Grimm recap Season 4 episode 18: “Mishipeshu”

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“Two days from now,” reads the title card as Hank and Nick have a big ol’ brawl to start out this week’s Grimm. Hank seems to be getting the better of Nick, which is strange until we see that Hank’s eyes seem to be glowing yellow. Which isn’t a good thing on any show, let’s be honest, but especially not on this one.

Cut to “Now” as Monroe and Rosalee have Nick and Hank over for a quiet dinner. Monroe offers everyone wine because they drink a lot of wine in Portland, but Nick needs something stronger. The whiskey just makes him all whiny, going crazy worried about Juliette. He takes a powder because he can’t manage to relax. Hank, being the smarter of the two, stays. Rosalee still seems to think that they can “fix,” Juliette but they are going to need the book that Renard has.

Meanwhile, Juliette is in a bar cruising for trouble, which drops by in the form of a bro. She turns on the Hexenebitch skank mode pretending to be into him and maybe his friend, but it becomes clear that she is only toying with the poor sucker. Just to mock him for hitting on her, she Woges, blowing the lights out. 911 is called.

And then there’s this week’s first murder. A janitor is polishing the floors at Carver School, when he hears a noise. He turns off the machine and grabs a wrench out of his toolbag to investigate. He finds nothing, but when he returns to the polisher, it is running again. As he tentatively steps towards it, a creature lunges from the shadows and munches on dude’s neck.

The dead guy’s name was (is?) Lawrence Kilburn, Wu tells Nick and Hank on the scene the next day. The County Sheriff is already on the scene – they took the call – and we are reintroduced to Deputy Sheriff Janelle Farris, who still looks pretty foxy in a lumpy police uniform. They had all worked together before on a case that was just as weird as this one (of course she has no idea this one is totally worse). She suspects Kilburn was killed by dogs. Of course he was.

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Apparently Renard wants Juliette fixed as well, because he wastes no time answering Rosalee’s call getting to the Apothecary with the book with the potions and whatnot to fix her. She has gotten super bossy, so I can’t blame him.

Back at school the Principal basically rats Larry out. Turns out he wasn’t popular (most janitors are beloved at this school?) and there were those incidents with racist graffiti on a Native American kid’s locker. Simon George, the target of the racist vandals, had dropped out of school and hasn’t been seen since. Could that be a motive for murder? Deputy Farris has an in at the nearby Indian reservation (her ex-hubby was Native American) to see if they can find Simon.

The boy in question, Simon, wakes up in the woods covered in blood. He crawls to a nearby stream and laps up water and cleans himself like a cat. He catches his reflection and he sees his face is that of a glowing monster with horns.

Back at HQ, the cops are staring at their computers. The dead guy has a rap sheet but nothing major. A search about Simon reveals that Simon’s father, Gus, had been murdered when the kid was 5, and Simon had witnessed it. Disturbingly, nobody was arrested or even charged for the murder. Wu comes to Nick with the news that Juliette is cooling her heels after being locked up for assault. Hank and the Deputy head for the reservation while Nick stays back to check on his little problem.

At an auto garage — in the middle of nowhere, of course — a redneck is wrenching away on a car. We know he’s a redneck because ersatz shitkicker music (sounds like Lynard Skynard underwater) plays in the background. He hears a noise, but tells the customer to wait just a second. He is yanked from under the car, so we know it probably wasn’t a customer.

Nick pays Juliette a visit in the slammer. She seems unphased by her incarcerated state, to the point that she’s just taunting Nick, who is chumpy enough to take it. She tells him that while she does blame him for messing her up, she’s also kinda getting off on the power rush. She likes being on the inside of all the weird junk in Nick’s life, and the rest of the world has gotten to looking a little washed out. He insists that he wants her back, and she tells him he’s an idiot and then Woges to make him flinch. He lets her stay in jail.

Hank and Janelle are having a chat with Hector, who seems to be Simon’s spiritual advisor and minor-league mentor. Hector goes into a bit more detail about the racist graffiti. He tells the officers that after everything went down, Simon wanted to connect with his people and dig into his ancestry rather than hide from it, so Hector sent the kid on a “Power Quest” to find his spirit guide. He’s been out questing for three days, fasting and getting very little sleep, and could be anywhere on the mountain. Hank asks Hector about the events of Gus’ murder. Hector points out that not only did the cops not find the killer, they never even looked. That sounds like motive. Hank gets a call from Nick: There’s another dead guy.

Out at the garage in the woods, Hank, Nick and Janelle find their latest victim, one Declan Henry Burke, deceased redneck. They are beginning to suspect that the murders are linked by more than just the biting and the death.

Speaking of linked, Simon is in the woods at his campfire, shaking a gourd and evoking a spirit who comes out of the ground — the big-horned spirit we saw reflected in the water. It enters Simon whose eyes blaze up yellow.

Our intrepid detectives have found the connection between the dead guys Burke and Kilburn as they go through the victim’s contacts lists. They come across a third name they have in common: Max McClay. Apparently they’ve all been arrested together in various combinations – fun group! They decide to pay McClay a visit to see if he has a white supremacy problem.

Max is in his remote cabin in the woods. He drinks whiskey right out of the bottle, so we know he’s bad news. He hears a noise, so he grabs his pistol and takes a look around, failing to see the glowing eyes in his closet. Nick, Hank and Janelle pull up outside the cabin. They get out cautiously, and as they approach the cabin, a body comes flying out of a nearby window.

The spirit/kid comes out of the house but when Nick confronts him, it doesn’t act like a Wesen and it glows. The creature leaps onto the cabin roof, then jumps down where Janelle is. The creature seems to have twisted its ankle but still manages to escape into the woods. McClay is unconscious, but alive. Detective Farris tells the boys she saw a monster, and they reassure her she’s not crazy, but Hector has some explaining to do.

Rosalee and Monroe are having trouble engineering a cure for Juliette out of the book so they give Renard a call. H is in line at a coffee cart. He can’t help them, and he can’t reach his mom — plus, he’s pretty sure that what they’re working on is doctorate-level Hexenbeast magic and they might want to stop while they’re ahead.

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Ahead of Renard is a jolly looking guy with a wallet chock-full of 100 dollar bills, which catches the Captain’s eye, so he follows the guy to his car and punches dude’s lights out.

Nick, Hank and Janelle are back with Hector, asking if he might know a thing about the monster they just met. Hector shows them a picture from a book; the creature is a Mishipeshu, aka the “horned water-serpent panther,” and it is probably possessing Simon. But since they don’t know where Simon is (a cellphone would not be proper to have on a “Power Quest”), the cops will have to enter the Dream World to find the kid. Great idea.

Back at the Cop Shop, Renard removes a familiar, very full wallet from his coat packet. The ID makes the guy one Harold Gunther, and based on the name and the fat stacks, he is probably connected to the oh-so-lovely royal family. Renard hands the wallet to Wu, tells him to find the owner and return it. Before leaving Wu picks the Captain’s brain regarding the rough percentage of crime in Portland being Wesen related. The Captain spills that most of the crime, everywhere, is Wesen related. Wu is a bit startled.

At a tent-looking sweat lodge in the woods, Hector has on some crazy Shaman type stuff including what appears to be a large sun hat and a wig. He is passing around a potion to the detectives. Hank hesitates but Janelle assures him that it’s safe (wait, what?) so he takes a swig and so does Janelle. Hector tells Nick not to drink the stuff because he just realized that Nick has powers and drinking magic potions might be dangerous. Hector passes some of Simon’s things around to aid them in their Dream World searches. They do some very unorthodox policing in Portland.

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Simon falls to the ground wincing in pain, his ankle bruised and swollen. He looks up and sees a totem pole that, as he looks at it, changes to look like a wooden snarling horned monster with glowing eyes.

Back in the tent, Hank and Janelle are getting twitchy and sweaty. Hank starts to see visions of Gus’ murder through Simon’s eyes. He sees the men who pulled Gus from his truck and beat him to death, and it is their suspects – or suspect, since the other two are dead. Nick helps Janelle out of the tent because she was overheating, when Hank hollers, “You killed my dad!” and bursts from the tent out into the woods, possessed by Simon’s spirit — or at least connected to the kid in some way.

Hector, Nick and Janelle chase Hank into the woods, where Hector figures out that Simon might be going to his father’s grave. Hank is running and having flashbacks when he ends up in front of the totem pole and is mesmerized. Simon steps out from the bushes. The Mishipeshu leaves Simon’s body and goes into Hank’s, so he goes all Beast Mode and dives deeper into the woods. Hector, Nick and Janelle find Simon and the turned totem pole. Hector informs the two remaining detectives that, while the spirit is generally peaceful, it can get a little revengy, and when that happens, it won’t stop until it is finished. Nick points out that if that’s true then the spirit is likely headed back to unfinished business: McClay.

By now, it’s night when Hank runs up to the McClay cabin. He walks into the house to find Simon and Hector are already waiting – McClay is out in the cop car with Janelle. Nick comes in behind Hank and tries to talk his friend down. It doesn’t work, and they have the fight that was previewed at the beginning of the show. Just as Hank is about to choke out Nick, Hector blows some red powder into his face causing the the Mishipeshu to leave Hank’s body. While Hank doesn’t remember his actions, he does remember his visions of the murder.

Hank confronts McClay about the murder and the things he saw in the vision. McClay wonders how Hank knows, but he’s confident they won’t be able to prove anything. McClay tells them to bug off and storms back in the house, unconcerned by the withering glares he gets from everyone. They have no evidence, and if they did, the murders would be exposed as Simon’s doing, so they leave.

Back in the city… Nick checks up on Juliette, looking all cute asleep in her jail cell, and reflects on the good ol’ days before she became a hideous bitch. And also a Hexenbeast.

McClay is taking no chances, which is why he’s asleep. But he does have a gun. The Mishipeshu is there, and rolls up on him from behind and gnaws on his neck, killing him. The critter bolts into the woods and collapses by a stream to lap up water and clean itself like a cat. The spirit power fades and the glowing creature face dissolves to reveal … Deputy Sheriff Janelle Farris, covered in blood and confused.

Case Closed (?)

New episodes of Grimm premiere Fridays at 8/7CT on NBC.

(Photo by: Scott Green/NBC)