GRIMM: “Bad Teeth” and Family History

“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned…”

Season two of Grimm kicks off with Bad Teeth this past Monday night. NBC premiered the scary fairy tale crime drama on a special night before it moves to its regular Friday night slot. The first few minutes of the episode is a virtual bloodbath, but then it picks up from the last few minutes of last season’s finale, but from the other side of Nick’s door. This is where we see Kelly (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Nick’s mother, as she lines herself up to help Nick take down Kimura, the man responsible for killing Nick’s parents – or so we thought.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Kelly Burkhardt Photo by: Scott Green/NBC

We immediately find out what happened the night Nick’s father died. It was Kelly’s best friend, Gina, in the car with him that night. Kelly knew someone was after her and thought that if her husband and Gina were away from her, they’d be safe. It didn’t work. When they were killed, they took Gina’s head making it impossible to positively identify her, so it was just assumed that it was Kelly in the car. She allowed that belief to remain to protect Nick, and so that she could track the killers on her own, undetected. Nick also finds out that Aunt Marie knew Kelly was still alive.

Meanwhile, as Monroe and Rosalee frantically work on a potion that will wake Juliette up safely, they stumble upon a frightening fact. Whatever poison Adalind used, it’s taking away Juliette’s memories. When they show up at Nick’s house to tell him, Monroe is attacked by Kelly before Nick can introduce Monroe and Rosalee as his friends. Monroe is his usual hilarious self when he tells Nick, “Dude, I gotta be honest. Your mom scares the crap out of me!” Oh how I’ve missed Monroe!

Captain Renard visits Adalind’s mother, Catherine (Jessica Tuck), looking for Adalind. He’s afraid that if Juliette dies, all roads will lead Nick to him. I’m still not clear on why keeping Nick, a Grimm, close to Renard and under his supervision is so important, even after we learn the relationship between  the Royals and the Grimms, which is coming up.

Bitsie Tulloch as Juliette Silverton Photo by: Scott Green/NBC

Hank is sitting in his house, holding a shotgun, terrified of his own shadow. If Nick doesn’t talk with him soon, that guy is headed for Crazyville.

The monster of the week is called a Mauvais Dentes, a tiger-like creature sent by persons unknown to hunt Nick and kill him. The Mauvais Dentes is the most deadly creature Nick has encountered thus far, largely due to the fact that it is so unpredictable and sly, it makes him hard to track and even harder to kill. His history is tied in with what we learn this week about the Grimms.

And what do we learn?

• Kelly tells Nick she found out what she was at ten years old. When her father saw the signs in her and Aunt Marie he made sure to begin their training then and there and he was pretty intense about it.
• For the last 18 years Kelly had been hunting Kimura and the order of the Dragon’s Tongue, all of whom were after the coins. She had been deceived and lead by false clues until she discovers that there was more to it than greed in owning the coins. the royal families were trying to regain their former glory and they want the coins to help them gain that.
• Kelly says that Nick’s grandfather, great-grandmother and Aunt Marie are the only Grimms in their family. No one knows when or if the traits will begin to show, but she does know that it starts sooner in women than in men, and it’s inherited.
• Kelly and Marie bought the trailer to store all the weapons and books they had in their basement.
• Inside a hidden compartment in the desk is a page from the original diary kept by a Grimm.
• Nick’s ‘key’ is a map. It’s one of seven keys forged by the knights who served the seven royal families during the 4th Crusade. Each key is a map that when put together, reveals the location of the wealth taken from Constantinople.
• The knights are Nick’s ancestors.
• The Vessen fought for the royals and the Grimms were to control them.
• There was one item among the treasure that was the most powerful thing anyone had ever seen. If the royal families got hold of it, they could control the world.
• The royal families know that Nick has one of the keys. They are the ones who sent the Mauvais Dentes; they are the only ones powerful enough to do so.

A Mauvais Dentes Photo by: Scott Green/NBC

So now we have the history of the Grimms, which I found very interesting. We know that Captain Renard is a royal, and in Bad Teeth we were introduced to James Frain’s character, and the one who sent the Mauvais Dentes. We know from casting information that Frain plays Renard’s brother but that was not revealed in this episode. He’s a bad guy though, that much is clear when he has a member of the “resistance” beaten in what appears to be a dungeon. We don’t have the full story on this resistance but I feel sure we will find out this season.

For the rest of the episode Captain Renard finds out from Kimura that there are two Grimms. He makes one of his mysterious phone calls where he’s speaking French to someone, so it appears that Renard is answering to someone higher up than he.

Kimura is killed, Kelly and Nick go after the Mauvais Dentes when one of the half alive FBI agents investigating mysterious killings in a container on a ship, calls him and tells him to meet her at an old lumber mill where they’ve found the suspect’s vehicle.

Bad Teeth ends there with part two, The Kiss, airing next Monday night at 10/9c, on NBC.