Grimm Thoughts: Love Sick

S1E16: www.fanpop.com/spots/grimm/articles/171346/title/grimm...ers

And we are back to “Donkey Cabbage”. I will include references which were in “Island of dreams” because that’s where the story started.

Reference Rundown

1. In “Donkey Cabbage” a huntsman falls in love with the daughter of a witch. Hank falls in love with Adalind, who is the daughter of a witch, too.

2. The witch is the one who is pressuring her daughter into using the soldier. Even though Adalind is more than willing to do what she does to Hank, she is also heavily influenced by her mother

3. The witch’s daughter gives the huntsman a drink in order to steal a bird heart (which gives him magical powers), and eventually he (briefly) ends up as a donkey. Adalind gives Hank cookies in order to metaphorical steal his heart, and Hank ends up acting like a donkey.

4. For some reason there are also some references to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” in the episode. Monroe mentions that Hank “took a bite out of the wrong apple” and Renard mentions towards Adalind’s mother gazing in that “mirror mirror on the wall”

German Gebrabbel

I really, really hope that the show runner hire a native German speaker for the next season. I can hand wave a lot when the names of the Wesen are concerned, but it always angers me when supposedly “real German” is botched up. The German talk of Renards cousin is very much what happens if you use the structure of one language into another. “Ich warte auf ihn jetzt. Hier kommt er.” Is more or less a word to word translation of “I’m waiting for him now. Here he comes.” Aside from the position of the “jetzt” that’s not necessarily wrong, but it sounds really strange. A native speaker would say something like this: “Ich warte gerade auf ihn. Da kommt er.”
Monroe’s little explanation why the Wesen say “Zaubertrank” instead of “poison” is deliberately a little botched up, but sounds far less awkward. “It’s wie durch Zauber. Ein Zaubertrank.” Basically he says “It’s like magic. A magic drink.” Which actually is a good argument to use the German word. “Poison” sounds always more like “poisonous”, while “Zaubertrank” has the word “magic” in it and doesn’t necessarily indicate something poisonous.
I really don’t understand how the thing Rosalee uses on Wu is supposed to be called. “Nasöffner” would make sense (nose opener), but I always understand “Nasufle”. Any native French speakers here? My current guess that she says “nezouvré”, which would make sense, since the name of the Zaubertrank “La mort pour l’amoure” (death by love) is French too.

Highs and Lows

+ Renards snarky conversation with his murder victim. “Your privilege,” indeed.
+ “It’s time to settle our differences – violently.”
+ I can’t get enough of Rosalee getting busy with her chemistry set

- So supposedly Adalind grew up with her grandparents in Iowa – doesn’t Hank wonder from where her mother suddenly turned up?
- That’s the big plan? Month of preparation for nothing more than a simple extortion? They could have gotten that a lot of easier.
- The hospital has a case of compulsive eating and they just send the patient home?

The Grimmoire

The most interesting part of the episode is naturally the card on the key. To me it looks like it isn’t complete, because of the ”Bur” on the right border. (Perhaps Burrow?). And then there is the OW.
Renards interaction with his cousin makes me pause, too. Not much family loyalty there and Renard is downright hostile.
I’m also wondering – does the thing with the Grimm-blood only work with Hexenbiests? What exactly are they? Are they born, or made, or what?

The Final Judgement

I liked the start of the episode. I loved the ending. In the middle, there were some hick-ups. This scenario was set up 12 episodes earlier, and for this long wait, I think the pay-off was a little bit lame. As I already wrote above: That’s the big plan? They could have gotten that way easier.
But otherwise, there isn’t much to criticize. Especially Renard is shining in this episode, and the idea to “kill” Adalind is a twist I didn’t see coming at all. Plus, this episode is nearly as ripe with symbols as a real fairy tale. The way Nick pinned Adalind down, the reaction of her mother…it’s like Adalind was sent to whore herself out, got raped and the discarded as damaged goods.
All in all, I give 9 golden keys out of 10.

S1E18:www.fanpop.com/spots/grimm/articles/176538/title/grimm...use