“Grimm” continued mixing Monster of the Week murder investigations with dribs and drabs of ongoing storylines in “The Seven Year Itch,” Episode 5 in this sixth and final season of the filmed-in-Portland show.
The episode offered some funny lines, a Wesen killer who was especially outrageous, and a history lesson about Portland that probably doesn’t show up in the Portland Public Schools curriculum.
Overall, it was a good “Grimm” episode, but with time running out on the show, I’m craving more development in the magic stick department. And we know Diana (Hannah R. Loyd) will have more to do, so these Wesen crime episodes feel a bit like stalling.
Note: Spoilers are coming, so if you haven’t yet seen the episode — which was delayed until Saturday night to make way for a Blazers game on KGW Friday — you know what to do. And what are you waiting for, anyway? Get on the stick. Well, not that stick.
Here are highlights from “The Seven Year Itch”:
Portland history shocker: The Wesen killer this week was a huge cicada insect that climbs out of the ground once every seven years and has one day to find a substantial human to feed on for the next seven years, until it’s feeding time again. Ick. Even more disturbing, the big bug — who’s also quite a Dionysian party animal, in a detail that didn’t really get developed — is none other than William Stillman, a Portland founding father. For you non-Portlanders, Stillman is fictional, and we don’t have a park named after him, with a statue looming. But it was nice to see “Grimm” back in Portland’s woodsy parks, a hallmark of the show that I missed last season, with all that hanging around the gloomy Hadrian’s Wall headquarters.
I wasn’t sure which park this episode was filmed in. Any guesses? My personal favorite, Southeast Portland’s Mount Tabor Park, also has a statue, of Harvey Scott, who edited none other than The Oregonian newspaper, from 1865-1872, and from 1877 to 1910. You can read all about it at the Portland Parks & Recreation website for Mount Tabor Park.
Near the end of “The Seven Year Itch,” Stillman the Bug Wesen is in human form, trying to woo a curvy local lady, who he intends to chomp on for the next seven years. They walk at night through “Stillman Square Park,” as Stillman blathers on about the wonderful gift of the park to the city.
“I wonder what Portland was like back then,” the curvy gal says.
She would have stood out, Stillman the Bug Wesen says. “In 1850, this was a frontier town” so “there were five men to every woman.”
Curvy Portland Gal would like to meet just one, she muses.
Stillman the Bug Wesen attacks Curvy Portland Gal, and Nick (David Giuntoli), Hank (Russell Hornsby) and Wu (Reggie Lee) arrive just in time, and fight with the creature, who is surprisingly strong for a big ol’ bug.
When things look dodgy, suddenly a hippo-headed Wesen appears behind Stillman the Bug Wesen and chomps his head off. Surprise! The hippo-headed Wesen is actually Curvy Portland Gal.
“You’re the Grimm,” she calmly says to Nick, who’s staring at her.
“Yeah,” Nick says, matter-of-factly.
Just another day in Portland. I loved that the intended victim stopped her attacker in such a conclusive way, and this is another sign that, in the “Grimm” world, nearly every Portlander seems to be a Wesen. I did think making Curvy Portland Gal a hippo-like Wesen was a bit of a cheap shot, though.
Renard’s ghost problem: Renard (Sasha Roiz) has yet another spiffy new place, with fabulous views of Portland. He and Diana seem comfortable there, but Renard gets uninvited visits from Meisner (Damien Puckler), that pesky ghost. Determined to find out if he’s really being haunted by a spirit of if he’s just losing his marbles, Renard consults a local pawnbroker, who apparently, dabbles in Wesen magic. Renard gets into a glass thingy that looks like a cast-off fortune-teller booth from a traveling carnival, and spirit vapor appears to leave him. Meisner then appears, and taunts Renard, who looks tormented. Oh, did I mention that Renard is also shirtless?
Eve finally escapes the tunnels: So, Eve (Elizabeth Tulloch) is finally rescued from her tunnel tomb below Nick’s loft, when Diana senses that Eve is trapped down there. I didn’t realize she was trapped — she tells Nick that she couldn’t get her body to move to get the heck out. And she spent her time down there carving on the walls those strange symbols from the cloth that the magical stick was wrapped in. And when Diana goes down for a look, her eyes glow purple and the symbols grow purple. Huh?
Monroe and Rosalee’s baby news: Since Diana told Rosalee (Bree Turner) that there was more than one baby inside her, she and Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) visit a doctor to confirm. Oops! Turns out Rosalee is carrying not twins, but triplets.
Lines of the Week
“I don’t like dead bodies on an empty stomach” –– Hank to Nick, as the two have to leave Fuller’s Coffee Shop to investigate yet another Portland homicide.
“This is Portland. I might have to narrow that down” — Wu to Nick, after being asked to see if there were other reports of a naked man in the park the previous night.
Nick suggests the naked dead man in the park might be there because of a “sadistic sexual encounter gone bad.” “Really?” Hank asks. “No,” Nick says. “It’s Wesen.”
“What’s a girl gotta do to find the right guy in this town?” — Curvy Portland Gal to Nick, Hank and Wu, after she woged and bit off the head of her Wesen attacker.
“So, Portland’s celebrated pioneer was a 200-year-old cicada Wesen” — Hank, to Nick after finding out that the big bug Wesen was, in fact, William Stillman.
“A mind is a terrible thing to lose.”— Meisner’s ghost to Renard.
— Kristi Turnquist
kturnquist@oregonian.com
503-221-8227
@Kristiturnquist
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