Nick is at the doctor, having a stress test to check out his odd heart rate. No matter how much the doctor increases the incline on the treadmill or asks Nick to run faster, his heart rate stays the same at a very low 30 (normal is 60-100 for a resting heart rate), and his blood pressure also stays the same at 100/60, which is also low. The doctor says that either the machine is broken – or Nick’s just extremely healthy. He then asks if Nick’s had any recent lifestyle changes, and Nick has flashbacks to his fight while he was zombie-fied. He replies that work has been a little stressful. The doctor tells him to take it easy and he’ll call once he has more on the test results.
Monroe and Rosalee are having dinner at a new restaurant in Portland. As they enjoy their wine,Monroe clumsily asks Rosalee to move in with him. She says yes, and they say their first “I love you” to each other. They’re briefly interrupted when their server brings a complimentary beef appetizer with two portions. Monroe takes his portion and sniffs longingly, but Rosalee takes it from him, telling him he can’t fall off the meat wagon now and that she’ll save him. They’re interrupted again when a friend of Monroe’s, Sam, and his wife stop at their table to say hello. Sam gushes about the amazing job Monroe did restoring his great-grandfather’s watch, and then the other couple returns to their table.
A man stumbles through the woods in obvious pain and clutching his stomach, which is making very loud grumbling noises. He takes off his shirt, showing that his abdomen is bulging and distorted, then climbs a tree, moaning in pain the entire time. He sits on the branches, his moans turning into screams, then woges into a Blutbad. He howls a final time before his stomach explodes.
Juliette and Nick are at home, having a glass of wine and discussing his stress test. Juliette tells him that she’s certain the machine wasn’t wrong, because she’d barely been able to feel a pulse during the incident while he was sleeping. She tells him that Rosalee thought he’d react differently than normal humans to the Cracher-Mortel poison, and she now thinks Rosalee is right. Nick wonders what he’s supposed to do and if he’ll turn into a zombie again, but Juliette says that they’ll just have to monitor the situation. She asks if he feels any differently, and he says yes – that he’s more aware and feels more in control, but that could be because he knows what happened to him and is just paying more attention. Juliette tells him she’s just not going to let him go very far for a while.
The next morning, Nick and Hank are called out to the crime scene. They can’t figure out how he got up there, but it’s clear that he died in the tree and that he wasn’t attacked by an animal as his entrails litter the ground below. Once the rest of the body is brought down from the tree, they’re able to recover his wallet and get his name – Ned. Sgt. Wu gets the info, and Hank and Nick are soon interviewing the widow. She’s extremely distressed, telling them that the two were very happy and had just celebrated their 5-year anniversary by going out to dinner two nights ago.
Captain Renard comes into his office, hearing his other cell phone ringing in his desk drawer. It’s his contact in Vienna, Sebastian, reporting that the police are going through Eric’s office. No one seems to have any idea who was behind the bombing, and the family seems to think it was either the resistance or another family. Renard then asks if he’s heard from Frau Pech again, and Sebastian says no. Renard tells him that he really should speak to her. Sebastian ends the call when he hears footsteps, and it turns out to be Adalind, who looks genuinely upset. She asks if he knows anything and if they’re in danger, and he says they should assume that they are. She asks who will take Eric’s place, and he says matter-of-factly, “The last Royal standing,” then watches as she walks off.
A couple is walking through a park when they stop to lean against a tree and kiss. When they break apart, the guy is startled and thinks the girl is bleeding, but she’s not – the blood dripped down on her. They look up and see a body that’s a complete mess, just like Ned’s, and the girl starts screaming.
Back at the station, Nick stares at the driver’s license of the man he killed. After brooding for a bit over his memories of the fight, he gets up and goes into the Captain’s office. He tells Captain Renard that he’s remembering what happened and that he’s really bothered by the fact that he killed the man. Renard then asks what’s really bothering him – that he killed somebody, or that he killed somebody that wasn’t Wesen? Because Nick has certainly killed plenty of them. Nick looks stunned and doesn’t say anything. Captain Renard tells him he has to leave for a meeting with the mayor, and tells Nick to let him know when he has an answer.
Nick heads back to his desk just as Hank tells them they’ve got another tree hugger, and the two head to the scene. Sgt. Wu gives them the lowdown – it seems to be exactly the same as the last crime scene, except this time the victim is a woman. Her car was nearby, so they already know her name – Stephanie. Hank and Nick follow Sgt. Wu to the car so they can look for more information. They go through the receipts in her wallet, which seem pretty normal, although Hank notices the receipt for a restaurant called Raven and Rose. He brings up the fact that Ned and his wife had gone out to dinner before he died, too. Not having asked the name of the restaurant when they’d spoken, Hank gives her a quick call and finds out that they had indeed had dinner at Raven and Rose. They go back to the station and research the chef, who seems normal enough – trained in Paris and Munich, and Raven and Rose has plenty of rave reviews. Although it seems like a long shot, they head to the restaurant to speak with the chef.
Over in Austria, Sebastian breaks into Frau Pech’s house and looks around a bit, then calls Renard. Sebastian tells him that he hasn’t found Frau Pech, but he’s looking at a little notebook that has a hotel name and what appears to be a room number written in it. Renard tells him to find out who’s in that room.
Hank and Nick arrive at Raven and Rose just before it opens, and hear the chef screaming at his staff. They head back and Nick sees the entire staff, including the chef, woge into Bauerschwein. When the detectives tell the chef that two people died soon after eating in his restaurant, he gets upset and protests the possibility, but is completely agreeable when the two ask for more information – if any of the employees know the victims, a list of employees, and what Ned and Stephanie ordered when they were there. At the station, Nick and Hank go through the information, but nothing seems to connect – the two victims didn’t eat the same dishes, the tox screens on both were clean, and no one working at the restaurant has any kind of criminal record.
At home that night, Nick tells Juliette about the case, and she thinks it sounds like an extreme type of bloat – something she knows about because it happens in dogs and cows. This leads Nick to wonder if the victims could be Blutbaden, due to the centuries-old feud between Bauerschwein and Blutbaden – but now that the victims are dead, there’s no way to know if they were Wesen. Juliette tells Nick to ponder that while he heads to Monroe’s, where he’s finally completely moving out.
At Monroe’s, he and Nick are bringing boxes downstairs while reminscing over their time as roommates. Nick also asks Monroe if he’s ever been to Raven and Rose, and Monroe tells him that he and Rosalee were there just the other night, and that the food is amazing. Nick tells him that it’s run by Bauerschwein and asks if he’s feeling okay. Monroe says he’s feeling great. Monroe offers to help Nick to the car, then piles boxes in front of Nick’s face. When Nick protests, Monroe takes the top box out of his arms – and Rosalee, Bud, Juliette and Hank jump out and yell “Surprise!” Apparently everyone’s excited about Nick leaving, and then get to toasting with champagne and the beautiful cake Bud’s wife made. The phone rings in the midst of the celebration, and Rosalee goes to answer it, then comes back to tell Monroe that it’s his friend Sam’s wife, Kimber, who’s worried about Sam – apparently he’s missing. Nick tells Rosalee and Monroe about the other deaths, and they find out that Ned was another Blutbad friend of Monroe’s. Nick asks again if Monroe’s feeling okay, and he says he feels fine, and Rosalee asks how the others died. Juliette explains her theory about bloat, and Rosalee remembers something and says she has to get to the spice shop. Meanwhile, Hank puts out an APB on Sam’s car.
Sam is already in the woods, going through the same horrible pain as the other two Blutbad. At the spice shop, Rosalee quickly finds what she’s looking for in one of her books – the Black Despair Mushroom. It has a toxin that’s similar to something that attacks carpenter ants, making them climb trees where their bodies explode, spreading the spores further. When raw, it’s safe, but when cooked, it’s toxic to Blutbaden. Monroe tries to remember if he had anything with mushrooms, but he has no idea. Then Rosalee recalls the complimentary appetizer that Monroe didn’t eat because it had meat in it – it was served to everyone at every table, and it wasn’t on the menu. Hank’s phone rings – they’ve found Sam’s car, but he’s not in it. Hank, Nick and Monroe head to the park. Sam’s already up in the tree, screaming and howling – and then his stomach bursts right in front of their eyes. As the scene is cleaned up, Nick goes to talk to Monroe, who’s very agitated. He tells Nick that if Nick doesn’t do something about the situation, he will – and that arresting the chef won’t work. Hank asks if Monroe is going to go vigilante, and Nick tells him that he might. Then Hank asks what they’re going to do with the chef.
Nick heads to Raven and Rose by himself and waits to talk to the chef. Nick explains that there’s been another death of someone who ate at the restaurant – but it wasn’t caused by something any of them ordered, but a complimentary dish from the chef that contained Black Despair Mushrooms. He also tells him that he knows that all the employees are Bauerschwein and all the people killed were Blutbaden. The chef woges as he realizes Nick is a Grimm. He asks if Nick will kill all of them, and he says no – he was expecting the chef to confess. The chef laughs and tells Nick that everyone working there has lost family to the Blutbaden going back years, and all they were doing was trying to create a new world order, one where they can live without fear. Nick tells him that isn’t going to happen as long as the killings continue, but the chef just tells him to leave.
Nick heads home and discusses the situation with Juliette. He knows he can’t go after the chef as a cop, but killing him as a Grimm will only solve the problem in Portland and not affect the feud. He’s also concerned that Monroe will kill the chef, and that murder could be proven. He suddenly gets glazed over and freezes, and Juliette tells him that it’s happened again – but Nick already feels fine. He rushes over to the spice shop to find Monroe ranting about taking out the murdering Bauerschwein while Rosalee attempts to calm him down. Nick tells them about confronting the chef, which only enrages Monroe more. He woges and heads out of the shop while Rosalee begs Nick to do something.
Sebastian is in the hallway of the hotel in Vienna, watching room 215. Inside, Adalind is watching the video of the explosion that killed Eric and crying when there’s a knock on the door. It’s a server bringing her room service order, but she protests that she didn’t place an order. Meanwhile, Sebastian is taking photos of her.
The chef ends the day at the restaurant by unboxing another shipment of the Black Despair Mushrooms, then locks up and starts his walk home. He soon sees that Monroe is following him, and tries to go in a new direction, but more and more Blutbaden are coming out of the shadows until he’s blocked in on all sides by buildings and Blutbaden. Monroe then taunts the chef and woges, and Nick and Hank show up. Nick and Monroe begin to fight, and Monroe forces Nick to shoot him. But that doesn’t stop the other Blutbaden from advancing. Soon Nick and Hank are talking about leaving to save themselves, because they can’t fight everyone. Nick tells the chef that he needs to confess so they can protect him, and he does. Hank and Nick cuff him and load him into the car while Monroe lies on the ground grinning. At the station, the chef signs his confession but tells Nick that nothing will change the feud. Nick tells him that it’s a start. Monroe and Captain Renard are on the other side of the mirror with Hank as Nick brings the signed confession in, and Captain Renard confirms that this little piggy will be going to jail.
This was a really packed episode! Let’s dive into everything that’s going on.
Nick can keep saying that he’s okay, but he’s not. I’m not sure if any of his almost-dead spells mean he’ll turn into a zombie again, but it’s clear that something’s wrong, and it could be bad. Why hasn’t either Nick or Juliette mentioned this to Rosalee yet? She might not be able to fix things, but at least she could check into it. They won’t know until they ask.
Nick’s moving out of Monroe’s house and Rosalee’s moving in. When Monroe was trying to ask Rosalee in the restaurant, he was so charming and adorable as he fumbled through it, and it was yet another scene that shows the amazing chemistry between Silas Weir Mitchell and Bree Turner. Later in the episode when Rosalee was trying to calm Monroe down and failing was another interesting scene for the two of them, a totally realistic fight, developing the relationship even further. Kudos to the writers as well as Silas and Bree for doing such a wonderful job on the evolution of their characters and the relationship between them.
Interesting things are certainly happening in Austria. I still wonder if perhaps Eric will pop up at some point in the future, but who knows? So far, no one seems to suspect Renard or his assassin, which is a positive. But now that Sebastian has discovered that Adalind is in hotel room 215, will Renard put two and two together and guess that she’s the one carrying Royal blood… and possibly his? This is about to get a lot more interesting.
Renard’s pointed conversation with Nick about whether he was upset about killing a human rather than a Wesen was excellent and accurate. It seems to have had some impact, as Nick refused to kill the chef. Will he start finding more creative ways to deal with the non-law-abiding Wesen of Portland instead of killing them, like his ancestors? It seems that Nick will continue to change what being a Grimm means… he’s very good at messing with the status quo!
