Fans of NBC’s Grimm have come across a host of frightful, other-worldly creatures over the past few seasons. “The Good Soldier” introduced us to some humans who were just as horrific. The episode opened with a woman mutilating herself while sitting in her car; she then ran up on a seemingly random guy in a bar, demanding that he take responsibility for what had happened to her, for whatever had driven her to cut herself. The man, sergeant Ron Hurd, tried to shoo the woman away as she blotted her bloody arm with a napkin, but when he didn’t succeed, he high-tailed it out of there. In this way, the episode seemed to be headed for a “woman scorned” type of storyline, which made it all the more exciting when it took a slightly different route.
As soon as Hurd makes it home, he places a telling phone call to an alliance about his encounter with the woman from the bar. Frankie was clearly someone from his past whom he had no desire to meet with again. She shows up anyway and fights with Nick for a second time, promising him that he will never be rid of her. Nick becomes livid and both actors (Kirk Acevedo and Emily Rios) deliver strong performances, as they look about to rip each other’s heads off in this scene. Nick goes inside his house to get a gun, but returns to a quiet street and assumes he has scared her off. What a shock to him (and to us) when a gigantic, pointed, god-knows-what comes out of nowhere and drives itself straight into his chest.
As Nick and Hank are called in to investigate, Rosalee and Monroe prepare to deal with some pretty heavy stuff as well. After seven years of silence between them, Rosalee’s mother has finally reached out to her and invited her for a visit. The two begin to plan what will surely be an awkward trip home for Rosalee, especially as it marks the anniversary of her father’s death.
When Nick and Hank get to sleuthing they realize that medals have been taken from the victim’s home. The so-called war hero was, apparently, one of a group of men that Frankie was harassing. The detectives end up at McCabe Security, a company run by a military man who was in Iraq with the victim. Although he claims to have no knowledge of Frankie, it is pretty clear that he is hiding something. Sure enough, they figure out that the men Frankie is targeting had gang-raped her and gotten away with it, having been given a certain immunity as contractors during the war. While this made for a compelling storyline, very little was said about the actual rape. Too much detail and the episode would have, perhaps, been a little too Law and Order: SVU, but since everything traces back to this act, you’d think more would have been said. Frankie’s character is, however, well-developed as a victim; she is full of both rage and sorrow. The napkin she’d used to blot her arm (later retrieved by Nick and Hank), showed a bloody pattern that read 11 11 10, the date of her attack.
The plot thickens and gets all Grimm-ified when a scorpion-type venom is found in the victims. (The body count has been steadily increasing throughout the episode, including the death of the one guy who actually wanted to make a full confession.) Soon enough, Frankie reveals herself to be a hawk-like Wesen.
Juliette and Hank conduct research in the trailer and they uncover information about the manticore, a part-Lowen Wesen creature with a venomous tail. Perhaps most frightening, manticores have no fear of death whatsoever.
While they have spent much of the episode suspecting Frankie, it becomes clear that Frankie’s former Colonel (Adam Desai, who had been pretending to be sick in a hospital while “helping” the detectives) was behind the deaths. Unable to forgive himself for not being able to bring the men to justice back when the crime was committed (and he was, in fact, terminally ill), he had taken matters into his own hands … er … tail and started picking them off, one by one. The only rapist left at the end of the episode is Jim, who was also a manticore and was, actually, responsible for the last two killings. In one intense battle, the two go at it, with Desai sacrificing himself just as Nick and Hank step in, his dying wish that they arrest Jim for his murder, since Jim would never be convicted for the rape of Frankie. Jim, in his human form, is cuffed and taken in. A Grimm-like happy ending for all.
With all of this supernatural drama going on, we also had some big developments with Rosalee’s family. Her sister had, naturally, brought up the fact that while she—the good daughter—stayed behind to care for their parents while Rosalee—the naughty daughter—didn’t even bother to come to their father’s funeral. Thus, Rosalee finally confesses to being in jail when her father died, and is able to speak her piece about the difficult time in her past as an addict, and her desire to move forward.
We also got a little peek at Adalind, still preggers in Europe and experiencing a small resurgence of her powers. One assumes that this is a sign of some serious forthcoming drama.