Note: Apologies for a late post today. It would appear our neighborhood internet was fried in the heat but we are back online now, just in time to turn back into a pumpkin.So NBC's Grimm just used a quote from The Robber Bridegroom (actually, it's from the song within the story) in their season finale last night (Friday, May 16, 2014) and they did a great job of making the themes of this fairy tale echo through the multiple story lines, including, of course, the long-anticipated wedding, though, thankfully, not in too obvious a manner.
If you know the tale, you'll appreciate the way the twists happen in Grimm's season 3 finale. It's wonderfully layered (right down to one of the characters being a female fox-like creature, echoing, of course, the related tale of Mr. Fox*) and it makes for a terrible mess for the characters, of course. (No spoilers - you will have to watch it yourself.)
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| Season 3 Episode 22 (finale) "Blond Ambition". The quote is from The Robber Bridegroom. |
The writers for Grimm are clearly people who do their research into the old tales (they said this when the show was launching and over time I've come to believe that it wasn't just a marketing point but actually true). Although they're not trying to retell any one story anymore (thankfully, though it was deemed necessary at the beginning of the series to be more obvious about the use of fairy tales to draw in an audience), they've gotten great at weaving in the fairy tale (and occasionally mythic) inspirations for the twists in their writing, which are usually shown in the opening quotes (see below for a good example of the episode prior to the finale, the themes of which carried over into the last one as well).
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| Season 3 Episode 21 "The Inheritance". The quote is from The Water of Life. |
I can't wait to see what "obscure" fairy tales they weave into the writing in Season 4!
*A variant of the Bluebeard & The Robber Bridegroom tales, collected by Joseph Jacobs for English Fairy Tales.