Grimm is a detective series with significant Fantasy and Horror elements.Nick Burkhardt, a new on the beat homicide police detective with the Portland Police Bureau in Oregon, is about to marry the woman of his dreams. He comes home to discover his Aunt Marie has turned up unexpectedly. They take a walk and she hits him with the truth she's been keeping secret from him: he is one of the last descendants of the Grimm family — as in The Brothers Grimm — and as such, is gifted with the ability to see monsters, or "Wesen", walking among us, and that his family has hunted and slain these monsters for generations.Now Nick must cope with his new abilities, the knowledge that comes with them, and still do his job as a police officer.Over the course of the first season, the series has moved away from Monsters of the Week and Police Procedural elements wrapped up in self-contained episodes into a more of a ongoing drama with various subplots all running concurrently that happens to be centered around police work and Wesen life. At the same time, the show has branched off from focusing on Nick as the central character into more of a ensemble feel by giving other characters more screen time and involvement in various plots.There was a web series to hold fans over during the off season (winter hiatus 2012-2013). They deal with the misadventures of Monroe helping Rosalee in the spice shop.As of April 26, 2013, NBC has ordered a third season.
Provides Examples Of:
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Tropes A-D
Achilles Heel: The Blutbad have a weak spot at the lower right part of their back. If hit there it will stun them for a few seconds.
La Llorona: a ghost/wesen thing who kidnaps children and then proceeds to drown them every year on Halloween.
Blutbaden. The first episode has one who kidnaps a little girl wearing red and hides her in his home, planning on fattening her up and later eating her. According to Monroe, this is common.
All Myths Are True: While the wesen have inspired various myths, it's not yet been confirmed or denied if the myths themselves are true.
Almost Kiss: In "Quill," Monroe and Rosalee go on a picnic, talk briefly about relationships and not rushing things, look into each other's eyes and lean in...and then a Yellow Plague infectee stumbles into the clearing and attacks them.
Ancient Conspiracy: Marie warns Nick of a secret organization dedicated to defeating the Grimms and their allies (known as the "Grimm Reapers", of course).
Season two introduces not just one but several others in a more realistic situation of a number of organizations all with their own particular interests. You have the Grim Reapers, but you also have the Verrat, the Seven Royal Families, the Grimms themselves (loosely organized at best), the Resistance, the Dragon Tongue, and the Wesen Council. And then whatever side Renard's on who, if nothing else, seems to be playing all sides.
Androcles Lion: Last Grimm Standing seems to be setting up a situation similar to the aesop after Monroe helps pull a nail from the hand of a gladiator shortly before they are set to fight each other. But the gladiator shows no compunction about killing Monroe and probably would have done so had it not been for Nick's intervention.
Animal Motifs: Every Wesen seen so far has had one except for Hexenbiests (eyeless hag-like creatures), Siegbarstes (ogres), Hässlichen (Grimm reapers and/or trolls), Wildermanner (bigfoot), Wendigo ("savage human-like" according to Grimm wiki), Fuchsteufelwilder (imp/goblin), Glühenvolk (alien), Musai (fairy, technically Leannán Sidhe), and well, if you consider the Dämonfeuer as based on dragons that are not really animals but mythical creatures.
Anti-Hero: Each of the main protagonists(Nick, Hank, Monroe, and possibly Renard) has racked up a considerable body count, and none of them are hesitant to use lethal force when the situation demands it. Justified though in that three of those four are cops and often deal with violent criminals. While force is not their first option, they will use it to protect others or themselves.
Anti-Villain: Marty Burgess, arguably, given that he's a Serial Killer with a very good Freudian Excuse who only kills assholes. Although your mileage may vary on that. The people he killed may have been assholes, but they didn't seem to be in any way evil. And he was terrorizing the girl he loved at the end in a big way. Also he killed people when they saw him as harmless and were about to let him go.
Captain Renard, who protects Nick, even though he is putting himself at risk to do so, but is looking to take the key entrusted to Nick by Aunt Marie.
Lena, a Spinnetod (spider Wesen) who has to consume the liquefied organs of three men every five years in order to not undergo rapid aging, who is clearly reluctant to do it. And the men she does choose are all jerks.
The villain (such as it is) in "The Bottle Imp". It's not the father, it's the daughter. She's 9 years old and is experiencing the first aspects of her Wesen side a few years early. Though much of it seems like she can't control it, when she's not consumed by her violent tendencies, she doesn't show much remorse either.
Adalind, as weird as it sounds. Since the episode Love Sick, where the quote at the start implies that her evilness towards other people is due to her mother's actions (and, most probably, her whole upbringing), she is revealed as Renard's Love Martyr, and Nick gives her, for the first time, a serious reason to be angry at him.
An Arm and a Leg: A type 2 example in "Bears will be Bears" when Monroe was fighting the people sent to kill Marie, he literally dis-armed one of them.
Art Shift: Perhaps not an art shift per se, but the show definitely takes efforts to use color, lighting, shadow and other subtle visual elements to create a quasi-fairy tale/story book appearance within context of realistic visuals.
Nick: Can you see who he texted? Wu: Of course I can; I'm Asian.
Asshole Victim: The Fuchsbau Lena murders at the start of "Tarantella".
This is the common trait of all the people killed by Marty Burgess
The attempted rapist Skalengeck Angelina kills in "Over My Dead Body".
Not quite a victim in the same sense as above but the young bully Monroe shows his Game Face in order to scare on Halloween. On the upside, the kid has the best Halloween story ever.
Adrian Zayne from "The Hour of Death" is brutally tortured and killed by Ryan the Grimm-wannabe intern, but it is used to force him to confess to where he was keeping the young woman he'd kidnapped. His equally deserving partner also meets a similar but less justified end.
The Atoner: Monroe is implied to be one for his previous Big Bad Wolf days.
Ax Crazy: The two Wesen junkies in “Island of Dreams”
Badass Boast: Nick: "Next time, send your best." It's sent to the leader of the Reapers, along with the heads of two of his underlings.
Badass Adorable: Rosalee, Juliette and Adalind have their moments.
Badass Bookworm: Aunt Marie still fights off assassins while dying of cancer, and with knife scars on her entire body it's fair to assume that this is her typical MO. Profession: Librarian. Monroe repairs clocks, listens to obscure zither players, reads "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" for fun and, if push comes to shove, can rip a man's arm off.
Badass Damsel: Juliette proves herself to be one in "Plumed Serpent" after Ariel kidnaps her, including punching and kicking her to make her escape. She's also an incredibly good shot, Nick trained her.
Although admittedly she still required someone else to untie her hands, and she only won the fight because she took her attacker by surprise, said attacker had already casually overpowered her and kidnapped her in the first place.
Badass Family: Nick Burkhardt is the latest descendant of the Grimm family who have been hunting "storybook" monsters for generations. In "Tarantella", there's brief mention of a Grimm meeting an Asian doctor who shares their abilities so it may be that the Grimm family is simply the most well known or the name given to people like Nick.
Back-to-Back Badasses: Nick and Monroe in "Last Grimm Standing". Didn't last long when the police arrived to arrest everyone involved in the underground gladiator games.
Monroe implies that several Hollywood actors are Ziegevolk. NBC's website for the show outright states that Casanova, Frank Sinatra, and JFK were.
Monroe is pretty confident that Santa Claus is both real and not human; being a Gefrierengeber (German for "to freeze river, would make him capable of living "up there". Nick doesn't elaborate for the viewers but seems to take the suggestion seriously.
Monroe also suggests that the mouse creatures introduced in "Of Mouse and Man" are behind Disney - though he doesn't say the company name, he does his usual Take That on the subject by bringing up "their cartoon thing".
An old film reveals Hitler was a Schakale (jackal Wesen).
Steinadlers are described as being involved in the military; there is even a photo of a general included in the book, probably as an example.
Monroe states in 'Big Feet' that Thoreau, Emerson, and (Edward) Abbey were Wildermann.
Better to Die than Be Killed: Inverted, as Ariel Eberhart's plan for her father is for him to be honorably killed in combat rather than die of old age.
Betty and Veronica: Rosalee (Betty) and Angelina (Veronica) seemed to be this to Monroe, although with Angelina's death, the choice seems to have been made for Monroe.
Beware the Nice Ones: Two examples within the Seelengut, a sheep-type creature. Typically they are meek and fearful. However when they get into a mob mentality they take down a Blutbad. The second example is the Blutbad being thrown to the mob by his accomplice, another Seelengut, who then runs off with the money she and the Blutbad embezzled.
Also, Nick. He's one of the nicest Grimms out there, but he's racked up quite a bodycount of people who've tried to kill him including several assassins who knew he was a Grimm. He also really doesn't like it when people go after his friends.
Monroe. He's a mild-mannered clock maker who loves to eat organic. But look the wrong way at his girlfriend Rosalee...
BFG: Among Aunt Marie's many weapons is a triple-barrel elephant gun. Its purpose is to kill Ogres. Interestingly, it's relatively realistic (the third, underslung barrel is far smaller than the other two). It still has a massive recoil, hurling Monroe backwards and flying out of his hands when he fired it.
Birds of a Feather: Rosalee and Monroe. Rosalee is a rehabilitated drug addict who's cleaned up her act. Monroe himself is also a rehabilitated Blutbad. Both seem to have mellow subdued personalities whilst remaining fiercely loyal to their kind. They both even decorate in a warmly antique style.
Bizarre Alien Biology: Some of the Wesen. "The Thing With Feathers" features a bird-like woman that makes a gold "stone/egg" in her neck that shatters like glass with impact.
Black Comedy: A mild one but Monroe brings up a family reunion during an episode. He goes on to mention that two cousins and a sheepdog ended up dead. Of course, no one missed the cousins.
Blessed with Suck: Various wesen are usually this and/or Cursed with Awesome, depending on which group they come from and how much they're capable of controlling/how much they indulge their more monstrous instincts and traditions.
Spinnetods. Spider-like beings who are super-strong, super-agile and capable of regenerating any severed limb or appendage. Oh, and they must feed on three human or Wesen males every five years, or they suffer massive rapid-aging. Charlotte, a Spinnetod who refuses to feed, appears to be around seventy years old, when in fact, she's actually twenty-six. The two mature female Spinnetods we see seem very reluctant to perform their kills—while being required to kill in one of the most grotesque ways we've seen all season.
"Blind Idiot" Translation: Much pain and unintended hilarity for German speakers. Starts with simple grammar fail like using adjectives as nouns or wrongly cobbled-together compound words, and ends with completely nonsensical/unintelligible words or horrible dictionary slips (e.g. the supposed 'bee queen' is called "bee gay [person]").
Monroe tries to speak German a few times. Although what he says is comprehensible, he uses weird forms, and his grammar is over the place. This leads to a little Fridge Brilliance when he translates German: It is hard to say something in a language you don't know too well, but translating from that language to a language that you DO know well is considerably easier. "Mr. Sandman" has a good example of him struggling with a wesen name he hasn't encountered before but otherwise able to translate the rest into English.
It's also been established that Monroe is at least a second or third generation immigrant which leads to Truth in Television as infrequent use of non-English languages outside the household can dramatically diminish the opportunity to practice those languages.
Could be Justified by 200 years of other non-German Grimms messing up the pronounciation. Although you do have to wonder why the Wesen even call themselves by it, since they existed before the Grimm brothers labelled them, so it clearly isn't what they were originally called.
Blood Magic: Just so you're sure she’s evil, Adalind is shown using this in a cookie of all things.
Bloody Murder: The blood of a Grimm is poisonous to Hexenbiests.This is an odd case though, seeing as it doesn’t so much kill the victim so much as it kills their power.
Blue and Orange Morality: A borderline case. While Wesen typically do a good job of masking their presence by living according to human society's rules, many of them have deeply ingrained instincts and traditions which are at odds with human laws. This sometimes crosses over with simple Gray and Gray Morality.
Bodyguard Betrayal: Averted. When the cops were no longer watching Marie, Nick asked Monroe to keep an eye on Marie, despite knowing Monroe's dislike, hatred, and fear of Marie for what she and the previous Grimms did to his kind and other Wesen. When pointing this out to Nick, Nick replies Monroe is the only person Nick can trust with this. So despite his deep anger at the old woman and the fact that he could have tried to kill her in the hospital bed, he did keep his word to protect her from two thugs.
The murders in "Beeware." Being injected with fifty milligrams of bee venom does not make for a pretty corpse. Also, the half-transformed creatures often aren't nice looking.
Sgt. Wu eats some cookies that weren't meant for him...and his face breaks out in huge boils. Even worse are his hallucinations, where he sees Nick, Eddie, and Rosalee's faces melt off.
Book Ends: The pilot episode begins with a victim listening to "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics before being killed. The ending of the episode has Nick stopping Adalind from killing Aunt Marie, but being injected by the needle's contents meant for his aunt. As he falls unconscious, he sees Adalind's hag face as she escapes, with Marilyn Manson's cover of "Sweet Dreams" playing.
Boomerang Bigot: Ryan the intern is revealed to be a wannabe Grimm who worships Nick and believes all Wesen must be destroyed. He himself is a Lebensauger, a lamphrey-like Wesen.
Brainwashed and Crazy: Hank falls victim to this thanks to evil mind control cookies from Adalind.
The Coins of Zakynthos do this, giving the person who holds them delusions of grandeur, charismatic influence over others and an obsessive need to possess them. They are explicitly mentioned as being the reason for it the rise of several tyrannical Roman Emperors as well as the Third Reich. We even get a glimpse of this in action when Hank and Renard briefly come into contact with them and begin Putting on the Reich.
Also the power of a frog-eating Ziegvolk can have this effect on people, especially women. So far we haven’t seen anyone do anything violent at a Ziegvolk's request, but they were certainly doing things they never would have done otherwise.
Bring My Brown Pants: Monroe mentions that some wesen would attempt this on non-wesen during Halloween. No prize for guessing how they might try to accomplish that.
Broken Masquerade: As of "Bad Moon Rising" Hank is in on the secret. It's a relief to him.
Almost happens in "Natural Born Wesen". The Wesen Council is... not pleased.
As of "The Waking Dead" Juliette figures it out and takes it rather well.
Brought Down to Normal: Apparently a Grimm’s blood has the power to do this to Hexenbiest, turning them completely human. Adalind ends up learning this the hard way.
Buddy Cop Show: Twice over, no less. Hank is Nick's partner on the muggle side, while Monroe helps with the creature stuff.
As of season two, thrice over as Renard is Nick's partner on most things that the other two don't cover.
Busman's Holiday: Poor Monroe. He gets up the nerve to ask Rosalee out on a date and ends up getting sucked into crazy Grimm/Wesen business. To boot, it happens as a Moment Killer just before kissing Rosalee. And later, when Monroe and Rosalee are talking, he gets a call from Nick which prompts Rosalee to Lampshade that if it's from Nick, it must a life or death situation.
Call Back: The Grimm Nick and Hank read about in "To Protect and Serve" initially though he was tracking a Wildermann.
Cant Get Away With Nuthin: Nick was warned by Adalind in "Beeware" that he needs to protect her or else his reputation will be called into question if Nick allows her to die on his watch.
Cassandra Truth: The Wesen in "Happily Ever Aftermath" confesses to being able to shatter his victims' eardrums, eyes, and nasal cavities with his sonic abilities, causing Hank to roll his eyes and tell him that playing the crazy card is not going to get him out of a trial.
Cats Are Mean: Klaustreich are alley cat-like Wesen with a reputation for being dangerous jerks
Chekhov's Armoury: Aunt Marie's trailer, which packs a literal armory of the various weapons, tools, and research material she and the rest of the Grimms used in their long history of fighting monsters.
Chekhov's Gun: "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics is playing on the iPod of the first victim in the pilot. Later, the killer begins absentmindedly humming it front of the cops, tipping them off. Marilyn Manson's cover of the song later plays during the pilot's Cliff Hanger.
Juliet asks Nick to boil some water she'd set on the stove. When she gets home and finds Nick beaten by Stark the Siegbarste, she runs into the kitchen to get a weapon to defend herself and Nick, and the only thing she can get her hands on is the water that Nick had set to boil, so she scalds Stark by throwing the water over him.
Occasionally a throwaway line by Monroe will be referenced later in the episode as a way to beat the creature of the week.
In the episode "Lonelyhearts", Nick's partner is shown carefully placing a tracker on the monster of the week's car, only for it to go for a walk instead. Originally this seems to be played for laughs, but then in the end when the monster tries to escape by driving to another state, as he has every other time he is close to being caught, they can track him.
Rosalee's box cutter. Just before Freddy's murderers return to the apothecary she is shown using it to sift through boxes attempting to find herbs wesen will kill to get their hands on. When one of the murderers grab her she frees herself by jamming the box cutter into his arm.
In "Leave it to Beavers" there is a Chekhov's Crossbow that Nick uses to kill a Reaper.
Chekhov's Gunman: The first Wesen Nick sees, Adalind, is working with the forces attempting to kill off Marie, and almost succeeds at the end of the pilot.
Chekhov's Skill: Ariel's fire breathing act which ends with her eating fire. It hints at the fact that she's actually fireproof which comes into play at the end of the episode when she fakes her death.
Monroe's expertise on clocks.
Rosalee's former experience running an apothecary shop with her parents.
When first learning to fire a pistol Juliette is revealed to be a natural markswoman. In "Face Off" Nick knows that she wasn't shooting to kill because she would have hit what she was aiming at. Also serves as a Call Back.
City of Adventure: It's amazing how many Wesen there are in Portland.
Civilian Villain: This trope is played with in the case of Monroe the Clockmaker. He is actually a fairy tale creature—a "Wesen"—of the same type as The Big Bad Wolf, but with a careful regimen of "diet, drugs, and Pilates", he has gone from a ravening beast to a mostly-regular guy leading a mostly-normal life in the 'burbs.
Conspicuously Public Assassination: Two Wesen are killed while being perp-walked in a police station in front of TV news cameras. The Wesen broke an ancient compact and their actions threatened to expose the existence of Wesen to the human public. The assassination was a message that these types of actions would not be tolerated.
Cool Car: Midway through Season One, Nick and Hank switch from a Ford Crown Victoria to a Dodge Charger.
In a subversion of sorts, Nick's daily drive is a Toyota Land Cruiser station wagon. YMMV though, as it's the cousin of the indestructible Hilux pickup.
Cool Guns: The ogre-slaying Elephant Gun in "Game Ogre". Monroe practically squees over it.
Crazy-Prepared: Aunt Marie was prepared with certain rare items and weapons for any supernatural threat.
Cruel and Unusual Death: Which would you prefer: having a gavel crammed down your throat or dying of an ugly anaphylactic shock via bee sting overdose?
Or being fed a corrosive substance and having your liquified insides sucked out?
Being sliced in half (and living for a few moments afterwards) doesn't look fun either.
Monroe can be called this too, given some of his hobbies.
Cute Monster Girl: Female Blutbaden get fangs and red eyes when they put on their Game Faces, but are otherwise much more human-looking than male Blutbaden. Same applies when we see a female Fuschbau. Hexenbeistes, on the other hand, not so much. YMMV on Mellifers, Spinnetods, and Daemonfeuer.
Special mention goes to Rosalee, who is by far the cutest female Wesen seen.
Bree Turner, the actress who portrays Rosalee, is recognized for her big Brown Eyes.
Angelina fit the bill too, being very tough, but very cute, and very easy to underestimate. Her return was one CMOA after another, until she was unfortunately shot and killed.
Averted in "Happily Ever Aftermath" so that you can't tell which one is the murderer.
Convection Schmonvection: When Nick fights a Daemonfeuer, he grabs a sheet of copper to shield himself from the flames... and somehow doesn't get his fingers scorched off by the superheated metal.
Monroe, the first creature Nick suspects of attacking girls in the woods. He ends up helping Nick find the actual creature in question, another of his kind.
Nick does so a little bit near the end of the second episode.
Frank Rabe: It isn't easy to give up your history. You haven't had to give up yours. Nick: Yeah, it's been lots of fun.
Captain Renard gets a chance too.
Caller: Did you get your present? Renard: Where should I send a thank-you note?
Sergeant Wu gets one in most of his appearances, like in The Bottle Imp:
Wu: I miss the old days when people just shot, stabbed and strangled each other.
Destroy The Evidence: The fact that Nick is a police detective and a Grimm occasionally puts him on the wrong side of a case, e.g. if he ends up investigating the scene of a Grimm-Wesen takedown he was involved in.
In the Season 2 opener, Nick discreetly steals his sidearm back from such a scene. He's later seen throwing it into a river, and using his backup when the FBI demands he hand over his gun for a ballistics check against a shell casing they found at the scene. It clears him, but one of the FBI agents investigating clearly says that something doesn't add up.
Renard swaps out his cell phone's memory card for a blank, effectively destroying the phone's evidence, after he lost it when he killed representatives of the Royal Families sent to force him to immediately acquire Nick's family's key and it was taken as evidence.
Angelina tries this after murdering a guy who was trying to rape her. Unfortunately for her, the guy was a Skalengeck who'd just been hired to do a certain job (kill Monroe) and his friends aren't far behind.
After fighting kill four Verrat footsoldiers in the Season 2 mid-finale, Nick and Monroe rob them of all wallets and ID. This doesn't sit well with Monroe, but it does help a little that about the only identification the police can go on are their Verrat tattoos.
Destructive Romance: Monroe and Angelina's relationship was depicted as this in episode six.
Destructo Nookie: Subverted with Juliette and Renard. It looks like they're going this way, then they start fighting, then they start going for it again... until she empties her handgun at the walls and ceiling around him and he runs out before the cops come.
Did Not Die That Way: Nick discovers that his parents' car crash 15(ish) years prior wasn't an accident, but rather an assassination. He also later finds out that his mother is still alive.
Disability Superpower: When Nick was blinded by a Wesen attack in Season 2, his other senses compensate by being ramped up several levels. The upgrade stays with him even after he's cured.
In "Three Bad Wolves", Monroe's ex-girlfriend suggests that Monroe let his wild side out and offers him a drink.
When Nick tries to explain Wesen and Grimms to Julliette he sounds like a rabid fan trying to explain his favorite TV show to someone who never watched the show and is not a fan of the genre. He gets bogged down explaining small details and fails to realize that the other person does not have the same enthusiasm as he is not convinced of the basic premise. Naturally by the end the other person thinks that he has gone off his rocker.
Or rather, the mouse bites back—with some fairly disturbing results.
Or rather "herd" when a group of Seelengut (sheep-beings) go after one person with a mob mentality.
Domestic Abuser: Klaustreich tend to be irresistible to women but also have a nasty reputation of mistreating them. In "The Thing With Feathers" a klaustreich is married to a seltenvogel but he keeps her a virtual prisoner and is only interested in harvesting the extremely valuable golden egg growing in her throat.
The Dreaded: Grimms have a nasty reputation among the supernatural species and merely being in the presence of a Grimm can cause some of the meeker ones to go into panic mode. For the Grimms that have gone up against the more nastier aspects of Wesen society such as that featured in "Organ Grinder" on a regular basis, their cynical Kill 'em All mentality is perhaps justified/rationalized in their minds simply due to the infrequent instances of running into people like Hap and Monroe.
Apparently the Grimms have become the monsters of their fairytales.
Monroe: You're the monster under the bed! [...] You're not real! You're a scary story we tell our kids! Be good or a Grimm will come and cut your head off...
Dueling Shows: When it was announced in the summer of 2011 that both NBC and ABC were developing television shows based on the classic fairy tales, an immediate rivalry between Grimm and Once Upon a Time was assumed to occur by the media. After both shows premiered it became quickly obvious that tonally they were radically different shows.
The CW's Supernatural is a better match against Grimm. They are tonally and serially similar, sharing the same audience and even the same time slot in Grimm's first season before Supernatural changed nights the year after.
Dying Moment of Awesome: Near death from cancer, Aunt Marie still manages to fight off one of the men sent to ensure she dies before talking to Nick again, and then give Nick some parting advice before she goes.
Tropes E-H
Enhance Button: Somewhat averted in "The Bottle Imp," where the police are able to zoom in on a security camera's footage of a man's car in order to get the license plate number, but both it and the man's daughter who they spot in the car, are noticeably blurry.
Even the Guys Want Him: Almost occurs when Monroe spies on the Ziegevolk, who can generate lust-inducing pheromones, for Nick.
Monroe: I can't be around that guy — I almost bought him a drink!
Everybody Lives: "Bad Moon Rising" doesn't involve anyone dying, but there is a brief scene advancing the investigation of a murder from the previous episode.
Every Man Has His Price: Monroe disliked being used by Nick for tracking ... until Nick offered him a bottle of 1978 Bordeaux for helping out. Monroe had no complaints from there on.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The villains of "The Thing With Feathers" just can't get that Nick is trying to protect the Seltenvogel from them, not trying to steal her golden egg for himself.
"Over My Dead Body" compares Angelina (Monroe's amoral and violent ex) to Rosalie (Monroe's current stable girlfriend)
Evolving Credits: the opening credits sequence for season 2 changes as more episodes air such as with the inclusion of Captain Renard's Game Face following its much-anticipated reveal during episode 2.
Exact Words: Reginald really should have been careful of how he worded his bargain with Edgar Waltz.
Reginald: You promise you won't hurt my family! Edgar Waltz: Of course not! You kept your end of the bargain. I wouldn't dream of torturing your family.
Explain Explain Oh Crap: Nick called Monroe to ask about the Yellow Plague. As Monroe explains the symptoms, Rosalee is getting frisky with him. Monroe then realized Rosalee was matching the symptoms and realizes she is ill with an illness that wipes out any Wesen infected with it.
Expy: DJ Retched Kat in "Danse Macabre" is one of deadmau5.
A dead victim in Organ Grinder gets his eyes pecked out by a raven as he's floating down the river.
And in "Happily Ever Aftermath" several victims get their eyeballs ruptured by the Murcialago's sonic scream. Very bloodily, at that.
"Mr. Sandman." Holy God, "Mr. Sandman." Here the bad guy is a fly Wesen from Africa, who breathes parasite-laden sand into his victims' eyeballs, blinding them so he can lap up their tears. And if the parasites stay in the eye long enough, the eyes are quickly destroyed. We know this because the show doesn't just imply it through exposition but also has one victim tear off her bandages as the infection grows to that stage in order to show us her empty eye sockets laden with wriggling worms.
The only way to cure the parasite infection is to take one of Andre's eyes from him - while he's in full Wesen form!
Monroe: Oh Nick, dude, you don't wanna be seeing this.
Fairy Tales: Each episode is at least partially based off of one. Those that aren't are based off general folklore or creepy stories and factoids from around the world.
"Lonelyhearts" is based off satyrs, with the Grimm tie-in coming from the tale of "Bluebeard" (or more specifically "Fitcher's Bird", because of the monsters' abilities to induce lust in a victim through touch, and other habitsand his many wives (based on both the teaser quote and the name of the monster of the week).
"Happily Ever Aftermath" is based on "Cinderella" but inverted, with the stepmother and stepsisters being terrorized by the entitled, sociopathic Cinderella expy or on other fairy tales where there is just one evil stepsister, despite there being numerous good siblings, like, possibly The Three Princes and their Beasts.
"Big Feet" is about Big Foot but not really. It's more like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, although the official website states that it was based off the story of Hans the Hedgehog.
"Nameless" is based off of Rumplestiltskin. The serial killer demands that people try to guess his named after each murder, and he's doing it because he fixed the code an MMORPG designer wrote, and she stood him up on the payment date. After he's caught, he throws himself off a building, unable to handle the idea that he 'lost'.
Fantastic Racism: This trope tends to be one of the big subtexts that courses through the show and few characters escape it.
It's explored in an unusual amount of depth however. Fantastic Racism is never used simply for a "Racism Is Bad" aesop and it is far more frequently used to focus on where racism comes from, how it is perpetuated and how it is experienced from the point of view of perpetrators and victims, as well as how those positions can be reversed.
Femme Fatale: Adalind Schade, and possibly all the Hexenbeist who are said to be lovely in human form, and are loyal servants to royalty.
The Grimms have been killing Wesen for centuries, and the families of the dead hold grudges. Monroe's grandfather was killed by a Grimm and he is afraid that he will be disowned if his family finds out that he is helping Grimms instead of killing them. Of course this is somewhat one-sided since the Kill 'em All mentality many Grimms have means that while most wesen dread and hate Grimms, for many Grimms it was just Tuesday.
Some of the supernatural species really do not get along and have been fighting feuds for a long time. Bauerschwein are a major victim of Blutbad violence and in "Three Bad Wolves" one of them has had enough and kills the brothers of the Blutbad who killed the Bauerschwein's brothers.
Other species tend to operate more on natural animal lines - the snake creature that appears in "Of Mouse and Man" suggests that they are natural predators/antagonists towards the mouse creature that also appears.
Bridge trolls and beaverfolk don't get along too well either. In this case, it's due to mutual territory - one creates what amounts to bridges and the other likes to profit off them.
Gambit Pileup: Nick is in the middle of multiple gambits by various groups in the Wesen world. The Dragon Tongue organization wants the Coins of Zakynthos. The Verrat is trying to destroy the Wesen resistance movement. The Reapers want to kill all Grimm. Renard's family want the key/map Aunt Marie gave Nick so they can find an ancient artifact. Renard seems to have his own agenda that might not exactly match that of his relatives.
Game Face: All Wesen can show one, though the extent of their change ('woging') and whether humans can see it depends heavily on individual master and emotional state. Wesen with greater mastery over woging can invoke a broader spectrum of change and even change some or all of themselves on demand while those with less mastery are more at the whims of their emotional state. Regardless of whether they're showing, wesen retain the many of their physical abilities such as as strength and toughness while claws and more monstrous abilities are unavailable unless they woge. Wesen also have no innate ability to detect other wesen other than seeing another wesen woge. This hasn't always turned out well for those that pick on the wrong wesen.
Adalind and Monroe, both of whom regularly engage in non-human activities, demonstrate considerable physical ability with no transformations while the family of bears (who have suppressed their non-human natures) seem to prefer transformation for any sort of show of ability.
Nick and the other Grimms have no telltale physical traits themselves, but can see a wesen's Game Face regardless of whether an individual wants them to or not, which is one of many reasons wesen fear Grimms. Because of the reaction Nick and other Grimms have to seeing a wesen woge, most wesen can identify them as a Grimm if they're watching someone when they woge. On the flip side, this also means that wesen can occasionally mistake someone for or not realize that someone is a Grimm.
Non-Grimms/non-wesen can also see a wesen's Game Face if the wesen in question wants them to or they're in a high enough emotional state. However, Monroe points out that doing so is usually a bad thing if only because humans generally aren't prepared for the sudden shock to their Weirdness Censor. Some wesen deliberately show their Game Face to their human prey in order to panic them.
Monroe elaborates further for Hank; a normal change as a sign of recognition among wesen can't be seen by humans; an aggressive fighting mode game face is readily apparent. He demonstrates: Hank doesn't see the first change, but sees the second... and is equal parts freaked out and impressed. And then wonderingly asks Monroe to do it again.
Also, as Hank demonstrates in later episodes of Season 2, it's possible for a normal human to build up tolerance to the Game Face. Contrast Hank's first exposure to a wesen, and how he freaked out at Carly's Game Face, to how calm and confident he is when facing the wesen in "Nameless".
Wesen law prohibits the deliberate showing of a Wesen's Game Face to humans in a public setting for personal gain. In the past these types of deliberate provocations resulted in witch hunts and massacres of Wesen by humans. The breaking of this law is considered one of the worst transgressions a Wesen can commit against other Wesen and is punished by death.
Ghostapo: The coins in "Three Coins in a Fuchsbau" are stated to be responsible for this.
Genre Blind: Nick. He doesn't understand the purpose of wolfsbane or walking through water when trying to track down a Big Bad Wolf in human clothing.
Justified in he is new and used to only going after human suspects. Or not, in that he seems never to have read fairy tales or seen a horror movie. Those are also pop culture references.
In the first episode the killer Blutbad preyed on girls in red (á la Little Red Riding Hood). Why in the second episode is Nick's girlfriend seen wearing nothing but red clothes?
Well, let's see how that would work. “Hey Juliette, I want you to never wear red again, because it will attract human-looking monsters that are really wolves that eat people.” That would surely go over well.
Being both trained police officers and involved in the Grimm-Wesen conflicts in general, Nick and Renard have a few moments of making sure they don't accidentally leave evidence (e.g. fingerprints) behind at a given scene. For example, when discovering Aunt Marie's Grimm trailer in the Season 2 opener, Renard calls a Wesen locksmith rather than try to break in, wears gloves, and is careful not to disturb anything when he's looking around.
In the Season 1 episode "Beeware", Monroe constantly compares it to a horror movie.
Monroe: Oh, this is usually the part in the movie where the sidekick gets it!
Gladiator Games: The Lowen, a lion-like species of Wesen, enjoy running them to the modern day. Captain Renard sanctioned the event with a list of approved targets to snatch and fight. He is not happy when they deviate from the list.
Gratuitous Foreign Language: The names of Wesen are usually German, which is to be expected since they were discovered and classified by a pair of German authors. Some are normal pre-existing words re-applied as a monster name, while new word creations usually end as Blind Idiot Translations.
Some Wesen names have roots in other languages, such as Greek.
There's also some Gratuitous French, as Renard talks to his cohorts/superiors in French occasionally.
An episode in season two gives a little more context: what we would consider 'modern' Grimm stories and social structure started before the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) and the Sack of Constantinople of 1204 plays an important part in the show's mythology. Long enough in the past to be fairly mysterious but not so long ago as to prevent much older things from existing and having been established elsewhere.
Great Big Book of Everything: Actually several, but whenever Nick needs information on a new Wesen, one of his ancestors has probably already archived such an encounter; Nick is currently taking up the family tradition of archiving his own experiences with various Wesen. Monroe joked that he was Nick's living "Grimm-o-pedia."
The Grim Reaper: Played with. In this continuity, it isn't the Grim Reaper, but Reapers of the Grimms, an organization of (as-yet-unidentified) Wesen dedicated to wiping out the Grimms and who use scythes as weapons. According to The Other Wiki the Reapers of Grimms are an organization of trolls with strong evidence from the name of the first to appear (Hulda).
Good Is Dumb: Hap is easily the nicest Blutbad encountered so far ... and also the dumbest.
Good Is Not Soft: Nick demonstrates this more and more as the series progresses. Monroe gets several instances of this as well.
Go Mad from the Revelation: Based on Monroe's testimony and Hank's freak-out upon seeing two wesen in their game faces, most normal humans tend to go mad from seeing a wesen in their other form as their minds cannot handle such a break from reality. A really good example can be seen in the first murder of "Happily Ever Aftermath", though in that case, the darkness and the fact that said wesen was trying to kill the victim didn't help matters.
On the flip side, when Nick is forced to reveal the truth in order to protect a young girl who just Game Face'd on Hank, Hank ultimately ends up returning to some semblance of sanity due to the affirmation that what he saw wasn't his mind going. In his words: "I may be crazy, but at least I'm not alone."
Also, thanks to some help from Monroe, Hank demonstrates it's possible to build a tolerance to the effects of the Game Face. Of course, knowing that there are threats out there, and that you can prepare yourself to fight them also helped a lot.
Heart Is An Awesome Power: Reinigen. Suddenly the ability to control rats with music doesn't seem so harmless anymore...
Held Gaze: Naturally occurs between Nick and Juliet.
Also a variation of this trope is played with between Rosalee and Monroe in "Island of Dreams". To confirm that Monroe did in fact know Freddy, Rosalee grabs onto his arm and looks him square in the eye before revealing herself to be a fuchsbau. Monroe's gaze does not falter when he reveals himself to be a blutbad.
Also, Rosalee, when she saves Monroe by using a brick to knock out a gun-wielding junkie.
Once more with Carly in "Bad Moon Rising" though played with since you'd think it was her dad since he starts the fight with one of the guys holding her hostage.
Hero Killer: Stark from "Game Ogre" is about as close as a one-shot character can get without actually killing anyone.
He's Dead, Jim: Aunt Marie fights off another would-be assassin, then delivers Last Words to Nick: "Follow your instincts, believe nothing else" before the scene changes to Nick and his girlfriend at the cemetery.
Hired To Hunt Yourself: Nick investigates homicides for a living, so on occasion he gets called in to examine the scene of his battles with wesen.
Hive Mind Testimonial: The interviews with the "flash mob" come out like this. Nick even comments on it, asking the last suspect why it sounds like there's an echo in the room. (Of course, they're bees. It IS a hive.)
Hollywood Healing: Typically averted, as when Nick gets into a fight, he tends to carry about the results for a while.
Hollywood Satanism: In one episode, the medical examiner remarks that Satanic cults of this type were popular during the 80's. (In real-life, there was a moral panic at the time that resulted in many innocent people tried and convicted for nonexistent "Satanic" crimes.)
Homoerotic Subtext: "Organ Grinder" Has Nick pulling out his cell-phone, asking the person on the other end if they have plans for dinner, and smiling fondly. You'd think it's his girlfriend, right? Nope! Cut to dinner at Monroe's house, complete with white wine and jazz playing in the background. In fact, the entire ensuing conversation reeks of homoerotic subtext, with Monroe complaining about how Nick never asks about other aspects of his life, mentioning testicles and claiming that "everything works great" in regards to his private parts.
That same episode starts with coffee at Monroe's house in the morning, with Monroe asking Nick when he was going to tell his girlfriend. He means about Wesen and Grimms, but the viewer might be forgiven in thinking that they started sleeping together.
In "Leave it to Beavers" this happens when Juliette wants Monroe to come to dinner. Nick immediately panics trying to figure out what Monroe and he are going to say to keep the nature of their (working) "relationship" secret from her. The whole scene plays out like they're trying to hide an affair.
And then in episode 12 of season two, Nick's living with Monroe. But not for this reason and it's not particularly amusing.
Horrifying the Horror: Grimms are so well-known for hunting and killing Wesen that they scare the living hell out of the creatures on which fairytale monsters were based, to the point that Grimms are the monsters of Wesen stories. Wesen who could dismember a person with their bare hands get nervous at the sight of Nick, not because he looks or acts threatening but because of the reputation his ancestors have earned. Monroe, who is strong enough to rip a man's arm off by accident and brave enough to think crashing through a glass window in full Game Face to scare Nick is funny, is outright scared of Nick's mom.
Monroe: No. Don't call anyone. We're doing it our way.
Humans Are Special: Not in the traditional way, but wesens tread lightly around humans because if discovered, humans have the numbers and violence necessary to eradicate wesens completely. And as shown with humans who know about wesens, continual exposure all but eliminates the psychological effects of seeing a woging wesen.
Rosalee knows Wesen herbalism (unlike Monroe), and also about Wesen history (less than Monroe) and is a capable fighter when provoked, while having a lot of connections with the current Wesen world, including "old world stuff".
Renard has connections, political influence, charisma, strength, and the will (and possible evilness) necessary to say I Did What I Had to Do.
Later Nicks partner Hank now in the know, is just as though as Nick, and knows some proper police procedures for them to catch Wesen.
Hysterical Woman: Subverted with Juliette, Rosalee the apparent Emotionless Girl, Adalind who only plays the Wounded Gazelle Gambit occasionally, and Angelina, who is more Hot Blooded than hysterical. Ariel is a borderline case of subversion. She is very emotional and out of control, but she is much stronger than she is vulnerable. This is a better track than most action show at subverting it.
Non-Idle Rich: Though not exactly rich, Monroe is affluent enough to indulge in fairly niche hobbies and has enough spare time to help Nick out on a regular basis. Given his occupation though, it's perhaps justified as people of his skill and talent are few and far between so he can charge a premium.
Though it seems he fixes clocks more as a paid hobby/passion/something to keep himself occupied, rather than an actual livelihood to support himself.
Captain Renard seems to be doing rather well for himself, though he doeshail from a royal line.
Tropes I-N
I Need A Drink: Monroe’s response to finding out that a hardcore Grimm might be in town, he keeps drinking a glass of red wine like it’s a life line while telling Hank and Nick about it.
Also, in "The Three Bad Wolves", after finding out that Hap was willing to cooperate with a Grimm (and also that none of them were trying to kill each other), this was Angelina's response.
Happens a lot to Monroe in "Season of the Hexenbiest", though the circumstances are more emotional than physical in the above cases.
Nick and Monroe both do this in Face Off, Nick after seeing Renard kissing Juliette and being told they're probably under a spell and Monroe a bit later. They're having that kind of day—at the end of that kind of week.
Monroe does this when he and Nick are trying to figure out how to undo the spell on Renard and Juliette. The reason he needs one is because all the twists and complications in the process pretty much involve every character in the show.
A lighter version occurs in "Mr. Sandman" as Nick, Hank, Monroe, and Rosalee talk about Captain Renard and his... complex backstory.
In "The Waking Dead", Juliette, Monroe, Rosalee, and Bud are unanimous on this point after events in the spice shop.
I Just Want to Be Normal: Nick asked, almost immediately after realizing his abilities as a Grimm, how to stop it.
I Am Not Left-Handed: Rosalee was being held hostage and she called for help. When the help in the form of Monroe arrives, the guy asks what a Fuchsbau could do against him. Rosalie replied, “I didn’t call a Fuchsbau” — cue Blutbad attack.
Invisible to Normals: Most Wesen do their best not to be seen woging by humans, as this tends to drive them mad.
Immune to Bullets: Some Wesen are highly resistant to Muggle tactics to taking them down. Nick even referenced when he tried macing a teenage Wesen who just enjoyed it.
Having said that, as a general rule, most Wesen do not react well to handgun rounds. And when that doesn't work, there's always shotguns.
Improvised Weapon: Nick's mom uses a rolled-up magazine as a baton while defending herself from the knife-wielding Catherine.
Less improvised and more creative use of one's gifts, but Nuckelavee (a horse-like Wesen) use their hooves as clubs. As can Seelenguter, though they're less inclined towards violence.
Insistent Terminology: Zaubertrank are magic potions, but are almost always referred to as Zaubertrank. When Nick asks Monroe why they aren't just referred to as potions, the answer is basically "because Zaubertrank sounds cooler".
Weirdly not to long after this Rosalee starts calling them potions
Instant Birth, Just Add Water: The birth scene in “Endangered” is extremely quick, and there is a minimum amount of gore, but this might be Justified by the fact its technically a different species, and their biology is stated to be different on some accounts.
Jocelyn's labor is implied to have started much earlier in the day while her and her husband are still in their vehicle. She even tells him that she needs to rest or she'll have the baby right there. Then her husband leaves her in the abandoned cabin and the Grimm gang (and the viewer) don't see her until well after dark. She could have been having continuous contractions which stepped up in intensity at that moment.
Interspecies Romance: While it isn't known how taboo it is, the ziegevolk in "Lonelyhearts" was able to reproduce with humans, so humans and Wesen are genetically compatible. While it isn't known how human-Wesen lovers are seen, to the Old Land wesen wedding outside their species is a big no-no and will result in being hunted down and killed.
Renard reveals that at least for Royal and Hexenbiest, they can breed and have a kid. But said kid ends up with a Game Face that's literally half human and half Hexenbiest. That is, parts of them remain human, other parts change. At this point it is unclear if Royals are simply powerful Grimm or if they are a separate group from the Grimm.
Occurs in "The Good Shepherd". As a byproduct, it also reveals that yes, wesen of different types can have children together with no real issue.
Irony: The spinnetod in "Tarantella" ends up getting caught by Nick because she becomes entangled in a web that's over water.
It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Aunt Marie's reason for being an old maid; she suggests it to Nick when she reveals the truth to him about his lineage.
It's All My Fault: Monroe (mostly) and Angelina in "The Three Bad Wolves" after Hap was assassinated by Orson while the two were away.
Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: In "Hour of Death", Ryan the Grimm-wannabe intern initially tortured and killed the two Asshole Victims since they had kidnapped a young woman, but then goes after Bud the Eisbiber, an innocent bystander not even involved in the case.
Kavorka Man: How ziegevolk appear to the world: unattractive (or at least, not handsome) men with a knack for landing incredibly attractive women.
Kissing Under the Influence: When Rosalie is infected with the Yellow Plague, she kisses Monroe, as increased libido is one of the symptoms. Thankfully Monroe realizes very quickly something is wrong with her.
Knight Templar: While we don't know how Grimms operate in the modern world, previous generations are possibly implied to have fallen under this category, judging from the reaction of many creatures when they realise what Nick is. Monroe's description of what they did to his grandfather certainly paints a vivid description of their form of justice. Although we know that grandpa deserved it. As we know that nearly all blutbaden are killers, or at least dangerous. Even Monroe admits to having killed before he became reformed, its very hard to say if it was or wasn't justified. So far all the creatures recorded in the Grimm books that Grimms killed deserved it. So milage may vary on this.
Averted, and takes a sharp right turn into Van Helsing Hate Crimes as of The Other Side, wherein a Grimm on Charles Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos Islands documented a peaceful, gentle, thoroughly nonviolent species of wesen who had no cultural history of contact with the Grimms and hence, no fear of them, "which made the dispatching of them quite easy."
Lady in Red: Blutbaden are provoked by the color red. Which is worrying, since Nick's girlfriend Juliette often wears red.
The Lancer: Hank Griffin in law-enforcement matters and Monroe regarding Grimms and the supernatural.
La Résistance: There is a resistance movement among Wesen that opposes a powerful wesen conspiracy that has been infiltrating human governments and advocates racial purity.
Nick: He's a Wesen. Renard: Isn't everyone these days?
Laser-Guided Karma: In "Beeware", Nick guns down a Mellifer queen. At the end of the episode, he's stung by a bee. What makes this look a lot like direct payback is the fact that the bee first lands gently on the back of his right hand, ambles around harmlessly for a moment, and then stings his trigger finger.
Latino Is Brown: Averted. Fair-skinned, redhead Juliette is Spanish, bonus as she is fluent in the language as well.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Due to Adalind's curse, Juliette can remember everything else about her life except for Nick.
Loners Are Freaks: The ostracized teenager in "Danse Macabre" was treated like this. In the same episode, Nick empathizes with the teen and implies that he was once a loner, too.
Love Is in the Air: Ziegevolks have the power to charm anyone with their touch.
Love Triangle: Enforced by Adalind on Nick, Juliette, and Renard by wiping all Juliette's memories of Nick and enchanting the latter two into obsessive feelings for each other.
Masquerade: Initially, it seems like there is a fight between the Grimms (and their allies) against the creatures who aren't as concerned with humans. By the second season, it's clear that the conflict is very convoluted and not nearly as straight forward.
Unlike many universes, there's actually a formal Masquerade in play that was written and codified by a meeting of all wesens across the world sometime around the 13th century with jurisdiction over it given to a Wesen Council. Breaking of it is grounds for death as previous Broken Masquerades resulted in things like the Witch Trials.
The penalty of death is also distinct among Masquerades since the punishment is not dealt to witnesses but to those that broke the masquerade. All of which makes it much more like a code of honor (it's practically called as such by Monroe) and less a pragmatic reality or arbitrary ruling compared to other such universes.
Made of Iron: Ogres are ridiculously hard to kill, but they're not immortal. The simple way to kill them is with an extremely rare poison that calcifies their bones and makes them brittle enough to shatter from the inside out; or, simple overwhelming force can be applied. Both of these approaches get combined when Monroe poisons the rounds he fires through Marie's antique triple-barrel elephant rifle, taking Stark down in one shot. Presumably, anything invoking the Chunky Salsa Rule would also work.
Grimms are also this to a degree. That Nick was capable of taking a beating from a Skalenzahne in "Last Grimm Standing" and still manage to easily best it, heavily implies that Grimms have far superior strength and stamina than most Wesen. The aforementioned Ogre however, is something clearly beyond even their limits.
Magic Kiss: The kiss of the musai instills an obsessive attraction that fuels artistic passion then leads ultimately to obsession and death.
Man Hug: Bud the Eisbeber hugs both Nick AND Hank after they had saved him from the Grimm wannabe in "The Hour of Death".
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It is never said for sure if the coins in "Three Coins in a Fuchsbau" are really magical or the people holding them are suffering from delusions caused by arsenic and mercury poisoning. The irony of the situation is that this is a universe with dragons who can breathe fire, ogres who are almost impervious to normal weapons, and satyrs that can charm you with their touch. Given instances of Wesen activities (human organs as herbal remedies) and Adalind's special cookies, it may be quasi-magical by our perception but mundane chemistry with a Wesen touch in the Grimm universe.
Although, if you look carefully, Hank, who was affected by the coins, never came into skin contact with them...
Not to mention the fact that the coins bring out the exact same symptoms in the people who possess them...
And then of course, there's the Halloween special in which we see what may or may not be a ghost. All we're told is that it's mostly likely not a wesen or if it is, not like any other wesen any Grimm from Nick's family has ever seen.
In Volcanalis, the titular creature is most definitely not a Wesen, but a demon.
Gilda Darner is the name of the victim of the week in a Goldilocks-themed story. Gilda as gilded or gold. She also is a blonde.
More groan-worthy is the young Jägerbar named Barry. Whose last name is Rabe, an anagram of "bear".
One of Barry's friends Jägerbar friends is named 'T.B.', as in 'Teddy Bear'.
In "Beeware" the Queen Bee of the Mellifers is Melissa, which means "honey bee" in Greek.
In "Lonelyhearts" the antagonist of the episode is a creature based off satyrs. The antagonist is named Billy Capra. As in billy goat, which satyrs have the legs of. And Capra which is the genus of goats.
Lieutenant Orson in "Three Bad Wolves" shares a name with a pig character from U.S. Acres.
Oleg Starknote "Stark" means "a stern, determined or physically strong man", literally German for "strong" in "Game Ogre."
"Organ Grinder", an episode loosely based off of "Hansel and Gretel", had two central characters named Hanson and Gracie.
Leo Taymor the Lowen in "Last Grimm Standing". Nick actually Lampshades this one.
A bird based wesen named Robin.
The antagonist of "Nameless". Of course, given the story the episode draws from, it's a given. Not Rumplestiltskin but an anagram of it.
"Renard" is the French word for fox, and the Captain is certainly a clever and tricky one.
Megaton Punch: Hank delivers one in "Bad Moon Rising" to the Coyotl who lunged at him and his goddaughter.
Memetic Badass: Grimms to Wesen, In-Universe. It's important to note that Grimms seem to have no real special powers other than the ability to see Wesen and exceptional-but-not-superhuman athletic ability. It's only the centuries of hunting and thus the downright mythical stories told of Grimms by Wesen to each other and their children that give Grimms their fierce reputation and legendary status.
Men Are the Expendable Gender: Overwhelmingly, victims tend to be male. Even the initial multi-victim attack in "Bigfoot" ends up with the sole female still alive.
Mentor Occupational Hazard: Aunt Marie ends up in a hospital bed after an attack by Hulda the Troll, and a nurse reveals Marie's body is Covered with Scars. Nick fends off another attempt to kill her while visiting her. She dies in the second episode.
The wesen mentor in "Happily Ever Aftermath" ends up like this too at the hands of his mentee, no less.
Mind Screw: In-universe this happens to Hank. Warning to the wary, never eat cookies from a hexenbiest.
Mistaken for Cheating: After Nick was tackled by Ariel in "Plumed Serpent" when at her house, she takes his ringing phone and answers with Juliette on the other end, to make it seem like Nick was cheating on her. Fortunately, once Nick explained what had really happened, Juliette believes him.
Moment Killer: In "Endangered" Nick, needing Monroe's help, walks into his place, up to the fridge and grabs a beers, sipping from it before realizing Monroe and Rosalee were in the middle of a date. He quietly excuses himself from the room.
Monster of the Week: Looks like that's going to be the format here. That said, the show does seem to make an effort to have recurring creatures outside of the Myth Arc creatures like blutbaden. As the series has progressed and matured to the point where much of the initial world building has already taken place, it has become less about new monsters and more about the drama. To a certain extent, the Police Procedural aspects have been toned down as well, serving more as an excuse for Nick to get involved/informed about the situation than as an actual story line where someone gets arrested.
Morality Pet: From the perspective of wesen, Monroe and Rosalee are this. Had Nick not encountered a few of the good ones first, he could very well have ended up more like his ancestors. For Nick's mom, on the other hand, Monroe and Rosalee are more like Morality Chains in regards to whether or not she'll kill them and otherwise actively hunt in Nick's turf.
Mugging the Monster: Human criminals going after creatures are going to be in a world of hurt. Even the peaceful Monroe is capable of ripping a man's arm off without much effort. In "Bears Will Be Bears", this happens to three different groups of human criminals. Even those species that aren't gifted with physical capabilities or supernatural abilities tend to have quirks that make them hard to deal with. The mouse creature in "Of Mouse and Man" is shown crawling through small spaces far faster and better than a human could.
Played with when Wesen attempt to fight Nick, as he is the monster that they fear. Given that he's been revealed to be stronger than Monroe (who can rip a man's arm off), this starts to make sense.
A milder, more comedic example shows up in La Llorona, when some young bullies smash harmless, eccentricMr. Monroe's window because he stopped them from picking on a smaller girl. Borders on Bullying a Dragon because he's much bigger than all of them and had already twisted one's ear to make them give her back her Halloween candy.
Muggles: An ordinary human—that is, anyone who isn't a Wesen or a Grimm—is called a "Kehrseite" by Wesen. Kehrseite who know about Wesen are called "Kehrseite-Schlich-Kennen," but the secret is strictly guarded against wider exposure. Nick has to deal with not only solving Wesen-related crimes but explaining away the weirdness to those not in the know, particularly his normal human partner, Hank, until Hank becomes a Kehrseite-Schlich-Kennen.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast : If you know German (and can get past the "Blind Idiot" Translation pain/giggles), then names like Blutbad and Daemonfeuer are this in spades. (Means “Blood Bath” and “Demon Fire” respectively). Some of the other Wesen names are none too cuddly sounding as well.
Nazi Gold: The eponymous coins from "Three Coins in a Fuchsbau" were assumed by Hank to be this because of the swastikas on them. Turns out they were much older (dating back to Ancient Greece, though they did fall into Nazi hands for a while and may have been partially responsible for Hitler's delusions of grandeur and aggressive charisma.
Never Mess with Auntie: Aunt Marie really puts the English on the trope given she's dying of a terminal illness and still takes on Hulda with only a knife (a knife concealed in the handle of her cane, that is) and her Bald of Awesome. We find out later she was a Badass Bookworm, having been a librarian by trade. She also stares down Monroe while she's clinging to life in a hospital bed. Considering we see Monroe rip off a man's arm a few scenes later, that took no small amount of guts.
Never Trust a Trailer: One of the Season 2 episodes advertised Juliet getting her lost memory back, and the return of ex-Hexenbeast Adalind Schade. What actually happens? Juliet's recovery was All Just a Dream, and Adalind only appeared in the context of phoning police chief Renard to ask about who killed her mother. She didn't actually return to Portland for another five episodes.
News Travels Fast: Even a Grimm involved in a stealth hunt has heard of those two Reaper heads mailed back to France.
Noodle Incident: In “Bad Teeth” Monroe makes an offhand mention about how (badly) family reunions can go, mentioning that one of his ending in the death of two cousins and a sheepdog. Apparently nobody missed the cousins....
The Nose Knows: Various Wesen have a supernatural sense of smell, particularly Blutbad like Monroe.
Not So Different: Orson confronting Nick when the latter knows that he's of Bauerschwein origin. The former believes that they should work together as police officers and not in the Grimm - Monster hunting view. Nick doesn't agree, considering Orson's involvement in Hap's death.
Hank initially started going crazy, but repeated exposure (thanks to Monroe) has allowed him to build his immunity to the effect.
No Swastikas: Subverted. Renard goes into detail about the history of the Swastika, and what it originally meant.
Tropes O-S
Obligatory Joke: In "Danse Macabre" while examining the body of a high school orchestra conductor:
Sgt. Wu: Looks like they'll have to face the music.
Hank: ...You really went there?
Sgt. Wu: Somebody had to.
Again in "Leave It To Beavers" after the two reapers are beheaded, Nick says "they got angry, kinda lost their heads.
Odd Friendship: Some of Nick's closest friends are Wesen. To say this is unusual amongst Grimms is an understatement.
Inverted/averted in the case of Hank and his coyotl best friend. Granted Hank didn't know at first that his friend was a wesen but his friend didn't seem to think it particularly odd to be friends with a human.
Off with His Head!: Reapers traditionally kill Grimms by decapitating them with their large scythes. Nick is able to best two of them and does the same - then sends their heads to their commander as a message.
Oh Crap: The reaction of various creatures upon learning that Nick is a Grimm has basically been "oh god oh god please don't kill me." Nick has used this to get information, but other times he's clearly getting exasperated at having to explain that he's not the indescriminately beheading type.
In "Leave it to Beavers", the look the Reaper in Germany has when he discovers his parcel contains the severed heads of the two Reapers tasked with eliminating Nick. As well as a note from him.
Nick:Next time, send your best.
It also seems to be the immediate reaction of more timid Wesen to the more naturally predatory kind, as shown when Monroe causes a minor panic in a church full of Seelengut just by walking in and sitting down. Though slightly justified on their part since Monroe was in partial Game Face so they knew/felt right away that a strange blutbad just arrived. And given the typical reputation of blutbaden combined with seelengut being literal sheep, they could not know what might happen.
Monroe and Juliette get a mutual one at the end of "To Protect and Serve Man" when Monroe catches Juliette and Renard kissing in the throes of their potion-induced obsessive passion.
A particularly hilarious and well-deserved one appears in "Endangered"
Victim: (woges)
Villain: You're worth a lot.
Monroe: How much is a Blutbad worth? (woges)
Villain: (smiles) A good amount.
Rosalee: What about a Fuchsbau? (woges)
Villain: (grinning) A whole lot more than a Blutbad.
Monroe and Rosalee share one when Juliette reveals that she remembers Nick telling her about Wesen and she now believes him.
Once an Episode: Each episode begins with a quote from a story or fairytale relevant to the episode in question. Nick also ends up calling on Monroe for something in every episode (whether Monroe likes it or not), even before Monroe officially decides to partner up.
One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Nick and Adalind in Season 1's Beeware, since he knows she's a Hexenbiest, and she knows he's a Grimm. When he has to question her for his case, they discuss it but take subtextual shots at each other with their word choice.
One Gender Race: The satyr-like Ziegevolk, who impregnate human women. The Spinnetods are not a one gender race, but only the females have the degenerative condition that makes them prey on young men, and the males are, as a rule, killed by their mates (the husband Spinnetod in "Tarantella" being an exception).
Hexenbiests seemed to follow this, until a male example in Captain Renard was revealed. Rosalee later clarifies in "Mr. Sandman" that Hexenbiests are exclusively female, and males are known as Zauberbiests (literally "wizard beast," to compare with "witch beast.")
To awaken from her coma, Juliette needs to be kissed by someone "pure of heart". But since such people are very rare these days, there is a nasty potion that purifies the drinker's heart, quite painfully if he's not that pure to begin with. With the aid of the potion, Renard fulfills the requirements and wakes her.
Because of the above, Juliette and Renard slowly become obsessed with each other and come close to killing each other. Part of the process to cure them requires Nick to drink the same purification potion Renard did.
Opening Narration: In this case, it seems, as of the first episode, to be a quote from the fairy tale the villain of the week comes from.
Season 2 adds an opening narration for the opening credits along with an actual open credits sequence. Though apparently YMMV on the shows part since while the visuals have remained mostly the same, the narration itself has changed, been absent, and had multiple voice over actors.
Opium Den: Nick and Monroe track a couple of Wesen junkies into one specifically for Wesen (if a human were to smoke the stuff, they’d die). The smoke messes with Monroe’s nose.
The Other Rainforest: Set and filmed in Portland, Oregon. There are a lot of little in jokes that are funnier if you're a Portlander or an Oregonian (two eisbibers being really big OSU fans, for instance)
Our Dragons Are Different: Daemonfeuer, Wesen descendent from a dragon-like lineage. They can breath fire by vaporizing their body fat and igniting it, seem to hoard copper, and are fireproof. As with the werewolf entry below, Monroe makes the important distinction that dragons are a myth while the wesen that inspired them are real.
For many wesen, their abilities are natural and can be detected through mundane means, particularly purely physical attributes like strength (blutbaden), hair growth (wildermann), or toughness (ogres). Others like the wesen from "Mr. Sandman" don't have any special powers per se, but do share a symbiotic relationship with something fairly mundane (a parasite in that specific case). Still others like the mellifers and the jägerbärs are shown to use use tools similar to their animal counterparts. Suffice to say, there's a lot of variation among wesen as to the extent of supernatural abilities.
The Musai is an elfin creature based off the legend of the leanan sidhe, a type of fairy muse who inspires artistic passion but ultimately leads her victims to madness and death.
Outside Context Ghost: La Llorona. Not even Grimms, the expert hunters of Wesen, know what she is exactly. One that went after her never came back. She is the first "undead" creature to appear in Grimm.
Out with a Bang: Adalind’s potion was intended to cause this in Hank.
The Plague: The Yellow Plague is very deadly to Wesen that comes from pigs. Entire villages have been wiped out from it and the bodies are burned. Thankfully, though, it requires physical contact that breaks through the skin to pass onto the other victims.
Playing with Fire: The Wesen in “Plumed Serpent”, known as Daemonfeuer, have fire breath. They apparently do this by vaporizing their fat, “vomiting” that vapor into the air, then somehow igniting it through static electricity. The family includes two flamethrower operators, a welder, and a fire dancer, so they obviously quite like fire.
The Power of Blood: There are several kinds of potion that include blood of the maker and blood of the target as ingredients; these potions can only be cured by killing the person who made it. Futhermore, if a Hexenbiest ingests the blood of a Grimm they become human.
iPod, iPhone, and Nike, all within the first five minutes of the first episode.
"Beeware" has the sounds particular to Android phones.
There’s also product placement for obscure products you’ll only find in Oregon. In one episode you see a box of Voodoo Doughnuts, a shop that’s only in Portland, Eugene, and Seattle (and rather famous locally) and in "Lonelyhearts" the beer Monroe orders, Double Dead Guy, is brewed in Bandon OR.
Pun-Based Title: "Game Ogre" (Game over), the episode about a Siegebarste named Oleg Stark.
Record Needle Scratch: A modern version but in "Leave It To Beaver", Juliette cozies up to Nick and the background music begins to play romantic music. When she reveals she actually just wants to invite Monroe over for dinner, the music stops abruptly.
Rewind, Replay, Repeat: "Beeware" has Nick repeatedly rewatching the Flash Mob videos taken by various security cams in hopes of finding the person killing people at each Flash Mob event.
Rape as Drama: The entire episode of "Lonelyhearts" was about a satyresque monster called a Ziegevolk, making him a serial rapist by human standards.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Russell Hornsby, the actor who plays Hank, sustained a serious foot injury during Season 2. Naturally, there's no way to work around this on a cop show, so instead they sent Hank on vacation for an episode and had him return with a similar injury.
Recurring Extra: Bud Wurstner, the Eisbiber plumber. He starts out being terrified of Nick, but they soon form an odd friendship and Bud eventually helps out on occasion.
Retired Monster: Implied to be the majority of the creatures, at least among the more predatorial species. In the second episode, when one of the Jägerbärs is told that his family is performing the traditional manhood ritual (which involves hunting down and killing someone), the first words out of his mouth are, "What? No one does that anymore." It also explains why Blutbaden, whose hungry urges are triggered by the color red, haven't eaten everyone. For other Wesen like Spinnetods, they're rare because the particular demands of their biology aren't compatible with a normal life.
The term 'wieder' Wesen has come up as a way of describing those wesen who are capable of controlling/mastering their Wesen aspects such as Charlotte and Monroe.
The Reveal: Captain Renard, Nick and Hank's superior, knows about the existence of Vesen and is somehow tied to them.
Revenge by Proxy: In "Three Bad Wolves", one Bauerschwein (a pig wesen) decides to get even with a Blutbad (a wolf wesen), who had murdered his brothers for fun. So he targets said Blutbad's brothers.
The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: A major theme of the series is that the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is fluid, and that those on the bottom will often be just as selfish and exploitative as those currently on top if they are given power.
Edward Waltz:You may think I'm a monster but what I am is necessary. No society can survive without order. Free thought is not free - there is no such thing as revolutio - the oppressed always become the opressors and the cycle repeats itself over and over. The only way to win is to stay out of the cycle.
Retcon: Initially, Marie told Nick that Grimms inherit their powers when the Grimm of the previous generation dies and passes them on. In season 2, Nick's mother tells him that the powers awaken at a random age to those in the family line, with girls getting the powers younger than boys. This explains away certain headscratchers and justifies why Nick received the sight so late in life.
Running Gag: Monroe's introduction in each episode seems to always revolve around him doing a very normal, very mundane activity and trying very very hard to ignore Nick and the inevitable creature-related problem. In "Organ Grinder", he brings this fact up and tries to have a normal conversation—it rapidly and awkward devolves into Monroe's favorite color (red), how human organs are like homeopathic remedies for Wesen, and Nick and Monroe talking about human testicles as the Wesen equivalent of Viagra.
Monroe: Maybe I should just get you your own key.
Becomes Hilarious in Hindsight by episode 12 of season two because Nick decides to stay at Monroe's place due to the complicated situation with Juliette and Renard.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Adalind's currently on one. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" indeed. The fact that she's also trying to avenge her mother's death is the icing on this particular cake.
Sarcastic Confession: The FBI, who found a hair with partial DNA match to Nick's at a warehouse where two FBI agents and their killer died, ask him who he's protecting.
Nick:"My mother."
Santa Claus: According to Monroe in "Let Your Hair Down", he's real, and he's a Wesen called a Gefrierengeber that can survive in the cold of the North Pole.
Save the Princess: Invoked and Conversed when Juliette is kidnapped by a Daemonfeuer.
Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Monroe is breaking all kinds of taboos by helping Nick, but he is not going to let that stop him from doing what he thinks is right. This point is made clear when, in Episode 9 ("Of Mouse and Man"), he's ambushed by a group of creatures who beat him bloody and unconscious, then scrawl a Reaper scythe emblem on his car; Nick says he won't ask for any more help, but Monroe refuses to knuckle under to threats.
Monroe: I'm not really a status quo kind of guy.
Self Surgery: In "Island of Dreams", a Wessen who had a chunk bitten out of his leg during a robbery gone wrong stitches up the wound himself.
Shaggy Search Technique: Averted, though to be fair, it is a cop-related show. Hank and Nick typically search for hidden stuff the way you'd expect.
Ship Tease: From the moment she showed up, this has been happening between Rosalee and Monroe.
Shout Out: In episode 1x06, a Blutbad, in other words a werewolf of sorts, by the name of Adam Hauptmann is mentioned.
In Episode 11, they meet a friend of Monroe's, a Spinnetod, named Charlotte.
Ariel Eberhart claims she got her dragon tattoo "long before that book came out."
In "Happily Ever Aftermath", the name of the businessman that perpetrated the Ponzi-scheme is Bernard Eidekoff, which is reminiscent of real-life criminal Bernie Madoff, convicted of a Ponzi-scheme.
The bigfoot investigators in "Big Feet" are named Patterson and Gimlin, after the Patterson-Gimlin film.
In episode 2x16 a video game designer uses the character alias of Aeryn Sun.
The title of the episode “One Angry Fuchsbau" is a shout out to “Twelve Angry Men” a drama about a jury.
Sick Episode: Game Ogre kind of functions as this for Nick, given that he spends two-thirds of it hospitalized after a fight with a siegbarste.
Single Tear: Monroe has one in "Over My Dead Body" just before drinking the dead faint Zaubertrank. Easy to miss since it's not called out and the scene is more focused on him trying to reassure Rosalee slash almost sorta tell her how he feels, despite the date they had before.
Sinister Minister: One of Captain Renard's allies is a Catholic priest who serves as "God's Wrath" and will kill those who go against Renard's rule over the Wesen in the area.
Soft Glass: Heavily averted in the case of Catherine Schade.
Soundtrack Dissonance: In "Mr. Sandman," the titular song plays as background music while Andre's recently blinded first victim blunders around her apartment, crying and in severe pain, and ultimately pulls a bookshelf down onto herself and is crushed to death.
Spiritual Successor: So Nick is essentially The Chosen One who protects people from the forces of darkness, his mentor Aunt Marie is a librarian with a weapons cabinet and a giant book of demons (and she can kick ass). And the monsters have a Game Face that looks oddly familiar. And David Greenwalt is the executive producer. Remind you of anything?
The premise (the monster hunter is the mythical creature to the mythical creatures) also draws heavily from I Am Legend (the original story not the movie).
Stalker Shrine: Happens to Nick in "The Hour of Death" when he finds the bedroom of the Grimm vigilante where dozens of pictures of himself are posted all over the walls.
Stalker with a Crush: Ariel Eberhart somehow manages to come across as this, even though Nick was the one stalking her (well, following her for a case, technically speaking). Of course, it's all part of her plan.
Status Quo Is God: In-universe example. The Reapers don't take kindly to anyone messing with the status quo of the supernatural system and alliances. Nick's crossing lines and making certain allies is not well liked as a result.
Step Into The Blinding Fight: An episode had a flyWesen capable of spewing a certain parasite into his victims' eyes which blinded them (and after a while the parasites would completely eat out their eyes). After he blinds Nick, the Wesen later tries to use this to his advantage in an attack, but Nick's developed enhanced hearing and ends up winning.
Stock Sound Effects: Several of the over-the-top type, probably to enhance the "supernatural creatures out of folk tales" feel.
Straight Edge Evil: The villain of the pilot episode is a soft-spoken mailman who wears loafers, fluffy sweaters and aprons and owns a cozy cottage in the woods. And eats people.
Stupid Crooks: The two kidnappers in "The Hour of Death" left hair samples of their victim, chloroform and the rag they used to apply it, and the victim's purse containing a wallet with her photo ID in one kidnapper's car. A bit of a subversion as by the time they find this evidence one of the kidnappers had been tortured into confessing and killed by a Grimm vigilante, and the other one was released from custody while Nick and Hank were being shown the evidence by the same vigilante who then killed him.
Superpowerful Genetics: With a magical element. The death of the previous generation passes on the powers to the next. Because Marie has terminal cancer, the abilities were passing to Nick a little at a time. Upon her death, though, the rest showed up.
Though, this is questionable as it's revealed that Nick's mother is still very much alive.
Retconned slightly in the second season. Grimms are now said to receive their powers at a random age, although females gain theirs sooner than males. Marie's terminal cancer didn't so much cause Nick to inherit the Grimm abilities as make it imperative that she tell him what he needs to know while she still could.
Super Senses: A number of wesen have particularly keen senses, such as Monroe with his sense of smell. As of "Mr. Sandman", it's shown that Grimms have this too, at least where hearing is concerned.
Superpowered Evil Side: Pierce Higgins, who's normally a relatively docile turtle-like Wesen, starts to randomly turn into a Lowen and killing his competitors who happen to be his friends on the Academic Decathalon team. His mother experimented on his genetics in utero to make him better able to defend himself (as their people had been victims of Van Helsing Hate Crimes in the past), and this was the result.
Swarm of Rats: In "Danse Macabre", an unlucky music teacher becomes a meal for a pack of hungry rats, and a Reinigen can actually control them.
Television Geography: Portland is divided into five geographic sectors — North, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest. Every street name is preceded by one of these sector names (i.e., Northeast Tenth Avenue) except for Burnside Street which is labeled "East" or "West." East-west streets can run through two sectors of the city; the names of north-south avenues (which are numbered) can exist in up to four sectors of the city. Therefore, it's important to not only say the name of the street, but also the sector where it exists. In Grimm, names of streets are given without their corresponding sectors. (Probably to keep viewers from visiting Real Life addresses.)
Terror Hero: Nick has been known to play on the murderous reputations of past generations of Grimms in order to intimidate Wesen into backing down or giving him information. Renard does this on occasion too, though not because he's a Grimm but because he's both a royal and a zauberbeiste, either of which gives most wesen pause.
Title Drop: in the episode "Island of Dreams" the title turns out to be a term for Wesen Opium Den is featured in the episode.
There Should Be a Law: Hap in "The Three Bad Wolves" is surprised that it's legal for a Grimm to be a police officer. He is not the brightest guy.
Played straight with the three main girl characters and the way they use their very similar abilities. JulietteSilverton, the more vulnerable Child, knows only how to heal animals, and is thus unambiguously positive and not implicated in the main storyline. RosaleeCalvert is the most cerebral of them all, is both able to create potions to heal and to poison people, being in the same time good and involved in the main storyline, and Monroe's Love Interest as the Wife of the trio. Adalind is the Seductress, who has been seen using her powers only to poison, and is involved in the storyline as a seductive but harmful antagonist.
Nick runs up on this trope in "Beeware" when he has to protect Adalind from Melissa. In the eyes of the law, Melissa is a murderer, and he's a cop. In the eyes of the supernatural, Adalind is a Hexenbiest and Melissa a Mellifer, messenger and helper to Grimms. This time, Nick chooses the law.
He faces this again in "Cat and Mouse" when he let Ian, the head of the Resistance, go after Ian killed a defenseless man in front of Nick and had Monroe dump the body away from Rosalee's shop all to protect his friends. So in sum, he picked Good.
And again in "Endangered", when he allows the killer he'd been chasing all along to go free... because the death was accidental and the killer is a new father, whose family are all members of an endangered Wesen line.
Too Clever by Half: The Genio Innocuo, a Galapagos tortoise Wesen featured in "The Other Side." They're highly intelligent but extremely docile (thus allowing themselves to be hunted to near-extinction by highly prejudicial 19th-century Grimms), and in the present day, a Genio Innocuo mother gives her son partial Lowen DNA to enhance his fighting ability, only to cause severe split personality that leads him to murder his classmates and not remember doing so.
In "Organ Grinder", for the first time, we see him intentionally threaten creatures with his status as a Grimm and exactly why that means they should be treading very carefully around him. He also pointedly warns the Geier in the clinic that he's NOT being a cop at that moment.
In "Last Grimm Standing" its revealed that Grimms have superior strength to that of ordinary humans, allowing Nick to easily defeat an adversary that several well-trained Wesen failed to do. Monroe's comment about digging down deep and channeling previous generations of Grimms could indicate that they might potentially have more abilities.
In "Leave it to Beavers", Nick ends up killing two Reapers tasked with eliminating him. He sends a parcel containing their severed heads back to their handler in Germany, along with a note.
Nick:Next time, send your best.
In "Season of the Hexenbiest" Nick takes out four Verat soldiers with a morningstar and only nominal assistance from Monroe.
Monroe: So do you wanna arrest these guys or what? Nick: Or what.
Juliette, with the shooting class storyline.
Tragic Villain: Spinnetod females. Due to the demands of their species, they're cursed to age incredibly fast (starting at puberty) with the only way to avoid this being to kill and eat young men... which may include spinnetod males.
Trigger Happy: The bad guys in “Island Of Dreams” only meet the ‘shoot at the slightest provocation’ part of the trope description.
True Companions: Nick, Monroe, Rosalee, and Hank look to be shaping up this way.
Played with at the start of season 2. For Juliette to wake from her coma, she needs a kiss from someone pure of heart... and her long-time boyfriend is one of the nicest, most genuinely decent guys you will ever meet, constantly visiting her in the hospital. It ends up being Renard, a virtual stranger to her—but also a prince, apparently another requirement—who takes a potion to make him pure enough of heart to deliver the kiss himself. This has major implications later in the season, as breaking Adalind's curse causes both Renard and Juliette to become obsessed with each other.
Played straighter in "Kiss of the Muse" although there's not an actual kiss. Nick is infected by the kiss of a Wesen called a musai and becomes obsessed with her, for which there is no known antidote. Juliette recovers her memory in time to reach out to him and cure him. Might be more accurately described as True Love's Held Gaze.
Underground Railroad: For Wesen who are trying to escape the Old World controlled by The Seven Families, there is this as a means of escape in United States.
Unreliable Narrator: Farley Kolt in “Three Coins In A Fucshbau”. He seems to be on the level when he says that he and Aunt Marie where engaged before she had to leave him to take care of Nick but in light of the fact that he was after the coins for himself, how much he can be trusted is thrown into question.
Useless Security Camera: Subverted. They couldn't find the perp with the security cams, but they were able to identify the murder victim and the people standing closest to her so they could question them about the crime. They were also able to nudge an uncooperative witness by reminding him he'd been caught on camera.
Of course in "Three Coins", the camera didn't help much because the perps ripped it out of the wall and took it with them.
Vegetarian Wesen: Wieder Wesen. Monroe is one now, but wasn't always. Charlotte in "Tarantella" is an example of what happens to Spinnetod women if they succeed in resisting the urge to kill every five years. The result is rapid aging.
In "Let Your Hair Down", the last we see of the doggie-wash guy, he's tied up in a basement.
So, as of the end of "Tarantella", there's a prematurely aged young woman in jail who is missing no fingers, but the cops have a detached finger that matches her DNA. How did the law process this one?
What Measure Is a Non-Human?/Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Subverted. Unlike some of its brethren in the genre, Nick is fine with letting supernatural creatures live their own lives as long as they're not breaking the law, and so far has treated them as he would human beings in comparative situations. This has come to shock some of them as this approach seems unheard of for a Grimm (on the other hand, Marie very specifically said "Hunt down the bad ones"). Conversely, it turns out that some of the supernatural creatures are either (usually) harmless and not involved in any real trouble or are allies of the Grimms. The former still tend to be wary of Nick while the latter tend to be surprised that Nick seems to ignore the traditional feuds. Nevertheless, the reputation of the Grimms is enough that most creatures that recognize Nick instantly expect him to kill them on the spot.
The peaceful ones that get to know him, however, ( Monroe, Rosalee, the Beaverfolk) often appreciate having a Grimm as an ally, because that gives them an edge over their more Axe Crazy counterparts in Wesen society, especially if they were traditionally on the lower end of the Status Quo.
Also comes in handy when a very old school, very militant Grimm shows up. Nick's rapport with them is probably the only thing preventing the wesen community from being any more panicked than it was.
On the other side of things, Nick's mom has trouble with this as well since she was raised under the belief that all wesen were dangerous and should be killed (well, the non-allies anyway). So it's justified that she has trouble understanding Nick's relationship with Monroe and Rosalee, but given the clear signs of trust, she's at least willing to accept it if not understanding it.
One episode had Nick and Hank looking up a prior Grimm's journal entry regarding a race of turtle-like wesen, who were described as very intelligent and peaceful. The very next sentence was about how their docile natures made them easy to kill.
"The Hour of Death" deals with the seeming reemergence of a particularly brutal sect of Grimms whose exploits are what earned the Grimms their place as Wesen boogeymen. Apparently back in the day they would go from place to place torturing and branding any Wesen they come across, regardless of whether they were innocent men, women or even children.
Rosalee is highly intrigued by the contents of the trailer, right up until Monroe reminds her that it's all dedicated to the hunting and killing of their kind.
Wham Episode: "Three Coins in a Fuchsbau." Aunt Marie was once engaged to a Wesen, but had to break it off when her sister (also a Grimm) was killed by another Wesen, who had stolen coins she was protecting—coins responsible for Nero, Caligula, and the Third Reich. Also, Hitler was a Wesen.
"Woman in Black." Adalind has afflicted Juliette with some unknown poison. To get her to seek medical treatment, Nick tells her everything, but she falls unconscious before he can show her definitive proof. Hank is starting to Go Mad from the Revelation after seeing both Monroe in his Blutbad form and a Wildermann turn back to human when he died. Oh yeah, and Nick's mother is alive.
"Season of the Hexenbiest." Monroe discovers Renard and Juliette's feelings for each other and tells Nick. Adalind returns to Portland and has Hank beaten severely enough to be hospitalized. She then learns about the trailer from Juliette and passes this information to Renard. Nick and Juliette break up and Nick moves out of the house. Monroe reveals Renard to Nick as Juliette's obsession. Renard discovers the trailer.
Face Off. Nick and Monroe find out that Juliette and Renard are under a spell and Renard is the Royal in Portland. Renard is in an alliance with the anti-Royal rebellion. Renard finds Nick's aunt's key but, instead of giving it to Adalind, comes clean to Nick and proposes an alliance. And Adalind is pregnant.
Woman in Black: The titular character of, well, "The Woman In Black".
Witch with a Capital B: In "Season of the Hexenbiest" we have this line, with a slight emphasis put on the last word.
Nick: "I guess you don't have to be a Hexenbeist to be a witch."
Woman in White: La Llorona, the titular something in "La Llorona". Nobody's quite sure what she is, though the legend she's based on has her as the ghost of a woman who drowned her children after her husband left her for a younger woman, but she appears as a beautiful woman in a long white dress.
Woman Scorned: A Blutbad reverend is accused of stealing from his Seelengut church and trying to pin it on the accountant, but his Seelengut girlfriend vouches for his alibi. Then she finds out that he's knocked up another woman in the flock. She turns him in to the irate flock, who gang up and beat him to death, and she and the other woman go to live the good life on the money he stole.
Adalind, especially in Season 2.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Nick mixes Blutbaden with werewolves, and asks if he might need silver bullets. Granted, he was just told that he would be harder to smell if he rubbed wolfsbane on his clothes.
Monroe: What, are you an idiot?
Yank the Dog's Chain: In "The Bottle Imp," there's a scene where Juliette suddenly regains her memories while at the sink and claims to believe that Nick is a Grimm. Then it turns out to be Nick's dream.
Yandere: Ariel Eberhart from "Plumed Serpent" quickly demonstrates an intense obsession with Nick.
You Are What You Hate: In "The Hour of Death" Nick suspects that another Grimm is killing Wesen in Portland. It is actually a Wesen who is in denial about what he is and believes that all Wesen must be killed. To provide context since it isn't explained on the show, the person in question is a Lebensauger - a Wesen based off lamprey eels. Complete with sucker mouth and eel-like skin. The Grimm wiki provides more information.
Youkai: Spinnetods are the inspiration for Japanese Jorogumo, or spider-demons.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Munroe's explanation of why it's a really bad idea to show normal humans a Wesen's true form. He said that people can handle fantastic concepts like angels, demons, God, and the Big Bang because they don't experience it firsthand. People seeing living myths with their own eyes, on the other hand, might very well make the recipient...
It seems that people whose sanity withstands the initial shock tend to go mad because they think they're going crazy. Hank starts slipping over the several weeks after he sees two Wesen's true forms. Nick has to talk him down from shooting his own goddaughter in a blind panic when she accidentally reveals her Game Face, but once he's been given a quick explanation, he quickly recovers from his previous Sanity Slippage and is very glad to discover he's not insane.
One of Hank's goddaughter's abductors tries to invoke this trope on Nick and Hank by showing the two interfering cops his Game Face, only to discover that Hank is already aware and has a handle on it and Nick is a Grimm. Cue Oh Crap.
A mild version occurs in "La Llorona" when Nick is fighting the titular character. Since she/it isn't a Wesen, isn't human, and at least some of the time, isn't even a physical being, Nick is clearly taken aback when he discovers this. It seems like he almost forgets that he's underwater. Like Monroe noted before, people can handle some things but when they encounter other things up close and personal, it can be a little shocking.
You Go Girl: Juliette has this storyline going on, which increased her popularity drastically. She is currently insisting upon being reognized as a capable person (and demonstrates that she is one) and wants Nick to explain things to her instead of over-protecting her. Notably averted with Rosalee, who immediately became accepted as a competent ally and member of the team.
You Kill It, You Bought It: What happens to Angelina in "Over My Dead Body" when she kills a Skalengeck attempting to rape her. It turns out that the Skalengeck was hired to kill Monroe and since she killed him, she was told she would be the one to do the deed instead.
Zombie Apocalypse: The Yellow Plague is effectively this for Wesen, though they're not actually dead just hyped up on adrenaline. And boils, sores, and other things. Fortunately, it's curable.
Thanks for not killing us harmless tropers, Grimm! Have a fruit basket.
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