‘Grimm’ Recap: Face the Strange Ch-ch-changes

Warning: This recap of the “The Seven-Year Itch” episode of Grimm contains spoilers.

The Grimm gang is buggin’ out — literally and figuratively — this week as a cicada-like wesen infests Portland, Renard’s haunting goes next level, and Eve tries to take on the stick.

Eat, Drink, And Be Buried

After emerging from underground, a creepy fly-like creature transforms into a disheveled and dirty man and stares hungrily at bikers, dogwalkers, and joggers before choosing his first victim — an unlucky schmoe who is roughly the same height as bugman. The guy even tried to help by calling 911 to report that a man was starving to death and following him uncomfortably closely, but he was poked in the jugular before the call could be completed. Bugman stole his clothes and money, and bathed in the lake to prepare for what we’d later find out was his 24-hour reprieve from his seven-year dirt nap.

IRL, we assume the emergency call would have been followed up by a cop drive-by or something, but in TV Portland they rely on a runner to report the body the next morning, which interrupts Hank and Nick’s discussion about the magic stick and how Nick is so drawn to it and how he is going crazy without answers about where it came from, what it does, and why the knights did not destroy it. “I hate dead bodies on an empty stomach,” Hank grumbles.

The man’s belongings and the tattered rags of the bugman were stashed under a bush. Nick asks Wu to see if there were any reports of park nudity the night before. “This is Portland. I might have to narrow that down.”

Nick jokingly suggests that it “might be a sadistic sexual encounter gone bad,” but before they can head out to the victim’s house, they hear more screams. A kid had fallen into the hole where the insect emerged. When they pulled the crumb grabber out, a skeleton was revealed; one that has no organs and whose bones were all chomped on. But the corpse lacks any skin lacerations.

Related: ‘Grimm’ Final Season Preview: David Giuntoli Wants ‘People to Die,’ Series to Go Out With ‘Definitive Bang’

Meanwhile the killer, whose name in Latin translates to party animal, is eating everything that isn’t nailed down at a nearby diner. He also waxes poetic about not falling for a pretty but too skinny face this time. “Always look bigger than they are,” he says. “The last one didn’t last nearly as long as I thought.”

It was a memorable exchange (“Sounded like he’d just chowed down on some babe!”), so the girl gives the sketch artist a lot of details, and Monroe thinks he knows the guy. Eventually, he figures out that he doesn’t know-know him; he knows the statue of him in the original park. He is one of the pioneers of Rose City and the guy who preserved the parkland. Unfortunately, he gets the brainstorm after the cicada killed the beau of the plus-size gal he has his eyes on. He woos her with talk of living for the moment and slowing down to smell the roses and hear the crickets.

She is feeling him enough to kiss, but when she turns away from him, he clobbers her. The trio of Portland’s finest arrive in the nick of time but aren’t much of a threat to the immortal bugman. Thank god then that his meal ticket is actually wesen, too. She turns the tables and bites his head clean off and spits it out with a snarky, “What’s a girl gotta do to find the right guy in this town?”

Truth, but good luck explaining the severed head as self-defense in court.

Tunnel Vision

Eve awakes in the tunnels, battered and bloodied, to find that she has scribbled cloth symbols all over the bricks and has a couple emblazoned on her palms.

Simultaneously, Nick dreams of that time he got shot and the stick saved him. He jolts awake with Adalind and Kelly peacefully snoozing. While in the kitchen for water, he thinks he hears belabored breathing in the wall (which of course is Eve) but is interrupted by his girlfriend before he can head down to investigate.

It is Diana that eventually senses her and sends her mom down to help. “Eve is here. She was drawing, too. She doesn’t feel good,” Diana offhandedly remarks while also doodling the symbols. (Her choice of medium is much more pedestrian — pen on paper.) Adalind finds her old nemesis still groggy. She can’t remember doing all the sketching. She wanted to leave but couldn’t get her body to move. Adalind helps her up the ladder and lets her relax in Diana’s bed while she reports the details to Nick. Diana uses it as an opportunity to head down below, and makes all of Eve’s symbols glow purple with her voodoo eyes.

While waiting for Nick to get home, Adalind delivers the long overdue apology. “I think it is time I told you I’m sorry for what I did to you,” she says. (The short, simple mea culpa certainly seems weak given the severity of what she did to poor Juliette.) When Nick does arrive home, the geniuses deduce that what she scribbled “is connected to what healed us.” (Uh, yeah, no s–t Sherlock, as my Pappaw used to say when I was a kid.)

A Haunting We Will Go

Meisner just can’t quit his old bro turned backstabber. After Renard tucks Diana in at his new fancy penthouse and finds the dolls and sword his daughter used to make him kill Bonaparte remotely, he strolls into his room to de-suit and get some shuteye. His unfriendly ghost has other plans.

Renard starts at annoyed: “Are you going to follow me everywhere? Is this going to be a regular treat? You’ll keep showing up here and making me feel sorry? I don’t do sorry very well. It’s annoying.”

“Too bad you didn’t think of that before the betrayal thing. I like your new place but I am not following you. I’m haunting you,” Meisner replies smugly before commenting on how much Diana has grown. “I haven’t seen her in a long time. I was there when she was born. It was quite an experience. I’m not used to bringing life into the world.”

Renard tries to apologize and begs him to go away so he can hit the hay, but Meisner stands his ground: “I’m not sure I can commit to a half-assed haunting. You wouldn’t respect me if I were to take a cheap thank you and drift off to whatever awaits me. We have some real issues to work through. The only way to battle your demons is to take a trip to their hell. Am I in your room or just in your mind?”

It’s enough to drive Renard to drink, but that backfires as multiple dead Meisners now litter his linoleum. It also causes him to oversleep, and he almost misses Adalind picking up Diana. He contemplates chatting with his baby momma about spirits but cuts himself off. Instead, he calls an old colleague.

Related: ‘Grimm’s’ Sasha Roiz on Renard’s Ruthlessness, Impersonating David Guintoli and Saying Goodbye

Diana tells her mom that she thought she heard her dad having bad dreams and says she heard the name Meisner a lot. She tells her mom that despite being pretty young at the time, she remembers Meisner saving her in the king’s helicopter by pushing him out of it. Diana questions whether her dad had anything to do with his death. Adalind tries unsuccessfully to change the subject, and Diana in her creepy but capable way suggests that she’d like to see him again even though Adalind confirms that he has passed. (Uh oh, think the stick might be able to arrange that meeting?)

Renard shows up at an antiques shop and pays for a session in the Spirit Vacuum with his two rings. It is supposed to blow any old souls off him. Luckily for fans of Captain McChesty, the machine requires nudity. A skull snake whizzes around the chamber, but when the old duffer makes an adjustment to the machine, Meisner transfers to his body. He turns it all the way up to 11. The glass shatters and eventually Renard awakes fully clothed and the place is empty and for lease. He turns around and Meisner is standing behind him. He warns, “A mind is a terrible thing to lose.”

I Have Three Hearts

Rosalee and Monroe head to the doctor to confirm Diana’s premonition. Ol’ purple eyes wasn’t lying. They are expecting triplets, and everything looks exactly as it should at this point in the pregnancy. Except for mom, whose face has contorted into a jumble of fear, concern, and maybe a drop of joy. Sensing that she is freaked, Monroe comforts her with confidence. “I love you and we can do this,” says the world’s best wolf husband.

Grimm airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on NBC. Watch clips and full episodes of Grimm for free on Yahoo View.