Recap: Grimm, Episode 3.11 – The Good Soldier
“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
Rosalee gets a letter from her mother, her first contact with her in seven years. She wants to see Rosalee, maybe partly because this weekend is her father’s death anniversary. Monroe offers to come with and Rosalee welcomes the support. Next morning, Rosalee e-mails her mother instead of calling to tell her about the +1, but she then learns her mother also has a +1; her sister Deetta.
Things could get very tense since Deetta had “sacrificed” by staying home for years while Rosalee “frolicked up and down the coast.” Rosalee says they can bring her mother a bottle of wine and “a quart of Jack Daniels for the martyr.”
Nick and Hank are on the case when Ron, a sleazy home security guy is killed by a young woman named Frankie who is well aware of his past as a sergeant in the army. Ron’s security co-workers seem to know who is Frankie is too and that she’s trouble.
When co-worker Troy goes home, he is shocked to find his wife entertaining Frankie. Wife goes to make them some food and they waste no time catching up. Troy tells Frankie to leave or he’ll call the police, but Frankie confronts him and says she’d love that. Like she promised Ron and showed him her arm full of slashes, he will not see the last of her until they confess to what they did to her.
“How’s sex with your wife? Ever think of me?”
Nick and Hank head to the VFW post to talk to Candy who is in charge and where Frankie had first confronted Ron the night before. She points them to the bloody napkin (Frankie had used to make an imprint of her slashes) she found on the table after Ron and the girl left.
They are outside Rosalee’s mother’s house. Rosalee warns Monroe that this might not go well, but Monroe assures her that he’s here for her. She marches to the front door. Monroe helps her push the doorbell and her mother opens it with a cheery smile. Deetta pops out too. She isn’t as cheerful, but they both welcome their guests in.
Nick and Hank visit Jim McCabe, Ron’s boss at McCabe Security. He is looking at Frankie’s military records before they come in. Jim tells them a little about Ron before Nick asks if he knows anything about the bloody napkin. Hank sees a picture of Jim, Troy and Ron with another one of their comrades, Robert of their time in Iraq.
They look each of them up back at the station. Ron was a soldier and the other three military contractors. But they also find Robert, who had started his own shop out of state, was murdered a week ago.
Hopping over to Vienna, Meisner watches Adalind at the cafe. She finds she has a little bit of telekinetic powers when she summons her coffee cup to her hand. But she starts experiencing cramps and at their most painful, the lights in the cafe blow up.
She heads back to the hotel and Meisner reports to Renard. He tells Meisner to keep an eye on her especially now that she’s getting her powers back.
Back in Portland, Jim is trying to get Troy to calm down. Troy says he told his wife about what happened. They need to come clean, he says. But Jim says they should think about it.
At the Calvert home, the tension reaches the boiling point when De’etta confronts Rosalee about not even coming home for their father’s funeral. De’etta thinks Rosalee was just partying it up with her drug dealing boyfriends, but Rosalee admits she was in jail.
She was arrested for shoplifting and she only found out about their father after she got out. And by that time, they weren’t speaking to her anymore. Rosalee says not a day goes by without her feeling regret about not being able to say goodbye to her father. She gets up from the table and walks outside, Monroe following.
Rosalee says she didn’t know what to expect in coming here. Maybe gratitude for picking up the pieces after Freddy died? Monroe says they share a difficult history, but that’s just family.
Rosalee admits she stole a watch. Monroe gets excited. They turn to head back inside after cooling off a little, but mom meets Rosalee on the porch. They hug.
Monroe is startled when De’etta pops up behind him, woged. She warns him that if he hurts her sister, she’ll kill him.
Back in Portland, Troy shows his wife his written confession of what he did. She can’t believe it. He wanted to confess when it all happened, but he was a coward and the others told him not to.
His wife stands up and says to his face that they were right. He is a coward and no one will ever read his confession because she just tore it up. He tosses the papers in the fireplace, but before lights it he hears his wife scream. She’s just been attacked by the Wesen. He hurries to her and he too gets stabbed in the heart.
Nick and Hank Skype with Ron’s commanding officer who is in Washington being treated for cancer. He says the security contractors pretty much had immunity and when one of his specialists, Frankie, had reported them raping her, the commanding officer was told to look the other way. He gives them Frankie’s name and the date of the rape, 11-11-10, which is what the blood pattern spells out.
Commanding officer says he has to go get some chemo now, but after he closes his laptop we see he’s actually in a Portland motel.
Nick and Hank look through Frankie’s file when Wu tells them about Troy and his wife. They head over. Nick finds the torn up letter while Wu calls to tell them the poison found in Ron and Robert resembles scorpion venom.
They call Juliette over to help and they head to the trailer. She’s found info on a Manticore who has Lowen features with a poisonous scorpion tail. Meanwhile, Nick pieces together Troy’s letter confessing to the gang rape of Frankie.
Speaking of, she’s on to the last rapist, Jim. But Nick and Hank arrive to arrest her as Jim laughs.
They have her in the interrogation room. She denies she killed any of them, she didn’t even know they were dead. Nick says they know she’s a Manticore, but she says they don’t know anything. She’s actually a Steinadler and shows Nick.
The only other person who knew she is in Portland was the Colonel. Aha!
Frankie calls the Colonel so they can try and triangulate his location. He knows she’s with the cops and admits that he’s only doing this to make things right. He had failed his duty and should have done this years ago.
They get a location as the Colonel hangs up. He’s at the VFW where in walks Jim. They are alone as the Colonel presents him the last copy of the restricted complaint he had filed of Frankie’s rape. Jim takes the copy and leaves, but Colonel stops him. He admits to killing Ron and Robert, but not Troy and his wife. He thinks Jim must have done it.
Yeah, Jim says, because the idiot wanted to confess. They are both Manticores and as Manticores have no fear of death, they decide to settle this now. They woge and battle as Nick and Hank arrive.
Colonel manages to stab Jim’s tail. They both de-woge and as Nick and Hank walk in, Jim grabs the knife and stabs Colonel in the gut. Hank cuffs Jim as Colonel tells Nick that while they can’t arrest Jim for what he did to Frankie, they can put him in jail for what he did to him.
Nick and Hank give Frankie Troy’s confession letter. That’s all she ever wanted all these years. The Colonel really did have cancer and only had three months to live, so he took that as his opportunity to make things right.
He was a good soldier, Frankie says. Hank adds that she was too.
Episode Thoughts
Very interesting episode. First to the case of the week. Anything involving rape is disgusting and horrible of course, but very skillful way to weave such a terrible subject matter with the Wesen world. Probably the heaviest Grimm has tackled ever.
That Manticore battle in the VFW was amazing though. That might have been Grimm‘s best fight scene ever.
But now on to Rosalee’s family. So that’s why they suddenly bring up Rosalee was an addict last week. Okay, that’s fine. But halfway through I wondered, Wait, did they forget Rosalee had a brother? Who was murdered? And the reason Rosalee even exists on the show?
I thought they did a complete retcon of her backstory. But then she mentions Freddy, in passing, later on in a line that made zero sense. They should be grateful she picked up the pieces of her life after Freddy died. Okay.
So Rosalee has not spoken to her mother or sister in seven years. Freddy died a little less than three years ago. Did they not care about Freddy either? Freddy didn’t have a funeral? And even if he didn’t, they had no contact with Rosalee about it? What?
Of course we know Rosalee wasn’t meant to be a long term character when she was first written in, but they could’ve found a better and more sensical way to bring in her mother and sister. I am a little iffy on the way they’re developing and fleshing out Rosalee’s story. A lot of the exposition lately for her has been a little out of nowhere. From her hating Christmas to her being a druggie then being a shoplifter and a coastal party girl, it’s like they’re cramming in as much random pieces to her character as they can.
It’s sad because Rosalee was already such a good character without the mish-mash. And it feels like they couldn’t choose one thing to expound on and instead chose them all.
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