La Llorona (Grimm)

"La Llorona" is the 31st episode of the Supernatural drama television series Grimm and ninth episode of season 2, which premiered on October 26, 2012, on the cable network NBC. The episode was written by Akela Cooper, and was directed by Holly Dale.

The episode was broadcast on NBC as a Halloween special. In this episode Nick and Hank investigate a case that holds a striking resemblance to a Hispanic legend: La Llorona. With the help of a New Mexico detective, Nick and Hank will face with chain of kidnapping in a supernatural way. Elsewhere Monroe is driven by his likes for Halloween.

Plot

In full eve of Halloween in Portland, Luis Alvarez is spending time with his son Rafael, but the man is distracted when he goes out in the help of a mysterious crying woman in white who tries to plunge in a river, apparently trying to kill herself. The moment Luis plunge in the river, he can't find the woman and sees terrified as she goes away from afar with Rafael as he watches this helpless. A desperate Luis enlists the help of the police, but his inability to speak English only delay the case. When Nick and Hank are called to attend the case, he calls Juliette to intervene as a translator, given that she can speak Spanish fluently.

Thanks to the translation of Juliette, Nick and Hank come to the home of Luis where they look for evidence of any possible suspect. Luis' neighbor Pilar talks with Juliette claiming that she knows who is the kidnapper, and proceeds to explain that it is "La Llorona", (The Weeping Woman) a woman who according to several Hispanic legends, is a ghost who takes children to drown them in a river. Shortly after the withdrawal of the police, Pilar approaches Juliette and warns her that her cat scratch is a sign that someone cursed her.

In Albuquerque, a Wesen like-jaguar, is alerted from a new kidnapping and decides to go immediately to the city where it happened: Portland, Oregon. Back in Portland, in the city precinct, the same Wesen, who is presented with the name Valentina Espinoza as a Alburquerque detective, who has extensive experience and dealing with the case, warns Captain Renard that shortly there will be a second and third child abduction.

Shortly afterwards in another river of Portland, a girl is kidnapped by La Llorona, who takes her to her lair with Rafael. Upon learning of the second kidnapping, Nick and Hank begin to trust Valentina, but Captain Renard appears and orders them to place Valentina under custody, given that she was fired from his job for her obsession with the Woman. Nick prevents Valentina attack the captain, knowing that she is a wesen and later the detectives interrogate her to find out if she is involved, but Valentina warns them that there will be a third abduction and claim she is behind the woman because she was responsible of the death of her niece, refusing to believe that the criminal is a ghost.

Nick is interested in checking the authenticity of the kidnapper, but when he investigates in Aunt Marie trailer with Hank, they discover that neither Nick's ancestors were able to determine who was La Llorona. Given the inability to prove that Valentina is right, without really knowing what are facing and preceded the appearance of the third kidnapping. Nick and Hank free Valentina and with her spanish translations, all three determine La Llorona drowns the taken children at a point where the rivers connect called "abrazo del río" (river's embrace).

In the nearby river's of La Llorona lair, she prepares to drown the children, in order to bring her children back from the death. The process is interrupted by the appearance of Nick, Hank and Valentina. Nick and La Llorona have a fight on the river bottom where the Grimm is terribly afraid to contemplate his rival disappear before his eyes. Back in the precinct, Nick reunites the children with their parents and despite the discontent of Captain Renard with the actions of their detectives, he forgives them.

Elsewhere in Portland an excited Monroe, celebrates Halloween with emotion, as he decorate his house with several Halloween stuff. During the course of the day, Monroe prevents some bullies from theft candies from a little girl. This infuriate the children, and they get even with Monroe by breaking his window with a decoration, built with Nick's medieval weapon. Monroe tricks them, frightening them with his vowe.

Production

The episode's title is misspelled in other pages as "La Lloranna" due to a typo.^[1]

Bitsie Tulloch spoke in spanish in many scenes, since she is Spanish fluently.^[2] Mexican actress Kate del Castillo guest star in the episode along other latin americans actors.^[3]

Silas Weir Mitchell had little involvement in the episode, because he had a guest star appareance on the reality show Face off. He also praised the crew creative team.^[4] Bitsie Tulloch notice the great reception that the fans had peared the plot of the episode before its release.^[5]

Reception

Ratings

The episode received a 2.06 18–49 ratings share and was watched by 6.11 million viewers, a marked increase from the previous episode.^[6] The episode premiered along the cancelled show: Mockingbird Lane.^[7]

Critical reception

The episode was met with mixed to positive reviews.

Emily Rome of Entertainment Weekly gave it a mixed review since she was surprised by the elements in the episode: "Well, lo and behold, Grimm delivered a compelling case-of-the-week in tonight's episode, though it may have not been compelling for the reasons we were hoping for (more on that later)."^[8]

Kevin McnFarland of The A.V. Club rated the episode a B+, stating, "This is an example of how to use a popular folktale well; this is the model for episodic storytelling in a supernatural setting. A “Very Special Episode” of Grimm around Halloween is basically a must because of the show’s premise. It features streamlined and functional investigation from Nick and Hank, an intriguing guest star in Valentina, the bluish cat Wesen and disgraced detective obsessed with the La Llorona abductions, and even blends in a useful and compelling Juliette storyline to boot."^[9]

References

External links

• "La Llorona" at the Internet Movie Database
• "La Llorona" at TV Guide.com