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A man’s hand shuts a door, locks it and pulls a lever.

A woman’s arm breaks a window and reaches out franticly.

A woman runs for her life onto a bridge, her point of view distorted by the gas she’s breathed. Inanimate objects seem to threaten her.

She’s so distraught and distracted she never even sees the car and walks right out in front of it.

The driver of the car (Leroy Kent) immediately runs to her aid and is very relieved to see she’s still breathing. A dark figure joins them and suggests that Leroy call 911. When Leroy returns to his car to make the call, the figure bends down. “Kiss me,” the dying woman begs, but instead the figure pinches off her air and smothers her with his hand.

When Leroy looks up, the figure is gone and the woman is still.

Hank and Nick are called to the scene. The woman has glass on her arms but not on her feet. She was barefoot, but can’t have run far.

Meanwhile, another dark figure arrives in Portland carrying a suitcase. He checks into a down-market hotel and makes a phone call. “It’s me,” he says in French. “I’ll call when it’s finished.”

Then he opens his suitcase and pulls out … a Grimm reaper blade.

Medical examiner Harper has a look at the dead woman, who has been identified by her fingerprints as FAITH COLLINS. Harper tells the detectives that she died of suffocation but there’s no sign of crushed lungs, which means it wasn’t a result of a car accident.

When the detectives consult with Captain Reynard, he looks at the info on Faith’s husband Ray and sees that the cops were called to the Collins house several times for spouse abuse.

Hank and Frank pay a visit to Ray Collins at his work place. He freely admits that he and his wife had an argument the night before. He’d come home hungry and she’d been too busy updating her “friends” on her life to cook. She took off around 10, he tells her, and he just waited for her to come back.

“She always comes back,” he tells them.

Not this time, Nick tells him, she’s dead.

Faith had a suspended license due to a DUI, so there’s a record of a cab picking her up a bar called the Blue Moon. There’s also an online post with a photograph attached. The photo is a gorgeous garden sanctuary, and when Nick and Hank track the location, it aliases to Bramble House Bed and Breakfast, where the cab dropped Faith off after picking her up at the bar.

Nick notices the owner’s car parked out front. It’s a cherries-out 1967 MGB roadster with a midnight blue paint job, a car coveted by collectors.

They catch the proprietor checking out a pair of newlyweds—the wife assumes Hank and Nick are a couple and tells them they’re going to love it—and he tells them he remembers Faith, who showed up around 11 without a suitcase. He tells them he showed her the garden and then she left.

The detectives ask to see the garden and when the owner, Billy Capra stands near a pool, Nick sees the reflection of a horned, goat-like creature. Meanwhile, Hank accidentally steps on a toad. He apologizes and the detectives leave. As soon as they are out of sight, Billy gobbles up the smashed toad.

Meanwhile, the Reaper shows up at HQ with a newspaper article about an off-duty detective shooting an assailant. He tells Officer Wu that he wants some information about the detective who shot his friend. (The detective is not named in the article but it was Nick, who shot the reaper to save his Aunt Marie in the pilot episode.)

Wu tells the Reaper to have a seat and then goes to Captain Renard. The captain tells Wu to send the man away after getting his name and phone number and address.

The Reaper is leaving just as Nick and Hank return.

That night, Nick goes out to Marie’s trailer and does some research. He finds out that Billy is a Ziegevolk, also known as a Bluebeard.

These creatures are irresistible to women, secreting a pheromone that drives them wild. Nick consults with Eddie Monroe, who fills him in on the powers of such folk, but insists they’re “lovers not fighters.”

Meanwhile, Nick goes to the market with Juliette and notices the sexual chemistry of another couple. They banter, and decide to get their shopping finished so they can go home and have sex.

Hank and Nick do a background check of Billy Capra, whose life seems to have started when he moved to Portland. They talk to the captain and tell him about clusters of missing women in three different cities. Weird thing—the women were all eventually found alive and pregnant.

So they’re dealing with a serial rapist as well as a possible murderer.

Meanwhile, Billy takes plates of food down into his basement and feeds three different women in cages.

Afterwards, he turns on the gas to keep them disoriented.

Hank and Nick have staked out the B&B and Hank has gotten a grease spot putting a tracker on the MGB. When Billy comes out, though, he’s walking. Nick follows him on foot while Hank searches for the broken window.

Hank climbs a fence into the garden and finds a shard of glass. That’s all he needs for “probably cause,” and he climbs up the outside of the house and pushes a window open. Inside he discovers fresh putty around the window frame.

Meanwhile, Nick calls Eddie and asks him to come to the Blue Moon where Billy is trolling for women. Eddie agrees to do a little “Grimmwork” and heads inside.

At the same time, the Reaper returns to his hotel room to find Captain Renard waiting for him. The captain tells him to come inside and sit down. Turns out, he’s more of a badass than we thought and he tells the Reaper that his friend brought his death on himself. He was in the city without Renard’s permission.

The Captain forces the Reaper to kneel before him, then denies the Reaper his revenge. Just to make sure there’s an understanding, Renard cuts off one of the Reaper’s ears and tells him it’s so he’ll “listen.” Then he orders the Reaper to leave town and never come back.

Inside the bar, Eddie almost vomits when he listens to Billy pitching woo at a very attractive woman. He gives her his card and invites her to come to his bed and breakfast any time. Eddie leaves and tells Nick he can’t be around the Zeigevolk any longer because his sexual mojo is just too strong. (“I almost bought him a drink,” Eddie says.)

Nick tells Eddie to go home and then follows him back to Bramble House himself.

Inside Bramble House, Hank has fallen victim to the hallucinogenic gas that Billy pumps in to keep the women quiet. He loses his phone when he thinks a cobra is biting him.

Nick has the cops track Hank’s position and is horrified to discover Hank is inside the bed and breakfast.

The woman from the bar (Lisa) shows up, wanting to see Billy’s garden. Nick comes to the door and insists on talking to Lisa. He tells her she’s gotten into the middle of a police investigation and orders her to leave. He goes back inside the bed and breakfast and finds Hank, who is in the basement with the three imprisoned women.

Billy locks them in and takes off, running into Lisa outside Bramble House.

He asks her to come with him and she willingly agrees.

Hank and Nick break down the door and call the police. The women are treated at the scene while Hank activates the tracking device on Billy’s car. They find him at a park w here he and Lisa are admiring a waterfall.

Billy runs when he sees them and is hit by a car.

The paramedic who attends him is a woman and even though he’s pretty broken up, he’s still able to charm her.

A question about story logic: The scene between Captain Renard and the vengeful Reaper was the strongest in the whole episode, so I hate to pick at it but … what’s the problem with letting the Reaper kill Nick? Renard was cool with letting his blonde henchmistress kill him in the pilot (if necessary) so what’s his problem now? Is it just that he needed to establish his authority in whatever supernatural hierarchy is being built? Or does he have something in mind for Nick?

Whatever’s going on, we look forward to find out more about the Captain, who is turning into a way more interesting character than Nick.