Grimm (TV)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Nick Burkhardt

Played by: David Giuntoli

  • Back-to-Back Badasses: With Monroe in "Last Grimm Standing".
  • Badass
  • Badass Boast: "Next time, send your best."
  • Blue Eyes: Grey-blue.
  • The Chosen One: At least of his family. There are other Grimms active in the world.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Somewhere around the episode "Organ Grinders" he starts to get into this territory, doing things like using his reputation as a Grimm to terrify several Wesen into giving him the information he needs. But never overstepping what a good police officer could do without being reprimanded, which is probably his real standard for behavior.
  • Hot-Blooded: To an extent; In "Last Grimm Standing", after knocking out Dimitri, he shouts "Bring it on!" to the Lowen as they and the audience surround the cage to attack.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Subverted, he's been known to use maces, clubs and crossbows in addition to his gun but has yet to use a sword. Perhaps justified since crossbows are like guns and maces and clubs would be like a baton or night stick. Bladed weapons aren't used by police.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: His immediate reaction to learning of his inheritance is to ask how he can stop it.
  • Last of His Kind: Subverted. He's just the last of his family but there are other Grimms.
    • Subverted even further, as we learn that his mom is still alive.
  • Naive Newcomer: To the supernatural. At the start of the pilot episode, he's just started coming into his heritage and is only passingly familiar with the fairy tales.
  • Nerves of Steel: Has yet to seriously loose his cool and is basically never flustered or indecisive.
  • Nice Guy: Especially compared to some other Grimms. Even after knowing Nick for a while, Monroe still seems more surprised by Nick's relative even hand than the deeds of Nick's ancestors.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: The first fifteen minutes of "Last Grimm Standing" exhibit him and Griffin showing off their tracking skills, probably something police detectives have to brush up on in the pacific north west.
  • Super Strength: Its revealed in "Last Grimm Standing" that Grimms possess superior strength than that of a normal human, allowing them to go toe-to-toe with Wesen if needs be.
  • True Sight: As a Grimm, he can see through the illusion hiding monsters' true forms.
  • The Watson: Has to have a lot of stuff about wesen explained to him, but he’s slowly catching on. By around "Cat and Mouse", it's implied he's been studying and reading heavily about wesen society and history to where he can carry light casual wesen-related conversations with Monroe and Rosalee.
  • Weirdness Magnet: what a coincidence that the one guy who can see wesen gets so many wesen cases.
  • You Have to Believe Me: For the most part, Averted--Nick is well aware that most people not already aware of Grimms and Wesen would probably think he was insane if he tried to tell them, so he instead lies about or feigns ignorance of the supernatural side of things. When he does have to tell Juliette, he plays this trope straight, taking her to the trailer full of books and weapons and then trying to tell her far too much too fast, so that in his eagerness to open up to her, he comes across as a babbling loon. Understandably, she thinks he needs professional help.

Hank Griffin

Played by: Russell Hornsby

  • Badass Normal
  • Black Best Friend
  • Break the Badass / Go Mad from the Revelation: After the events in "Big Feet", Hank is clearly starting to go off the deep end with paranoia.
  • Cowboy Cop: In "Game Ogre". It also extends further into his history as the ogre of the episode went after Hank because Hank 'lost' evidence in order to convict said ogre. Granted, the ogre was still a bad guy but...
    • Also, the evidence he lost had actually been placed by the ogre as a false trail.
  • Dating Catwoman: Had a drink with Adalind in one episode. As it turns out, this has been developed offscreen and Hank, being the gentleman he is, declines because he wouldn't want to take advantage of the situation (i.e. he saved her life). Then again, the encounter with Adalind wasn't a coincidence and so Renard and Adalind take steps towards forcing the issue, prompting Adalind to sneak him a mind-controlling love potion.
  • Love Makes You Dumb: In his defence, he was mind-controlled into falling in obsessive love with Adalind, but he got to the point where he was starting to screw up relatively simple investigations because he was thinking about her.
  • Muggle Best Friend
  • Weirdness Censor: He generally accepts that there must be a mundane explanation despite things like suspects' fingers growing back, but he's still noticing how there are more and more strange cases popping up in Portland.
    • As of "Big Feet," Hank's censor has been badly damaged after seeing Monroe with his Game Face on, and even more after watching a Wildermann go from game face to human as he dies.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He does not like rats.

Eddie Monroe

Played by: Silas Weir Mitchell

  • Adorkable: Watch him decorating for Christmas and geeking out over the historical value of the Trailer and tell me it's not true.
    • Heck, watching him (a blutbad or wolf) giving flowers to Rosalee (a fuschbau or fox) is this as well.
  • Always Save the Girl: Almost goes into this territory in "Cat and Mouse" when Rosalee is in danger. They're not even dating, god help everyone should we see this guy in full blown love.
  • The Atoner: He has done some very "Big Bad Wolf" things in his past and isn't proud of them now and seeks to be a better man than he was.
  • Badass Beard
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: With Nick in "Last Grimm Standing"
  • Berserk Button: Do not harm his friends. It takes a lot for him to not go for your throat.
  • Beta Couple: With Rosalee. Inverted in that, whereas the beta couple is usually an already established couple to contrast with a new alpha couple, Rosalee and Eddie just met whereas Nick and Juliette have been together for years and he's ready to propose.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: His high-school girlfriend, Molly, left him for a Klaustreich, who got her pregnant and then slashed her face when she told her parents who the father was. Monroe admits that the police never caught the guy... but someone did.
  • Big Badass Wolf
  • Brown Eyes
  • Captain Obvious: "What's my favorite color?" It's red. Duh.
  • Cultured Badass: Among other things, he speaks German, fixes clocks, plays the cello, collects stamps, is knowledgeable about antique cameras, and is a highly proficient chef who makes his own sausages, appreciates fine wine, and such. He's also capable of ripping your arm off and chasing down a wild animals on foot.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Every Man Has His Price: Before his Neutral No Longer moment, he sometimes had to be bought to help Nick. For tracking a scent, he willingly accepted a '78 Bordeaux.
  • Last-Name Basis: Monroe calls Nick "Nick" as does everyone else, save those identifying him as "Detective Burkhardt," but practically everyone calls Eddie by his last name of Monroe.
  • Mr. Exposition: To Nick. "What am I, your personal Grimmopedia?"
  • Neutral No Longer: After his beating in "Of Mouse and Man" Monroe is no longer reluctant in helping Nick with his cases despite it conflicting with the status quo. As he says, "I'm not much of a status quo guy anyway."
  • The Nose Knows: He has a supernaturally strong sense of smell.
  • Retired Monster/Vegetarian Werewolf: Thanks to a "strict regimen of diet, drugs and pilates", he is less Big Bad Wolf and more ordinary suburban guy who just happens to mark his territory in his yard.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Apparently another cat-wesen stole his high school girlfriend only to knock her up and cut her face when she dumped him. The cops never found the guy, but "someone did."
  • Submissive Badass: He tries to avoid physical conflict as best he can. That doesn't take away the fact that he is strong enough to tear your arm clean off.
  • Totally Radical: Despite his status as a cultured badass, he proves to be a borderline example of this at times.
  • Wolf Man

Juliette Silverton

Played by: Bitsy Tulloch

  • Badass Normal: Starting to show signs of this (taking on the ogre, being clear-headed enough to take down the details of the car that was watching the house, not letting Nick treat her like a Damsel in Distress, etc).
  • Action Survivor: She got her moment of this in "Game Ogre."
  • Badass Damsel: Proves her self to be one in "Plumed Serpent"
  • Combat Pragmatist: Ogre, meet boiling pot of water.
  • Re-Establishing Character Moment: After half a season of acting like a somewhat bland Shallow Love Interest, she pulls off an undisputed Crowning Moment of Awesome in "Game Ogre" giving a new view of her character and redeeming her in the eyes of many viewers.
  • Friend to All Living Things: She's a vet.
  • Heroes Want Redheads
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: “Island Of Dreams” is said to be the first time she’s ever shot a gun, and yet she dead eye’s it at first shot, then just to prove that wasn't a fluke, gets a perfect grouping around that first shot.
  • Kindly Vet : Her occupation, and she is in fact a friendly person (when she's not being threatened).
  • Lady in Red: Not conspicuously so, but she wears red fairly often. Also, she wears a red dress in Nick's dream sequence in the pilot, which is meaningful because red attracts blutbaden.
  • Meaningful Name: Nick's Love Interest, whom he has been told he must leave for her own safety, is named a variation on "Juliet". Subtle.
  • Shallow Love Interest: Seems to be getting a bit of depth as the season progresses (after her encounter with the Ogre, she starts getting more solo screentime and is quite proactive in trying to figure out who's stalking her and Nick).
    • As of "Plumed Serpent" this troper would like to officially declare this a subversion or aversion.
  • Women Are Wiser: Subverted. Juliette's most obvious character trait is how calm, rational and well-adjusted she is... but for the most part Nick is the same way. This makes Nick and Juliette potentially the most stable and non-dramatic relationship on television.

Aunt Marie

Captain Sean Renard

Played by: Sasha Roiz

  • Affably Evil: Despite the fact that Woosley has a gun to his head, Renard is quite cordial with him. This is one of several examples of him being a stern but fair figure.
  • A Father to His Men: His actions so far show that he genuinely cares for the well being of his men, Nick particularly. This last fact has made him no friends among the creature organization he belongs to.
    • On the other hand, he has no problem having Adalind drug Hank to get closer to Nick. And in the same note, when she is Brought Down to Normal, he has no compulsion to provide her with protection any more since she's of no use to him. So it may be that he's more motivated by pragmatism than any actual sense of compassion.
  • Ambiguously Evil: Seemed like a clear-cut Big Bad at first, but his actual role is becoming more ambiguous as time goes on.
  • Badass: The scene with the Grimm Reaper alone sums that up.
  • The Captain
  • The Cast Showoff / Bilingual Bonus: Speaks fluent French in one episode (Sasha Roiz is from Montreal and has Russian background and is trilingual, speaking English, French and Russian). Renard also is familiar with Latin.
  • Da Chief
  • Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Pretty much every side we've seen of the greater conflict seems to think Renard is on their side.
  • Ear Ache: Slices off a Grimm Reaper's ear.
  • Evil Counterpart: It hasn't been explicitly pointed out but his skills, methods and to a certain extent his personality are very similar to Nick's. Both are smart and pragmatic and never lose their cool. Both have an inherent ability that gives them status and that they use to intimidate and give themselves gravitas. Both are willing to use their status as cops to divert investigations when it suits them and both prefer to play the various Wesen sides off against each other in order to further their own goals. Just look at how Renard deals with his relatives compared to how Nick handles the two Grimm reapers.
  • Evil Is Cool
  • The Good Captain: Averted. Or is it?
  • Green Eyes: Grey-green.
  • Impoverished Patrician / Self-Made Man: Implies that his family has lost most of its wealth and prestige since the French Revolution. Seems to be doing pretty well for himself, indicating that he's rebuilt his fortune and power base from the ground up.
  • The Man Behind the Man: To a whole lot of the crap that goes on in town, not least of all the local Hexenbiests and Grimm Reapers.
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • Meaningful Name: French for "fox".
  • The Mole: He's in league with the group that tried to assassinate Aunt Marie. In fact, he's the leader in Portland.
  • Mole in Charge: He's Nick's boss.
  • Omniglot: Speaks and reads at the very least French, German and Latin.
  • Pet the Dog: He demonstrates great disdain for the human organ harvesting operation in "Organ Grinder" even though it's a creature thing. It would suggest that he has an important distinction between creature business (wolves and pigs, bees and hexenbiests, creature versus humans of ill-repute) and creature business that gets innocents involved. For instance, he gets pretty upset when a lowen running an underground wesen blood sport starts picking up (ie kidnapping) wesen that aren't on an approved list of criminals and convicts - so much so that when the lowen doesn't back down (stop the fights), Renard brings down God's Wrath and has the lowen killed.
  • Pragmatic Villainy
  • Pride: The episode with the coins indicates that this is a major flaw of his.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Generally is one in all matters not involving the Grimms or "fantasy" beings. On the latter matters, it is far less clear.
  • Royal Blood: He is referenced to have some royal line through him when another Wesen calls him "Your Highness" and refers to the old days.
    • Has now mentioned that his family "lost a lot of heads" in the French revolution.
  • The Starscream: He seems to be a member of one of the "Seven Royal Families", which would associate him with the Verrat, but when a higher-ranking family member comes to Portland to demand results, Renard simply shoots him, and he is extremely passive aggressive towards a Verrat agent who demands assistance.
  • Tranquil Fury
  • Warrior Prince

Sgt. Wu

Nick: Can you see who he texted?
Wu: Of course I can; I'm Asian.

  • Body Horror: He suffers from this HARD in “Island Of Dreams” thanks to eating an evil witch cookie not meant for him. Unlike other examples of this where the victim is cured, Hollywood Healing is not in play. Not only does he have to sleep off the trauma, but he also has a mess of open sores on his face from it. And for the next two episodes he is eating anything he gets his hands on, from his carpet, couch foam, to paperclips and chap-stick.
  • Butt Monkey
  • Came Back Wrong: He survives his poisoning but develops supernatural Extreme Omnivore tendencies. He eats the foam padding out of his couch, then some paperclips, and then more inedible items, but he never remembers any of it despite being wide awake and even holding a conversation.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Extreme Omnivore: as a side effect of eating the witch cookie, he's developed a nasty case of pica. this eventually lands him in the hospital
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: At the end of Danse Macabre:

Sgt. Wu: I guess he just had to face the music
Hank: Really? You went there?
Sgt. Wu: Somebody had to.

  • Reality Ensues: Inadvertent supernatural compulsion or no, eating inedible objects will land you in the hospital.
  • Squick: First the boils on his face, then Eating His Carpet. And then he eats everything else he gets his hands on, from chap-stick to loose change.

Adalind Schade

Played by: Claire Coffee

  • Amoral Attorney: Along with a number of other Hexenbiests.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing
  • Blondes Are Evil
  • Blood Magic: One of her species' powers.
  • Break the Haughty: She "dies" as a Hexenbiest, losing her powers, and when she tearfully tells her mother how it happened, her mother slaps her across the face. Then Renard, for whom she did it all, also rejects her now that she is "just another pretty girl" and less useful than the Grimm who made her lose her powers.
  • Brought Down to Normal: After taking in Nick's blood, she loses her Wesen powers.
  • The Dark Chick
  • The Dragon: To Captain Renard.
    • Seems like this at first but is really just The Dark Chick. Her mother is Renard's actual dragon.
  • Defiled Forever: After Adalind lost her Hexenbiest powers when Nick tainted her with his blood, Captain Renard views her like this.
  • Eyeless Face
  • Hello, Attorney!: As is usual for a Hexenbiest, her human form is very attractive. Her true form, not so much.
  • Idiot Ball: Adalind knew just as well as any Hexenbiest that drinking a Grimm's blood would remove her powers. She's still directly responsible for it happening.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Lace some cookies with your blood to give to Hank to make him obsessed about you? Once Nick got through with you, he makes you ingest his blood and your Hexenbiest half dies.
  • Love Martyr: To Renard.
  • Meaningful Name: "Schade" means 'it's a pity'. Schaden is German for loss, harm, or misfortune; derives from Middle High German Schade. In a double play, her name is pronounced like "Shade" on the show. The pity part comes into another meaning when she's loses her power and is kicked to the curb by Renard.
  • Save the Villain: Played with. Nick is bound by being a police officer to protect her. As a Grimm, he would like to see her die for trying to kill Marie.
  • Smug Snake:

Adalind: How did he know?
Renard: Because he's smarter than you.

Rosalee Calvert

Played by: Bree Turner A fuchsbau who first appears in "Island of Dreams" after her brother Freddy is killed, and takes over his apothecary. She ends up helping save Sgt. Wu's life after he eats special cookies intended to make Hank fall in love with Adalind. Rosalee and Monroe are obviously developing a romantic relationship, albeit quietly.

  • Badass Damsel: When her brother's murderers return to get their score not only was she able to injure one of them but she was also able to lock them up in the apothecary before running away. Likewise, in "Cat and Mouse" when she's grabbed from behind, she elbows her attacker and throws him to the ground to buy time to run to safety.
  • Broken Bird: Her melancholy demenor seems to be reflective of this.
  • Brown Eyes: Of the mysterious, sensual variety.
  • Cute Monster Girl:When she goes Wesen she looks more like a plushie than a monster.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: She is rehabilitated from seven years of being addicted to the drug "J".
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Did not crack much of a smile until Monroe gave her some flowers.
  • Dynamic Entry: She saves Monroe this way with help of a brick.
  • Emotionless Girl: That reserved nature of hers can be misleading.
  • Girl Next Door
  • Kuudere
  • The Medic: She's handy with the supplies in the apothecary and knows what to do when someone passes out from hexenbeast magic gone wrong. In a later episode, she ends up helping with more medical related wesen emergencies.
  • MsExposition.
  • Nerves of Steel
  • Shut UP, Hannibal: In "Cat and Mouse", the Verrat assassin gives her a speech about why he's necessary, and there's no such thing as revolution and the oppressed always become the oppressors. Then he says she didn't understand anything he was saying.

Rosalee: I wasn't listening.

  • The Smart Guy: To Nick's Hero and Monroe's Lancer.
  • The Strategist: Showed snippets of being this. She requested Monroe watch over her instead of a couple of police officers under the pretext that she would have more in common with him. The reality was that she knew the men who had attacked her earlier were Skalengecks. Not only would Monroe be more physically capable of taking them on but as an added measure of caution, due to his excellent sense of smell he would be able to detect them from at most, a mile away.
  • The Stoic
  • When She Smiles

Bud The Refrigerator Repairman

A hapless eisbiber who was fixing Nick's fridge when he found out that Nick was a Grimm. Subsequently, he's been a source of comic relief (for us, the viewers) and frustration in Nick's life. The latter because he's hilariously misinterpreting the situation and the former because he shows up at very awkward times trying to be very, very nice so that Nick doesn't kill him (or so he thinks).

  • Incredibly Lame Visual Pun: he and his family are all big fans of Oregon State University's football team
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: When his fellow eisbibers choose to not have one of their own testify against a man who's not only murdered another eisbiber but has been extorting the entire community for years, he admits that for the first time he was ashamed to be part of a race that is so cowardly in nature. Nick admits that Bud himself was very brave to continuously help Nick out with small favours even though for all he knew Nick planned on killing him.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: How plucky he is can be up for debate, but so far his only major impact on the show has been comic relief, and he is rather persistent in his bugging Nick

Freddy Calvert

A fuschbau that first appears in "Organ Grinder". He runs an apothecary. Unlike many, there's the stuff up front for the humans and then there's the stuff in the back for the wesen. He reappears in "Island of Dreams" only to get killed by two drug-addicted Skalengecks.

  • Back for the Dead: Was first introduced in “Organ Grinder”. When we see him again in “Island of Dreams” His first and only scene (Not counting flashback) is the one where he’s killed
  • Dark and Troubled Past: After his death, Rosalee and Munroe find an envelope of fake passports with his face on them.
    • And was apparently part of the resistance
  • La Résistance: He helps those Wesen trying to escape the Old World by providing means to fake documents.
  • Underground Railroad: He is the last stop for runaway Wesen.

Ariel

A daemonfeuer who appears in "Plumed Serpent". She loves her father such that she would rather have him die in combat versus homeless and in bed. To this end, she lures Nick into a fight with him before faking her own death. Though she has yet to show up again, the episode strongly suggests she will, and the creators have confirmed that she's planned to return in Season 2.

Farley Kolt

A steinadler who was once engaged to Marie Kessler. He shows up in "Three Coins in a Fuchsbau" seeking the titular coins. Given the reveal of his ties to Marie and by proxy, Nick, it seems only a matter of time before he reappears.

  • Ambiguously Evil/ Ambiguously Good: It’s hard to tell which side of the fence this guy is really on
  • Bus Crash: Possibly. In the season 1 finale, it is revealed that Akira Kimura tracked Kolt to Los Angeles and tortured him for 3 days in an unsuccessful attempt to find the coins. While his fate is left unknown, it seems unlikely that he would have been left alive.
  • Capulet Counterpart: If we can take his word for it, then He and Aunt Marie were engaged at one point
  • Unreliable Narrator: There’s very good reason to think that he’s on the level about the things he tells Nick. But then all that gets thrown in doubt when it comes out he wanted the coins for himself all along
    • Though we can now at least be reasonably sure that he wasn't directly involved in the deaths of Nick's parents.

Officer Franco

A beat cop that usually helps Nick and Hank at crime scenes, filling in for when Sgt. Wu isn't around.

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