The Other Side (Grimm)

Plot

The episode begins with a line about crafting a marionette that can dance, fence, and do somersaults. A group of friends takes part in a practice session for an academic competition, later shares a meal, and then heads home. One of them is killed by a Löwen. Nick and Juliette, as a couple, go to an event where Renard receives an award. After Nick and Hank are called to the murder scene, Renard drives Juliette home. She goes inside and starts showering. Renard slips into the house, watches her in the shower, then exercises self-control and leaves. He goes to the spice shop and asks Monroe for a cure for unwanted obsessive feelings, but keeps the details vague, not revealing his identity or the target of his desires.

Coach Anker becomes an early suspect due to his fierce competitiveness and aggressive behavior toward Nick and Hank, especially after Nick sees him woge into a Löwen. Wu introduces a new intern named Ryan to the precinct. Another contestant is murdered, and police find a watch belonging to a different contestant, Pierce Higgins, on her body. This death leads Anker to cancel the competition. Later, Anker is found dead.

In Vienna, Adalind meets with Renard’s brother, Eric. Eric explains that although they share a father, Sean’s mother was a Hexenbiest. He claims the family’s prejudice against Hexenbiests—specifically his own mother’s—forced Sean and his mother to relocate to Portland, a bias he says he does not share.

Pierce becomes convinced his mother is the killer. He calls Nick and Hank, then confronts her. But he soon realizes he himself is the murderer. His mother had altered his DNA before birth, giving him both Löwen and Genio Innocuo traits; his Löwen side has been committing the crimes. He flees and tries to kill himself, but Nick stops him. In prison, he uses his Löwen abilities to fight off inmates who attack him.

The episode closes with Renard back at the spice shop. Monroe tells him that while a treatment exists for the physical symptoms, it will only delay the problem. Without dealing with the emotional side, Renard’s urges will eventually become uncontrollable and dangerous. To move forward, they must know who the object of his desires is and include that person in the treatment.

Reception

The episode was viewed by 5.03 million people, earning a 1.5/5 in the 18-49 rating demographics on the Nielson ratings scale. This was a slight increase in viewership from the previous episode, which was watched by 5.01 million viewers with a 1.6/5. This means that 1.5 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode, while 5 percent of all households watching television at that time watched it. With DVR factoring in, the episode was watched by 7.79 million viewers with a 2.8 ratings share in the 18-49 demographics.

"The Other Side" received mixed reviews. Kevin McFarland of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "C+" grade and wrote that early in its run, Grimm used its epigraphs as a way to introduce whatever fairy tale was the topic of the episode's major plot, but as the show progressed, the epigraphs became indicative of some thematic resonance between a tale and an episode, and now the writers seemed to be combing any and all fairy tale-adjacent material for quotes to fit a plot that never sprang from the Grimm tales themselves.

Emily Rome of EW wrote that the episode was not without some forward momentum for the continuing stories of Juliette and Renard's potion-induced obsession with each other and of Adalind's return, and noted that once the show established the group of ill-fated academic decathlon kids, it moved on to Nick and Juliette getting ready for a dinner in Renard's honor. Nick McHatton from TV Fanatic gave a 4.0 star rating out of 5, stating that "The Other Side" sets its procedural story up as one large metaphor for the upcoming drama that is about to unfold, and that the killer kid story had been used back-to-back, but Pierce being the culprit was not the main takeaway from the story—it was his genetics.