There is a certain comfort to be taken amidst the chaos of this final season of Grimm.  The fabric of society in Portland is falling apart, and as we see in this episode, the non-Wesen world doesn’t have the slightest clue why this is all going to hell.  It’s an interesting perspective, but it also goes a long way towards showing the audience how fully committed the writers are to the endgame.  What kind of confidence can the city and those paying attention worldwide have that things won’t turn relentlessly violent?    

 

 

The circumstances of the episode allow Team Grimm some breathing room to do more than live on the run for the remainder of the series, and that’s a good thing.  It’s not that everyone is necessarily safe and able to return to their old lives unimpeded, but Renard is a bit more limited in the scope of his activities for a time.  He might be exonerated and able to wiggle out of the Grimm version of the “unbreakable vow” by the end, but he has to be more strategic in his actions.  Forcing Hank and Wu to resign is going to change the game, though, if there isn’t a reversal quickly in the works.

 

This change of circumstances also takes Adalind out of the bind she was in with Renard and lets her return to Nick’s corner, which the show convinced us last season is where she belongs.  I like the idea that, at least in theory, Adalind is the one person able to force Nick and Renard into some kind of mutually beneficial truce.  She’s still treated like something of a trophy by both men, which is problematic, but she’s doing a capable job of holding her own.

 

 

While it’s a little odd that Monroe and Roselee can simply decide to go back to their old lives, given that their alignment with Team Grimm is certainly known by Renard and his allies, it makes sense that they would be the ones to keep an eye on Adalind’s children.  Who else would be able to handle Diana’s casual use of power without prompting a violent outburst?  Also, since they work with Team Grimm, it puts Diana in the right place to see the cloth holding the Wand, which means the two uber-powerful items in the series now appear to be connected.  (Speaking of the Wand, is Nick getting a little too possessive?  Will he call it his “precious”?)  This either will make them more manageable or prove to make them even more difficult to contain from a narrative perspective, but we’ll see how that progresses.

 

The only real downside to the episode is how Juliette/Eve is being handled.  She’s caught between her two personas, and the result is something closer to having no personality at all.  Just what is her purpose in the narrative at this point?