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Grimm S02E08: "The Other Side"

In last night's episode of Grimm, "The Other Side," helicopter parenting ran amok as a Wesen kid took out his entire quiz team and Adalind surfaced in Europe to raise hell for Portland. However, the biggest question of the night came not from the story but from the episode's weird ending: Namely, why is Nick such a jerk?

"The Other Side" began with the ongoing saga of Juliette and Renard as she and Nick attended a ceremony honoring the captain and then Renard awkwardly drove Juliette home after Nick and Hank left for the A plot. We saw Renard's obsession had gotten worse as he stared at Juliette in the shower a la Psycho before stumbling off into the night and punching an innocent bystander in the face. Renard: 1, Grocery Man: 0!

Meanwhile, a high-school academic decathlon participant was brutally murdered and it wasn't long before another team member bit the dust, prompting Nick and Hank to believe the murderer was another teammate whose motive was to take out his competition. After they questioned team star Pierce—who was a Galapagos Tortoise Wesen—Nick and Hank found the decathlon coach murdered as well.

It turned out that Pierce's mother, a geneticist and total hard-ass—as her "do homework to take your mind off your friend's murder" approach to parenting proved—had tinkered with her son's DNA in-utero, adding genes of the Lowen (a super-aggressive Wesen) to give him an edge. The splicing created a Jekyll/Hyde personality; Pierce was now killing anyone who stood in the way of his decathlon greatness... without knowing. When he found out he'd done, he was devastated and tried to commit suicide, but ultimately Nick was able to save him. Although the poor boy ended up in prison, so maybe that wasn't such a kindness.

Everyone's favorite Hexenbiest returned as Adalind hooked up with Renard's Royal brother. From Ro-Bro we learned that Renard is half Hexenbiest, the son of their Royal father's Hexenbiest mistress. Renard and Monroe interacted at the spice shop as Renard sought a cure for his Juliette obsession, and the episode ended with Monroe delivering some bad news: Not only is there no singular cure, things are going to get worse for the captain.

While enjoyable, the episode's hard sci-fi twist of gene-tampering was not only difficult to swallow, it also brought up all sorts of new questions about the Wesen—questions the episode never answered—and served to point out how little we actually know about the Wesen world. For instance, if you can isolate and transplant the genes that make up individual Wesen species, can you get rid of them? Is being a Wesen something you can "cure?" Fundamentally, what is a Wesen and where did they come from?

Also, how is a prize-winning geneticist unable to afford a better lawyer for her son? I mean there were multiple witnesses to his split-personality insanity! He was obviously mentally unbalanced, so how's come Nick and Hank were fine with callously spitting platitudes about the deck being stacked against him as he was marched off to prison (and not juvie!)?

Up until the ending, "The Other Side" was a great Wesen-of-the-week episode that did a nice job of balancing Adalind's plotting and mythology with cop-procedural action. It was fun to see Monroe geek out about the spice shop and Hank get upset about the Grimms' bloody past. Plus Renard is such a strong character that I even liked the Juliette storyline. But Nick and Hank's cynical shrugging-off of a mentally unbalanced kid who desperately needed help not only felt out of character for both of them, it also destroyed the whole premise of Grimm—that Nick, despite being a Grimm, is still a good guy.

A good guy doesn't say, "Oh, well!" when a kid is thrown into jail instead of getting the psychiatric help he needs. A good guy doesn't learn that the kid's mother is the true culprit, in messing with her son mentally and genetically, and then casually watch as the kid gets thrown under the bus. A good guy would at least testify or something, right? After watching Nick cover up his own murders and bend the rules for his friends, seeing him not do anything for a Wesen who truly needs him is more than upsetting—it runs contrary to Nick's fundamental role on the show.

Last night Nick was the real bad guy, and this is a twist I neither like nor am confident that the writers of Grimm will explore past this episode.

QUESTIONS:

– Is that police station intern going to be a new main character? He's obviously going to be important, otherwise Grimm wouldn't have wasted a scene on him, right?

– Why are the Royals prejudiced against the Hexenbiests?

– As they are clearly not Hexenbiest, what type of Wesen are the Royals?

– If Pierce's Wesen species is from the Galapagos, why is he white?

– Does Rosalee just have a list of weird things Monroe needs to ask people walking into the shop, and if so, can I get a copy?

– What do you think will happen to Renard?

Grimm "The Other Side" Photos

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The Voice S03E14: "The Battles Continue (Round 4)"

The Tuesday rounds always feel like an afterthought to the longer Monday-night rounds on The Voice. The continued reliance upon montages in place of battles because THE TEAMS ARE TOO DAMN BIG doesn't help.

This week, we missed out on Mycle Wastman versus Ben Taub, Adanna Duru versus Michele Brooks-Thompson, and Beat Frequency versus Laura Vivas. I was particularly disappointed by the decision not to show Beat Frequency's battle because I was anticipating what was sure to be an amazing trainwreck.

Instead, we got to see country singers Liz Davis and Nicole Johnson on country singer Blake Shelton's country-saturated team sing a country song by Blake's country-star wife, Miranda Lambert. I don't think it gets much more country (or dull) than that. Both contestants held their own. In the end, Blake went with Davis over Johnson due to her considerable experience.

Adam Levine had a similarly tough decision to make between Alessandra Guerico and Kayla Nevarez, who faced off on "Wide Awake" by Katy Perry. The formally trained Guerico struggled when Adam told her not to be so perfect and rigid. Kayla was pitchy. They pulled it together at showtime, though. Adam went with Kayla because he felt like Alessandra lacked confidence and she was visibly crushed until Christina swept in with a steal and a reference to her time on The Mickey Mouse Club. If you're playing the Christina Aguilera drinking game at home, feel free to take a sip.

In all seriousness, though, it was a good move for both Guerico and Team Christina. How did they not end up together in the first place?

And finally, Cee Lo Green paired country hopeful Emily Earle with cutie-pie MacKenzie Bourg. I just want to pinch his smiley dimples. AND AND AND according to his bio page over at The Voice he's a The Perks of Being a Wallflower fan, so, you know, we should be BFFs or something.

ANYWAY, Cee Lo set up both singers for the most awkward battle ever by giving them the Owl City tune "Good Time." Emily Earle immediately began to panic over leaving her comfort zone. MacKenzie Bourg struggled with figuring out what to do with his hands when Cee Lo took away his security blanket/ guitar. It was all good though. The smiley dimples prevailed.

Here's your round-up of the week's comings and goings!

Sticking Around:

Liz Davis (Team Blake)
Kayla Nevarez (Team Adam)
Mackenzie Bourg (Team Cee Lo)
Mycle Wastman (Team Cee Lo)
Michelle Brooks-Thompson (Team Adam)
Laura Vivas (Team Christina)

Going Home:

Nicole Johnson (Team Blake)
Ben Taub (Team Cee Lo)
Beat Frequency (Team Christina)
Adanna Duru (Team Adam)
Emily Earle (Team Cee Lo)

Steals:

Alessandra Guerico (Team Adam to Team Christina)

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The Voice S03E13: "The Battles Continue"

Night three of the battle rounds played out like the late-season episode of a scripted series that was plagued with questions in its early episodes—and by "early episodes" I mean pretty much the entire series. Whether or not The Voice meant to touch on the points I've been poking with a stick since the season premiere is debatable, but that doesn't make the attention to detail any less amusing.

Exhibit A: Battle Round Song Choices

My favorite moment of the entire night because featured my biggest pet peeve of the entire competition being addressed in a refreshingly frank manner—by a contestant, at least. Terisa Griffin pointedly asked Blake Shelton why he chose to make her compete against Julio Castillo on "Conga" by Gloria Estefan. She rationalized that "Conga" was a song closer to Castillo's comfort zone, and therefore the song was deliberately chosen to eliminate her from the competition. Blake was, of course, the portrait of incredulous innocence, and to be fair, we got plenty of footage of Castillo struggling with the song during rehearsals and voicing his own concerns about his ability to perform, but just to have a contestant SAY IT was utterly vindicating.

Do I think Terisa Griffin was set-up in this case? Not really. Do I think that other contestants have been set up for elimination in the past? Certainly. Last season's pairing of fierce lady-rocker Lindsey Pavao and acoustic-lovin' Bob Dylan-channelin' Lee Koch was hilariously blatant with Christina Aguilera assigning them a Nirvana song. Christina fell back on the old "leave the comfort zone" argument, which seems to be the failsafe justification whenever an artist on this show questions a song choice, but only certain artists ever seem pressed to leave their comfort zones. Judges' pets Juliet Simms and Raelynn were rarely, if ever, asked to sing anything outside of classic rock or country, respectively, genres which they both felt comfortable in and felt showcased their abilities the best. Those two made it rather far in last season's competition... in contrast to Naia Kete, who only wanted to sing a freaking reggae song, but found herself stuck with pop song after pop song in the name of "branching out."

Blake had no idea where Terisa got that idea and seemed a little insulted by the accusation (which, okay, is fair) but frankly, I think anyone who has watched The Voice for more than one season knows exactly where she got the idea.

Ultimately, Terisa Griffin lost her battle with Julio Castillo because Blake didn't think she worked as hard as he did. Luckily, Cee Lo was there to swoop in with a steal. Speaking of Cee Lo, that brings us to...

Exhibit B: Why Team Cee Lo?

County wannabes gravitate toward Team Blake because Blake Shelton is the country expert on The Voice. Divas and potential boyband members go to Christina Aguilera because that's her thing. "Serious" musicians vie for Adam Levine's favor because Adam is a "serious" musician.

The identity of Team Cee Lo is a little harder to pin down. Cee Lo Green dressed up like a peacock that one time during a concert, so he tends to appreciate fellow peacocks, but since he can't see contestants during their initial auditions, he must rely on his ears to determine their peacock potential. This leads to a bit of a mixed-bag team—Cee Lo has divas and he has hipster bespectacled coffeeshop lurkers. Cee Lo has people that I'm not entirely convinced can actually sing but just happen to put on a good show. It's a wildly diverse team that I can honestly say I'm always excited to see compete because there really is no way to know what we'll see from them on any given night.

So, that's awesome and to be honest, I wish the other judges would make an effort to avoid clinging so fiercely to their pet genres, but at the same time, the lack of a concrete identity on Team Cee Lo resulted to some recruiting difficulties earlier this season; it just seemed like artist after artist chose a different judge over Cee Lo if given the opportunity. Contestants who wanted to work with a mentor from a similar musical background found those needs met by one of the other three, OR, those practical contestants who thought further ahead and saw The Voice more like a networking opportunity than the be-all-end-all of their career, went to Adam or Blake, who both have a history of working with ex-team members after the show ends.

Apparently so does Cee Lo Green. He's just pickier about who he works with. Or maybe less obvious about it. Or something. Regardless, the camera sure went out of its way to document—with subtitles—the fact that after Cee Lo chose bearded wonder Nicholas David over Todd Kessler following their Hall and Oates battle, he pulled Kessler aside and told him to "Give me a call. We'll talk."

Well, okay then.

Exhibit C: Blake Shelton + Florence + The Machine

This one just amused me because Christina made such a big deal when Blake lost Caitlin Michele to Adam during his own recruitment slump earlier this season. Michele auditioned with a Florence + The Machine song and despite an impassioned speech to curry her favor, Michele chose to work with Adam rather than Blake because she didn't want "normal."

Already frustrated by the loss, Blake also had the misfortune of sitting next to Christina, who took the opportunity to point out that he didn't even know who Florence + The Machine was, which may or may not have been sarcasm, but honestly, would anyone be surprised if it wasn't?

As though to make a point, which also wouldn't be surprising, Blake had Lelia Broussard and Suzanna Choffel battle one another to "Dog Days are Over" by Florence + The Machine, complete with a quick monologue affirming how much he just loves Florence + The Machine. Way to tie up loose ends.

Suzanna Choffel won the round, by the way.

Rounding out the rest of our battles, on Team Christina Dez Duron and Paulina faced off and 16-year-old Paulina gushed that she grew up listening to Green Day. This sent the occupants of my home into a pre-mid-life-crisis-crisis when we did the math and realized that she may have grown up listening to Green Day but she definitely didn't grow up listening to GOOD Green Day even though she probably THINKS she did. CHILDREN, gather round and let me tell you about Billie Joe Armstrong and how 16 years ago he wouldn't have been caught dead on a show like The Voice.

Or at least that's what we old-timers like to think.

Dez Duron won that battle.

Team Adam featured Sam James and Benji battling it out to Bon Jovi. I love me some Bon Jovi. I love me some "You Give Love a Bad Name" too and their battle was the most energetic of the night. There was a lot of unresolved sexual tension on that stage, and more than one person in my living room wondered aloud if they were going to start making out. PASSION, MAN.

Adam's fellow judges all liked Benji, but he went with Sam James because Sam has his own style and even though Benji screamed really well (really!), when he wasn't screaming, he was kind of not sure what to do with himself.

Team Christina finished the night off with a diva battle: Joselyn Rivera and Sylvia Yacoub. I thought they both spent an inordinate amount of time trying to one-up each other, rather than actually calming down and just singing the freaking song already. Christina's indecision got us our first appearance of haggard, snippy Carson Daly who snapped at her to make a decision already after much hand-wringing and looking around the set as though someone else might tell her who to choose. I figured that we were in for a steal session since there were still ten minutes left in the hour, so there was no practical need for Daly to rush things, unless he was trying to condition serial-time-waster Xtina BEFORE her endless contemplation made its way to the live shows and forced us to miss the first few minutes of Revolution which would just be tragic. (On a side note, Revolution, I don't care about saving Danny anymore. I DON'T CARE.)

Christina went with Sylvia Yacoub and Teams Adam and Blake immediately buzzed in to steal Joselyn Rivera who, ultimately, went to Adam.

Here's a quick summary of the wins, losses, and steals for Monday:

Sticking Around:

Julio Castillo (Team Blake)
Dez Duron (Team Christina)
Sam James (Team Adam)
Nicholas David (Team Cee Lo)
Suzanna Choffel (Team Blake)
Sylvia Yacoub (Team Christina)

Going Home:

Paulina (Team Christina)
Benji (Team Adam)
Todd Kessler (Team Cee Lo)
Lelia Broussard (Team Blake)

Steals:

Terisa Griffin (Team Blake to Team Cee Lo)
Joselyn Rivera (Team Christina to Team Adam)

What'd you think of Monday's battles?

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The Voice S03E12: "The Battles Premiere, Part 2"

It's official: The teams are too freaking big. We saw the warning lights flash during blind auditions when entire performances were skimmed over, but I stopped short of condemning the newly expanded rosters and mind-blowing total of 64 contestants. I thought, "Let's wait and see, maybe it will be awesome."

Maybe it COULD have been awesome if we, you know, actually got to see all 64 singers perform. Maybe it would have gotten tedious, but hey, they earned their 15 minutes, right? Imagine: You auditioned, you had a great sob story to stir up emotion, and you were awesome enough to make the cut—even if you were a long shot to win the whole thing, you'd at least want what exposure you could get, right? Publicity, marketing, cultivating a fanbase that will follow you after The Voice—these are important things to consider as a musician hoping to go pro and frankly, I feel like there are some parties getting screwed over this season. All of a sudden The Voice is slightly less wonderful of an opportunity, and it all boils down to the giant teams... or at least the handling of the giant teams.

I was willing to overlook the blink-and-you'll-miss-them auditions because it was early in the game and I assumed that maybe those auditions just weren't that amazing or awful enough to be entertaining. I assumed that we would see those musicians later in competition and we would be able to try to understand what the judges saw in them. After all, even if their auditions were just on the better side of mediocre, they earned their spot in the limelight.

There is no excuse for not showing all of the battles. There is CERTAINLY no excuse for not showing a "favorite" musician's battle. On Team Blake, Ozzy/Meatloaf lookalike Rudy Parris beat Charlie Rey last night, but I can't tell you why he was deemed better or what they sang or even who Charlie Rey is. Not cool, NBC. If you couldn't handle having 64 contestants this season without, pardon me, half-assing the competition, then there just shouldn't be 64 people competing. What's the point of having 16 people on each team if we're only going to pay attention to 12 of them?

Of the battles we DID see, Cody Belew faced off against Domo for a spot on Team Cee Lo. Cee Lo assigned them "Telephone," which was so far out of Belew's comfort zone that, I admit, I thought Domo was a shoo-in. Cee Lo loves him the ladies. And I love that Cody totally called him on it during rehearsals and blatantly asked how he could hope to compete with Domo's curves. Why so awesome, Cody?

Maybe Cee Lo appreciated Cody's gutsiness because his response to both Cody and Domo's actual duet was lukewarm. He claimed that neither singer gave him what he really wanted during the performance, so he based his decision purely on preference. It was Cody Belew FTW.

On Team Christina, it was Aquile versus Nathalie Hernandez on "You Give Me Something." The Official Rehearsal Drama for their segment revolved around Aquile flubbing words and Nathalie, at age 15, not having experienced enough real-life heartbreak to really "feel" the song. I don't know. Mentor Christina likes to pretend that pop is deep. Billie Joe Armstrong compared Nathalie to Norah Jones, which was actually a pretty good comparison. She held her own but Aquile just seemed to rock the stage presence a little better, and Nathalie went home.

Team Adam wrapped up the night, pairing Melanie Martinez with Caitlin Michele for a phenomenal cover of Ellie Goulding's "Lights." Their epic performance came in spite of a disastrous final rehearsal and neither Cee Lo, Blake, nor Christina tried to help Adam make his elimination. Adam accused them of attempting to curry favor with his team members in anticipation of their impending steals and... yeah, that's actually exactly what happened. Adam went with Melanie and Caitlin joined Team Cee Lo. I'm okay with that.

Anyway, here's where we are after the first week of battles:

Caitlin Michele (Team Adam to Team Cee Lo) Amanda Brown (Team Cee Lo to Team Adam) Nathalie Hernandez (Team Christina) Collin McLoughlin (Team Adam to Team Blake) Casey Muessigmann (Team Blake)

What did you think of this week's eliminations and acquisitions? What about the battles we didn't see?

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The Voice S03E11: "The Battles Premiere"

With the teams set, it was time to kick off The Voice's Battle Rounds, where musicians compete against their own teammates for a spot on their judge's reduced roster. The process every bit as awkward as the set-up implies, and the part of me that's hesitant to buy into the notion of pure competition on The Voice has always kind of looked at the Battle Rounds as each judge's last opportunity to deal with any buyer's remorse he or she may have struggled with after the Blind Auditions. I mean, sometimes the battles are so clearly stacked in one musician's favor that it's hard to imagine it happened accidentally.

But with that said, there were some pleasant surprises last night! I thought that De'Borah was surely a goner when paired with Sting sound-alike Nelly's Echo on, surprise surprise, a Police song. Billy Joe Armstrong claimed that "Message in a Bottle" was "tailor made" for Nelly, seemingly cementing De'Borah's fate, a potential storyline that The Voice was more than happy to emphasize with footage of the self-proclaimed "misfit" floundering in rehearsals.

With so much buildup dedicated to the natural awesomeness of Nelly's Echo and the apparent shortcomings of De'Borah, I can honestly say that I was surprised when we entered battle and from the jump, Nelly just wasn't that great. He seemed nervous in contrast to De'Borah's sudden case of overflowing confidence and while neither performance blew me out of the water, hers was certainly the most fun to watch. What she lacked in rehearsals, she made up for during the performance, and really, that's the part that matters, right?

Casey Muessignmann and Terry McDermott also brought actual competition to the stage with their "Carry on My Wayward Son" duet. I thought that Casey would be the shoo-in since, as we're reminded every single freaking week, Blake Shelton wants to win with a country singer this season because as we all know, country music is a heavily marginalized and overlooked genre that deserves greater exposure and a bigger audience. It's not like it's one of the most popular music genres in the U.S. with legions of fans, legendary artists, and it's very own awards show.

Anyway, I figured Casey and his cowboy hat would be the victors in their musical tussle with Scottish rocker Terry McDermott, and joking aside, I thought Casey did quite well while Terry just seemed to scream a lot. However, Blake felt that the safer bet was Terry, who already "knows who he is" musically.

Team Blake's second battle of the night pitted country against country with mother-daughter duo 2 Steel Girls facing off against Gracia Harrison on the Dixie Chicks tune "Sin Wagon." Like De'Borah, Gracia struggled in rehearsals but outshined her teammates/rivals with confidence that translated to a seemingly carefree performance.

YouTube sensation J.R. Aquino competed against Diego Val for a spot on Team Cee Lo. Their rehearsal footage tried hard to push the same underdog status on Val, but his performance lacked the same astronomical jump in confidence and execution that made the other underdogs of the night seem so much more amazing than their rehearsal struggles let on. He was GOOD, but so was Aquino. Cee Lo's decision was practically forced to be arbitrary.

Collin McLoughlin of Team Adam and Amanda Brown of Team Cee Lo were also cut from their respective teams, but found themselves saved by the newest addition to The Voice's format, THE STEAL. While I generally like the idea—I think—after seeing it in practice I think it's a kind of odd thing to be included in rounds that exist solely to thin the herd. Each judge can only steal two eliminated singers, a restriction I'm sure is intended to guard against padding one's ranks indefinitely. Still, the thought of eliminating two team members just to fill the places with two steals seems kind of silly.

Despite the out-of-place feel of The Steal though, I'm glad to see Collin McLoughlin and Amanda Brown stay, or at least Amanda. Her duet with Trevin Hunte on Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love" was fantastic. The biggest draw was absolutely Trevin's amazing high-notes, but if she had been paired with anyone BUT Trevin, I'm certain Amanda would have been Cee Lo's pick instead of the newest addition to Team Adam (not that Team Adam is a bad team to be on by any means.)

After battling Bryan Keith on "Santeria," Collin McLoughlin joined Team Blake after being stolen from Team Adam, though to be fair, the steal was initiated by Adam's dismissal of him. When you look at it like that, The Steal seems less like a delightfully devious competitive strategy and more like foraging for leftovers.

What do you think of The Steal so far?

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The Leno-Letterman war is about to get flanked by a Kimmel. ABC is making a man out of Jimmy Kimmel by moving up Jimmy Kimmel Live by a half-hour, from its previous 12:05am start time to 11:35pm, when big boys The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Show with David Letterman hit the air. However, the move will not take place until early 2013.

This is a major promotion for Kimmel, who has quietly built up an audience as an alternative to The Big Chin and Mr. Gaptooth. Kimmel's been much more Internet-savvy than Leno or Letterman, and has taken advantage of his relationship with ABC to film post-Oscars and post-NBA live specials. That has helped Jimmy Kimmel Live be the only late-night network talk show to increase its overall audience year over year, according to ABC.

On CBS and NBC, primetime ends at 11pm, giving way to local news and then either Leno or Letterman. ABC squeezes in an episode of Nightline between primetime and its late-night talk show, but now Nightline is being pushed back to 12:35am. However, Nightline will get a slight promotion with a new 9pm edition on Fridays.

As for Kimmel's move, look for him 30 minutes earlier starting January 8, 2013. ABC chose that spot because it can heavily promote the move as part of its coverage of college football bowl games and during Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve.

Does this make Kimmel a legitimate threat to the dueling empires of Leno and Letterman? It's at least the beginning. ABC absolutely loves Kimmel, and when Letterman and Leno call it quits, Kimmel should still be yukking it up. This is a solid present and future move for ABC.

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