Grimm Episode 306
“Stories We Tell Our Young”
Written By: Michael Duggan
Directed By: Aaron Lipstadt
Original Airdate: 6 December 2013
In This Episode...
Marshall and Belinda take their sone, nine year old Daniel, to a church late one night for an exorcism. An old priest (Monsignor Paul) and a young priest (seminary student Matthew) take Daniel into a back room. as the monsignor begins the rites, Daniel’s sweet boyish face changes. It grows pale and veiny, his eyes glow, and his teeth grow sharp. Matthew tries to hold the boy down but is no match for his super strength. He ties the boy to ornate bars on the edges of the table he is on, but the demon is too strong. Daniel pulls the bar free and uses it to beat the priests.
When Nick and Hank arrive on the scene, the monsignor is dead and Matthew has been taken to the hospital. Daniel is missing and his parents are beside themselves. Nick finds Daniel hiding in a cabinet in the office. He unties him he is taken to the hospital. Nick and Hank are at a loss for what went on here, but who ever suspects a kid? Maybe the adults turned on each other. Either way, the kid, though he appears unharmed, needs to get checked out.
Marshall fills in some of the gaps. Daniel started to change about a year ago. He went from a sweet boy to one given to sudden, violent mood swings. Dozens of doctors and psychiatrists had been unable to help, so the only thing left to try was exorcism. Naturally, Nick’s first thought goes not to demon possession, but to wesen. (Because, seriously, in a world already overrun by fairytale creatures, who would believe demon possession was possible?) But Marshall assures Nick that Daniel is their biological son. As far as Nick knows, it takes at least one wesen parent to create a wesen child.
He consults with Monroe and Rosalee, who confirm. But then that begs the question: what is Daniel? After Nick describes Daniel’s transformation more like a battle within, Rosalee becomes alarmed. It sounds like a grausen. Every generation is scared with tales of a grausen. It was said to be the spirit of a wesen that would take over a non-wesen kid. As science became more sciencey, opinion changed to believe that it was caused by a genetic mutation. Grausen were violent and unpredictable. Grimms have no provence over them because, technically, they are not actually wesen. Monroe says that if a grausen were allowed to reach adulthood, they would turn into “notorious psychopaths,” taking over entire continents. (In other words, Monroe is not-so-subtly hinting that Hitler was a grausen.) In the 16th century, the wesen council and the Grimms reached a secret deal that any grausen be handled by the council. The council would make the grausen “disappear,” essentially spelling out a death sentence for the kid. Monroe is happy to let Nick deal with this, but Rosalee is terrified of crossing the council. So she tells them. The home office dispenses a... courier I guess, I don’t know what else to call him. He pays Monroe and Rosalee a visit in the middle of the night to find Daniel’s exact whereabouts. Rosalee tells him which hospital Daniel is at.
A nurse draws blood from Daniel. Despite being sedated, the demon part of him comes out and scares the nurse right out of the room. Nick figures that he seems to act out when is threatened. He instructs the doctors not to draw blood or do any tests; bring him food and observe only. The doctor doesn’t like not being able to treat him, but she also doesn’t like her staff being in danger. She will give it 24 hours and Nick puts a cop on the room.
Nick consults with Juliette and his books. He finds stories of the grausen, and all confirm the story that Rosalee told him. Juliette suggests that this sounds like a disease or a pathogen and they go talk to the parents. About a month before Daniel’s mood swings began, the family went on a trip to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel and Daniel got the flu. Naturally, they just believed it was the flu, but Juliette remembered a case study from vet school, in which race horses were flown to the Middle East. They made an emergency landing in Jordan, and the horses developed a similar sort of possessed, aggressive behavior. They were killed before any tests could be done, but the vets all thought they had contracted a rare parasite or protozoa. If they can kill the parasite, Daniel should return to normal.
Returning to the hospital, they find Daniel’s parents took him home a half-hour ago. The councilman was too late as well, but he follows Nick and Juliette to Daniel’s home. While the grownups are downstairs talking, and Juliette explains how they might be able to save Daniel, the councilman has sneaked into Daniel’s room. His demon/parasite side comes out, and the two battle. The grownups race upstairs in time to see the two beasts disappear out the window.
Nick gives chase and gets to the councilman first. Hank brings up the rear and holds him at gunpoint while Nick continues to search for Daniel. Juliette joins the search, as does Marshall, who suggests the boy is hiding in a fort they built together. Sure enough, they find the fort, with Daniel curled up on the ground. It is freezing out there and Daniel seems to be in danger of hypothermia. Juliette wants to let him stay out there a little longer in the hopes that the cold will kill whatever parasite is living within in. Moments later, a greenish goo leaks out of Daniel’s ears and nose, turning brown and crumbly when it hits the air. They rush Daniel back into the house to warm up. He will be fine.
Medical tests reveal that Daniel’s white blood cell count had returned to normal. It seems that he is cured. Nick goes to the councilman, now in an interrogation room, and gives him Daniel’s medical report to take back to headquarters to teach them that there are other ways of dealing with grausen. When brought the file, the elder councilman agrees to keep Daniel under observation, but nothing more - for now. He also wants Nick under surveillance. He is like no other Grimm they have ever dealt with.
Meanwhile, in Vienna...
Renard has headed there on “vacation” (only Hank and Nick know the truth). He is there for some kind of meeting between the royal families, but must keep the fact that he is there a strict secret. Sebastien has a “safe house” set up for them (a dank, smelly basement cell with an escape route to the sewer) but it proves to be less than safe when a couple armed men break in and start shooting. Sebastian and Renard best their opponents and escape.
Also, Adalind has been requested at the castle - by the new prince (who we don’t see).
Dig It or Bury It?
I really liked that this episode wasn’t as “procedural” as many others are. Plus, exorcism is always creepy. There was a lot of new lore introduced tonight, and I liked that Nick got to add his own page to the book. I think that this is the first episode Grimm in which there ended up being no supernatural implications whatsoever.
But I am still frustrated with how long they are dragging out this royal family thing. The best I can figure is that the seven royal families hate each other purely because they want more power; and that Renard and his mother are reviled by the others because he is illegitimate. Still don’t understand what is going on with Adalind, her baby, the buyer, and what exactly is special about it. I had a lot of fun with the exorcist story, but stop teasing me with bits and pieces of the bigger picture!!
Grimm Lore
Monroe and Rosalee try to give Nick and Hank the wesen “birds and the bees” talk. They explain that if both parents are wesen, the kid will definitely be wesen. If one parent is wesen, the kid has a 50% chance of being wesen. If two different kinds of wesen breed (like Monroe and Rosalee), well, they don’t care as long as it is healthy.
Prophecies?
In the two-hour “mid-season finale” we investigate the urban myth of alligators in the sewers (of course, when the promo said there is something in the sewers, I shouted “Ninja Turtles!”) as well as the tale of Krampus.