Pilot

**Written by** | **Teleplay by:**
* David Greenwalt
* Jim Kouf

**Story by:**
* David Greenwalt
* Jim Kouf

**"Pilot"** is the first episode of Season 1, the first episode overall, and the series premiere of *Grimm*. It first aired on October 28, 2011 on NBC.

## Synopsis

A young woman wearing a red sweatshirt goes for a jog through the woods. While running, she notices a figurine sitting on a log. As she stops to pick it up, she is suddenly knocked to the ground. Screams are heard, which gradually diminish to whimpers of pain, along with some sort of animal noises. Her mp3 player is lying on the ground.

Nick Burkhardt intends to propose to Juliette Silverton. He purchases a ring. As he leaves the jewelry store he sees a young woman who momentarily takes on the appearance of a hag. Upon arriving at the station with his partner, Hank Griffin, he sees an angry perpetrator being processed by another detective. The perpetrator briefly takes on a monstrous visage and snarls at Nick. Distracted, Nick collides with Sergeant Wu. While Nick is still at the station, a bald woman drives down a street in a sport utility vehicle towing a camp trailer; she pulls onto a residential lot and walks to the house.

Nick and Hank are called to the scene of the crime in the woods where the young woman was killed. The horrific remains of the woman are shown to Nick and Hank as they examine the scene. They realize that the scene looks very similar to that of a supposed bobcat attack in a nearby town the month before. However, the only tracks they find at this new crime scene are from a shoe.

    Nick arrives home and finds the bald woman, who turns out to be his Aunt Marie, talking to Juliette. Marie tells Nick that they have to talk. They have a conversation while walking in the neighborhood. She tells him that she is in bad health and does not have long to live. Marie asks if Nick has been seeing unusual things. He admits that he has. She tells him that he is one of the last surviving members of the Grimm family and that the creatures about which the Brothers Grimm wrote are real. Marie senses a presence and is attacked by a beast bearing a scythe whom she identifies as Hulda. She attempts to defend herself, surprisingly spryly, with her cane and a long knife. She appears to be on the verge of being overcome when Nick shoots the beast several times. As the beast dies, it takes on human form. As Marie lies injured on the street, she gives Nick an odd-looking key, telling him to never lose it and guard it with his life. She says “they’ll” be looking for it. Before she loses consciousness, she tells him that his parents did not die in a car crash as he had been told. They were murdered. Marie is then taken to a hospital.

At the hospital, Marie tells Nick that their family has an ability to see what no one else can. She says that there are creatures disguised as humans, and that when they lose control they can't remain hidden behind their disguise, and that Marie and Nick see them for what they truly are. She tells him that fairy tales are stories of things that really happened, and that they are some of the last surviving members of the family of Grimm. Marie tells Nick to go to her trailer because all he needs to know will be revealed to him there.

At the police station, Nick is examining the weapon that the creature, Hulda, was using. On it there is writing that translates to "Reapers of the Grimms".

That night, Nick wakes from a dream and decides to go outside and look in Marie's trailer. He discovers a cabinet full of all types of odd weapons and an old book. Nick looks through the pages of the book and notices drawings of the types of creatures he has been seeing lately. When Nick goes to visit Marie the morning, he finds she has slipped into a coma.

Nick gets a call about a possible crime involving a little girl who was walking to her grandfather's house but never made it there. The last time she was seen, she was reported to have been wearing purple leggings and a red sweatshirt. Nick realizes that Sylvie who was found torn to pieces was also wearing a red sweatshirt. Nick and Hank decide to follow the route that Robin would have followed while walking to her grandfather's house to see if they'll find anything. Hank comments that when he was little, he didn't always follow the route his mother told him to, but rather take a shortcut. They find a trail through the woods that she may possibly have used as a shortcut, and follow it. Hank finds the Robin's backpack to the side of the path, and they find the same boot print that was found at Sylvie's murder scene from earlier. They follow the boot prints down the trail to a street where Nick sees a man at his mailbox, whose face changes as the looks at a couple of children that ride by on their bicycles. Nick runs down and tackles the man/creature to the ground.

Hank tells Nick that the suspect, Monroe, is clean and must be released, but Nick is still suspicious because of what he saw. That night, Juliette looks out of her window as Nick skims through several books inside his Aunt's trailer, eventually stopping on a page showing the image of the creature he saw earlier. He later tries to spy on Monroe at his house, but suddenly a large wolf-life creature jumps from Monroe's window, knocking Nick to the ground. The creature tells Nick that he should not have come back. The creature then changes back into human form as Monroe, and he laughs and tells Nick they should go grab a beer. Inside the house, Monroe seems to instinctively know that Nick is a Grimm and is very surprised to be meeting one. He says that when he was little, his parents would tell him stories about Grimms that would scare him greatly. He tells Nick that he is a creature called a "Blutbad", and that he is what the Grimms vilified in their books, as big bad wolves. Nick is surprised to hear that Monroe knows about the book Nick has. Monroe tells him that he knows that the Grimms have been profiling his kind for hundreds of years. But he says not to worry, and that he is a reformed Blutbad and does no longer kill. Nick asks Monroe if he will help him find Robin, and Monroe reluctantly agrees.

Nick and Monroe begin the hunt for Robin when Monroe picks up the scent of another Blutbad and follows it to a house in the woods. He tells Nick how best to go about hunting a Blutbad like him, providing him with wolfsbane. Then he decides to leave, since getting close to the vicinity of the other Blutbad, along with the light shining down from the full moon, was beginning to affect his psyche. Left alone to confront the Blutbad in the house, Nick calls for backup, and Hank arrives on the scene. Hank asks Nick how he got a lead on someone in this house in the woods, but Nick is unable to answer truthfully. They approach the door of the house and the owner lets them in. Nick and Hank question the man and search the home, but they find nothing that would link him to the disappearance of the little girl. Just after they leave the house, Hank realizes that the man was humming to the tune of the song that was still playing on the mp3 player of Sylvie who had been killed in the woods earlier, when they arrived. They turn around and storm the house, and are in turn attacked by the man, who Nick sees as a Blutbad and Hank sees as a normal man. Shots are eventually fired during the fighting, with the Blutbad trying to escape, but before the Blutbad can tell them where the little girl is, he dies. While continuing to search the house in desperation, Nick notices that water on the floor from a vase that fell during the fighting had run down between the floor boards and disappeared. Nick pulls up the rug and finds the handle to a hidden door, leading to the room in the basement where Robin was being kept. Robin is then rescued.

Back at the hospital, Nick is talking to the still-comatose Marie, when a woman wearing a white coat comes in to give an injection. Nick recognizes her as the female hag creature he saw while leaving the jewelry store a few days before. He jumps up to stop her from giving his aunt the injection. She plunges the needle into Nick as they are struggling and injects him with the contents. Just before he loses consciousness, he sees her face change into the hag as she makes her escape. Outside the hospital, she gets into a car, where the driver, Captain Renard, asks if Marie is dead, but she tells him that Nick was there and stopped her. The man says that they will have to try again. Inside the hospital, Marie opens her eyes.

### Press Release

INSPIRED BY THE CLASSIC GRIMM FAIRY TALES—NICK BURKHARDT'S LIFE IS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN WHEN HIS FAMILY’S LEGACY IS REVEALED—KATE BURTON GUEST STARS—After the mysterious brutal attack of a local college co-ed, Portland homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) discovered he is descendant of an elite line of criminal profilers known as “Grimms,” charged with keeping balance between humanity and the mythological creatures of the world. As he tries to hide the dangers of his new found calling from his fiancé, Juliette Silverton (Bitsie Tulloch), and his partner, Hank Griffin (Russell Hornsby), he becomes ever more entrenched in the ancient rivalries and alliances of the Grimm world. With help from his reluctant confidant, Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), a reformed Grimm creature himself, Nick must navigate through the forces of a larger-than-life mythology. Reggie Lee and Sasha Roiz also star.

## Cast

* Russell Hornsby as Hank Griffin
* Bitsie Tulloch as Juliette Silverton
* Silas Weir Mitchell as Monroe
* Sasha Roiz as Sean Renard
* Reggie Lee as Drew Wu

Recuring Cast* Claire Coffee as Adalind Schade
* Kate Burton as Marie Kessler
* Ayanna Berkshire as Dr. Rose
* Casey Vann as Cecil

Co-Stars* Joy Flatz as Sylvie Oster
* Sophia Mitri Schloss as Robin Howell
* Tierra Valentine as Sylvie's Roommate
* Burl Ross as Forest Service Officer
* Danny Hernandez as Hulda
* Julie Vhay as Robin's Mother
* Mark Lewis as Robin's Grandfather

## Wesen

* Blutbad
* Hexenbiest
* Skalengeck
* Hässlich
* Waage (illustration only)

## Production Notes

### Continuity

* Nick received his key from Aunt Marie
* Nick sees Wesen woge for the first time

### Trivia

* The opening quote is from "Little Red Riding Hood."
* A page shown while Nick is browsing bears part of the story of "The Hand with the Knife".
* The initials of the child "Robin Howell" are R.H. visible on her backpack that was found in the woods, which alludes to "Riding Hood."
* The song on Sylvie Oster's iPod is "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics.
* The opening of "Red Menace" alludes to this episode by starting with a young woman jogging through the woods in a red sweatshirt while listening to a cover of "Little Red Riding Hood" on her iPod and seemingly being chased by a hooded figure; however it was revealed when he caught up to her that it was just Nick going for a morning jog. ("Red Menace")