Fans of NBC’s Grimm have come across a host of frightful, other-worldly creatures over the past few seasons. “The Good Soldier” introduced us to some humans who were just as horrific. The episode opened with a woman mutilating herself while sitting in her car; she then ran up on a seemingly random guy in a bar, demanding that he take responsibility for what had happened to her, for whatever had driven her to cut herself. The man, sergeant Ron Hurd, tried to shoo the woman away as she blotted her bloody arm with a napkin, but when he didn’t succeed, he high-tailed it out of there. In this way, the episode seemed to be headed for a “woman scorned” type of storyline, which made it all the more exciting when it took a slightly different route.
As soon as Hurd makes it home, he places a telling phone call to an alliance about his encounter with the woman from the bar. Frankie was clearly someone from his past whom he had no desire to meet with again. She shows up anyway and fights with Nick for a second time, promising him that he will never be rid of her. Nick becomes livid and both actors (Kirk Acevedo and Emily Rios) deliver strong performances, as they look about to rip each other’s heads off in this scene. Nick goes inside his house to get a gun, but returns to a quiet street and assumes he has scared her off. What a shock to him (and to us) when a gigantic, pointed, god-knows-what comes out of nowhere and drives itself straight into his chest.
As Nick and Hank are called in to investigate, Rosalee and Monroe prepare to deal with some pretty heavy stuff as well. After seven years of silence between them, Rosalee’s mother has finally reached out to her and invited her for a visit. The two begin to plan what will surely be an awkward trip home for Rosalee, especially as it marks the anniversary of her father’s death.
When Nick and Hank get to sleuthing they realize that medals have been taken from the victim’s home. The so-called war hero was, apparently, one of a group of men that Frankie was harassing. The detectives end up at McCabe Security, a company run by a military man who was in Iraq with the victim. Although he claims to have no knowledge of Frankie, it is pretty clear that he is hiding something. Sure enough, they figure out that the men Frankie is targeting had gang-raped her and gotten away with it, having been given a certain immunity as contractors during the war. While this made for a compelling storyline, very little was said about the actual rape. Too much detail and the episode would have, perhaps, been a little too Law and Order: SVU, but since everything traces back to this act, you’d think more would have been said. Frankie’s character is, however, well-developed as a victim; she is full of both rage and sorrow. The napkin she’d used to blot her arm (later retrieved by Nick and Hank), showed a bloody pattern that read 11 11 10, the date of her attack.