Saturday, June 11, 2016

Grimm - S4E16 - Heartbreaker

Originally, for this episode of Grimm, I had a vague idea about a visual element and its connection to the particular Wesen that the episode features, but after re-watching it recently, I revised that notion, noticed a lot of new things (many just in writing this post), and realized that what I thought was an error in my comprehending dialogue actually illustrates some character traits.

There's a lot in this episode.

First, I have a few points for which a short summary about the Wesen in this episode is critical.  When Nick and Hank talk to Monroe and Rosalee about the murder they're investigating (for which they - and Sergeant Wu - suspect Wesen because of the rare toxin involved), Rosalee posits that they're dealing with a Folterseele.  "They're kind of classically tragic.  Always beautiful, always deadly."  They woge when someone is attracted to them, and - as Monroe puts it when Hank compares it to "the old Frog Prince story" - "Yeah, but you kiss this frog, your face blows up and you die" because of the toxin, which works as a defense mechanism.

Until writing this post, I hadn't lookt into the name of this particular Wesen.  Seeing Folterseele in the closed captioning, I recognized Seele as German for soul, but I had to look up Folter.  Die Folter is the torture.  I think Folterseele is supposed to evoke something like tortured soul, although gefolterte Seele is a more accurate translation.  In any case, it perfectly encapsulates this Wesen.  They keep to themselves to avoid effecting this defense mechanism.  As Bella Turner (the Folterseele in this episode) explains later: "You don't know what it's like to never be able to experience love.  Never feel the touch of another person or be able to touch them."

This brings up what should have been obvious to me when I first watched this:  Bella's name also describes the Folterseele's situation.  Bella means beautiful in Latin.  Half of Rosalee's "Always beautiful, always deadly" description of Folterseele is literally in Bella's name.

Turner is part of a bicycling group, which I think the writers employ as an updated version of a spinster.  Merriam-Webster recently had an article about the origin of the term, explaining that unmarried women were poorer and that spinning wool was one of the few jobs that they could acquire.  Instead of spinning wool, the spinning here is the spinning of bicycle wheels:


To further connect the two ideas, in Bella's apartment, which is shown only briefly, there's a bicycle wheel positioned in such a way that it resembles a spinning wheel:


The Turner part of her name also seems to play into this.  There's the literal turning, referring to spinning wheels, but there's also a more metaphorical turning involved.  At the end of the episode, she drinks a sort of potion that Monroe and Rosalee made in order to prevent the secretion of the toxin.  In a way, she's turning away from being a Folterseele.

The other interesting thing I noticed in this episode pertains to the Royal Family story line.  Prince Viktor was recalled to Austria in the previous episode, and his replacement Prince Kenneth arrives in this episode.  Rispoli (the assistant who asserts he's "loyal to the family, not to any particular member") tells Adalind that she should change into something more appropriate than a bathrobe for Kenneth's impending arrival.  Adalind asks, "Prince Kenneth?  Do you know him?" to which Rispoli answers, "By reputation."  He ushers Adalind into a room to change as she asks, "What's he like?"  In the few seconds it takes for Rispoli to close the door before he answers, I understood this as "What is he like?" both times I've watched the episode.  Because Adalind just asked, "Prince Kenneth?  Do you know him?" her question has the sense of "What kind of character does he have?" or "What kind of person is he?"  In her dealing with Prince Viktor, Adalind started to be a little manipulative, so here it seems like she's asking Rispoli about Kenneth's strength of will, to see if she can wrap him around her finger too.

However, Rispoli's answer changes how Adalind's question is understood.  He replies, "Results," which renders her question as "What does he like?"  To some degree, this shows the same quality in Rispoli's character that his assertion of family loyalty illustrated earlier in the same scene.  He has the mind-set of a servant who wants to please his superior, so he knows Prince Kenneth's preferences, despite knowing him only "by reputation."  While Kenneth hasn't even arrived yet, his coming reveals traits in these two, already-familiar characters.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Grimm - S4E14 - Bad Luck

This post contains spoilers.

After a couple months of hiatus (because I've been busy), I've continued re-watching season four of Grimm.  I noticed what I think is a subtle reference to Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit in episode 14 - "Bad Luck."

At the very beginning of the episode, a boy named Peter is murdered.  Peter is a Willahara, and a Leporem Venator hunts him down to cut off his foot, which is believed to help with fertility.  As Nick explains to Hank and Wu after seeing Peter's mother woge, Willahara are "rabbit-like" Wesen:


The name Peter and being a rabbit is common to both, but in reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit, I found something else.  Mrs. Rabbit tells her children, "You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor."  In the show, Peter's father also had an accident (which appears to have been orchestrated by the Leporem Venator to acquire the father's foot too).

Most of the show is based on the fairy tales by the Grimm brothers, so it seems likely that Potter's tale, which has some similarities, was used as inspiration for this particular episode.