Grimm Episode 314
“Mommy Dearest”
Written By: Brenna Kouf
Directed By: Norberto Barba
Original Airdate: 7 March 2014
In This Episode…
A pregnant woman and her husband - Dana and Sam - are cleaning up dinner. He offers to go to the pharmacy to pick up her medications while she lays down. Dana reads for awhile, then goes to sleep. As she sleeps, a slithery reptile-like creature climbs the tree outside her bedroom and shoots its long, tentacle-like tongue into the room. It slithers beneath the bed sheets, attaches itself to Dana’s bellybutton and starts sucking. She wakes and starts screaming, as the creature actually comes into the room. She does her best to fight off the creature, finally breaking a lamp and using a broken shard to slice the parasite off her. The neighbor, Liz, hears the screams while taking out the garbage, but by the time she gets to Dana, the beast is gone and Dana is bleeding (but still pregnant).
Wu and another officer hear the call over the walkie-talkie, and Wu recognizes the address. They rush over. Dana and Wu have known each other since they were children, and apparently used to date (she may even be “the one who got away”). He feels responsible because it was Wu who convinced them to move to Portland from Manila. As Dana is taken to the hospital, she whispers to Wu, “Aswang.” Nick and Hank arrive to find claw marks on the windowsill and the tree that are definitely not normal. The neighbor didn’t see anything, but she heard a strange ticking noise, and thought she saw a shadow moving.
The doctor has never seen anything like this - it appears that all Dana’s amniotic fluid was drained. The fetus is fine and as long as she stays hydrated, she should replenish her amniotic fluids in a few days. Other than stem cell research, the doctor can’t think of a reason why someone would want amniotic fluid. Hank and Nick are leaning towards Sam being the culprit (you know, in wesen form) but Wu insists this had to be a stranger. When Dana is finally awake, Nick and Hank go speak to her. She claims not to remember anything, but she struggles. She most certainly does remember what happened, but she would have to be crazy to believe that, so she goes with the whole “I don’t remember” routine.
A nightmare sends Wu to visit his cousin and consult on a tale that their grandmother used to tell them of the aswang. Cousin Wu laughs, remembering the story, which he always thought was a story to keep husbands from stepping out on their wives. The aswang would eat the fetuses from pregnant women to absorb their youth and strength. Wu nervously says that he thinks someone is staging a sick, elaborate joke. But obviously it is no joke, and Sam knows it - he is an aswang. But he didn’t attack his wife. He calls his brother, back in Manila, to ask when “she” arrived and where “she” is staying.
The “she” is Sam’s mom, Lani. He pays her a visit at the motel, and she begs him to reconsider. She will die soon if she doesn’t eat her grand-fetus. “You can always make another baby, but you only have one mother.” Wow, giving mother Bates a run for her money. Sam gives her a ticket back to Manila and storms out. With Lani in town, Sam has started acting dodgy and nervous, which makes Wu suspicious. He finally takes his suspicions to Hank and Nick. He is very nervous about telling them, but he finally admits that he thinks Sam may be guilty, and may be staging it to look like a supernatural attack. Hank desperately wants to tell Wu what is going on, but Nick advises against it.
With Dana being released from the hospital, Wu takes it upon himself to keep watch outside. Night falls, and he sees Lani pull up outside the house. Instead of going to the door, she climbs the tree. Wu is suspicious and goes to investigate.
Inside the house, as Dana sleeps, Sam hears a noise. He finds his mother in the living room. She makes short work of knocking him unconscious before heading in to see Dana, assuring her she is there to take care of her. Lani hums her daughter-in-law back to sleep - then starts tonguing her bellybutton. Wu peeks in the house and sees Sam unconscious, and uses that as probably cause to enter the house. He hears a ticking noise upstairs and races up - to see the aswang attacking Dana. Wu is literally frozen in fear - until the aswang attacks him. Nick and Hank arrive in the nick o’ time (having followed the standard trail of breadcrumbs from the trailer) and shoot the aswang dead. It reverts back to Lani - right before Wu’s traumatized eyes. He is in shock as Nick attempts to calm him down. But he keeps repeating, “It wasn’t her. I swear. It wasn’t her.”
Hank and Nick visit Wu a few days later. But not at home. He has checked himself into a mental asylum and has been having a hard time talking about what happened. Nick tells Wu that Lani had a long history of violent behavior, and that he was a hero for saving Dana and the baby. His only response is a distant, vacant smile, courtesy of massive amounts of drugs, then returns to his staring window… where he can still see the aswang attacking.
Also: Adalind has her baby - a girl. When Meisner tells Renard, he has to choke back the pride to tell him to stay put while he makes arrangements to get them out of the country. Adalind seems more excited to have her powers back now that she has given birth. But the baby seems to have powers of its own: when Meisner brushes back Adalind’s hair while she sleeps, the hair coils up around his hand tightly. When he looks, the baby has its supernaturally-blue eyes fixed on him.
Dig It or Bury It?
This was one of the best episodes of Grimm that I have seen in awhile. I’m not sure what exactly it was that kicked things off so well: the majority of the episode focusing on one story, the fact that it opened with some good action (even if the CG was a little off); or the fact that another character knows about wesen - but doesn’t really. I think it was the structure, honestly. We open and close with bits of Adalind, but then the rest of it stays pretty focused.
And… Wu finally gets a first name! DREW! Drew Wu!
Big Bad…
…Aswang. From Filipino myth, the aswang uses a tongue that looks like it stepped from an anime porno to shoot chewed-up valerian root (“nature’s valium”) into a pregnant woman through her bellybutton to sedate her, then sucks out the amniotic fluid and fetus. Consuming this is said to provide youth and a longer life. It is especially effective if the child is a blood relative. In Sam’s family, tradition holds that it is the duty of the eldest son to provide his first child to his mother to eat.
Prophecies?
Mummies! Mummy Anubis, no less. Apparently Egyptian gods were wesen.