Once Upon a Time

It occurs to me that earlier I was wondering why the Storybrookians would want to leave their relatively pleasant modern surrounds to return to the grim (so to speak), dirty, chaotic, at-war-with-trolls, sexist (Evil Queens notwithstanding), short-life-span, brutish fairy tale world. Theme Park Ride it ain't. Okay for Snow and Prince Interchangeable-with-the-Other-Princes, they get Twoo Wuv and to be royalty or Robin Hoods. The dwarves get to return to slavery, and Red gets to remember she had a cute boyfriend, but she ate him.

Then over the last couple of episodes it became clear that the townies are either idiots or so ensorcelled that they're fuzzy to it all. And THEN I realized that's what's bugging me: it's not that I want the show to explain how the big magic works, I just want to see the big magic working. Red waits for buses that she should know will never arrive. If her 'oh, yeah...' then shrugging it off is part of the spell, I think I need to see it attributed somehow. How does no one think to call for the FBI? Magic. Fine, just show it happening. If Emma is clueless about law enforcement, show us the magic dimming the lights for the townies to whom it should be perfectly obvious that she's clueless about law enforcement. Subtle, sure. Almost imperceptable, even. (It's probably perfectly obvious in the writer's minds when they do it, they're steeped in the show.) Emma (and Henry) (and the motorcycle guy) would be immune or inoculated against it. (The Queen knows, right? Are we not sure about Rumplestiltskin?) Then we have something for Emma to push back against, and a weapon (however tenuous) to use against the Mayor. Real Life versus the magic of the spell.

I feel better for having said that out loud now.

Emma is marginally better at her job now (only barely, though), but that was the only thing I liked about this episode. This episode was strange and disturbing. I really didn't like

Spoiler:

I was convinced for the first few minutes that Jefferson and Grace were brother and sister, not father and daughter. That actor looked way too young to look the part of a father to a girl that old.

I cracked up hard when Emma told Jefferson that she had already called for backup. WHO DID YOU CALL, EMMA? Yourself? You don't even have Ruby to answer the phone and dispatch your invisible police force.

I didn't get what Emma was supposed to be seeing in the book at the end. She's seen a ton of townspeople supposedly in the book. What made this time so special? It's not like she got any new information when Henry told her that the girl's name was Paige.

I think she saw the scar on Jefferson's neck that she saw IRL so to speak.

The casting of young Snow White was ah-mah-zing. She seriously studied Ginnifer Goodwin's mannerisms and speaking.

So Regina was a nice girl until her fiancee was killed, turning into the very mother she hated. Makes me wonder if there is some foreshadowing there...what would happen to Snow if something happend to Charming?

I started the season kind of indifferent to this show, but its fast becoming a favorite here toward the end of the season. Definitely seems a little more "arc-y", which I like.

dday515 wrote:The casting of young Snow White was ah-mah-zing. She seriously studied Ginnifer Goodwin's mannerisms and speaking.

Oh my God, seriously. I could not believe how dead on the little girl was.

So all of this horror is a grown woman throwing a temper tantrum over the innocent mistake of a ten year old girl? And people thought Anakin Skywalker's turn to evil was petulant and whiny. I know we're always supposed to hate the wicked queen/stepmother figure in these kinds of stories, but I so totally hate her now, and not necessarily in a good way. If she doesn't get put down and hard when the curse goes poof, I'm going to be very disappointed.

dday515 wrote:The casting of young Snow White was ah-mah-zing. She seriously studied Ginnifer Goodwin's mannerisms and speaking.

Seriously! She was absolutely perfect. And very cute.

laddical wrote:So all of this horror is a grown woman throwing a temper tantrum over the innocent mistake of a ten year old girl? And people thought Anakin Skywalker's turn to evil was petulant and whiny.

...yeah. It made me pretty annoyed at Regina, all right. And, it's one thing if she was counting on Snow to keep the secret for like an hour while she and her boyfriend gathered their shit and got out of there. But for what appeared to be several days or weeks of wedding prep? That's a lot to ask, Regina.

I didn't even recognize Lana Parilla at first, and I was wondering if they'd overdubbed her voice.

dday515 wrote:The casting of young Snow White was ah-mah-zing. She seriously studied Ginnifer Goodwin's mannerisms and speaking.

No kidding. She was so spot on it was spooky. Good on that little girl!

I'll say one thing about Lana Parilla: she has the most amazing smile, even when she's in Evil Queen mode.

Instant Monkeys wrote:

laddical wrote:So all of this horror is a grown woman throwing a temper tantrum over the innocent mistake of a ten year old girl? And people thought Anakin Skywalker's turn to evil was petulant and whiny.

...yeah. It made me pretty annoyed at Regina, all right. And, it's one thing if she was counting on Snow to keep the secret for like an hour while she and her boyfriend gathered their shit and got out of there. But for what appeared to be several days or weeks of wedding prep? That's a lot to ask, Regina.

I thought they made Regina way too nice before the big "betrayal" for it to be believable. The kind of person we're supposed to believe she was before her mother killed her fiance would not blame a little girl for what happened. I could buy that she just snapped, but she doesn't really come off as unhinged. Or I could see that in order to get over losing Daniel, she had to convince herself that love really wasn't important. ...But then why hold on to the wedding ring he gave her and act like she did it for him?

I still really liked the episode, and I did like seeing nice Regina. I can see why Snow grew up trusting her.

sagitare wrote:

dday515 wrote:The casting of young Snow White was ah-mah-zing. She seriously studied Ginnifer Goodwin's mannerisms and speaking.

No kidding. She was so spot on it was spooky. Good on that little girl!

Ginnifer Goodwin was positively gushing over the little girl on Twitter and for good reason. Talk about your freakishly perfect casting!

So the two biggest rumored beliefs about August's identity in Fairy Tale Land are that

Spoiler:

. Both sound plausible to me.

I just realized I now have no idea who Dr. Whale (Sark from Alias) is, since Ruby is Red Riding Hood and the wolf. I thought it was Wail, not Whale, like a wolf's call. But wikipedia at least has it as Whale.

This theory is so so so stupid and non-sensical but since he's been positioned in his few appearances as the opposite of Archie, I'm wondering if he's actually "the whale" - I don't know if it was called Monstro in the original Pinocchio story or not.

That makes a hell of a lot more sense than "Jonah and the Whale," which is where my head kept going, and of course is not even a fairy tale but a Bible story.

I wanted the stable boy to say "as you wish".

The child actors are all cute but they're all pretty mediocre actors. Elle Fanning, Kiernan Shipka have spoiled me.

So frustrating!

I was all "yesss! We know who August is it all makes sense!" and then "wahhhh I'm even more confused".

What does Regina have over Sidney to make him confess?!

ETA: I recently re-watched the first few episodes with my mum who hadn't seen the show at all yet, being aware of the two choices for who August may be however,

Spoiler:

Based on the promo,

Spoiler:

But they have deceived me before!

I liked this episode a lot. Stuff happened, plot moved forward, fun times all around!

Emma needs to stop telling the bad people what she is about to do. It is not an intelligent strategy.

Robert Carlyle rocked it as usual. Loved his "If you know me, then you know me" line. I really liked the tease about August supposedly being his son, and why August was looking for him.

I've bitched before about the show making it hard for you to root for the good guys because they are so dumb while the bad guys are smart. It's nice to see that while the bad guys are smart they are also pathetic. Regina has nothing on Sidney, the fool just loves her too much.

So Rumple created the curse as a way to get to the non-magic world to be with his son but he needed someone else, Regina, to enact it. It's why he let himself get caught by Cinderella's prince and was in the position to give them all the info they needed at the time. Oh there's a curse but you might be able to break the curse. Regina gets him to the real world, he finds his son, he has a backdoor of Emma taking down Regina thereby breaking the curse and he and his son get to go back home to their magical world where he gets all his power and his son.

I like the explanation of why he hates the fairies so much and why he's out to get the most power.

I also wonder if Mother Superior Fairy remembers the fairytale world also.

punzy wrote:Based on the promo,

Spoiler:

But they have deceived me before!

I just went and watched it on YT as the promos cut off when I, ahem, acquire the episodes, and you're right, is it does look that way. Which also explains why it's taken so long to get his backstory.

Only three episodes left though? Wahhh!

But no one's asked the biggest question: Who or what wrote Henry's book?

I was really excited about August being Rumpelstiltskin's son, so I was bummed when they went all JK! LOL! on us.

I liked this episode. It had more funny moments than I'm used to from this show. David awkwardly explaining the kiss on the forehead, Emma's "enigma wrapped in stubble" line, and, best of all, Mary Margaret's face when David showed up at the party. I love Ginnifer Goodwin. I also randomly loved the way she delivered the "It didn't feel like that yesterday" line when Emma told her she had a lot of friends. She could have gone with pissy, but instead she went more baffled.

TiffanyNichelle wrote:So Rumple created the curse as a way to get to the non-magic world to be with his son but he needed someone else, Regina, to enact it. It's why he let himself get caught by Cinderella's prince and was in the position to give them all the info they needed at the time. Oh there's a curse but you might be able to break the curse. Regina gets him to the real world, he finds his son, he has a backdoor of Emma taking down Regina thereby breaking the curse and he and his son get to go back home to their magical world where he gets all his power and his son.

*Thanks* for that excellent summation!

Things are happening! This episode was a major improvement over the last few, for me. The mystery of mysterious writer August solved!

Spoiler:

My DVR cut off right when Henry got in the car and Emma asked him if he really wanted to get away from Regina. I assume she just took off with him. Right? What did I miss?

Yes, she did. All you missed was the mature and well-thought out decision to steal her child that will totally hold up in a custody battle.