Grimm has always been a fun show. Hunting fairytale like monsters in this invented mythos made for a unique cop procedural show. I started watching it a few episodes into the first season (so I actually have yet to see the very start of how Nick got into the Grimm game) and was hooked right away. In fives seasons, it was mostly all good. They hit some rough patches with Nick’s girlfriend, Julia, when they had to figure out how to make her more than just the love interest for him. They led to some dragged out story arcs but they managed to pull out of it twice and gave her a more tolerable life (when it got bad, she was a real drag on the show). Season 5 had great movement and they knew season 6 would be the last so they left the right hooks in to end the show. They answered a few of the series’ longest questions and just needed to get to the landing.

With the show ending last night, I liked season 6 a lot. 13 instead of 22 episode made it tight and to the point, there was no time to mess around. They still had room to make new creatures (they came up with some good ones) and kept all of our favorite cast members engaged: Hank, Monroe, Rosalee, Adalind, Sean, Wu, Eve. Truble kept coming and going which I wasn’t a fan of.

The end of episode 12, the stakes were raised to crazy heights. Wu and Hank were killed by Zerstorer. Then the last episode and it just goes off the rails. All the set up, all the hard work and they couldn’t get to the end they wanted without leaning on the deus ex machina button.

In the finale, the body count hits the roof. Everyone is taken from Nick and it’s down to him and fellow Grimm (and distant relative), Truble in the final battle with evil. He’s devastated and wants to give up. Truble, suddenly the only Grimm with a brain in her head, says hell no. She fights him to keep mankind from being obliterated. He beats her and then suddenly, on his way to screw everyone over, his dead mother and aunt come out of nowhere. They flat out tell him some missing parts of being a Grimm, give him two sentences worth of advice and that changes his mind. They stick around to fight with Nick and Truble to win (Truble never sees Mom and Aunt, another ponderous decision). Then through some equally out of nowhere plot device, a portal appears and Nick is pulled in with the magic staff. He lands at the moment in time where he and Eve brought Zerstorer through into our dimension. Everything is reset. Zerstorer is gone but the staff came through with Nick and he’s the only one who has experienced the last two days. I’m all for a happy ending but this was a shocking implosion on the writing front. I can only imagine they had a week to write it, this whole episode is a convoluted series of events. There’s reasoning I must be missing because I’m befuddled at how this happened.

It’s just a mess and it started awhile ago with Diana. They never figured out to make her more than a creepy kid. And when they did, it was just to make her a lazy and convenient deus ex machina. Constantly they’d give what amounted to an otherwise clueless child, lines to explain things out of nowhere. “What happened?” “Oh, allow me to pull this needed information out of thin air.”

Half the team worked on a solution from the tomes of books (normal for the show) and the last ditch spell ended up doing nothing. So if you go have dead relatives show up, why not spend that time finding a seance for Nick to do? That way there’s a plausible (using the lore and fiction of the show) way for him to talk to the spirits? For most of the finale, he didn’t do anything but travel to a different location to get slapped around so that would have been time better spent. Then he wouldn’t have come into the last fight like a punk. Have Truble with him that entire way, it would have been great (and you could keep the potion they made as a last ditch effort that could have ended up helping. Everyone would have contributed).

All this time building up the staff of Moses and they didn’t explain or rationalize the ending. Ok great, it’s a magic staff, it can do wild stuff so you can work with that. But Zestorer dissolves and a time traveling portal opens out of nowhere? Nick had no clue what was happening. He just didn’t want to let go of the staff because he wanted to bring everyone back to life. Going through was an accident. Why didn’t they make him more of a leader and hero instead of Eeyore for the last episode?

1) Make that last fight more significant (most likely a time and money issue) as it lasted all of 15 seconds. This one is a problem with a lot of shows (Legion). 2) Since the staff is so powerful, make it speak to Nick somehow. Something to give Nick direction and purpose. Voice over on the cheap, ancient Grimm ghost if there’s a budget for it. Have the power of this object, something Grimm’s had a hand in, empower him. His blood means a lot right? Use this power for good (which fits considering he keeps it in the epilogue).

I’d be way happier (and it makes more sense) with Nick and Truble physically going around to restore everyone instead of some goofy time travel nonsense. If you want to bring it to a happy storybook end and ditch the bold and meaningful events of killing characters, at least make sensible and satisfying decisions to get there.

With how well thought out the show is, the finale surprised me for all the wrong reasons. They could use pretty much all of their main beats if they just thought it through better. While I’m bummed at what they did for the end it doesn’t ruin the show for me.  I think it’s totally a show worth exploring and the epilogue offers the potential of a future. Given some time, I’d tag along on new quests with Kelly and Diana with old characters still around.

Season 3 of Sleepy Hollow had a dramatic end with the death of a major character. With half of the core protagonists gone there was some trepidation of the show continuing.

I give a lot of credit to the show runners and writers to finding a new road for the show without Abby Mills. They still had more story to go and I think they found a smart way of telling the rest. Maintain what people liked about the show and mix in new characters to keep it going. Continue the threads for fans and keep it accessible for newcomers. It can be hard to do both but I think they largely succeeded.

Jenny Mills was the only character to come through with Ichabod. They moved out of Sleepy Hollow to D.C. and introduced three new characters. Diana essentially filled the law enforcement shoes of Abby and Jake and Alex came in as the support team.

We got to see quite a few monsters and demons. Ran around for clues and artifacts and a new big bad (Malcolm Dreyfus) anchored it all together. I liked the new cast, the show remained fun and at a truncated 13 episodes there was essentially no filler. They made the best of the time they had. Seeing the Four Horseman of the Apocolypse finally come together was neat and while there were some convenient deals made in the finale I liked the end too. It serves as both a season and series finale which is a good accomplishment.

I’m glad I stuck with the show and came away largely satisfied. If this is the end, it goes out on what I consider a strong note and if it gets picked up for more, I’ll be there to check it out.