Geekscape Recap: Grimm “El Cucuy”

Grimm’s back, after a week away, with another solid installment. “El Cucuy” (and boy, the Coco has been super popular this year, with a short film, a maze at Universal Studios Hollywood this past Halloween, and now its own episode on Grimm).

Cops and Robbers

Of course, at its heart, Grimm is a cop procedural, so we start with a crime: two masked men rob a grocery store, and for no real reason other than villainy, beat the clerk almost to death. A clever series of interconnecting televisions (all showing the same news broadcast about the robbery) lead us to the clerk’s hospital bed, where his mother sits and prays to El Cucuy, to come and punish the bad men before more mothers cry. A vertigo-inducing moon shot, and then to a motel room, where a leathery, clawed arm rips into the chair as the news reporter continues their story about the robbery.

If you remember, the last episode ended with Juliette finding an email from Nick’s mother (and why doesn’t his email go to his phone?? We mean, he clearly has an iPhone…) is waiting for Nick when he comes home.

Sidenote: We know Juliette is a Vet, but does she ever go to work? She is ALWAYS home and seems to be able to take on time-consuming research projects with no consequences.

Credit for not dragging out the ‘are you cheating on me’ subplot for more than ten minutes (though even that felt a little too long); Nick explains “M” is his mother (with flashbacks to the fight/beheading sequence from a year or so ago) and somehow comes to the conclusion that Mommy dearest is in trouble (though how he jumped straight to that is unclear, all the email said was ‘turmoil,’ but okay).

Nicks comes clean with the ‘Mom’s a Grimm, I’m a Grimm, our kid could be a Grimm” news, and Juliette wants to know if his mom liked her (what?).

Sidenote: We thought the whole ‘my Aunt is Grimm, my ancestors were Grimms, I’m a Grimm’ had already confirmed the being-a-Grimm-is-genetic hypothesis but apparently Nick only figured it out when his Mom showed up. Um. Okay.

In Vienna, Adalind is getting her ultrasound and—uh-oh—there’s two heartbeats. Not twins. Just one baby and…um…something else. The doctor thinks it’s an echo, but we know better, don’t we? Something creepy is keeping baby company.

Renard’s man on the ground takes pictures of Adalind leaving and instructs Henchman #2 to break in and get her files.

It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Mauled

Back to Portland, where our two Thugs from earlier saunter up to a convenience store, masks on. They rush in and rob the place, with more violence then was strictly necessary. The Thugs run to their car—and the first one is attacked by something with very, very, very sharp claws. Lots of blood. The beast (El Cucuy, we assume) runs the second thug down and kills him in an alley.

Nick and Hank arrive at the crime scene, where the one witness–clearly scared—can’t help them much. Uniforms find the car, and the two discuss whether it could be Wesen or feral dogs as they search it, finding the stolen money just as Wu calls in the convenience store robbery. Our favorite detectives put two and two together and join Wu at the store.

Outside the store they are verbally accosted by David Florez (Manny Montana, Graceland). Sergeant Franco (Robert Blanche) tells Nick and Hank that Florez always shows up at local crime scenes and complains about how badly the police do their job.

After watching the security tapes, they decide to speak to the customers who had left the store right before the robbery, and may have seen the Thugs before and/or after the robbery.

Juliette is Super-Haxor

Juliette, ensconced at home (in the TINY computer desk in the foyer, because that’s where’d you put a computer in a two-story Craftsmen…) shows computer skills not even hinted at before by managing to trace Momma Grimm’s email to Visnja Gora.

At the precinct, Nick and Hank interview the three witnesses who left the store prior to it being robbed: 1. Large Guy—who saw/heard nothing; 2. Little Old Lady—same and 3. Vest Guy, who points Nick and Hank in the direction of the local neighborhood psychopath, Ray Bolton (Matt McTighe, 24, Bones) who owns dogs (which he also fights on the weekends. So not a nice guy).

Nick heads home (late) to find Juliette (oddly manic, for some reason) who shows her days work of ISP tracking and spouts lots of nerd speak (don’t get us wrong, we love nerd-speak, it was just weird to hear it from Juliette).

The next day, Hank and Nick decide to go talk to Bolton, as he is connected to the two dead thugs (one of whom had testified against Bolton). Bolton gets aggressive and reveals a rat/dragon/dog-like Wesen side. Nick arrests him just as Florez shows up, who loudly cheers the cops on during the arrest.

Over to Monroe’s house, where Monroe is doing pilates (??) with a machine (??) of some sort. The phone rings, and Rosalee answers—its Monroe’s mother. Who clearly doesn’t know that Monroe is living with Rosalee. The two discuss how and when they will tell their parents. Apparently it’s going to be a touchy subject.

Claws and Teeth Do Not El Cucuy Make

Back to the precinct, where Nick and Hank interrogate Bolton, who doesn’t flinch. Not a nice guy, but also (probably) not the attacker. And his dogs are innocent, as well.

They decide to leave Bolton under arrest and try to find out what/who exactly did the crime.

So, the Scooby gang is called and meet at Monroe’s house, where they show the pictures of the victims (gruesome) while drinking red wine and eating Portlandia-type food. Very surreal. Also, this scene has two of the best lines of the night (odd that that happens when Monroe is around!):

Monroe #1: “We’re more of a throat first and ask questions later Wesen.”

Monroe #2: “There’s no signs of going after the legs first to cripple the prey” at Hank’s perturbed look: “Sorry, victim.”

Also, Juliette gets to actually add to the conversation, thank goodness. Hopefully she’ll find something to be besides Nick’s girlfriend this season.

The gang decides Bolton is a Hollentier, a vicious, but not very bright, type of Wesen.

Across town, a young women gets off a bus, followed by two man. One follows her, but to her relief turns away—and that’s when she gets jumped by the other. Unmentionable things are about to happen, when the beast-Wesen shows up, all claw-rific and toothy, and saves the day.

El Cucuy Saves the Day

Nick and Hank show up (as does Florez, much to Hank’s disgust. The victim describes how she was saved by a beast/monster, and describes the beast that saved her; she calls it El Cucuy. Neither Hank nor Nick have heard of it before, but Juliette has. She explains it’s like the Bogeyman and that her grandmother used to use it has a ‘be good or El Cucuy will get you’ type threat.

At a loss as to whether El Cucuy could be a Wesen, Juliette takes Nick to meet Pilar (Bertila Damas, reprising her role from Season 2). Pilar tells a story about how El Cucuy was called to her village when she was a girl, and proceeded to, um, clean up the streets. Lethally. But effectively. El Cucuy was brought to the village by the prayers of the victims of the ‘bad men.’

Pilar describes El Cucuy as yellow-eyed, big teeth, bad breath and can be called by the voices of women who have suffered.

Nick and Juliette retreat to the trailer (by far the best super-secret-research-place on TV at the moment) but don’t find anything on El Cucuy.

Florez Can’t Catch a Break

Not only had Hank ran Florez through the system because he suspects Florez of the murders, but on his way home from getting groceries, Florez gets beat up by Bolton and his gang (who also threaten Florez’ mother).

Hank discovers Florez is an ex-Marine suffering from PTSD, making him a possible suspect. Wu brings in the security footage from the bus, and Little Old Lady from the convenience store is also there. Renard urges Nick and Hank to bring her in again for questioning.

Florez, pushed to breaking, locks himself in his bedroom over the cries of his mother and gets out his (wicked looking) knife and Marine dress uniform (though why he’d where his dress uniform and not his BDU’s for a fight, we don’t know—though the dress uniform certainly has all the shiny medals on it).

Hank and Nick get to Little Old Lady’s apartment (Mrs. Garcia, apparently. Thanks for the name drop, Hank!) and ask her to come down to the station.

Renard gets a video email (do none of these people get email on their phone???) and once he gets to the computer, he sees Adalind—proving she’s the one pregnant with the heir. But whose baby is it?

Nick and Hank, on the way back to the precinct with Mrs. Garcia, get a call from dispatch alerting them to Florez’ plans to rumble with Bolton. Nick and Hank, being close, go to intercept (with Mrs. Garcia).

Florez arrives at Bolton’s house, uniform on and sword/knife drawn (it seemed like it got bigger from his bedroom to the this scene, but hey, we could be wrong). Bolton and his friends are doing something drug-deal/evil-man related when Florez pounds on the front door.

Bolton morphs into his Wesen form and they proceed to brawl. Florez is saved by Nick and Hank showing up; Bolton demands Florez be arrested (and sadly, was in the legal right). Hank tells him to go into his house; he and Nick get Florez into the car and that’s when they notice Mrs. Florez is gone.

Bolton, gloating that the cops have nothing on him, is attacked in his front room by El Cucuy. Hank and Nick get in too late to save Bolton, but just in time to see El Cucuy morph back into Mrs. Garcia.

They bring Mrs. Garcia back to the precinct, and she points out—in a really great scene—that they have nothing on her. Cue third best line of the night:

Renard: Are you kidding me?

Awesome.

With nothing on her, they will have to let her go. Mrs. Garcia, waiting in the interrogation room, hears the prayers of other women, and her eyes glow yellow.

Released, Mrs. Garcia walks home when a Thug steals her purse. She laughs, and morphs into El Cucuy.

Whew. All in all, a solid episode. The quality of the guest stars just keeps getting better and the fact that all the main players (except Wu, poor Wu) know the same facts removes a lot of the ‘who do I tell what to?” melodrama that dogged some of last season’s episodes.

We’ll be back with more Grimm next week!

Grimm airs on Fridays at 9 p.m. on NBC. You can watch “El Cucuy” here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnQmCwP0vvw