by Faith-Ashleigh Wong
What happens if a colony of rats filled up your car and decided to have you for a late night snack? "Death by rat" is what. And I thought it couldn't get any weirder than "death by flashmob".
The opening sequence switches between the hypnotic "doof doof" beats of a crowded "Retchid Kat" rave and the polar opposite orchestral sounds of a string quartet during a late night rehearsal. We see the music director make his way out of the building after the session. The speed of the cuts increasingly intensifies creating a sense of foreboding.
I cannot think of a worse fate than what happens to the director, who we later know to be Paul Lawson, the director of the music program. To echo Monroe: "RAT-atouille". What a way to go.
Upon interrogating the four students who make up the string quartet, Nick and Hank are led to the school outcast, Roddy Geiger, whose father is an exterminator. Earlier at the crime scene, cages were found in the bushes nearby, all labelled Geiger Pest Control. At the Geiger residence, Roddy is seen playing the violin to a rather unconventional audience. This almost seems too easy!
A scuffle breaks out when Roddy's father shows up. While Hank deals with the aggressive father, Nick runs after Roddy who has taken off. It comes as no surprise that Roddy turns out to be a Wesen – Reinigen – basically a human-sized version of his rodent counterparts. What I did find surprising was that he already knew Nick was a Grimm.
The plot thickens when we see that Roddy is secretly seeing Sarah, one of the members of the string quartet. Roddy tries to convince her that her boyfriend Carter, also in the quartet, set him up. Meanwhile the coroner has made an interesting discovery. On investigating the rats that had attacked Paul, she comes across some fibres which match those found on car seats of German cars.
We learn that Reinigen are generally non-violent creatures unless provoked and pushed to the edge. Nick suspects there is more to the story than Roddy is letting on. Cue our favourite Blutbad to save the day. I like that Monroe is slowly but surely becoming less resistant to being called for help. I think he secretly likes being an undercover cop!
I guess some things are better left to the professionals. Unfortunately Monroe's talk only served to set Roddy off. He sets his rodent friends free, burns the place down and, much like the Pied Piper in the original tale that this episode is based on, uses his music to lead his army to a path of revenge.
Turns out Roddy was right about being set up and by whom. Much like how he controls his rats, Roddy uses rave music to lure the quartet to what turns out to be, as Hank later coins it, a rat rave.
What I actually found intriguing in this episode were the sub-plots in the story. We are becoming more and more aware of Captain Renard playing double agent and it's only a matter of time before Nick catches on. The return of Adalind Schade, this time as a potential love interest to Hank, is already forming warning bells in my head.
Juliette becomes dangerously close to uncovering Nick's Grimm identity in this episode. It looks like Nick will have some explaining to do. Will he let her in on his secret? His cover may also get blown to the supernatural world if Reinigen aren't the only Wesen that can spot a Grimm instantly.