Grimm gets me in the gut one more time

"Blood Magic" was the fourth episode from the end.

The title hints at what is going to happen in the last three episodes, but it does still have a creature of the week issue, and is therefore the last of the regular episodes. In it, we learn about the Wesen way of dealing with dementia.

I still had some concerns with how life was treated, but I could also tell they were trying to be better. We see one friend caring about the first victim, and then rather than watching a second killing, another precinct's prior report of an animal attack is identified as having also been a victim of this killer. He is not a robber or hired killer or anything you might expect; just an old man whose failing mind and Wesen abilities are a very dangerous combination.

For a family dealing with it now - even in relatively early stages - it hit deep. My younger sisters have never watched the show. (They generally hate the concept of sci-fi/fantasy and reject anything in that vein outright, except sometimes when they don't.) However, one saw part of the show while I was watching. She couldn't look away because it hit so close to home.

In one scene the man is wandering and searching for his wife, Elizabeth, calling her and misidentifying one girl (who is not killed) as her. Then his wife finds him and she reassures him that she is there. He asks "Who are you?"

Ouch, and real. Having someone you love desperate for something that is right there, and nothing you do will convince them, that's real.

With the frustration I had been having over how casually people were allowed to die, it would have been easy to get mad at the wife for not taking action sooner, but how do you decide? She didn't know that he had killed two people, just that sometimes he had disappeared while she was sleeping, exhausted. It seems like having the option of some control would be comforting, but then you have to decide; how do you do that?

I was a mess during and for a while after that episode, but sometimes it is good to get the tears out. It's good to remember that you are not the only person with that sorrow. That is part of the value of art.

Part of the value of science-fiction and fantasy is that by changing some of the rules we can view things from previously unexamined angles. What makes it effective is still the truth we find there. It's still the humanity.

At least, that's what I believe, and how I try to write.

So, one last post on Grimm tomorrow, and then I really hope to be done.