Last night’s episode of Grimm was about magic coins that turn you into Hitler. It was stupid. I enjoyed it.

I fully and completely recognize that it was bad. The dialogue in particular was groan-worthy. However, the episode moved along at a fairly good pace and managed to be mostly unboring. As a piece of mindless entertainment that you can download into your head to distract yourself from life, it more or less succeeded.

The MacGuffin of the show was three coins which granted fortune and power upon whoever owned them (for some reason). The coins were apparently minted in ancient Greece and then owned by Claudius, Nero, Caligula, the Han dynasts, and, it turns out, HITLER. The last shot of the show was Nick watching an old film of a Hitler speech, and then seeing Der Fuhrer sprout additional fur and dentition. Um, is that okay? Is using Hitler in such a cavalier manner acceptable?

The episode centered around various interested parties trying to obtain the aforementioned coins. In each case, the coins made them both powerful, and kind of stupid. Two thieves (a Spanish fur-beastie and a hawkman) both tried to get the coins, because once you get them you never want to give them up. Hank holds them, and turns into an amped-up hypercop. Captain Renard gets them, and proceeds to aggressively stare at himself shirtless in a mirror. He also dreams that he’s Caesar or something. (Come to think of it, these coins are a lot like cocaine...) The only one who can resist their power is Nick, because the plot demanded such. At the end of the episode, Nick gets the coins, hides them in his trailer, and then Hitler.

Exclamatory highlights after the jump!

And it says here that Moctezuma was a vampire. Huh.
  • "And it says here that Moctezuma was a vampire. Huh."

Old Town! Grimm seems pretty well set up in Old Town, and a jewelry store early in the episode i another of their fictitious storefronts in the neighborhood.

Local product placement! Grand Central and Hotel de Luxe both flashed the camera with their logos in this episode.

Terrible dialogue! Grimm's dialogue has not exactly been sterling, but last night's was particularly bad. The best example was probably Nick saying of a guy fleeing from a bloody crime scene: “We got a crime scene here, he’s gone, let him go.” Um, I’m pretty sure real cops don’t ever say that, Grimm.

Wu is back! For about five seconds. I like him- kind of wish he was a real character.

Not enough Monroe! He had one scene. What the hell, Grimm?

Juliet did something useful! Nick asked for some info, and she found it. Good job, Grimm! Keep it up with that. Um, maybe you can give her some actual depth next episode?

Aunt Marie knocked boots with Hawkman! Nick finds out that one of the thieves in the episode, the hawkman, used to be engaged to his Aunt Marie. After learning that the woman who raised him did the mommy-daddy dance with a giant avian, Nick's reaction is typically non-emotive.

Nick finds out who killed his parents! In a wholly unnecessary plot twist, Nick finds out that his parents were actually killed by the not-Hawkman thief who was looking for the coins. This supposedly important bit of information will most likely never be mentioned again in future episodes.

But let’s get back to the real issue here: Fanged-out beastie Hitler. Is it possibly offensive to take probably the greatest human tragedy of the twentieth century and chalk it up to a wolf-dude with some magic coins? Does that cheapen the historical lessons of Hitler and the Holocaust? Is it okay to use that as a plot point in a dumb show about fairy tales? WHAT DO YOU THINK, BLOGTOWN? Spew forth your comments below.

The next episode airs on March 9th, and presumably we’ll learn that Mao was actually a lizard-person.