Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Eve-style
Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Nick and Hank race against time to prevent the completion of an ancient Wesen ritual that requires seven sacrificial murders. But the case shines a light on a troubling trend in Wesen society.
Meisner, Trubel, and Eve track a suspected Black Claw agent's arrival in Portland. Eve's Hexenbiest powers come in useful in a very unpleasant interrogation.
This episode provides examples of:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Monroe and Rosalee are strangely reluctant to believe that someone has resurrected an ancient Fuilcré drought-ending ritual, given that it's hardly less likely than The Rat King being real.
- Call-Back:
- Trubel realises a dangerous Black Claw leader is in Portland, making it urgent that the gang decide if they're in Hadrian's Wall or out.
- An ex of Rosalee's from her drug addict days has been sending her letters, and in this episode she gets an angry phone call. She tells him curtly that she's not interested, and Monroe threatens him if he keeps bothering her, but he doesn't seem likely to be dissuaded.
- Combat Pragmatist: When a Fuilcré (bull-type Wesen) woges, sees he's a Grimm and charges, Nick calmly drops and sweeps the leg so the guy goes over him and lands in the dirt, then arrests him for assaulting a cop (although he doesn't press charges; he just wants an excuse to hold him as a suspect).
- Contrived Coincidence: The map and starchart Nick uses to plot the murders just happen to be the right scale that one can be overlaid on the other.
- Creepy Crosses: The victims are suspended on wooden crosses, impaled in the side and their blood spilt around in a circle.
- Disposable Vagrant: The gang only manage to save the seventh and final victim of the sacrifice, because the killer targeted homeless people who are unlikely to be reported missing.
- Facial Horror: Eve interrogates a captured Black Claw member by magically removing first his mouth, then his eyes and ears. After being left like this for an unspecified amount of time, he's more than willing to talk.Eve: We'll give him some time alone with his thoughts.
- Fantastic Racism: The Black Claw recruiter at the meeting Monroe infiltrates spits on the ground when he says the word "Kehrseite."
- Hidden Depths:
- Adalind knows an enormous amount about Wesen rituals, including the Fuilcré one being used.
Adalind: I was a Hexenbiest. It's sort of our thing.- Rosalee can read Middle Irish, having spent time in Ireland visiting family as a child. Evidently, there was no TV.
- Human Sacrifice: The killer is using an ancient Wesen ritual to end a drought, that involves crucifying seven people in a pattern resembling the layout of Ursa Major. Apparently this ritual was popular until about five hundred years previous.Nick: What happened?
Monroe: Grimms. If they caught someone doing the ritual, they'd kill their whole family, right down to the little children. Gotta admit, it got the job done. - Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: After the killer is gunned down in place of the seventh victim, the drought the killer was trying to end, ends in a sudden torrential downpour.Hank: [Opens his mouth]
Nick: Don't go there. - Nightmare Fetishist: Trubel seems really interested in Eve's interrogation method.Eve: See no evil, hear no evil...
Trubel: We're missing one. - Noodle Incident: Renard is in a nostalgic mood.Renard: You know, my great-grandfather - on my mother's side - knew a lot about rituals and sacrifices. (Beat) That's probably what got him burned at the stake.
