Sunday, March 27, 2016

The "Grimmest" Dilemma

So 2 Years ago, I've written two articles (Here & Here) about the pitfalls of NBC's series "Grimm" and unfortunately, this article will be making new points as to why "Grimm" seriously needs some refocusing in the writer's room, especially with this current season and I'll elaborate more after the break.

Let's start with one VERY simple question: "What was The Resistance resisting against?". That should be an easy enough question to answer, shouldn't it? After all we've met many members of The Resistance, Renard, his friends Sebastian and Meisner, Ian Harmon and of course Nick's Mom Kelly, but for all we've seen of The Resistance (those meetings Renard had in other countries and clandestine phone calls, political assassinations), we haven't the slightest clue of what exactly The Resistance is trying to stop. "The Royals!" You say? Okay, I'll bite, Stop The Royals from doing what? Because last I checked, The Royals didn't even have a clear goal to begin with.

In the first Season Renard attempted to kill Nick's Aunt to obtain The Key. In the Second Season, Renard's brother Eric arrived in Portland to obtain The Key. In the third Season Viktor arrived in Portland to obtain Adalind's baby for reasons that still remain unknown. And don't tell me "Because she's a Royal baby!". Sean is only half-royal and a bastard which makes his baby "The bastard of a bastard" and only a quarter Royal. And don't tell me it's because Adalind's baby had special powers, The Royals had NO way of knowing that as she never exhibited those powers until she was born and even then The Royals didn't see her exhibit those powers until much later. In the fourth Season Kenneth arrived in Portland to obtain Adalind's baby. So The Resistance went from wanting to stop The Royals from doing....something to wanting to stop The Royals from getting a bastard of a bastard...explanation, please?

What was all of this for again?

I suppose none of that matters anymore because wouldn't you know it, all of those clandestine phone calls and meetings in foreign countries ultimately lead to nothing. There wasn't a major war between The Royals and The Resistance. Also, correcting me if I'm wrong but there were Seven Royal Families and thus far we've only seen one. It looks like Renard's family is the ONLY Royal family with some ambition...granted those ambitions are more ambiguous than Richard Kelly screenplay, but at least they're being active. Now The Resistance doesn't even matter, and that's not even me saying that, that's coming from Renard. Renard casually noted that Meisner used to be with The Resistance and now he's with H.W. (Hadrian's Wall). Wait, what happen with The Resistance? Did he leave? Was his time done with them? Did he decide it was lame and move on to something else? Was his only job just to push an old man out of a helicopter? Is this making any sense?

But I'm The KING!!

Meisner killed The King, a Royal, not just any Royal, A KING and NO ONE'S looking into this? Shouldn't Sean have people knocking on his door wanting to know what the police are going to do about a missing member of a Royal family from a foreign country? Furthermore, where's the fall out? sure Viktor assumed the throne for now but that only after members of his family all seem to mysteriously go missing in Portland. Eric Renard is dead, Kenneth is dead and framed as to being a serial killer and Fredrick Renard, The King is M.I.A, and no one's asking any questions? Right. Wars don't just end once you take out the head guy. WWII wouldn't have ended just by taking out Hitler, it'd have been a decisive blow but nothing war ending. Taking out Royalty would only turn the heat up on The Resistance, even IF Viktor wanted to get his uncle (The King) back for pulling him off the case of Adalind's baby, pressure from other family members would no doubt cause division among them and inevitable fall out.

Speaking of fall out, let's address The Wesen Council which I've neglected to mention in the previous articles. So as we know, The Wesen Council has been murdered by Black Claw. What are the implications of that? For example, if Congress blew up and every single state representative and legislator died that ramifications for the country would be immediate, elections would have to be held, mourning, non-stop news coverage, people would be appointed, speeches would be held, and a lot of legislation would be held up for more than likely a couple of years. Granted, Wesen operate in secret, but secretive or not, The Wesen Council was supposed to be the arbiter of all things Wesen (also, how does that work exactly? Do Wesen children go to Wesen schools where they're given a book of Wesen rules? Learn about Wesen culture? Is there a Wesen Hotline? A Wesen Council website that ONLY Wesen can log on to? How are these rules disseminated through out the Wesen population without drawing attention?). I guess none of that matters because The Wesen Council's dead and we'll never get the answer to those questions.

But wouldn't you think that a group of Wesen appointed (was The Wesen Council elected? Appointed? If so, by whom and how?) to adjudicate on Wesen matters wouldn't be so easily removed from the picture. So what does this mean? Is there a special Wesen task force assembled to deal with such an event? A secret Wesen police force to investigate the matter? Will there be elections for new council members? Are there back-up council members? Also who are they? My wife and I have a running joke between us that The Wesen Council is solely composed to these two guys;
...and they rent office space in a much larger building to maintain appearances. This joke is so easy to make because up until this point they're the ONLY members of The Wesen Council that we've seen. Also, how is it that they're so easy to get ahold of? Trying calling your congressman or state senator and expect a call back in a few hours...not gonna happen. But Rosalee leaves a message with The Wesen Council and one of their top guys gets back to her in a few hours? Rosalee may know people, but c'mon, Renard's half royalty and his dad won't even return his calls.

"Friend don't let friends woge drunk." That'sour new slogan.

All jokes aside "Grimm" has taken great strides in building it's world of Wesen but hasn't REALLY thought it through to any degree where it'd be realistic. Take for instance the Beati Paoli, proud Wesen who are offended when humans desecrate Wesen culture, sounds logical until you realize that Humans aren't even supposed to be aware of Wesen and therefore wouldn't be aware they're desecrating anything. Little things like that make me wonder just what exactly is going on in the writer's room of "Grimm". And now I'd like to talk about Eve. Let's ignore the fact for a minute that there's no logical explanation behind why she's no longer Juliette and ask just why in the hell does she have all those wigs? Honestly, what's that all about?

Gotta look fresh somehow.

I could see if she was an undercover operative, but she's not, I could see if she was attempting to disguise herself, she not, so what would an insanely powerful Hexenbiest need with a bunch of wigs? Its not like Eve seems to be all that concerned with her appearance (Hell, H.W. isn't even concerned with where you sleep, their rooms look like prisons) So really, according to Meisner H.W. is funded by the Government secretly (which explains the bare bones ass look of their headquarters) but did they really have room in the budget for Eve's many wigs? Get real. And don't feed me some B.S. about this being a "I'm not Juliette." kinda deal, because has NO problem going wigless at headquarters but out in public she gotta look fabulous? Right...

That being said where this current Season is going I can't say I'm too thrilled, sure we found out what The Keys open (a healing Stick) but ultimately that revelation is treated as background noise to the (extremely uninspiring, unoriginal) Black Claw a.k.a Wesen Supremacists and Renard eventually becoming Mayor of Portland by getting back Adalind's baby (who we still don't know why The Royal Family wanted to being with for those of you keeping score at home). In order to maintain it's episodic nature "Grimm" continues to fail at giving us a villain who's motives and goals are clear and can provide a lasting and credible threat. For 5 Seasons now "Grimm" has churned out one bad guy after another with no real staying power and the more they do this, the more the show's problems is magnified. My wife and I still greatly enjoy "Grimm" but as opposed to being riveted by the storytelling, we enjoy it because it provides much needed comic relief to end our week. I'm hoping "Grimm" pulls it together but after 5 Seasons, I'm not holding my breath.

5 comments:

  1. You are an idiot, most of the dumb questions you posted in your reviews of this show have already been answered but you are just too dumb to have picked up on them.

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  2. Answer me these questions and I'll be satisfied:

    1) What was The Resistance resisting against? Yes, I know The Royal Families but what were The Royal Families trying to do exactly?

    2) Why did they want Adalind's baby? Is it because she's a Royal baby? She's not because The Royals don't consider Sean a Royal, they consider him a bastard so why do they want the bastard of a bastard? And again, it can't be because of her special powers (they didn't know).

    Answer those for me and I'll leave the issue alone. Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading, I greatly appreciate it, even if you called me an "idiot". The fact that you heard me out is more than most are willing to do ESPECIALLY online. I've been cruising Grimm.wikia and few other places looking for answers and thus far haven't found any. I hope to hear back from you, thanks again.

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    Replies
    1. Why don't the Wesen just take over the world? In a few episodes there is mention of Wesen rivalries going back generations and there being dicord between the different types so the issues has always been uniting them towards a single goal, but attempts had been made in the past (WWII in the show is a Wesen backed uprising)

      How come they are called Blutbad? Are they all called the same on every continent? How do they know their names? This inquiry told me you don't pay attention to the show well enough. First not every continent has all the same Wesen, today they might but centuries ago they didn't. Again real life knowlage, the migration of the human population around the world informs this answer along with the show pointing out that when the Grimms in the past travelled the world they would come upon different Wesen never seen before. As for how do they know their names? This answer has many possibilities;
      Main one is torture of the Wesen by the Grimms to gain information from them.
      Some might have been named by the Grimms as they have been discovered.
      Other names might have been revealed to the Grimms by other Wesen either through torture or by volunteering the information. The Grimms are sort of the Wesen world police, so if they came to an area where a Wesen was causing trouble and caught another Wesen before getting the one causing trouble the innocent Wesen might have given them the name of the guilty Wesen.
      If I recall correctly in the first seasons when Nick is reading the books it says in there sometimes something along the lines "Later I learned the name of this Wesen was ...." meaning the Grimm who was after the Wesen eventually learned the actual name.
      As well just like the name for Grimms changed no doubt the names for different Wesen changed.

      Grimms have been around for thousands of years only in the last few hundred have they been called Grimms before that they went by many different names The Dēcapitāre was their name around 2000 years ago in the Roman Empire. My guess is they have been around as long as the Wesen which were around as far back as the ancient Egyptians so at least 7000 years or so but no records are available at this time, who knows they might pop up later in the show.

      Why does the council get back to Rosalie so quickly? Because she is associated with a Grimm and not just any Grimm but one that is known by the council to have killed some very powerful Wesen so they are keeping a close eye on him. They even said they would in one of the episodes.

      That is as where I'm going to leave it but the answer to so many of your YES, dumb questions are answered in the show, not my fault you can't see them.

      If you want specific Episodes for each of my answers, no luck. Re-watch the show and pay attention.

      Part 2

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    2. They did know about the baby and the ritual, the Hexenbeast who helped Adalin do the ritual went to the Royals to sell them the baby and the Prince saw the skull appear on Adelins stomach via hidden camera when she was applying the paste to her stomach.

      You didn't watch the show at all you just like bitching online.

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  3. It's not about your dropping it you need to watch the show again it's all in there. Some questions will most likely be answered later in the show.

    The Resistance is resisting against the Royals attempt of gaining power again. To understand the show you need to know a bit about the real world as well as the fairy tales.

    Currently in the real world in Europe the Royal families have no real power, their titles are basically in name only. So in the show at least 1 Royal family is trying to gain back the power it used to have rather than just being there for show. The resistance is attempting to thwart those plans by eliminating key figures and disrupting key moves/plans so the Royal family can't achieve it's goal. Gaining political power isn't simple especially if they want to rule as Kings and Queens.

    So because it isn't so simple they need something powerful to help them along, a few nuclear weapons might help but a child who has access to many powerful powers from birth is even better (I think the baby showed powers before it was born). If you watched the show you would know that Wesen don't really know they are Wesen until about 10-13 years old, they Wolga right around the time they hit puberty.

    Why does the kid have so much power? She is the product of Royal blood and if she is Renards daughter who is a Zauberbiest and Adalind who was human at the time but during the pregnancy regained her powers through a ritual that called back a Hexenbiest spirit from the dead. As seen from when Renard was brought back from the dead later in the show such rituals open the gateway to the afterlife so a lot of powerful shit went down.

    Royals aren't human, when Renard fights a pure blood Royal Prince the Prince is able to hold his won even when Renard Wolgas which shouldn't be possible for a human when a Wesen uses all it's power. My guess is they Wesen but are either Wesen humans or Wesen who have complete control over who they are so Grimms can't notice them. Given that Renard is a half blood and Nick still never saw him unless Renard wanted to be seen means they are powerful.

    Part 1

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