Grimm Forum

There are some holes and the whole pilot feels a bit rushed. I guess they hoped for getting a 1h-movie but had to finally cut some parts out of the script or (hopeful) the filming - later because then chance would be high that we would get the whole thing someday *DVD maybe ...*.
Starting, like the trailer insisted, is the episode at the mental hospital with Constantine getting some electro-shocks and the narration that he himself decided to go there and would pay for it. During a therapy-session we learn that Constantine wishes to forget everything about demons and magic and exorcism and he tells the doctor to make him believe non of what he'd witnessed in his life before would be real. Well, Hell has some other plans for him as he is learning short time later after a demon possesses another patient. After he get an information from that demon Constantine decides to leave the facility on his own wish.
He's on the mission to save the life of the daughter of one of his rare friends. A demon from the inner circle has put her on his list after her father was killed (died? This I missed or was left open) one year ago when Constantine's soul was damned to hell along with a little girl he and said father tried to save. And John is right on time there, witnessing a first attempt to kill Liv (said daughter). Liv doesn't believe him, instead she's running to a friend of hers to take her home. Said friend is getting killed by a demon later that night. Constantine meets his angel-guardian Manny (and both are giving the other one really a hard time) ...

Seriously, the show is dark, not as dark as I thought after the Keanu Reeves' movie but very dark. I would say, early SPN-seasons maybe (before they came up with this whole purgartory-BS and ruined Castiel forever. As I said, there's a lot of dark humour as well, you barely make it through one scene without starting giggling at one point. Matt Ryan embraces this role and the character and obviously he had some fun doing this character. Liv is a little too much damsel in distress for me, but at least she develops some courage and persuades Constantine into investigation the murder of a boy (with what the episode ends).
Manny is a huge question mark for me at this time. True, he finally brings some light into what happened to John a year ago but he's more of a prompt right now than a real character. Chas Chandler as taxi-driver and "oldest friend" is definetely quiet but memorable (his death not so dead was surely a highlight of this episode). The old mill Liv inherited from her father is getting to become the headquarters I guess and reminds me somehow a little of dark later Hogwarts with all the stuff, books and magical instruments. My personal highlight was to see Jeremy Davies as another friend of Constantine again. I really loved his character in Hannibal.
The FX and CGI is partly a little ... lacky but okay with me. That angels now have yellow eyes I first have to get used to I fear and Manny's wings are a little over the top (unlike they are definetely better set up than the angel-wings in Dominion). But there's nothing non-fixable and, as I've said, I don't expect from a TV-show movie-like CGI, I know they don't have that much of money.

Over all I'm definetely hooked and I cannot await to watch more. The pilot is mouthwatering and the promise of one Hell of a ride - literally!