Episode Title: “The Ungrateful Dead”
Writer: David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf
Director: Norberto Barba
Previously on “Grimm:”
Episode 2.22 “Goodnight, Sweet Grimm”
“Grimm’s” third season premiere picks up right where things left off, with Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) and the gals trapped in a truck and surrounded by zombies. There’s a little more to it than that and fortunately, the episode turns back the clock fifteen minutes to get us caught up on all the craziness.
Thanks to Baron Samedi (Reg E. Cathey), Nick (David Giuntoli) and a bunch of other Portlanders are now zombies. Of course, no one is actually calling them that, but all could easily get work as “Walking Dead” extras. While Monroe, Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) and Rosalee (Bree Turner) fight off the hoard, the Baron makes off with Nick, who’s unconscious inside a coffin. Hank (Russell Hornsby) arrives at the container yard with back up and Renard (Sasha Roiz) tells everyone of the Baron’s plans to fly to Austria with Nick.
There’s a lot to do in this premiere, as “Grimm” veers more towards a serialized format, and this episode is definitely not meant to lure new viewers. At the same, there’s enough zombies, gore and other macabre goings-on to get the attention of any genre fan not watching the World Series.
Like zombie Nick breaking out of his coffin mid-flight to Austria. Back at the airport, everyone’s panicking and Rosalee wonders why Renard can’t “scramble jets or something.” He explains that the Baron isn’t a terrorist. Spitting a nasty black bile in someone’s face that puts them into a “death trance” qualifies as terrorism to me but what do I know.
There’s quite a bit of panic-induced silliness in this episode, but it’s what gives the show the personality it so desperately needed in its first season. On board the plane, Nick and the Baron fight it out. The Baron demands Nick obey his master, while the pilot desperately tries to get control of the plane. Meanwhile, Monroe and friends race to prepare an antidote to treat the zombie horde. Hank presses Renard for answers, but the Captain is trying to keep the fact that his brother, Eric is responsible for all this insanity on a need to know basis.
Over in Europe, Stefania (Shohreh Aghdashloo) has Adalind (Claire Coffee) cutting up Frau Pech’s body and burying the parts in a field of flowers in an attempt to get her powers back. Adalind’s patience is wearing thin and she let’s Stefania know, responding to each ritual with a sarcastic comment. In a way, Adalind speaks for the viewers, who’ve seen stock characters like Stefania many times before. It’s great to see “Grimm” can make fun of itself, from time to time.
The Baron’s plane crashes just outside Portland and Nick, who as Rosalee predicted, is experiencing a different reaction to the Baron’s poison than other victims, is wandering around in the woods when he stumbles upon a bar called “Shirley’s Tippy Canoe.” Stronger than ever and looking pretty pissed off, Nick lumbers towards the bar, which is about to get a whole lot “Tippier.”
Inside, Nick kicks the ass of anyone who gets in his way. Hank gets word that Nick’s plane went down but when his body isn’t found at the scene of the crash, Monroe puts his Blutbad sense of smell to work, tracking Nick’s scent. He leads everyone to Shirley’s, but Nick is already gone.
The Baron is dead, having not survived the plane crash (kind of surprising considering how strong Wesen are) but the pilots both make it. As for Portland’s zombie problem, Rosalee and Juliette come up with a cure and release it in a gas form inside the shipping container holding the horde. It works but again, there’s a lot of explaining to do and the show’s tendency to skip over all that is getting harder and harder to ignore. At the very least, Sergeant Wu (Reggie Lee) needs to get in the loop. The guy’s seen it all and barely raises an eyebrow.
Otherwise, “Grimm’s” third season premiere is a promising opener to what looks to be the show’s best season, yet. How far it will stray from the procedural remains to be seen, but the show’s serialized elements should be enough to make for an exciting third season.
