Penny Thoughts ‘13—Grimm, season 2 (2012-2013) ***½

TV-14, 22 44-min. episodes

Creators: Stephen Carpenter, David Greenwalt, Jim Kouf

Directors: Norberto Barba, Terrence O’Hara, David Solomon, David Straiton, Stephen DePaul, Rob Bailey, Darnell Martin, Eric Laneuville, Holly Dale, Peter Werner, Omar Madha, Karen Gaviola, Michael W. Watkins, Charles Haid, David Grossman, Tawnia McKiernan

Writers: Stephen Carpenter, David Greenwalt, Jim Kouf, Richard Hatem, David Simkins, Dan E. Fesman, Spiro Skentzos, Akela Cooper, Alan DiFiore, William Bigelow, Sean Calder, Thomas Ian Griffith, Mary Page Keller

Starring: David Giuntoli, Russell Hornsby, Bitsie Tulloch, Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz, Reggie Lee, Bree Turner

Guest starring: Jessica Tuck, James Frain, Brian Tee, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Mike Dopud, Mark Pellegrino, John Pyper-Ferguson, Maddie Hasson, Steven Sukul, Sharon Sachs, Kevin Shinick, Danny Bruno, Robert Blanche, Jonathan Scarfe, Kristina Anapau, Jaime Ray Newman, Alice Evans, Josh Stewart, Claire Coffee, Jade Pettyjohn, Mary Page Keller, Logan Miller, Kate del Castillo, Angela Alvarado, Michael Grant Terry, Michael Maize, Jason Gedrick, Lisa Vidal, Jamie McShane, Christian Lagadec, Callard Harris, Lili Mirojnick, Eric Martin Reid, Kieren Hutchinson, Jenny Wade, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Eric Lange, Camille Chen, Chris Murray, Brian T. Finney, Bertila Damas, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Gill Gayle, Peter Anthony Jacobs, Eric Tiede, Erin Way, David Bodin, Nora Zehetner, Brian Gant, Keith Cox

As is often the case with second seasons, NBC’s supernatural police procedural “Grimm” has grown more confident in its style and mythology. The mythology, which skirted along the first season episodes, has almost taken the pole position in its second season, with many more episodes dealing with the mythology and long storylines running through many consecutive episodes. For the most part this has only enriched the series, which has a very intricate set up involving an unseen world of humanoids with special powers and a policeman that has access to this world.

The Wesen, as the creatures who appear human to regular humans call themselves, have become more interesting, more intricately designed and serve more purpose than they did in the first season. The machinations of these creatures have become more intricate with more insight into the people that seem to rule them, while the Grimms police them. What the series does really well, however, is incorporate all this mythology into the police procedural format. Even with all these overreaching story arcs, almost all of the episodes in this season still followed an individual case for each installment.

The one problem with season two involved a subplot that lasted the entire season in which the hero’s girlfriend lost her memory of him in the last episode of season one. Normally you can expect a subplot like this to wrap up, at least to a workable degree within the first few episodes of the following season. If not, certainly such distractions will be replaced by new ones by mid season. But, for some reason the “Grimm” writers decided to stretch out Juliette’s memory lost (of just her boyfriend Nick, mind you) throughout the entire season. This became a tedious exercise after a while, as fans quickly tired of this prolonged situation keeping two of their favorite characters apart.

Despite the distracting subplot, there’s little to complain about with “Grimm”. The characters are great, the stories are good, and the producers have crafted a show that I want to return to every week.