'Grimm' Recap: 'The Good Soldier'

Courtesy TV.com
BY MELISSA HARKNESS

Opening Quote: “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

Well, that quote sounds a bit ominous doesn't it? This is a rather dark little Grimm tale, full of lies, old resentments, and legendary monsters. We begin with a young woman sitting in a car outside a VFW Outpost. She appears quite agitated and then begins cutting her arm with a very large knife. Meet Frankie, she’s a former soldier, she’s angry, and she’s played by Emily Rios ("Breaking Bad," "The Bridge"). She marches into the bar and confronts a man named Ron (Kirk Acevedo of "Fringe" and "The Walking Dead"). He definitely gives off the impression of not being happy to see her.

Their short, angry confrontation gives the impression that something squicky happened a while back. Ron furiously leaves the bar and goes home. Frankie follows of course, and is making quite the ruckus in his front yard. “I’m never going away!” she screams, but when he comes back outside with a gun, she’s gone. That’s not the end of it, as something is in the house with him. Suddenly a large lion faced creature with a scorpion tail jumps out of the shadows. It roars in his face, knocks him against the wall, and then spikes him with his tail. Ron ends up very, very dead.

Nick and Hank, who appear to be the only detectives in Portland, do some investigating. Ron worked for McCabe Security, a company primarily made up of former military personnel and employees of Artemus. Artemus was one of those military contractors that were hired to work during the Iraq War. They seem to have been a little less than ethical. They start talking amongst themselves about the mysterious Frankie being in town. Four of them were involved in whatever horrible act they committed and two are already dead. Troy appears to be next on her list and she shows up at his house. He gets home to find her having a friendly sit down with his wife.

The conversation is less than friendly when the wife leaves the room though. Frankie asks about Troy’s sex life with little Betsy and he kicks her out. The squick factor returns. It seems that these guys may have raped Frankie back during the war, and she’s back for a little “eye for eye." Who could blame her? The owner of the security company, Jim McCabe appears guilty as well. He gives Troy explicit instructions to play it cool, when the man tells him he wants to confess.

Nick and Hank finally visit the VFW outpost and discover the bloody napkin Frankie left behind after she blotted the cuts on her arm. The blood pattern seems odd. They then visit Jim McCabe. He seems to be very helpful, while we all know he is lying. When next we see Jim, Troy is telling him that he told his wife what they had done. Little does Jim know, but Betsy commands Troy to burn his confession and never tell anyone. She then stomps off to the kitchen, where she dies from a poisonous spike in her chest. Troy soon follows. So, there’s only one man left standing from that photograph, Jim McCabe.

The crew eventually gets to talk to Colonel Desai, Ron’s commanding officer in Iraq. The good Colonel doesn't have anything nice to say about Ron and his friends. He tells them how on November 11, 2010 the four men were accused of having raped Frankie Gonzales. The weird cuts she was making on her arms signify this date of course. The really interesting thing here is that the Colonel claims to be in the hospital dying of cancer. Only, when they get off the video call with him, he gets up and we see he’s in a hotel room in Portland.

Wu delivers the news that the victims all had scorpion poison in their systems when they died. Off to the Trailer we go. As Hank and Juliette search through the old books for giant scorpions, Nick is piecing together Troy’s ripped up confession. Poor Troy didn't have time to burn it before he died. Now knowing that they did in fact rape Frankie, and that a Manticore did the deed, the set off to arrest the girl. Only Nick is flummoxed when it turns out that Frankie is not a Manticore. She’s a Steinadler, a very pretty bird lady. The only one who knew that she was tracking down her attackers was Colonel Desai, who I dub Colonel Manticore.

They have her call the Colonel who is currently at the VFW waiting for McCabe to meet him. Guess who else is a Manticore? Why McCabe of course! It comes down to a battle between two, which the older man is losing. They are interrupted by Nick and Hank. At this point the Colonel stands up with his arms held out to the sides and lets McCabe stab him in the gut. It seems this was his plan all along. No one can prosecute the man for raping Frankie, but they can send him to prison for murdering the Colonel. So justice is served.

So, I’m sure you’ve wondered where Monrosalee has been during all of this? Well, after seven long years of resentment, Rosalee’s family wants to see her. She hasn't seen her mother or her sister since her father died seven years ago. Monroe bravely offers to go with her. As they get to the house, Rosalee braces for battle. It turns out that Rosalee’s sister, Deeta, has been the main party carrying the anger around. She is furious with Rosalee for not coming to their father’s funeral.She bitterly spits this out over dinner. After much bickering, Rosalee finally bursts out with the news that she was in jail. She went to jail for shoplifting a watch. Monroe of course wants to know what kind. This revelation brings harmony back to the family of Fuschbaus and the evening ends with Deeta warning Monroe that if he breaks her little sister’s heart, she will kill him. She looks serious too.

We were promised a little news on Adalind; it’s brief but very interesting. Adalind’s creepy baby bump is showing as she sits in a cafe. A pain catches her off guard and she clutches her belly. When it passes, she inadvertently makes her coffee cup slide across the table. This makes her smirk. It looks like the Hexenbeist is back! The dark and brooding Meisner is watching all of this, and dutifully reports back to Renard. He expects this will bring the Royal Family calling any day now and warns Meisner to be ready.

This was a rather entertaining episode, despite the whole rape subject matter. I always love a good revenge story, though this turned out to be more street justice. I also really enjoyed the Monrosalee part this week. That relationship has been wearing on me a bit, but this really perked things back up. There’s the added bonus of Monroe getting to be a whole person again instead of the five minute sidekick he has been recently. What did you think? As far as I’m concerned we always need more Monroe and Wu too.

The next episode of "Grimm," “The Wild Hunt” airs Friday, January 24 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.