Grimm - S4E11 - Death Do Us Part

I'm still re-watching season four of Grimm.  Recently, I re-watched "Death Do Us Part," remembered something I noticed when it originally aired, and found something new.

There's a murder at an abandoned house (with the same MO as two earlier murders in the same house), and Nick and Hank talk to Mark Wilson, the detective who investigated the original case.  He explains that he thought it was a love triangle.  "During the investigation, we learned Patty Donovan was having an affair with her husband's co-worker, Theo Hinkley.  Well, Theo probably thought Patty was gonna leave Stetson for him.  But Patty decided not to, so, Theo figured if he couldn't have her, no one could."  And then he says, "Shakespearean, ain't it?"

I'm not sure how much stock I would put in his "Shakespearean" assessment, but what I thought interesting about that line is that isn't not the only Shakespeare reference in the episode.  Or at least I don't think so.

Two scenes later, Nick gets into bed with Juliette and asks her, "What are you reading?"  To which she replies, "A book."

That same literal answer is in Shakespeare's Hamlet.  In Act II, Scene II, Polonius asks Hamlet, "What do you read, my lord?" and Hamlet replies, "Word, words, words."  (II.ii.209-210).

There doesn't seem to be much in-show significance, but I think it illustrates that the writers were indeed thinking of Shakespeare.

The new thing I noticed in re-watching it recently is that the same effect from "Wesenrein" (S4E9) returns.  At the end of this episode, when Juliette goes to visit Henrietta, her face is multiplied as the camera looks through a pane of glass with bevels at the edges:

As it did in "Wesenrein," it indicates how Juliette is starting to splinter between her normal self and her new hexenbiest self.

Grimm - S4E10 - Tribunal

I recently re-watched the Grimm episode "Tribunal" and remembered something that I noticed when it first aired but had forgotten about.  Sergeant Wu is still learning about Grimms and Wesen, and before he sees his first woge (knowingly, at least), Hank talks to him.

Hank says, "You have to be ready for this," to which Wu responds, "And by ready you mean off the deep end?"  In his answer, Hank mixes metaphors:  "There is no shallow end in this pool.  This is not something anybody can wrap their head around until they have no choice but to get on board."

To some degree, having those three different descriptions (a pool, wrapping heads around, and a train) indicates the confusion and "other-ness" associated with knowing about the wider world of Grimms and Wesen.  There's no simple comparison to be made.  Like Hank tells Wu:  "You have to get a place where this is a new normal."

Grimm - S4E9 - Wesenrein

This post contains spoilers.

Recently, I've been re-watching season four of Grimm, and I noticed something in episode nine - "Wesenrein."

At the end of the previous episode - "Chupacabra" - Juliette discovered that the headaches and nausea she's been experiencing were portends of her becoming a hexenbiest.  Episode nine continues where episode eight left off, right after this discovery.  Juliette starts to call Nick but stops the call before it goes through and then looks at herself in the mirror:

Because of the bevel in the mirror, she appears to have two faces, so her new nature is visualized.  There's Juliette, and then there's the hexenbiest that she's become.

Later, after she woges again (or, more accurately, nach sie wogt wieder), the glass in picture frames breaks, and the mirror shatters.  When she looks at it this time, her reflection also appears shattered:

Again it's visually demonstrated how her turning into a hexenbiest has affected her and will affect events later in the series.