Wes's Guide to Grimm: Beeware

“She’ll sting you one day.

Oh, ever so gently,

so you hardly even feel it.

‘Til you fall dead.”

Welcome back to Grimm everyone. Our episode today opens with a woman boarding a streetcar, a particularly crowded street car that, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, suddenly breaks out into a Flash Mob where most of the passengers break out into the Village People’s YMCA. Okay… In any case when… that, is over everyone gets off accept the woman we saw boarding earlier. However, she has a great excuse, it’s not her stop yet. Also, she’s dead. The woman in question, Serena Dunbrook, is later examined by Nick, Hank and Wu and however she died it had to have been rather gruesome. Now I know visual aids for this retrospective have been hard to come by, but trust me, it’s not a pretty sight. Frankly, the woman looks like she had a severely botched facelift before getting pummeled in the face by Mike Tyson for a solid half hour. Actually, Wu and forensics seem to think that this was anaphylactic shock due to a bee sting. It would have had to have been one hell of a bee to mess the poor thing up this badly. Nick finds a puncture would on her neck and suspects foul play.

At then station, Harper, the coroner confirms that this was indeed anaphylactic shock due to bee venom. However, Harper found more than 50 mg of venom in Serena’s system, while your average bee sting carries about 0.1. So, unless Serena got stung by a bee roughly the size of Shaquille O’Neal, this was definitely a murder. Unfortunately, all the dancing on the bus obscures the security cameras view of Serena, so that avenue’s a dead end. Captain Renard comes in and says he wants Nick and Hank to give this case their full attention as he doesn’t want the people of Portland scared of public transportation. Nick suggests putting the murder on the news in the hopes that someone in the flash mob will come forward as a witness. In the meantime, Nick and Hank head off to question Serena’s co-workers at the law firm where she worked. Nick asks if Serena was working on any cases that could have motivated the attack but her friend, Camilla, doesn’t seem to know anything. Later the detectives question a beekeeper friend of Harper who’s analyzed the venom they found in Serena and has discovered something odd. The toxin was not synthetic, meaning that the bee venom used to murder Serena Dunbrook was harvested from actual bees, something that the beekeeper claims is a very involved process. Worse yet, the toxin seems to have no identifiable origin. Something weird is definitely going on.

Back at the station, several members of the flash mob have come forward but none of them seem to know anything about someone getting killed. They all just received an anonymous tweet and thought that the Flash Mob seemed like fun. However, Nick takes a particular interest in someone named Doug who’s clearly hiding something, made clear when he refuses to show Nick the tweet on his phone. When Nick pushes Doug harder, he briefly transforms into a bee Wesen called a Mellifer. Later, Nick and Hank follow him and another suspect to an abandoned paper mill. Where they’re seen meeting with a with a mysterious dark-haired woman. However, before Nick and Hank can get a closer look, they’re swarmed by bees. And when I say a swarm, baby I mean it. There are enough bees here to qualify as a Legend of Zelda Boss. Eventually they dissipate, but Hank got stung up pretty good.

Nick takes Hank to Juliet to get him fixed up. She’s a veterinarian and she watches a lot of animal planet so she knows a thing or two about treating bee stings. While Hank goes home to rest, Nick heads to the trailer to do some research to find out what he’s up against, but not before Juliet expresses concern that Nick has been turning the whole no sleep thing into an art form lately. In the trailer, Nick finds the page on Mellifers. It’s here where nick learns that Mellifers are the natural enemies of the Hexenbiest. Nick also learns that Hexenbiests bare a special Mark under their tongue that’s visible in both their human and Wesen forms. Nick heads back to the paper mill to see what more he can dig up, bringing Monroe along for backup. Monroe isn’t too happy about yet again getting roped into one of Nick’s Grimm adventures but it’s not like Nick can just tell Hank that the two prime suspects in their murder investigation are actually giant bees. Monroe is also confused since Mellifers aren’t known for being malicious killers. They’re more like messengers or gossips by nature. Essentially, Mellifers are a sentient low-tech form of Twitter that’s made out of bees. KILL IT WITH FIRE!!! Anywho, Monroe uses his heightened sense of smell to track the woman who they saw with the suspects, but only because Nick bribed him with a bottle of ’78 Bordeaux. In her office, Nick learns that the women they’re looking for is named Melissa Wincroft. Before we go any further, I neeed to say, I love Nick and Monroe in these scenes. David Giuntoli and Silas Weir Mitchell have great chemistry with one another and their back and forth dialogue is pretty amusing. Anyway, the two scope out Wincroft’s last known address and the place is pretty much as creepy as you’d expect. The bedroom is laid out like an enormous beehive, filled with enough toxin to make Wincroft the prime suspect.

The next day, the cops are all over the place, but Wincroft is nowhere to be found. Turns out Serena was part of a class action lawsuit that got the paper mill shut down, and it looks like Melissa is out for revenge. Things are about to get worse as there was been another flash mob murder. Yup, that is certainly a sentence that I have typed with my fingers after someone said it with their mouth on television. What makes it even more baffling is the fact that by this point, the first murder is all over the news. How in the hell did the Mellifers get another flash mob going? How many stupid people who love to dance with strangers could there possibly be in Oregon? Worse yet, the victim is Camila, Serena’s friend from the law firm, who, according to Nick, worked alongside Serena in the lawsuit against Wincroft’s paper mill. There was a third lawyer on the case, a woman named Adalind Schade, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the Hexenbiest who’s been working for Renard. Yup, being a murderous witch monster wasn’t evil enough, she’s also a lawyer. And, as Nick later confirms by inspecting the victims tongues, this likely means that Serena and Camilla were Hexenbiests as well. Nick instantly recognizes Adalind as the woman who shot him up with spider juice, but doesn’t let on that he knows anything, even when Renard subtly pushes him for information. We later see old footage of Melissa Wincroft from during the lawsuit and we see for the first time that she’s played by brilliant actress, all around wonderful human being and my celebrity best friend, Nana Visitor, best known for her unforgettable role as major Kira Neryse from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. That’s right people, no one puts Deep Space Nine in the corner, not on my blog! No joke, when I first saw that Nana is in this show, I audibly squeed, got up and danced around while holding the framed autographed eight by ten that I proudly display in my living room much to my girlfriend’s amusement. Anywho, Wincroft is talking about how the lawsuit is all about shutting down the mill to get them out of the way, whatever that’s supposed to mean. As Nick and Hank question Adalind, Nick can’t help but be openly hostile towards her. Trying to murder one’s surrogate mother and shooting them up with spider juice has that effect on people. Adalind tells Renard that Nick is clearly on to her, but Renard assures her that nothing will happen to her on his watch. Nick has an idea and brings Doug back down to the station. Doug is loyal to the queen bee so he keeps his mouth shut. Nick leaves the room and it’s revealed that this was all a ruse to get Doug to contact Wincroft so Wu can trace the call. From the trace our heroes learn that Melissa will soon make move against Adalind so there’s no time to lose. While Wu sends a decoy to Adalind’s apartment Nick and Hank guard the real Adalind in a hotel where Nick continues to be hostile towards Adalind. When Hank leaves to get coffee, Nick cuts the pretense and straight up asks Adalind why she tried to kill his aunt and who she’s working for. Adalind doesn’t spill the beans and appeals to Nick’s better nature as a cop in order to get him to focus less on her and more on the sexy Bajoran coming to kill her. Speaking of, Melissa Wincroft has arrived at the hotel and has brought an even bigger swarm of bees this time. Soon, the hotel room is crawling with the nasty buggers and Adalind runs for her life while Nick and Hank fight off the swarm. Nick and Hank split up to find her and Nick ends up finding Wincroft down in the boiler room. I won’t lie, the layout of this scene is really cool. The lights are flickering on and off, the bees are buzzing are all over the walls and Wincroft is standing in the shadows holding a syringe filled with venom. Wincroft claims that she and Nick are on the same side and that the lawsuit was part of a much bigger conspiracy. Nick tells Wincroft that she still has to go down for murdering those two women, but Wincroft refuses to accept this, believing that her actions are fully justified. She also cryptically tells Nick that something is coming, something really bad. When Wincroft tries to murder Adalind, Nick has no choice but to shoot her down. With her dying breath, Wincroft tells Nick to beware, he’s coming for him.

That night, Nick struggles to fall asleep, unsure if he did the right thing by killing Wincroft. Our episode ends with Nick trying to close the window and getting stung by a bee.

Beeware is another solid outing with a much more impressive monster of the week than the previous two episodes. Nana Visitor isn’t in the episode very much, but her presence elevates any project she’s attached to and this was no exception. The imagery this week was especially creepy with some excellent body horror and pure nightmare fuel for anyone who’s afraid of bees, which, after watching this episode twice in one day, now include yours truly. What’s more, this episode also keeps the plot moving by bringing Adalind into the spotlight and alluding to things to come. Who is this mysterious force that Wincroft warned Nick about? Is it Renard? Is it The Reapers? Is it something far worse? I guess we’ll have to keep watching. Next time, death and disappearance lead to a local business owner’s disturbing secret in Lonelyhearts.