Geekscape Recap: Grimm “Mommy Dearest”

Well, we’d been asking for a while—when is poor Sgt. Wu going to get looped in? And, boy, did he get looped in. And not in the way we were expecting.

This week’s episode of Grimm, “Mommy Dearest,” started off with Adalind and Meisner in their very Grimm-Fairy-Tales-esque cabin in the woods. Adalind is in labor and Meisner is adding ‘midwife’ to his list of (fairly impressive) skills.

After throwing some cups and things about the room, Baby Girl is born—and Adalind is back to her Hexenbiest form.

Pregnancy is a Theme, Apparently

Then we jump to Dana (Tess Paras), also pregnant, cleaning up after dinner and bantering with her husband, Sam (Alain Uy). He goes to get her pre-natal meds, and she goes to bed.

A Golemn-esque type creatures climbs up Dana’s tree, through her window, and then, its tongue whips out, winds through the room and INTO HER BELLY.

INTO HER BELLY.

HER PREGNANT BELLY.

Way to up the nastiness, Grimm.

A neighbor hears Dana’s screams, runs in, and saves her.

Finally, an Episode All About Wu

Next we go to Sgt. Wu and his partner having dinner in the police car when the calls comes over the radio—turns out Wu knows Dana. he throws out the food and turns the car around, siren’s blaring.

Wu rushes over to find her unconscious, bleeding from her belly. She comes to just long enough to whisper “Aswang.”

Nick and Hank show up and find claw marks on the window frame and the tree outside—which makes Nick think it could be Wesen.

Apparently Wu is close friends with Dana—since childhood—and they moved to Portland at his recommendation, so he feels responsible.

At the hospital, they discover that almost all of Dana’s amniotic fluid was drained, but that she and the baby are okay. Also, Dana was drugged with some kind of sedative. Sam was at the CVS when the attack happened, but Nick and Hank are still suspicious.

Also, it becomes pretty clear that Wu’s feelings for Dana are definitely not just ‘friendly.’ Poor Wu!

Juliette shows up for a minute to tell Hank and Nick that the claw marks could be any large animal (thanks!) but then brings up the salient point of the episode: if it is Wesen, how are they going to tell Wu?

Nick’s response? “We lie.”

Cause that has worked out so well in the past.

Of Course You Married an Aswang

Wu leaves Sam and Dana alone at the hospital, and Sam—closing the door behind him—calls Manila (here’s hoping he using a VoIP service or his phone bill’s gonna bankrupt him).

His brother answers, and they discuss that ‘she’ is in Portland. Sam says he can’t ‘do this’ to Dana, and then shifts into the same grey-golemn looking Aswang creature.

Shift to Wu, sleeping in his apartment. He is dreaming about finding Dana on the floor, bloody, saying ‘Aswang,’ and then shifts to child-Wu listening to his grandmother telling him a story about a demon which eats babies. Then an Aswang flies at him from the ceiling (ACK) and he wakes up.

Back in the woods of Austria, Meisner makes sure Adalind is asleep and calls Renard. After a brief (and touching) moment where Renard learns the baby is a girl, Meisner and Renard have another ‘you’re not safe! You can’t stay there! Stop calling me! conversation. Their whole relationship is like a Muse song.

Why is it Always Valerian Root?

Hank and Nick can’t find any dirt on Sam, but get a call from the hospital telling them that Dana is awake. Off they go.

Wu visits his cousin (who apparently runs a restaurant), and asks him if he remembers stories about Aswang. He does (drugs the mom, eats the fetus…ew). The cousin also remembers Dana—and it’s made clear that Wu has had a torch for Dana for a while.

At the hospital, Dana doesn’t remember anything about the attack, except the pain. Wu shows up in time to hear that the doctor found valerian root (a natural sedative) in her system—which is in line with the Aswang lore.

Wu almost tells Nick and Hank about the Aswang theory, but doesn’t.

Sam is cleaning up the bedroom (i.e. scene of the crime) when his brother in Manila calls him back. Brother tells him that ‘she’ is in Portland, at the Victory Motel, room 117.

As Sam leaves, he runs into Wu. Wu wants to look at the bedroom again, Sam won’t let him. Wu runs the Aswang theory by Sam, who brushes him off. Things get a little tense—and Wu begins to think Sam is a suspect.

To the Spice Shop!

At the spice shop, Rosalee and Monroe go over Valerian root and ancient rituals involving amniotic fluid and youth with Hank and Nick. They all decide to go to the trailer to see what they can find out.

Sam goes to the Victory hotel to meet the mysterious ‘her’—who turns out to be his mother, Lani (Fredo Foh Shen). Apparently, if you’re Aswang, and you’re the eldest son, your firstborn is ‘owed’ to your mother, who consumes it while still in the womb, to preserve her life.

Kudos to Sam, he’s not having any of it. “People die, Mom.” He says. Her response? “You can have other babies.”

Ew. Blech. Ew.

He gives her a plane ticket back to Manila and tells her to go home, and leaves.

After he leaves, she morphs into Aswang form and tears the ticket into shreds. So probably not going back to Manila, then.

It’s gotta be bigger on the inside…
Courtesy of NBC Universal

To the Trailer for More…Research…

Wu is helping Dana pack at the hospital—where Sam isn’t—and he embraces Dana when she admits that she is scared to go back home. Sam walks in on the embrace, leading to him taking Wu out into the hall for a ‘she’s my wife, not yours, leave us alone’ conversation.

Sam also conveniently tells Wu that Sam’s mom is in town and where she’s staying. Making Wu wonder why Sam’s mom isn’t staying with Sam and Dana.

At the trailer, we get our usual fact-finding research scene, but this one has the best lines of the episode:

Hank: Do we have to start at the beginning?

Monroe: Yeah, can’t we just skip to the ‘and then I cut off his head’ part.

Nick: Snuck down putrid alley…fetid smell of blood, blah, blah…cut of it’s h—okay, too far.

HA.

So they find out it’s an Aswang, and what an Aswang does (including making a tick-tick sound, which a witness at the scene reported hearing), and then they have a ‘tell Wu or don’t tell Wu conversation, where they decide not to tell Wu, as it’s just too freaky and they don’t know how he’ll take it.

Sidenote: At this point we had a very loud conversation with the TV where we attempted to sway the argument being had by imaginary characters. OF COURSE YOU SHOULD TELL WU.

Sheesh.

Friendzoned

Sam and Dana have a little heart to heart about what is going between Wu and Sam, as she can tell they’re mad at each other. Sam doesn’t understand why she’s still friends with him, because it’s awkward (yeah…) to which she says he’s always been such a good friend to her….

Wu goes back to the station and tells Nick and Hank that Sam’s mother is in town and where she’s saying. Wu confides in Hank and Nick that he thinks Sam might be guilty, and that he might be staging the attack to look like an Aswang.

Nick calls it ‘quite a theory’—Hank almost tells Wu the truth, but at the last minute chickens out.

Just Calling My Married Friend While I Sit Outside Her House…

Wu—in full kinda-stalk-ery mode—sits outside Dana’s house in his car. He sees Lani show up in a cab, go behind the tree in the front yard, and then a creature climb up the tree.

Nick and Hank get to the motel, and find the torn plane ticket. The motel manager said Lani got into a cab—Hank calls the cab company and finds out Lani went to Sam and Dana’s.

Back at Sam and Dana’s, Sam hears scuffling in the hall—and mom ambushes him, pushing him down the stairs and knocking him out. Then she goes into the bedroom—as Lani—and sings Dana a lullaby until Dana goes to sleep.

Then it’s all full-Aswang-tongue into belly. Before she can do much damage, though, Wu runs in. He see Lani in her Aswang form and freaks out.

Lani attacks Wu, slashes him across the face—he can barely resist—when Nick crashes in and shoots her. As she dies, Lani morphs back into Lani.

Wu just stands there and repeats “It wasn’t her.” Over and over.

Sidenote: At this point Nick and Hank and the perfect moment to tell Wu he did see something, and it was real, and they DON’T, which MAKES NO SENSE, because clearly Wu is already suffering some severe mental stress.

So Many Creepy Baby Things

Back to the cabin, Adalind is still sleeping, with the baby. Meisner tenderly strokes her hair, only to have it come alive and clench around his hand—and baby Girl opens her blood-red-super-creepy-CGI-eyes.

SUPER CREEPY EYES.

The two stare at each other for a moment before baby Girl relaxes Adalind’s hair around Meisner’s hand.

Back to Portland, where Nick and Hank are meeting Wu in a mental hospital. We were not expecting that—and we don’t like it. Not poor Wu! Why does it always happen to him?

Even with Wu in an institution, because he believes he’s crazy, because of what he saw, neither Nick nor Hank say anything about Wesen. Wu’s a hero, they say.

Wu says that’s nice, then turns away…right into an Aswang jumping at him

So that was also unexpected.

What did you think, fellow Grimms? Should they have told Wu? What do you think Adalind’s baby really is?

And what about next week? Egyptian Gods were Wesen–what?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGAvTLEb870

Grimm airs on NBC on Fridays at 10 p.m.