#SDCC16: David Giuntoli Says Grimm Season 6 is Like the Foreboding Feeling of Explosive Diarrhea
Ted Hentschke
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In a world where media usually falls on the side of either genuine quality or guilty pleasure, “Grimm” has for me always straddled that line. There’s only so seriously you can take a show about a cop fighting shapeshifting fairy tale monsters in Portland.
I think the reason “Grimm” has always worked is that the show is aware of this. They go whole hog with blowfish monsters, rat behemoths, and even the occasional turtle person. You never know what you’re going to see next, but you can rely on it always being fun. And yet, what holds it all together is that they really care about making a quality show. The characters are great and varied, and you really get invested in everyone having a happy ending (even if that seems constantly out of reach). It’s always just a little schlocky, never cynical. It doesn’t feel like a cash grab created to capitalize on a trend or name recognition.
So with Season 6 kicking off in October, I got the chance to talk to series star David Giuntoli (Nick Burnhardt) along with executive producers Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt at San Diego Comic-Con 2016. The whole cast was there, but with all the Con craziness, I only got to talk to everyone for a moment. So if you were wondering what the cast is like in person, Claire Coffee is incredibly nice, Silas Weir Mitchell is adorable, Russell Hornsby is impressive, Bitsie Tulloch is sweet and funny, and Sasha Roiz is incredibly sexy.
And if you get these three at a table together, it’s absolute pandemonium. Glorious.
I do a lot of these cast meetings, so for me it’s always a treat when I get an answer that I know no publicist or producer would ever have approved. Such is David Giuntoli’s description of Season 6. Here it is, word for word:
David Giuntoli: You know that feeling when you are traveling internationally, say in India, and your friends tell you that you’re going to get terrible diarrhea the second you land? And you’re like, “No I won’t.” And then it lands, and you feel a little rumble. That is the tone of “Grimm” Season 6. You’re like, “Do I? Uh oh…”
David takes his poop jokes very seriously.
He had a bit more to say about why the season felt like the onset of intestinal torment:
David Giuntoli: This magic stick, call it the shit stick. There’s a lot of evil attached to it. One of the themes that “Grimm” has covered is negative side effects for whatever you do. Put a spell on someone; there’s going to be some consequences. So any kind of magical cure is going to have a big backside to it. So the stick… I promise you there will be issues. And were it to get into the wrong hands? That would be like giving someone the codes to a nuclear bomb.
Executive producer David Greenwalt had more to say on what to expect from Season 6:
David Greenwalt: We’re picking up where we left off, exactly where we left off, and right off the bat we have to deal with all these situations. Basically, we’ve got to dig ourselves out of the hole we dug. Renard has some consequences for what happened, the whole conflict with Juliette/Eve, the stick, the ring, all of that has to be resolved. Plus we still have to deal with some of the larger cosmic issues like the history of Wesen society and the big players.
Executive producer Jim Kouf discussed how the shortened 13-episode initial run will affect the show:
Jim Kouf: We made the decision to do a 13-episode run because of all the intense drama. So many characters and events are coming to a head this season. We wanted to keep it tight and really couldn’t maintain that pace for more than 13 episodes. But there will still be fun. New Wesen are coming, and we don’t ever write anything that doesn’t have a bit of joy to it.
As of now, there’s still no news of if “Grimm” will get more episodes on the back end. Though I welcome shorter, more intense seasons (22 hours is a hell of a long time to commit to a show), it’s certainly concerning that the network didn’t want more episodes. Let’s be real; network television is about selling ads, and to sell ads, you need content. Hopefully someone behind a closed door crunched the numbers and figured out that 13 episodes of great content costs less and brings in more cash than 22 episodes of just good content. Fans will just have to wait and see.
So how about you guys? Excited for more “Grimm”? Let me know below, and stay tuned for more coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2016!
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