Final Season Post Mortem: "Grimm"

I know this post is a little late since “Grimm” ended more than a month ago but I wanted to take a look at this little show that could. For those not in the know, “Grimm” came out the same year as “Once Upon a Time”. There are very few show still on the air from that pilot crop. It followed Detective Nick Burkhardt as he stepped into his destiny as a monster hunter. Over the seasons, we’ve seen Nick come to terms with what it means to be a Grimm and a cop. He’s fallen in love with two women and nearly lost both of them along the way. He’s done a lot to bridge the divide between Wesen (the monsters) and humanity and I was sad to see it go. Sure, the show didn’t have ratings to write home about but it was a pretty steady performer on Friday nights—a night routinely used for failing shows to go and die. It made Friday nights fun to stay in for, especially because the network often timed the premiere of the show around Halloween. What better time to debut a show about monsters than Halloween?

One thing I liked was the writers knew that season 6 was the final run going into the preparation for the season. They only had 13 episodes to work with this year and for the most part, they made it work. Sure, there were a couple “monster of the week” episodes early in the season that could have been used to push the overall story arc along but I thought they did a good job of making things wrap up. I also liked that they managed to redeem some of the characters who had become somewhat evil, namely Captain Renard. He started the season hunting Nick because that’s what Black Claw (the Wesen organization that wanted Wesen to live openly instead of in hiding, only showing their human faces to world) but by the end, he’d rejoined our Scooby gang. One thing that may have seemed wishy-washy about Renard but really was just a major facet of his personality was that he was on whatever side benefited him the most. He was part royalty but also an outcast from his own family so he had to do whatever it took to stay alive and when opportunities came along that would put him in a stronger position, he’d take them. I did kind of hate seeing him and Nick at odds last season because I did like that they had been able to put a lot of their issues behind them.

There was one thing I wasn’t overly fond of with the finale of “Grimm”: the story structure of the episode. We see Nick fighting the season’s Big Bad and slowly, he loses everything and everyone he cares about and is part of his support system. It was pretty horrible to see Hank and Wu cut down and to see Monroe and Rosalee dead (her pregnant with triplets). But in the end, we find that it didn’t really happen. It wasn’t all in Nick’s head exactly (although it definitely reminded me of how they did the final battle in “Breaking Dawn Part 2” (No, I’m not a Twilight fan but it was an apt comparison) but it was something that happened in a different reality of sorts. When Nick returns to our world, everyone is alive and safe and no one has died. It was kind of a mental crucible for Nick, the ultimate fight for a Grimm. I did appreciate that they were able to bring back his mother and Aunt Marie for the fight. Seeing Nick, Trubel and the dead relatives destroying the beast was pretty amazing. It also probably destroyed a lot of Nick/Trubel shippers to find out she was a relative all along. I also liked what the whole “strength of one’s blood” represented. That Nick was never alone in this journey. His family had always been there with him.

We end the episode on a positive note: a young man narrating about all of what happened and testifying to its voracity because his father told him. We then get a title card signaling it was some 20 years later and we see a grown-up Kelly—finally having come into his Grimm powers (let’s be honest, he was cute but useless as a baby)—updating the latest Grimm journals. And then big sister Diana (who appears to have aged at a more normal rate since she hit about 7 or 8) shows up to let him know “Mom and Dad” (who I am assuming are Nick and Adalind) and ready to go kill some Wesen and the “triplets” are coming too. This was a nice way to end the show, giving us a glimpse of the future to see that everyone got a happy ending (and Diana finally got over wanting her parents to be together). But, it also let me wanting more. I know spin-offs can be poorly received and I’m sure the cast has moved on to other shows but I’d like to see what the world has come to in these years. I want to see the next generation fighting the fight and to see how that has changed or stayed the same. But alas, much like I probably won’t ever get the next generation “Charmed” show, I likely won’t get the “Grimm” next generation edition either.

Overall, I thought the final season of “Grimm” did what it was designed to do by giving the viewers closure on the plot threads that were still lingering and it gave our heroes the happily ever after they deserved. Things can’t be wrapped up in a completely tidy bow, that wouldn’t be interesting. I think I would like to go back and rewatch the show time to see how the story evolved as I’m sure there are plots and little things along the way that would make the show that much more enjoyable.