Refuge in Audacity at its finest.
Under such conditions, whatever is evil in men's natures comes to the front.
A circus with "acts" featuring Wesen transforming on stage comes through town, and two women who attended a show turn up dead, with bite marks on their bodies. Rosalee goes undercover to find out the killer amongst an ensemble of performers whose Wesen sides are becoming more and more dominant.
Meanwhile, Adalind, Meisner and Sebastian flee from Viktor and the Verrat.
This work provides examples of:
- Accidental Aiming Skills: Not really aiming, but when Meisner compliments Aidalind for using her returned powers to kill a Verrat member attacking him, she admits she was just trying to knock his gun out of his hand.
- The Alcoholic: Max, partially due the stress from wondering if he's a killer and partially due to woging too much.
- All Part of the Show: Customers believe this of the transformations, and are left marveling about how they did it.
- Bad Boss: Hedwig the ringmaster makes the others woge a little more than it's healthy to, and is willing to let one of them take the fall for murders that he committed.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Monica and Dolores, when they do get Max to woge again in front of them. He didn't kill them, but Hedig did in order to further control Max and because they knew too much, then let Max think he did it.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite how they died, Dolores and Monica's bodies aren't that torn up or anything.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Monica is initially just an excited, curious fan of Max transforming, but becomes more hostile about it, interrupting his date with Dolores, goading him and slapping him to get him to show her.
- Catapult Nightmare: After agreeing to be Monroe's best man, Nick has nightmares as he considers what could happen if a Grimm appears at a wedding attended mainly by Wesen. All we see of his nightmare is a beautiful wedding cake decorated with Fuchsbau and Blutbad bride and groom figures... which gets spattered with blood as someone screams from offscreen.Nick: It was a beautiful ceremony, until one of the little kids woged and saw me and started screaming. And then the parents woged, and they saw me and attacked, and I had to kill them. Yeah, and it was pretty much downhill from there. Last thing I remember, I beheaded Monroe's grandma.
- Defiant to the End: When facing the rest of the circus, who are prepared to kill him, Hedig woges and roars defensively.
- The Dog Bites Back: When the other circus workers kill Hedig for abusing Max.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Sebastein goes down after a shootout with verat agents.
- Drunk on the Dark Side: Monroe says that average Wesen dislike the circuses due to the wesen woging so often that their wesen sides sometimes take over and make them more feral and vicious.
- Exact Words: Monica wants to ask Max about how he changed faces as he's dancing with Dolores. Dolores tells her to wait until the song's over, so Monica turns off the music and says now it's over.
- Family of Choice: Hedig tries to evoke this about the circus. The others do feel a certain amount of kinship towards each other, but don't include him in it after learning the truth about him.
- Fangirl: Dolores and Monica when they run into Max after the show where his Game Face awed them.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: Arguably Dolores and Monica. Dolores in a blonde whose more excited and impressed by what happened and wants to get to know Max, while brunette Monica is a bit more demeaning despite her own bubbly nature, and determined to find out how he did it, making her get nastier.
- Inter Species Romance: Max and Genevieve show that Monroe and Rosalee aren't the only blutbad-fuschbach couple out there.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ivan isn't very welcoming to Rosalee, but does care about Max and the others.
- Kill It with Fire: Hedig, the Big Bad of the episode gets torched by Damien the Damonfeuer.
- Loophole Abuse: Despite strict laws against woging in public, due to the circuses making it look like an illusion, they manage to avoid punishment for doing so.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Dolores and Monica, to an extent, with Monica taking the cake due to realizing there was something about Max that was more than just a mask (despite Dolores not seeming to believe the same) and eagerly pressuring him hard to do it again.
- Oh, Crap!: Hedig runs in terror upon seeing that Nick is a Grimm.
- Rags to Riches: Well maybe not riches but Hedig was an ordinary performer in the circus before he came to own it.
- Refuge in Audacity: The circus performers woge in front of crowds, but the Wesen Council don't care because the public think it's just an illusion.
- Serial Killer: It's gradually revealed that quite a few people have been killed by Hedig in various towns the carnival stopped at. He claims it's because they all witnessed wogings off stage, but given how many times that's happened, that's a little suspect.
- Sexy Whatever Outfit: Rosalee brings home her circus outfit and is seen walking into her and Monroe's bedroom in it.
- The Strongman: Ivan the seigbarste is the circus's strongman.
- Those Two Girls: Dolores and Monica have this dynamic during their screen time.
- Token Heroic Orc: Ivan isn't too sociable, but is the only Siegbarste to appear on the show who isn't a Villain of the Week or an Asshole Victim.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Genevieve spends most of the story as a more passive figure, worrying about Max, but takes part in killing Hedig after finding out what he did to him.
