Enemies-to-lovers is one of the hardest romance tropes to pull off well.

Yet Grimm does exactly that. Over six seasons, it transforms one of its most antagonistic dynamics into a surprisingly grounded, emotional, and believable love story.

Even more impressively, it does this while juggling crime procedural plots, supernatural worldbuilding, and multiple romantic arcs.

So what makes this enemies-to-lovers storyline work so well?

Let’s break it down:

What Is Grimm About? (Quick Overview)

At 29, Nick’s shocked to discover he’s a Grimm, hunter of diverse supernatural creatures named Wesen, and that there’s an entire supernatural world out there. At this point in his life, he’s happy: He loves working with his best friend/partner detective (Hank), and he adores his live-in girlfriend Juliette.

Grimms can see “Wesen” when they go through intense emotions. Since regular people can only see them if the Wesen chooses, most people don’t know Wesen or Grimms exist.

As Nick struggles with his new identity and the mountain of new information he needs to digest, his secret puts a strain on all his relationships. Moreover, unbeknownst to him, his boss Captain Renard knows his secret, and he just might be one of his biggest enemies.

A new case leads Nick to a not-so-fun first interaction with Monroe (Blutbad) – a wolf-like Wesen. But as Monroe teaches Nick, there are good Wesen too. Soon, Nick’s relationship with Monroe turns into one of the most wholesome bromances of supernatural television.

As we solve one isolated case in each episode, we learn more about the Wesen world, Nick’s past, and who exactly Renard is.

 

The Romantic Dynamics in Grimm

?? Spoiler Warning: This post discusses major plot points from all six seasons of Grimm.

Please note that this is not meant to be a chronological, all-encompassing summary. However, I included the most pivotal moments to provide a sufficient overview of the romances. The friends-to-lovers and established couple romances are included to provide context for the enemies-to-lovers romance.

1. Nick and Juliette — The Established Relationship

Starting the show with a main character in a loving relationship is an excellent choice. We root for Nick harder, and it makes it even more devastating when things go wrong because of his destiny.

If you like men and enjoy healthy romances, Nick’s the guy you want: smart, sweet, loving, loyal, and painfully gorgeous.

We also get to see a healthy adult relationship as opposed to the angsty, star-crossed romances most supernatural stories have.

What goes wrong (1): Adalind, a witch-like Wesen called Hexenbiest.

When Nick makes her lose her powers after everything she has done to him and his loved ones, she turns into a regular woman. Adalind’s disappointed mom shows no sympathy.

Adalind still finds a way to use magic for revenge: She puts Juliette in a coma where she loses all her memory of Nick.

Eventually, Juliette regains her memory, and they resume their relationship, but not before putting both through hell. But there’s a silver lining: Shortly after getting her memories back, she learns Nick’s secret.

What goes wrong (2): Adalind.

Adalind gets pregnant with Renard’s baby, and later manages to get her powers back. But with her powers still inconsistent, and her baby under the threat of the Royals (a significant subplot), she finds herself under the protection of Kelly Burkhardt, Nick’s mom, and another powerful Grimm.

Not knowing who Adalind is, Kelly brings them to Nick for protection. Nick and Renard (an ally at this point) are both convinced that the best way to protect this child with royal blood is raising her away from everyone, including Adalind, so they devise a plot. Enraged with grief, Adalind cuts a deal with the Royals and does something horrific to take away Nick’s powers: She “becomes” Juliette through powerful magic and has sex with him.

Nick and Juliette work through this while adjusting to a life without Nick’s powers. But with so much Wesen crime, and Rosalee (a friendly Wesen) and Monroe in mortal danger because of an extremist Wesen group, they make Nick a Grimm again: Juliette uses similar magic and “turns into” Adalind temporarily and has sex with Nick. This decision comes with unforeseen side effects: Juliette slowly becomes a hexenbiest.

At first, she’s afraid to tell Nick, creating distance. When she finally tells him, she is convinced their relationship will never survive this. As she embraces her powers, she becomes a formidable enemy.

While Nick and Juliette are broken up at this point, their forever end comes when Juliette makes a deal with the Royals to lure Kelly (Nick’s mom) back to Portland. Kelly’s murdered, and Juliette tries to kill Nick.

Nick only survives as Trubel, a fellow Grimm, “kills” Juliette. Trubel and Juliette’s body are both taken from the crime scene by an unknown organization.

 

2. Rosalee and Monroe — Friends to Lovers

When Wesen Rosalee becomes a target, Nick asks Monroe to help keep an eye on her.

They become friends, and it slowly turns into a deep connection. After dating for a while, they move in together.

Before their wedding, they have to deal with Monroe’s parents who are against inter-species dating, but Monroe makes it clear that if they don’t accept their relationship, they will lose him forever.

After their wedding, they reckon with a Wesen hate group kidnapping Monroe.

They manage to put an end to the group, and Rosalee and Monroe get their happily (eventful) ever after.

 

 3. Nick and Adalind — Enemies to Lovers

 

If you’d told me this was going to happen during season 1, I wouldn’t have believed you. But the writers made it organic and lovely.

After Adalind, disguised as Juliette, sleeps with Nick, she becomes pregnant. She realizes that her only means of survival is Nick’s protection against Juliette, a furious and powerful hexenbiest hellbent on killing her.

Nick chooses to protect his child. In an effort to “fix” Julitte, Adalind helps the group out, even testing the hexenbiest “suppressor” – a potion that will suppress her powers – on herself to make sure it will work. This marks the start of Adalind being helpful and trustworthy.

Juliette turns it down and almost makes Nick kill Monroe using her powers, burning all her bridges in one go.

Adalind gives birth and names the baby boy Kelly after Nick’s mom, as she was the one who kept Adalind and her baby alive.

She also asks Nick to raise the baby together, and she moves in with him. He sells the house and moves them to a safer warehouse-type loft.

Unable to sleep due to nerves, Adalind asks Nick to sleep beside her since she will sleep better knowing he will kill anyone wanting to hurt them or their baby. Nick agrees. (Which also gives us the one-bed trope).

Living together, raising a child together, and seeing Adalind be a good mom/friend/roommate brings them closer together. Adalind has changed for the better: She sincerely apologizes for what she has done to Nick and Juliet, and says she wishes she could take it all back. Nick corrects her by saying except for their son, and she agrees. They kiss, but afterwards they agree that it might be too complicated.

(Side note: I should briefly mention that at this point Juliette is alive and working for an organization that deals with bad Wesen – the group Trubel is also with. Her evil tendencies are broken down. She’s powerful, but doesn’t feel. She calls herself Eve. Meeting Eve and getting used to her is an adjustment.)

Nick and Monroe need to go to Germany to find what Nick’s ancestors buried centuries ago. Before Nick leaves, Adalind tells Nick she’s worried and she loves him. They make love for the first time. They are both surprised by how much their relationship has changed.

Meanwhile, there are still some secrets between them. Adalind’s powers are slowly coming back, but she’s afraid to tell Nick. Renard calls her, asking to meet up.

With Nick’s support, Adalind returns to work at her old law firm where they know what she is.

When the city’s mayoral candidate, who Renard publicly supported, is murdered, the candidate’s campaign team asks Renard to replace him. As a zauberbiest (male hexenbiest) who loves power, he accepts.

To guarantee victory, they want Renard to have a family, so they threaten Adalind with Nick and Kelly. To protect them and reunite with her daughter Diana (her child with Renard), she goes to live with Renard. She leaves a note for Nick explaining why, and it takes all his friends and his willpower to stop Nick from violently confronting Renard.

But he still has to work for Renard. And after he wins the election, Nick confronts him. Renard has him arrested. When Wesen cops take over, Nick’s life is put in danger. With the help of Wu (another cop/friend in the know) and Hank, he manages to escape, but he has to remain on the run.

When he gets the chance, he reunites with Adalind. However, the Zauberbiest in charge of this new order, Bonapart, is more powerful than her. She misses Nick and their family. Nick tells Adalind to hold on a little longer. (Luckily, Diana gets her father to kill Bonapart using her powers.)

Nick finally beats Renard for good: He uses the spell Adalind used to replace Juliet. He “becomes” Renard and resigns on camera before he officially takes office. Renard agrees to reinstate Nick and lets Adalind and the kids go.

Nick and his friends return to work, though they still work for Renard.

Adalind and Nick’s relationship is stronger this time, as there are no more secrets.

Nearing the series finale, Nick and Eve cross over to the other world to battle a devil-like creature seeking Diana to make her his child bride. Inadvertently, they bring him back to this world, so a protective spell’s placed on Diana.

Nick takes Adalind, Renard, and the kids to a remote place the creature won’t be able to find. Before he leaves, Nick tells Adalind that he loves her. She tells him that she loves him too.

Nick eventually wins after what seems like an all-is-lost forever moment and reunites with his loved ones.

20 years later, Nick and Adalind are still together, and Diana and Kelly are keeping up the family legacy with them.

 

 

Why Nick and Adalind’s Enemies-to-Lovers Arc Works

If you’re a romance writer or trope lover, you might want to bookmark this for later.

 1. Supernatural Stories Allow Moral Flexibility

Supernatural stories have a better shot at making enemies-to-lovers work, precisely because our morals are more flexible while reading and watching such genres.

Take me, for instance. I’m all for healthy relationships where couples haven’t stabbed each other in the back prior to getting together. But this is also the type of story where we don’t care if a centuries-old being falls in love with a teenage/young adult human, readers love a bad “boy” character with a serial killer past (hello Stefan from TVD!) or even a psychotic present (hello, *Damon from TVD!).

Compared to many other supernatural show characters, what Adalind did is relatively mild and forgivable, especially since she changed, took accountability, and made up for it with her later behavior. There were also many mitigating circumstances.,

 2. Adalind’s Actions Are Contextualized, Not Excused

 

• When she slept with Nick as Juliette, she didn’t know she was going to be pregnant, just like she didn’t know Juliette would turn into a hexenbiest.
• How Juliette handled being a hexenbiest wasn’t on her.
• She didn’t have a loving childhood or anyone who loved her unconditionally. Both Renard and her mom used her, and then they discarded her.
• Nick’s mom saving her was kindness she’d never experienced before. And we do feel for her when her daughter Diana’s taken away. While Nick and Renard meant well, there was no way she was going to take it sitting down while postpartum and not knowing where her kid was.
• As much as she tried to kill Nick and Hank while she was a hexenbiest, that came from Renard, who she was romantically involved with earlier in her life.
• She never set a trap for Nick’s mom. Juliette felt bad when she found out what happened to Kelly, but that didn’t stop her from trying to kill Nick.

 

 3. Compatibility Matters

Attraction is great, but making a committed relationship work takes compatibility.

Before Nick was a Grimm, Juliette and Nick were right for each other.

But having to constantly keep secrets from each other doesn’t make a healthy relationship. She didn’t take it well when Nick tried to tell her either.

Adalind is a supernatural. They have a kid together. She is powerful, and the final time she became a hexenbiest, she carried her love for her family with her. There were no evil side effects that came with her powers.

The enemies-to-lovers trope was expertly helped by one-bed, close proximity, and surprise pregnancy tropes.

4. The Relationship Evolved Through Close Proximity

Former enemies turned to coparents first. Then their peaceful coparenting was helped by:

• Close proximity (by living together)
• One-bed

And let’s not forget the trope that started it all:

• Surprise pregnancy

 

 5. Nick’s Perspective Shifts Gradually

Nick doesn’t just wake up one day and find himself inexplicably drawn to Adalind. He sees her change and be consistent in the change day after day.

 

 Final Thoughts on Grimm’s Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

This enemies-to-lovers arc is earned because the writers took their time and didn’t “forget” or ignore anything in the past. This main trope was supported by several other well-chosen tropes that felt natural.  These aren’t just romantic conveniences; they create repeated, unavoidable moments of vulnerability and intimacy.

From the moment they moved into the loft together, I was rooting for Adalind and Nick, and this is coming from someone who loved to hate Adalind for about 4,5 seasons.

 

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How do you feel about this enemies-to-lovers storyline? Let me know in the comments. 🙂