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+---- Thread: S03E05 - El Cucuy (/Thread-S03E05-El-Cucuy)
S03E05 - El Cucuy - GrimmForum - 11-29-2013
Season 3 Episode 5
El Cucuy
![[Image: q6ahplel.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/q6ahplel.jpg)
Air Date: November 29, 2013
Synopsis: Nick (David Giuntoli) and Hank (Russell Hornsby) are on the case as repeat instances of apparent vigilantism have whispers of an old Spanish legend making their way through a working-class Portland neighborhood. Elsewhere, Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) learns the truth about Nick’s mother. Meanwhile, Adalind (Claire Coffee) has a brief scare during her ultrasound. Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz, Reggie Lee and Bre
Trailer
Spoiler :
Grimm continues tonight with an all new episodes. What are your thoughts on this episodes?
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - pale boy - 11-30-2013
I liked it, although I was a wee bit surprised that El Cucuy turned out to be a Wesen rather than something similar to the La Llorona creature they had before.
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - Lou - 11-30-2013
I didn't like it so much at first but now that I've thought about it I like it a lot better.
Mixed feelings about the El Cucuy.
Spanish Bogeyman!? Really?
On the plus side it shows, along with mermaids, that there are still low hanging fruit in the monster of the week theme. I mean, that's good, the monster of the week field is fertile ground. Three seasons in and there are still plenty of easily available monsters from folk tales and mythology within easy reach.
Also in retrospect I felt the writers did a better than average job with the mystery side of it. Even added some misdirection and red herrings. Yep, El Cucuy isn't in any of the books, and she answers prayers, so she must not be a wesson and supernatural, like La Llorona. But it turns out she is just another kind of wesson with sharp teeth and good ears. They were both Latin, too, so that made for an easy connection. (also, I don't know if you can rule out La Llorona as a wesson - the writers left some wiggle room there.)
I also liked the fact that it was the sweet old lady. How many of you saw that coming?
And I think we were all happy to see that Nick, Hank, and Captain Renard all reluctantly came to the decision to let her go. I think the writers missed an opportunity to have some philosophical ethical debate there. But maybe it was too obvious. Or maybe they just didn't have the time.
I thought it had much more graphic violence than usual. It wasn't totally gratuitous. It made a couple points. The bad guys really really deserved it. And there was no way this was the act of a sweet old lady.
I like the way they are developing the Rosalee and Monroe thing. Rosalee on the phone with Monroe's mom was so classic. Its nice to see that all the basic relationship issues still pop up even (or especially) when Blutbads and Fauxbahs move in together.
I also really liked seeing the Scooby gang all together (with Juliette!), drinking wine, eating vegan canapés, and discussing the case. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Also Juliette is still scoring points (take that, Juliette haters!). Almost immediately confronts Nick on the mystery "M", once the explanation is given becomes understanding and concerned. and then, goes and takes action.
Did anyone list Greece as a place they wanted to see the show go?
Then the Nick and Juliette in the trailer scene was great. Now, Juliette is completely comfortable in the trailer, laying on the floor with a bunch of books open. And she is off-task. Also laying on the floor to study is such a girl thing. You would never find Hank or Monroe doing that. She probably did that a lot in her college days.
Oh, another thing I liked. Nick and Hank seemed to do a better than average job with their detecting and Wesson IDing. They seem to have become pretty comfortable investigating weird and grisly murders.
OK, except that I thought the bogeyman was sort of a cheap shot - there was a lot to like in this episode.
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - hot schade - 11-30-2013
i really liked it!
i loved juliette in this eppy, i love her determination to find nick's mother, i love her reaction to visjna gora (LOL! i learned something watching network tv who would have suspected
!) and i love her getting into the books, which i think nick loved too! i liked the mystery of who the el cucuay really was and their reaction to who it was, LOL! i didn't know who it was until i saw her in the bus survalance.
i noticed a few things that kinda irked me.
1) nick saying that he just found out that being a grimm is genetic?? didn't he kinda figure that out with marie?? didn't he suspect it with marie being a grimm and him being a grimm?? now that juliette knows she might not want to have kids with nick, not that i think that means more drama for them, but i do think that means she will re-consider it when/if it ever comes up. her bf being a grimm is one thing, her own child.....not so much!!
2) ive notice that sargent wu isn't as funny as he has been in the past, what is up with the writing with him, and why are we just seeing bits and pieces of him? i thought we were getting more wu not less.
3) im surprised im going to say this, but monroe and rosalee had no purpose in this eppy, and his mother sounds like a real bitch LOL! i have a feeling im going to hate this upcoming storyline.
lol! to adalind's baby having 2 hearts, she's having a time lord bahahaha!!
oh sean! don't get too attached to that baby, most likely it's ur bro who you hate and killed LOL!
other things i liked was that they talked about juliette's family, i wonder if she was raised by her gmother and that was something that her and nick maybe bonded on was that neither of them were raised by their parents.
i also liked that they had to let her go, the ethical part of walking the line of grimm/cop has been discussed, i don't think it is necessary to discusse it everytime, they just couldn't prove it in a court of law, it isn't all that different from a regular cop who has to let a guilty party b/c of lack of evidence. however, nick let this wesen go as a grimm, which is actually the surprising part, maybe cause she is 77 years old lOL!
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - the-epic-prince - 11-30-2013
I like the episode. I agree with Lou on the fact that the writers missed a pretty good ethical debate. Was she wrong or is what she did justified? She did seem a little bit of a sociopath but then the most dangerous killer is one who fully believes in what they do.
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - droid327 - 11-30-2013
Meh, I think this episode shot itself in the foot by setting up more than it ended up delivering. It invited parallels with La Llorona, of course, but then it ended up just being another Wesen-of-the-week. All the mysticism with Pilar just ended up turned out to be "villager superstition", which would be a little more palatable if they ever established what Pilar actually IS....why she knows so much, why she can sense supernatural things happening. Is she Wesen? Is she a Grimm? Is she something like a Grimm, but that can sense stuff instead of hunting it? Since she's just some ill-defined oracle, bringing her back this episode (and not just as a "Latino liaison" for Wesen matters) seemed to suggest there was more than just the usual Wesen antics going on, but that's all that it ended up being.
From a storytelling perspective, I thought the ending was extremely unsatisfying as well. They're just letting a known killer back on the streets? Its ok because she only kills "bad people"? None of the people she killed had done anything that most reasonable people would say warrants death...she wasn't killing murderers, she wasn't even killing child molesters or anything where she might be "justified" to mete out death. As a cop, that should bother Nick a lot more than it appeared to - its not the first Wesen vigilante we've seen, and he's not been so magnanimous with others in the past. And, from lots of other times, we know he's fully aware of how to play the "I cant settle this as a cop, so I'm going to settle this as a Grimm" card, even just as a bluff. It would have been nice to at least have put the fear of Grimm in her before they let her go, a kind of "you stay gone, or you be gone. You lost all your Portland privileges" moment.
Other quick points...Adalind: nothing new here. The baby's all weird? Well its 1/2 or 3/4 Hexenbiest, no crap... Juliette: thank you for not being worthless for once. Thank you for being rational about the email and just TELLING Nick instead of dragging it out for three or four episodes, talking to EVERYONE ELSE about it EXCEPT him and making it into a big thing. Although it was a little disconcerting how cheerfully she peruses the records of cold blooded genocide in Nick's ancestry, considering she just learned his mom is one of those same type of "old school" Grimms. The Doggy Style Duo: why are they so scared of telling his parents? Monroe's mom is a Blutbad, they eat people, she's going to get all pearl-clutchey about him moving in with a girl?
Overall: an OK episode, could have done with a touch more story-arc, and generally would have been better if it had just been OK with being a Wesen-of-the-week, but I guess November Sweeps demanded everything be hyped.
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - pale boy - 12-03-2013
(11-30-2013, 10:36 PM)droid327 Wrote: Meh, I think this episode shot itself in the foot by setting up more than it ended up delivering. It invited parallels with La Llorona, of course, but then it ended up just being another Wesen-of-the-week. All the mysticism with Pilar just ended up turned out to be "villager superstition", which would be a little more palatable if they ever established what Pilar actually IS....why she knows so much, why she can sense supernatural things happening. Is she Wesen? Is she a Grimm? Is she something like a Grimm, but that can sense stuff instead of hunting it? Since she's just some ill-defined oracle, bringing her back this episode (and not just as a "Latino liaison" for Wesen matters) seemed to suggest there was more than just the usual Wesen antics going on, but that's all that it ended up being.
Oh wow. You've really articulated a lot of the problems I had with this episode. I think we need a "meh" option in the episode polls, ha ha, because while I liked parts of this one, the rest were just ... lacking. I thought the show was going to go in for some really supernatural creature stuff, but when it was just Wesen business as usual, I was actually surprised. And then somewhat bored.
(11-30-2013, 10:36 PM)droid327 Wrote: From a storytelling perspective, I thought the ending was extremely unsatisfying as well. They're just letting a known killer back on the streets? Its ok because she only kills "bad people"?
Every viewpoint character at this juncture is aware of a vast supernatural conspiracy/network that normals can't see. Plus Nick and pretty much everyone else (with the exceptions of Rosalee and Juliette) have been doing very illegal stuff for a while now. Safe to say they're all corrupt in one way or another, even if they have "good" reasons for it. I wasn't shocked they let her go. But it was a little weird that they played it for comedy.
(11-30-2013, 10:36 PM)droid327 Wrote: Juliette: thank you for not being worthless for once. Thank you for being rational about the email and just TELLING Nick instead of dragging it out for three or four episodes, talking to EVERYONE ELSE about it EXCEPT him and making it into a big thing.
Maybe the writers heard about the amnesia plot complaints about last season?
(11-30-2013, 10:36 PM)droid327 Wrote: Although it was a little disconcerting how cheerfully she peruses the records of cold blooded genocide in Nick's ancestry, considering she just learned his mom is one of those same type of "old school" Grimms.
No one seems to really be that hung up on the whole thing. Even Wesen like Monroe, Rosalee, and Renard are over it ... though it just struck me that Nick is basically a serial killer.
Granted, his attacks are "justified", but ... they people he goes after are often unintentionally provoked. Wesen see a Grimm and flip out -- understandably flip out because Grimm are known predators toward their people ... now I'm not going to be able to stop thinking this. 
(11-30-2013, 10:36 PM)droid327 Wrote: Overall: an OK episode, could have done with a touch more story-arc, and generally would have been better if it had just been OK with being a Wesen-of-the-week, but I guess November Sweeps demanded everything be hyped.
Could have been worse. At least they didn't have Rosalee become pregnant or something, while Juliette was bespelled by a Wesen and engaged in a meaningless yet titillating Lesbian Kiss ™ with some random woman we'll never, ever see again.*
(*this comment is directed toward the Sweeps tendency to use Lesbian Kisses for a bump in viewership that will likely not evolve into anything that will become a realistic relationship between two women. This is merely intended as a comment on the sometimes exploitative and careless nature of television, and nothing else. It's sort of like a secondary version of the promo guy claiming in a menacing voice that "One Of Your Favorite Characters Will DIE On Tonight's Episode" and then it turns out to be the IT guy who had approximately two clever lines in the fourth episode. Nothing to see here folks, just hype for the ratings. /disclaimer over)
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - Gretel Hanselsister - 12-03-2013
I liked this episode
.The writers had fun with blood this time, all these crime scene photos at the table while the scooby gang was eating - they got some nerves
.A very usefull Juliette, she changed really fast from "I don't believe anything" to "I'm fine with absolutely everything". But I like it.
Adalind's baby has two different heartbeats - perhaps there's something else growing beside the expected baby, a sideeffekt of the regain-power-precedure?
I like Meisner, I want to see more Meisner
I find myself watching elderly ladys in a different way now. Oh- that could be her...
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - HellJacket - 12-04-2013
(12-03-2013, 02:41 PM)Gretel Hanselsister Wrote: A very usefull Juliette, she changed really fast from "I don't believe anything" to "I'm fine with absolutely everything". But I like it.
I think the source of most of my disagreement with general fandom is that most people like their characters to be "useful." I do not care if a character has any use, but one, to entertain me. Hence, it seems like many fans are happy with season 3 and every member of the Scooby Gang being "useful".
However, season 3 is boring me to no end. I'd rather have useless characters that create plot and conflict.
RE: S03E05 - El Cucuy - GrimmForum - 12-05-2013
I enjoyed this episode a lot. I thought it was interesting when Juliette brought up the possibility that the cucuy they're looking for isn't a wesen, but something entirely else. I think it's foreshadowing future episodes, and I'm looking forward to seeing the writers expand on the Grimm Mythology. It kind of reminds me of the alien wesen from last season.
Also as a Portland local, you hear where Grimm's filming in town, and this episode in particular had a lot of these filming locations I've been hearing about (the Astro gas station on 21st, St Johns bridge, Seattle, etc...). I also go to that Astro gas station from time to time when I'm in the city, so it was fun seeing wesen action go on there.