Grimm Ep 1.16, “The Thing With Feathers”: Grimm Easter Special

Nick attempts to arrange a weekend away with Juliette, engagement ring in his pocket, but as usual, Wesen trouble intervenes.

Grimm Review, Season 1, Episode 16 “The Thing With Feathers”
Written by Richard Hatem
Directed by Darnell Martin
Airs Fridays at 9pm (ET) on NBC

As we celebrate Easter and the rising of Jesus from the dead by stuffing ourselves with chocolate, this week’s Grimm sticks to holiday mode by making it all about food, chicks, and eggs. Nick plans to cook Juliette a special meal – the same they ate on their first date – before popping the big question. Adelind Schade has Hank down on his knees and begging for a chance to take her out to dinner. In the house next door to the gorgeous log cabin Nick has booked for his romantic hideaway (where do the location guys find these places?) a cat-Wesen forcefeeds a captive bird-Wesen a minced worm smoothie (yum!). And Sergeant Wu – well he’s munching on paper clips, an unfortunate side effect of eating the enchanted cookie Adelind rustled up for Hank.

Typically, Nick doesn’t get to have his romantic break with Juliette. He ends up having to rescue the hapless bird-Wesen (the Easter chick) from the Wesen equivalent of a gold digger. I was happy that the opening quote kept it vague about exactly what the Klaustreich is hoping to get out of the Seltenvogel because it turned out to be one of those little in-jokes that make you feel part of the Grimm club. Grimm-ology also received a boost from the involvement of Monroe’s new love interest Rosalee, now running the Little Shop of Potions which belonged to her recently-deceased brother. Not only are we treated to lots of teasing references to various exotic plants and spells, having Rosalee available to hit the books and give advice spares the writers from finding a way to get Nick to the trailer every episode. It also gives Monroe motivation to sharpen up his game, because Rosalee knows more about this stuff than he does and that is not a situation that the average red-blooded Blutbad is likely to confront with aplomb.

While Nick runs around the woods, hunting birds and performing the Grimm version of delivering a baby in the back seat of his cruiser, his partner Hank is now besotted with evil Adelind, who is in turn besotted with suave Captain Renard, who is in turn besotted with himself. We’re given to understand that Renard is some kind of power wielder in the Wesen hierarchy and that his plotting against Nick is not for personal gain, but aimed at trying to maintain some kind of long established (but probably due-for-a-change) set of rules. When Nick finds out what he’s been up to – as he inevitably will – there’s room for Renard to step back this side of the moral line (“this is how we’ve always done things”) and for the partnership to continue, albeit with some interesting tensions built in.

With three plot strands now available for development each episode (Nick-Wesen, Hank-Adelind, Monroe-Rosalee) the action is tighter, as the writers don’t have to stretch out one element to cover the running time. Only one complaint – we’re still getting a new Wesen or Wesens every week and while the beasts are fun, the cast list is now full enough for the focus to turn to the interactions between them and explore in more detail just what makes them tick.

Cath Murphy