‘Grimm’ Recap: Hot Rod
Warning: This recap of the “Zerstorer Shrugged” episode of Grimm contains spoilers.
In the penultimate episode of the series, Eve’s plan to fight Zerstorer over there so they didn’t have to fight him here fails spectacularly, pieces of the prophecy come true, and some series favorites pay the ultimate price.
Sunday schooled
Renard and Adalind are fighting about who should cross over to the other place to protect their daughter, when Monroe gets out his old family Bible, the Wesen version, and starts running through a tale about hell being ruled by a fallen angel and how the prophecy speaks of a land overrun by beasts, perhaps the Garden of Eden, and how the fires of hell rage within the beast instead of being literal lava flows and flames. (And Zerstorer, which it turns out means “destroyer,” certainly fits that bill physically.) In pictures, the “devil” also has a staff. (Again, sounds like our guy.)
At the spice shop, Rosalee, Wu, and Hank are finding all kinds of doomsday myths, including one with a picture of a skull that is in Althochdeutsch. Rosalee, of course, finds an online translation app that can handle that old form of German, and they decipher it: “Evil darkness trapped. Grimm. Child wife. Follow and flee.” They decide it means that Zerstorer needs Nick to pull him through the gate so he can come scoop up his child bride. Then she realizes that the date aligns with the one that the drawings on the cloth pointed to and this must be the event it foretold.
Kids, they do the darnedest things
Nick and Eve aren’t having any luck fighting Zerstorer in his world.
Back on this plane, Monroe thinks Diana must have a lot of clout in this other place, as she can do things no one else they know can. He suggests they let her open the door for him and Renard to go help their friends/frenemies. As they are debating that option, Diana wakes up, overhears the adults discussing her worth as a portal-opening option, grabs the stick, and decides to touch the mirror, which, of course, works.
Things are going stormy within the mirror just as Rosalee gets hold of Monroe to tell him not to take any door-opening measures “at any cost.” They hear something going on in the other room and rush to investigate, only to find Diana doing exactly what they thought she could. Out pop Nick and Eve as the mirror shatters. No sign of Zerstorer at the casa de MonRosalee, but the audience saw the demon follow the exes. Nick retrieves the stick and heals his hand without anyone seeing.
The trio researching at the spice shop come rushing through the door and fill Nick in on their letting Renard see the tunnels and how today was the day of the prophecy and how ultimately they believe he was tricked into the portal because Zerstorer needs him to get out. Wu drops a hopeful aside, “This is an existential migraine. Maybe he didn’t make it here as predicted.” Nick can only respond, “We’d better hope he didn’t.”
Unfortunately for them, that was wishful thinking, as bats start falling from the sky at Last Chance Gas and the customer who had just gone into the bathroom gets stabbed in the chest as Zerstorer makes his way through that mirror and turns into an Adonis. He walks out nude and fries the attendant with his green-spewing staff. He then steals his clothes and is on his merry way.
The Scooby gang continues to catch each other up on what they have read and what they had seen in the other place. When Nick mentions that Zerstorer had a big stick, Adalind looks sideways, recognizing that the guy had one in the bible as well.
Diana suddenly looks at Eve and declares that she’s “different now. I think part of you stayed in the other place.” And sure enough, Eve can no longer woge. She is no longer a hexenbiest, and she appears to be very sad about that fact. “None of us are who we used to be,” she says ominously.
Mother, may I have to sleep with danger?
Diana starts freaking out and hyperventilating. “He’s coming. He’s coming,” she says on a loop. They decide to hide Diana in the cabin from Nick’s first case as a Grimm and use the moment for some flashback footage. In case he is attached to Diana somehow, they decide to use a spell that will camouflage her. It is the same one that Renard’s mother used multiple times to hide her son from the royals successfully.
Nick grabs the stick and takes the kids and Adalind and Renard to the cabin. There is some more walking down memory lane and a few jokes, but mostly the mood is somber. Nick looks at baby Kelly and says, “I love you, son.” He hugs Adalind and she chases after him for a more thoughtful farewell, which feels an awful lot like a final farewelI. “I thought I lost you once already tonight. Be careful.” They exchange a giant smooch and tender I-love-yous.
After he exits, Renard gives his baby mama a pep talk, knowing they can’t hide there for the rest of their lives. He vows to kill the beast, and when she says it likely won’t be all that easy, he rephrases his vow to include his whole family. “The three of us won’t be that easy, either,” he says. (That’s a fight we’d pay to see.) The plot thickens when Diana has a dream that Zerstorer shows up at the cabin and wants both her and Kelly. (The plot thickens again.)
Eve and MonRosalee go to the spice shop to look at the books some more. Monroe finds something about a staff with the power of the gods being broken into 100 pieces to keep its power out of the hands of evil, and at home, everyone is like, “Well duh, that’s what we thought the instant we saw Zerstorer holding that magic branch of his own.” Especially after everyone kept mentioning all the cracks in it. They figure that might really be what skull face is after. Eve finds an old painting of David and Goliath, and stick is represented there as well. Trubel returns now that every Black Claw cell has been vanquished and she got a weird feeling that something was going down and Nick was in danger. But as no one is expecting her, they freak at the shop, thinking Zerstrorer has come to get them. Nick meets up with them so they can deliver their hypothesis about mini and mama stick. Monroe says, “We think it is why the crusaders buried it.” They also warn that if it ever gets put back together, he’d be unstoppable.
Wu and Hank head to the precinct to see if any Zerstorer-ish reports come through. Eventually, what went down at the gas station gets reported, and they’re pretty sure that dead bodies and dead bats could be their guy. Zerstorer steals the second victim’s clothes but apparently likes to go commando, as he did not take his underwear. (This scene has two of the best lines in the history of the series: Wu’s “Naked in a gas station, that’s a dignified way to go” and Hank’s “Talk about peeing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”)
The devil, who doesn’t seem to know English, is wandering the streets of Portland, picking up expressions like some old-school Keanu Reeves character as people scream at him from cars he walks in front of or as drunk street people beg him for money and then threaten him. The latter does not work out well for one whose neck is eaten when Zerstorer turns the staff into a giant snake.
Bros before hos
Many assumed Eve was going to be the first sacrificial lamb in the other world, and while there is still time for her to die, it just wasn’t so.
Hank calls when there’s a hit on the APB, and Zerstorer is still in the neighborhood of his last kill. Nick heads over to meet him, and as he walks out the door, Eve warns, “Whatever you do, don’t let the stick out of your control. It may be the only power you have against him.” Trubel sees the devil just as he kills two cops and calls to let Nick know that she lost him as he headed toward the precinct. He and the guys “weapon up” in hope that guns will work on him in their plane. (This doesn’t seem like ace planning.)
Whether he is drawn to the mini stick or Nick, he waltzes into the precinct and starts dropping bodies. Nick, Hank, and Wu run up from the weapons closet and start unloading rounds, but his staff knocks them out with its sonic boom. Wu woges and jumps for him, and the staff goes right through him. Nick scrambles to be by his side, and he returns to his human form just as he takes his last bloody breath. Hank then regains his footing and empties another clip into him, to no avail. And when it’s finished, Hank decides to try to bash Zerstorer with the gun instead, and as he swings the staff, he gets Hank in the throat. Nick is enraged and runs toward him, but Zerstorer flings him hard at the wall.
“To be continued” flashes up on the screen, so we will have to wait until next week to find out if any more members of the gang lose their lives in the fight against doomsday, including Nick. Wu and Hank (Reggie Lee and Russell Hornsby), we thank you for your service and know that even though it is only one episode, you will be missed, and it will not be the same Grimm we have come to know and love without you.
Grimm airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on NBC. Watch clips and full episodes of Grimm for free on Yahoo View.
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