Adalind (Claire Coffee) helps Nick solve his case when she tells him about an Aztec ceremony, Fire Drill, involving Orion's Belt — whenever it rose above the horizon, a man would be sacrificed on top of a pyramid.
Club gave the episode a "B+" rating and wrote, "The uneasiness of that status quo is on full display in 'Star-Crossed,' which takes a familiar move out of the show's playbook—barbaric Wesen ritual in modern times — and updates its import by tying it to the season's unrest.
While Black Claw's engaged in many acts of rebellion around the globe, 'Star-Crossed' understands that the group's reach is far more insidious than outright declarations of war, and that its promise of dominance can spark a thousand fires.
In Grimm Season 5 Episode 9, one of the Black Claw disciples decided it was a grand idea to ritualistically kill a number of humans in order to end a drought.
"[5] Lindi Smith from EW wrote, "The case of the week on 'Star-Crossed' involves bodies being strung up on crosses with glass shards over their eyes around the city in ritualistic fashion.
Generational divides and the allure of extremist ideologies fueled Portland's latest Wesen homicide and the threat that Black Claw represented became something more relatable than a vast evil underground dedicated to evildoing.
That's laughably evil even for cartoon evildoers, but no one is laughing at 6 million murders, and with all of its insidious propagating to impressionable young Wesen and their angry, disenfranchised elders, Black Claw was methodic in its madness.
Alongside a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how Hadrian's Wall operates, a Wesen storyline that fits well into the show's main story arc and a potential jab at modern politics, we were also witness to some previously unseen levels of horror.