Grimm Episode 216
“Nameless”
Written By: Akela Cooper
Directed By: Charles Haid
Original Airdate: 29 March 2013
In This Episode...
A video game company is launching their new MMORPG title - to great success. Team leader Jenna and one of her teammates Brody sneak off to a back office to fool around. Jenna thinks she hears something and quickly dresses and leaves - their relationship is fairly secret. There certainly is something in the room with them, a gobliny Wesen with loooong, knife-like claws that drip acid. When Jenna is gone, the Wesen cuts Brody in half; the acid cauterizes the wounds. Written on the wall, in Brody’s blood, is the edict “Play my game.”
The company owner, Dominic, tells Hank and Nick that Jenna and her team created a new line of code that would allow infinitely more players onto a server, making her code immeasurably valuable. The rest of Jenna’s team - and the rest of the company - were competitive, but friendly. No one had a grudge against Brody. However, three hours before he was dead, Brody’s player in the game was killed in the same way. Another team member, Vicky, dies in the game. She dies in the same way shortly thereafter.
The killer has been leaving clues. In addition to threats left in blood and phone calls with the same, title pages from fantasy classics Alice in Wonderland, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Rage - all with similar threats. They also find a sudoku puzzle with a few blank squares highlighted.
Sergeant Wu is the puzzle master. He pieces together the fact that all the books were authored by men using pseudonyms, and the highlighted sudoku numbers yielded a time and date. Jenna fills in the blanks: she was supposed to have a date at that time with a creepy IT guy at a restaurant called Nom de Plume. She stood him up, and she can’t remember his name - something odd, that started with a T. What’s more is that the invaluable code that Jenna wrote was actually the IT work of the IT guy. Jenna gave him no credit.
Hank and Nick hit the trailer and match up the MO with the fuchsteufield. In the book, the fuchsteufield comes with a long list of weird names. Nick realizes they all use the same letters, rearranged, but he doesn’t know what to do with them. Back at the precinct, Wu runs the letters through an anagram finder, then they match those names against the game users. There is one match: Trinket Lipslums. The cops set up a virtual stakeout. Jenna finds Trinket - game handle Nameless - in the game and kills him, splitting him in half lengthwise. Trinket does not take this well and decides the game is not over. He breaks into Jenna’s house, but finds it is not Jenna at the computer - it is a cop. Nick, Hank, Wu, and others swarm in, but Trinket escapes. A chase leads up to the roof via fire escape. Wu is hot on Trinket’s heels, but Trinket uses his acid drip to cut the fire escape from the building. Wu is left dangling while Nick and Hank take the regular stairs and meet Trinket on the roof. Rather than “lose,” Trinket throws himself off the roof.
Meanwhile, Juliette’s hallucinations are getting stronger and more frequent. She begs Monroe and Rosalee to come over. Though they can’t see what she sees, Juliette hopes that maybe if she describes what she sees, Monroe can help put the pieces together. It seems fairly clear that these hallucinations are Juliette’s memories coming back in bits and pieces. One of them is Nick looking over a journal. Monroe, without thinking, says it must have been Nick in Aunt Marie’s trailer. He tries to backtrack, but Juliette realizes she was about to enter the trailer when the whole “incident” hit. She is determined to go check out the trailer, but Monroe won’t take her until he talks to Nick. Juliette doesn’t want Nick to know, but Monroe holds fast. He tells Nick, who tells Monroe to keep her away. The problem is that if Juliette doesn’t get the truth soon, she is going to leave Portland and forget about Nick for good.
Also: Renard sets up a super-secret meeting with a man from Vienna. With Renard’s brother gone, the Viennese guy can meet Renard with relative safety. Unfortunately, a dude named Henri has been following Vienna-man. When Vienna and Renard meet, Renard wants to know where his brother’s influence is expanding to. Vienna says there are “cabals within cabals” and “no one knows who is controlling anything.” He passes Renard a thumb drive, which he says contains the encrypted names of the resistance. They must protect these names - it is the only way to prevent Eric from returning the Wesen to imperialism is by protecting the resistance. Renard notices Henri acting dodgy in the restaurant, then he leaves behind a briefcase. Renard acts fast, throwing the briefcase out into the street before it can explode. Henri runs, but Renard shoots him dead.
Dig It or Bury It?
Really enjoyed this episode. It had a lot of great elements. On the procedural side, we had video games and wicked kills from a wicked killer. On the mythology side, Juliette is finally knocking on the knowledge door, and we get a little more insight into the Renard debacle.
Prophecies?
Rosalee is put on jury duty and realizes the defense attorney is using “Wesen wiles” to influence the trial. Plus, Juliette is so close to the truth....