Nick And Adalind's Relationship Had A Major Transformation In Grimm
Once upon a time there was a treacherous witch and a compassionate detective that truly, inexorably hated each other. Yet, against all odds, that changed. The story of Nick (David Giuntoli) and Adalind (Claire Coffee) is a twisted fairy tale of its own on NBC's storybook crime drama Grimm.
The supernatural fantasy series takes a page out of Grimm's Fairy Tales to construct a certifiably grim world where mythological creatures called Wesen live hidden among humans. The action begins when homicide detective Nick starts seeing disturbing, inhuman faces on people he passes by and learns that he's a Grimm — a descendent of the Brothers Grimm. He befriends a Big Bad Wolf type, Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), but soon finds enemies in many of the others, including the dangerous Adalind.
Over the course of the series' six seasons, their hatred for each other transforms into an undeniable love. The enemies to lovers trope is a fan favorite: It can lead to some of TV's most toxic couples (Spike and Buffy, anyone?), but can also be deeply compelling, like with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power's perfectly executed friends to enemies to lovers saga. As for the slow burn of Nick and Adalind? Well, let's just say the pilot teased it long before it ever became canon.
Nick's girlfriend Juliette was never as strong of a character as Adalind
Adalind and Nick begin at odds by their very nature: She is a Hexenbiest, the feared, witch-like type of Wesen adept at spinning spells, mixing potions, and magically moving things with telekinesis. He is a Grimm, burdened with the responsibility of keeping humans safe from the likes of her. And yet, before we even meet Nick's girlfriend Juliette (Elizabeth Tulloch), we see Nick watching Adalind from across the sidewalk. She's pretty, she smiles at him, and then her face twists into a disturbing visage of a corpse. In fact, she's the very first Wesen he sees before he's sucked into their world, so it's as if they were destined for their torrid relationship.
It started off rough — between Adalind attacking Nick's aunt and threatening his partner Hank (Russell Hornsby), she does not immediately ingratiate herself to him. Still, even when they are firmly enemies, he saves her life. Yet any good feelings that event may have spawned don't last long because he soon takes away her powers. From there, things get darkly personal between them, as a furious Adalind used her cat to make Juliette forget all about Nick.
By the third season, Adalind is no longer evil for evil's sake, but rather she's obsessed with getting her young daughter back by any means necessary. To do so, she disguises herself as Juliette and sleeps with Nick to consummate a spell that takes his Grimm powers away. Surprisingly, this does more to harm Nick and Juliette's relationship and ends up being the manipulative, questionable beginning to Nick and Adalind's romance. But, well, the fans didn't like Juliette anyway.
Deceit leads to a baby, which leads to love in Grimm
To her initial dismay, Adalind becomes pregnant with Nick's baby, while Juliette turns into an evil Hexenbiest. The dynamic between the three of them switches as Nick needs to protect his unborn child from his frightening ex-girlfriend. Adalind, meanwhile, tries to bond with Nick over their dead mothers and then gives birth to their son. However, it's not an immediate connection between them when baby Kelly is born. In an interview with TVLine, Giuntoli said they wanted to take things slow: "I know you have to take liberties for drama, but 24 hours ago, [Nick] found his mother's head, the love of his life died in his arms and Trubel was kidnapped. So Claire and I were really working against, 'Hey there's a new romance!' We wanted to slow burn that thing. So yes, it was not very sentimental."
Once Adalind and Nick become co-parenting roommates, it's all downhill from there. It's awkward, sure, and Adalind wishes she could take back everything she did to Nick, but their romance does eventually blossom. To TVLine, Coffee said Nick's trauma allows him to open up to her as they come to rely on each other. "When you go through such an enormous tragedy, you just feel a little alienated from everybody," she said. "I think that allows them to empathize with one another and work on raising this baby."
The fans of Grimm are totally Team Adalind and Nick. On Reddit, user u/Cleopatra-s_Daughter wrote, "I love their relationship ... it really is so much deeper & "real"—along with truly honest—than the one he has with Juliette. Plus there's the added bonus of seeing them parent together which produces its own adorable moments."
To watch that sweet, slow burn of an enemies-to-lovers saga in all of its drama, head on over to Amazon Prime, where all six seasons of Grimm are available for streaming now.