to coincide with the Renard family reunion?
BEST BIT: "Two toads. One dose. Seriously?" Silas Weir Mitchell makes the most of a hilarious opportunity for amphibian-related slapstick
BEST LINE
Monroe: “He attacked Rosalee. You just saved his life.”
Narin Bahar
Grimm season two airs in the UK on Watch on Monday nights at 9pm
