 |
| This seems like a friendly invite. Courtesy NBC |
Opening Quote: "Then he seized his left foot with both hands in such a fury that he split in two."
This episode includes nerds and gaming. I will try to rein myself in, but I apologize if my squeeing gets too loud.
At a launch party for the Black Forest 2 video game, a Wesen stalks the back halls. While the nerds are toasting Jenna, a lead software engineer, our as-yet nameless monster sprouts some talon like things from his fingers. They drip some sort of fluid onto the floor that smokes. It reminds me of the facehuggers in Aliens, the whole acid for blood thing. Shortly, Jenna and Brody take their personal party upstairs into the very same room that our monster is in. Jenna starts to feel a little creeped out and pulls her clothes back on and leaves.
The door has barely closed on her when Smokey Fingers stabs his talons into Brody's side and rips him in half, literally. Our damsel reenters the room after hearing a thump, and finds Brody in two pieces on the floor. The best part? He's still alive and calls her name. She of course runs screaming back to the partygoers.
Nick, Hank and Wu arrive at the murder scene and discover that the two halves of Brody's body were cauterized like with an acid .... See, I was right! They need Ellen Ripley to fix this mess! Also the killer left a message written on the wall in Brody's blood, "Play My Game."
As the employee interviews continue, the receptionist gets a call on the office phone. Hank tells her to put it on the speaker and it's our killer! He's calling from Brody's office and all he says is "Play My Game" over and over. By the time the guys get there, he's gone. But he left some clues. Apparently our murderer is literary. I always love that in a serial killer, don't you? He has left the title pages of three books on the desk with a handwritten word at the top.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll has "What's." A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain has "My." Rage by Richard Bachman has "Name?" written across the top.
(All excellent books, I applaud his taste.)
Lucky for the Grimm Gang, Sgt. Wu is all over this. He's read all those books and he's a gamer. I knew I liked him!
Nick is discussing all of this with Monroe while the latter folds his laundry. This cuteness is interrupted by the head of the gaming company calling Nick with a tidbit of info. Apparently Jenna broke up with a guy named Ridley Cooper before she dated Brody. Could this be our murderer? Too bad, Ridley Cooper looks like a teddy bear and tests video games for a living. He and his sister were up all night testing Dark Forest 2. They are level 49 Wizard Badgers. When the guys inform the Cooper Duo that Brody's dead, they reveal that his game avatar died too. It was cut in half. He was killed by the best player in the game, Nameless, about three hours before he was really cut in half. Interesting.
Jinkies! Sgt. Wu has has found a clue! He has realized that all three books left as clues were written by authors using a pseudonym. Ha! See. Nameless is a nom de plume. They decide that they need to do a "virtual stakeout" of the character in the game to see who he kills next to find his next real life victim.
Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about Juliette. She's still having her weird visions. She wakes up in the middle of the night to see a ghostly green image of Nick frantically trying to tell her something. Blah, Blah.
How long are they going to drag this memory thing out? She decides to go to The Spice Shop to enlist Rosalee's help. She interrupts the Monromance. Monroe is there giving Rosalee a very special grandfather clock. She looks properly grateful. Juliette busts in and tells them about her latest vision. Monroe reveals that the night she went into the coma, it was raining. Finally! They start thinking it might be her memories coming back. She refuses to let them tell Nick because she knows he is hiding things from her. Essentially she wants them to come home with her so she can tell them what she sees and they can explain it to her. Yay. Slumber party.
Her next vision is of Nick using a flashlight to read an old book. Monroe slips out that it must have been in Aunt Marie's Trailer. Well, now she wants him to take her to the Trailer. He clearly doesn't want to but Juliette and Rosalee are both pressuring him, so you know he will do it.
Well, Nameless has struck again. He has killed another one of the game company's people inside the game. Nick and Hank tell Vicky to lock her windows and doors and they rush to her house. Only it's too late. As she is closing a window, we see a goblin looking critter walk up behind her. Then Jenna's phone rings. The caller ID says it's Vicky, but it's Nameless asking if she has figured out his name yet. She cries. Vicky is lying on the floor in two pieces by the time the guys get there, but there's another clue! A big knife is driven into a piece of paper with a sudoku puzzle on it with some boxes highlighted.
The message on the wall reads "Guess My Name." Not to fear, folks! Sgt Wu does sudoku too! The boxes reveal a date, March 12 at 7:15 p.m. Well, well. It turns out Jenna stood up the emergency IT guy that only fixed her computer if she would go out with him.
(See, people: Never piss off a nerd.)
Anyway, she was supposed to meet him at a restaurant called Nom de Plume at 7:15pm on March 12. She can't even remember his name or what he looked like. But wait, Wu is looking at her suspiciously. He guesses that this Nameless nerd helped Jenna write this all important piece of software that will revolutionize MMORPG gaming as we know it. She cries some more.
Nick and Hank take a trip to the Trailer to do some research. Their Nameless killer turns out to be a Fuchsteufelwild. They like to cut their victims in half and their muscles secrete acid. The book also includes a list of names of known Fuchsteufelwild. Their names appear to be riddles as well. This leads them back to Sgt. Wu to figure out this little anagram. A search of the game's servers reveals Nameless's name to be Trinket Lipslums. Wow, that's just cruel.
Jenna has not spent all of this time doing her nails though. Looks like she just claimed not to remember the IT guy's name. She is running around in the game world and Nameless finds her. He taunts her that she doesn't know his name, to which she replies "Trinket Lipslums" and slices his character in half.
"Game over, asswipe," she says as she throws her game controller down.
Trinket does not take this well and heads out to find her in the real world. He finds her typing a message under the screenname AerynSun (Farscape- look it up people). When she leaves the room he breaks in and as he attacks her the cops pop out and chase him to the roof. He goes all green and Fuchsteufelwildy and not finding a way out of this mess, he gleefully jumps off the roof and splats on the pavement below. Very Green Goblin.
After a long day of goblin hunting, Nick gets back to Monroe's house only to find him waiting on the stairs. I'm impressed Monroe waited to talk to Nick first. Nick reluctantly agrees to let him take Juliette to the trailer when he finds out that she plans to leave Portland if he doesn't.
The next episode of Grimm, "One Angry Fuchsbau" airs Friday April 5 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.