GRIMM
Season 3

Strangers in a strange world

1. The Ungrateful Dead
2. PTZD
3. A Dish Best Served Cold
4. One Night Stand
5. El Cucuy
6. Stories We Tell Our Young
7. Cold Blooded
8. Twelve Days Of Krampus
9. Red Menace
10. Eyes Of The Beholder
11. The Good Soldier
12. The Wild Hunt
13. Revelation
14. Mommy Dearest
15. Once We Were Gods
16. The Show Must Go On
17. Synchronicity
18. The Law of Sacrifice
19. Nobody Knows The Trubel I've Seen
20. My Fair Wesen
21. The Inheritance
22. Blond Ambition

Nick Burkhardt - David Giuntoli

Hank Griffin - Russell Hornsby

Juliette Silverton - Bitsie Tulloch

Eddie Monroe - Silas Weir Mitchell

Captain Renard - Sasha Roiz

Sgt Wu - Reggie Lee

Adalind Schade - Clare Coffee

Rosalee Calvert - Bree Turner

Theresa Ruble - Jacqueline Toboni

Weston Steward - C Thomas Howell

GRIMM was released on DVD and copies can be found on reseller and auction sites

The Ungrateful Dead

Whilst his friends fight a dockyard full of rage zombies, Nick's infection turns him into a killing machine.

There's a lot to be sorted out from the cliffhangers that finished off the last season and the opening episode doesn't stint on the action. Planes crash and zombies fight all-out battles with cops and, just to confuse matters, Adalind does some nasty things in order to get her powers back.

One episode isn't enough to contain it all and it leads to a cliffhanger of its own that might suggest a whole new direction for the show.

PTZD

Nick is on the loose and out of control. Everyone is looking for him whilst concocting a cure that will either save him or kill him.

Pretty much a straightforward manhunt plotline in which Renard and Juliette roam around at will, changing everyone's orders and causing mayhem without a single person asking a single question. That is just about the level of the plot.

Nick as a raging monster is at least more interesting than he usually is, but even that isn't meant to last. Or is it?

Adalind's increasingly disgusting quest to get her powers back is getting repetitive.

A Dish Best Served Cold

Some people start climbing trees just before their stomachs explode. They all turn out to be friends of Monroe's. Someone is making good on an age old Wesen feud.

Exploding stomachs make for a good start to the storyline, but then it gets a bit predictable and the way that it plays out rarely strays from what you might expect.

One Night Stand

A drowning that appears to be murder may have been carried out by a family of Naiads (water nymphs). The three sisters, however, stand together and refuse to say anything.

This is a rather dull 'wesen of the week' story that doesn't have anything new or interesting going for it except that the naiads dry out if they are left out of the water for too long. Being kept in jail doesn't do them any favours, which allows Nick to put the squeeze on them in a rather harsh manner. There really is something different about him following his infection.

What the episode does have going for it is the evolution of Eddie and Rosalee's relationship. These two may be the most endearing couple in fantasy TV at the moment.

El Cucuy

There's a vigilante on the streets who might be using attack dogs as weapons, but who mihgt be something of an attack dog himself.

GRIMM gets its nasty back on with a violent robbery followed by a hatful of full-on throat rippings. That aside, this is a pretty straight line story with nothing in the way of surprises except the way that it ends. Sometimes even a Grimm can't win them all, apparently.

The monster effects are at the ropy end of the spectrum, whilst the blood-letting is at its most graphic. The gritty urban setting serves the story better than the story deserves with some depth to the episode's characters. There's also a nice scene in which Nick's band of helpers discuss the case over dinner. It's a whole new dynamic.

Stories We Tell Our Young

A priest is killed whilst performing an exorcism on a young boy. He could be the most dangerous threat Nick has face yet, or it might be something else.

GRIMM does THE EXORCIST and comes up with yet another bogeyman, but one that even the Wesen are terrified of. The Wesen Council are alerted to take action and learn some new things about the latest Grimm.

Meanwhile, in Vienna, the power games with the Royal Family hot up. It is a shame, though, that the makers of the show don't believe their audience is smart enough to remember that Renard is in Vienna from one minute to the next, putting up a caption every time the action switches to there.

All of this makes for a fairly standard episode.

Cold Blooded

Renard continues to investigate the power games in Vienna whilst Nick and Hank go down into the sewers in search of a Wesen.

There's a Wesen in the sewers, so cue a lot of wandering around in tunnels hoping that the shadows will ramp up the tension in a dull, unoriginal story.

Which they don't.

Twelve Days Of Krampus

It's Christmas and something is gathering up the naughty boys and girls. This is nothing compared to the travails at Monroe's house.

The Wesen is a spirit of Christmas thing, but other than that it is all business as usual for the show and there is very little to make it stand out.

The whole Rosalee hates Christmas thing is straight out of GREMLINS.

Red Menace

A Russian healing Wesen is targeted for death, but who by?

Entirely dull episode that treads over a whole bunch of ground that the show has trod before. The dodgy Russian accents don't add anything, though the infected victims are nicely gory.

The introduction of a friend of Juliette's who is in an abusive relationship and is also Wesen may lead somewhere, hopefully more interesting.

Eyes Of The Beholder

Hank's new love interest gets involved in Wesen gang case and Juliette's friend refuses to accept that Juliette knows what she is.

If all you've got are boring stories then the usual trick is to make them personal to the protagonists by involving their friends and loved ones. That's what this one does, to very little effect.

And is there anyone in the world now who isn't a Wesen?

The Good Soldier

Private contractors from the war in Iraq are being killed after a woman shows up accusing them of abusing them. Meanwhile, Rosalee takes Monroe to meet her estranged family.

The central mystery as to just what happened to the disturbed woman at the heart of this story is the most interesting aspect, right up until it is fully revealed and then it turns out to be less horrific than imagined. Wrong and horrible, but less than dramatically satisfying.

Also, the perpetrator is obvious from an early stage and the manticore special effects really don't work. For a story that tries to give an edge by concerns about military conduct in war and rape, it deserved better.

The Wild Hunt

There's a Wesen in town who hunts men in uniform and takes their scalps for trophies. Nick is his next target. More terrifyingly, Monroe's parents come to visit.

The Wesen in this story is at least scary. The moment that he attacks a soldier and finds victory not quite as easily achieved as before is a good one. The scalped heads are not shied away from and up the gore factor a little.

Meeting the second set of parents in the Monroe/Rosalee relationship saga starts off a bit repetitively, but builds up into a surprising and fun cliffhanger. As for that pair, the proposal was sweet and funny.

Revelation

The scalping Wesen close in on Nick whilst Monroe struggles with his traditionalist parents.

Apart from the Wesen-of-the-week storyline playing out in disappointingly predictable fashion in order to serve the needs of the Monroe and his parents storyline, that Monroe and his parents storyline proves to be predictable in the extreme and all the more disappointing after the funny set up in the last episode.

Surprisingly, it is the developments in the Adalind story that are the most interesting.

Mommy Dearest

Adalind's baby is born at the same time that a baby-attacking Wesen terrorises a pregnant woman in Portland.

Some very messed up and disturbing imagery around the initial attack on the sleeping pregnant woman is undermined by the terrible CGI with which the attacking creature is rendered. It never for a moment looks real and that destroys what should have been a really nasty attack.

What really ramps up this episode into something above the ordinary is the involvement of Wu. Whilst making the victims personal friends of cast members is an old trick, the debate over whether to warn Wu about the truth of what he is involved with and risk his exposure to the Wesen world gives it some depth, especially considering the outcome.

Once We Were Gods

The discovery of a mummified Wesen brings some vengeful Wesen into town. The Royals discover who is the mole in their midst.

An uninteresting Wesen-of-the-week story is enlivened by the ongoing situation with Sgt Wu. It is nice that the effects on him have not just been cast aside after a single episode. Juliette's involvement manages to increase the depth and truth of this strand.

The nature of Adalind's baby and the Royals' search for the pair provides the ongoing storyline, which is much stronger than ordinary stuff.

The Show Must Go On

Nick and Hank investigate a travelling carnival.

No review is currently available for this episode. If you want to add one, please click here to e-mail it to us.

Synchronicity

Preparations for Monroe and Rosalee's wedding brings thoughts of marriage to Nick's mind, just before his mother brings Adalind to his house.

Adalind's story finally crashes into Nick's. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is back as Nick's seriously kick-ass mother and don't we just wish we could get a spin-off series featuring her. The action story that she is involved is so much better than all the Wesen-of-the-week tales and the reactions when everyone realises who everyone is are fun.

The title of the episode is apt as finally the disparate plotlines are coming together.

The Law of Sacrifice

Everyone is after Adalind's baby, which is showing signs of having some serious telekinetic powers. The Royals are flying in to take possession and Nick must work with the Captain to make some difficult choices about the child.

There's a lot to get through in this episode's storyline, so it's a bit of a surprise that it lags in a few parts of the midsection. Most of the time spent with Adalind and the baby hidden away at Monroe and Rosalee's house seems to crawl past at slow, especially when compared with the bursts of action and the speed with which the threads of the plot come crashing together. Alliances are made and tricks are played and betrayals had. The outcome is a little too neat and it seems likely that this little plot is going to come back into the show at some future time. In the meantime, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio remains badass and C Thomas Howell is given criminally little to do, along with the guesting Alexis Denisof.

Nobody Knows The Trubel I've Seen

Adalind is adrift in the wake of losing her baby. Renard is being stalked by a rogue FBI man and Nick is on the hunt for a young woman who seems to be the target for seriously dangerous Wesen.

There's a Wesen-of-the-week storyline running alongside that of Adalind's grieving, but it should be obvious what is going on with the young female victim long before it occurs to the characters. The police procedural side of things is not exactly exciting, but it manages to stay above the line of dullness up until the twist is revealed and it becomes clear that this isn't going to stop at Wesen-of-the week. Juliette and Rosalee are completely sidelined because there are just too many characters and the introduction of a new Royal into the mix in the continuing saga of the magic baby just adds to that. This would have made for a solid early season episode, setting up the seasonal plot threads, but we're closing in on the end of the season, so the new additions seem to be distracting from the set ups for the end of season excitement to come.

My Fair Wesen

Nick takes his new protege on a case involving young women being groomed to steal high end merchandise from stores.

Though the Wesen in charge of the shoplifting gang does a Henry Higgins job on glamming up young women off the street, hence the title, the plot has more to do Fagin and Oliver Twist, though with that GRIMM twist. It is, in fact, fairly predictable at almost every point and has only the subplot of Adalind going back to her past in order to further her, as yet vague, plans to help the Royals to link it to the main season plotline. There is, however, a sense of the story going somewhere as we are now only two episodes away from the season's end.