Tarantella (Grimm)

"Tarantella" is the 11th episode of the supernatural drama television series Grimm of season 1, which premiered on February 10, 2012, on NBC. The episode was written by co-executive producers Alan DiFiore and Dan E. Fesman, and was directed by Peter Werner.

Plot

Opening quote: "Instantly, the priestess changed into a monstrous goblin-spider and the warrior found himself caught fast in her web."

A man (and a Fuchsbau), Ryan Showalter (Nicholas Gonzalez) tries to flirt with a woman, Lena (Amy Acker) on an art gallery. He then takes her to his apartment where he tries to attack her but she fights back, turning out to be a spider creature and makes him swallow a liquid from her mouth before escaping, with one of her fingers missing. Nick (David Giuntoli) is currently discussing with Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) whether he should tell Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) about his identity as a Grimm. Nick and Hank (Russell Hornsby) are later called to investigate Ryan's murder. They discover that the liquid split on his mouth serves as a spider venom and is his cause of death.

Lena later seduces another man in a restaurant and then kills him in the same way as Ryan. Nick visits the address of the people who were stalking his house. He finds the owner, John Oblinger (Kyle Vahan), revealed to be a Eisbiber and discovers Bud (Danny Bruno), the man who was fixing his fridge. He then threatens them if they ever stalk him again.

With help from a friend of Monroe, Charlotte (Dalene Young), Nick discovers that the killer is a Spinnetod, Black widows of the creature world. Charlotte is a Spinnetod, she's 26 years old but she appears older physically. She states that to revert the curse, the Spinnetod has to kill 3 people every 5 years. Lena gives a watch she retrieved from Showalter to her husband but it's revealed to the police by the daughter and his husband is taken to the police station.

Nick discovers that the missing finger matches Lena's DNA and along with Hank and the police officers, raid her house. She already left in a boat to kill her third and final victim. Nick arrives there and is attacked by Lena, but she gets caught in a neat and is detained. Nick takes her daughter to live with her grandmother and discovers the daughter is also a Spinnetod and begins to think that maybe she'll do the same actions her mother did. Meanwhile, on her cell, Lena is beginning to age rapidly.

Reception

Viewers

The episode was viewed by 5.30 million people, earning a 1.6/5 in the 18-49 rating demographics on the Nielson ratings scale, marking a 10% increase in viewership.^[1] This means that 1.6 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode, while 5 percent of all households watching television at that time watched it.

Critical reviews

"Tarantella" received positive reviews. The A.V. Club's Kevin McFarland gave the episode a "B" grade and wrote, "Well, so much for consistency. I knew Grimm would take a bit of a dive after a series-best episode last week, and I knew better than to expect some forward development on the plot, but shows like this tend to operate on the assumption that after a handful of standalone plots, somewhere in the episode order is a very serialized one that moves the story along. Right now Grimm doesn't do that, and even a pretty cool case-of-the-week didn't abate my questions this week."^[2]

Nick McHatton from TV Fanatic, gave a 4.4 star rating out of 5, stating: "Overall, 'Tarantella' won't go down as the best episode of Grimm this season, but there was enough here to keep me entertained for the hour. I just hope Juliette and Eddie come back with bigger stories again next week."^[3]

References