Once Upon A Time: “Bleeding Through” (S3Ep18)
Posted: April 21, 2014 Filed under: Once Upon A Time | Tags: Cora, Regina, Regina and Snow, SwanQueen Leave a commentFor a while I thought the only things I was going to like about this episode of Once Upon A Time was Regina’s (Lana Parrilla) outfits, but it actually had some good twists and the return of Young Cora (Rose McGowan) so it wasn’t all bad.
We start at Regina’s house as Zelena (Rebecca Mader) appears in her dining room. Zelena starts going on about how Regina has everything and never appreciates it or takes risks. Zelena jokes that she is giving her sisterly advice for a second, until she just tells her — because hiding your motives wouldn’t make you a better villain or anything — and tells Regina she is there to make sure Regina isn’t around Robin Hood (Sean Maguire) and his man so Rumple (Robert Carlyle) can steal her heart.
This dress is my favorite part of the episode
And she is still dressing like an S&M Mary Poppins/Sherlock Holmes
Over in the woods, Robin and his band of L.L Bean models have circled Rumple. Robin has his arrow that never misses its target pointed at him. Rumple taunts him like the good ol’ Dark One, which is funny until Roland runs in. Robin shots the arrow at Rumple, but he stops it and turns it toward Roland while saying he doesn’t want to but he will. Robin then folds and gives Regina’s heart to Rumple. Wow, Robin you had it less than a day unlike that other person who has had it for three seasons.
But, I’m so cute.
Regina arrives too late to do anything. Robin apologizes and she says he doesn’t need to because you know her and kids. She then goes to Gold’s shop, which Belle (Emilie de Ravin) is still manning. Regina and her have a good sass-off and Regina apologizes as they search for the candlestick that Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) used to kill Cora. Belle has also been trying to work out what spell Zelena is trying to cast because she is the smartest person in Storybrooke.
In the Enchanted Forest before “The Miller’s Daughter”, Young Cora is working at the one tavern and bumps into the guy she has apparently being courting with for a while. Great, another intra-racial straight love story. All the dudes in this show can be classified as average-looking white guy and this one proposes to Cora.
He is also a prince, of course
Anyway back in Storybrooke, Emma is wearing the same shade of blue as Regina was earlier and is gathered at a circular table with her parents and Hook (Colin O’Donoghue). Regina, wearing a very low cut shirt, thanks them all for coming and pours them all poisoned tea. She says it is part of a spell to connect with Cora and try and stop Zelena. Zelena told Regina her weakness was not knowing enough about her past so Regina intends on finding out by contacting Cora.
You changed our matching outfits, but that shirt do0
Zelena already has Regina’s heart and Charming’s (Josh Dallas) courage and she needs Rumple’s brain and Snow’s baby to complete the curse. She does a super weird half date thing with Rumple to get his brain. I don’t know or care, back to Snow and Regina having a heart to heart.
Emma, Regina, the Charmings and Hook light the candle and join hands. Regina says they will be able to talk to the dead, Cora, because they have the murder weapon and the murderer. Snow takes slight offense to that but Regina looked embarrassed about having to say it so it’s all cool. They are able to open a portal to the afterlife(?), but Cora will not answer Regina and shes cries about it a little bit and it was excellent and Lana Parrilla is the best thing about this show.
Back in the Enchanted Forest, Cora’s bland-prince guy didn’t show up to their wedding. She finds him and sees that isn’t really a prince but a gardener dickhead. He throws her to the ground then storms off. She is helped by Prince Leopold, Snow’s dad and Regina’s husband. That was actually a good twist. But, of course to make the familial relations of this show even crazier, Young Cora and Leopold fall for each other even through he is engaged to Princess Eva, Snow’s mom.
Could we twist the family tree some more?
Cora and Leopold are about to get married, but Eva overhead Cora having an argument with Average White Guy about her being pregnant. He just leaves again. But, once Leopold finds out Cora is disgraced, the wedding is off and she is forced to give up baby Zelena. Snow is able to find this all out by — I’m not kidding — the ghost of Young Cora possessing her. As ridiculous as it was, it was also very cute because Regina did everything she could to protect Snow, which showed that OUAT has finally acknowledged how much Regina has grown over the last three seasons.
Regina and Snow also have a pair of excellent scenes of them just talking about what has happened between them. Regina apologizes for everything she did to her. Snow apologizes for telling her mother about Daniel. Regina says she was only a child and says she sorry that Snow had to find out her mom effed over Cora, because she always thought her mom was a great person. It was all very cute.
Is now a bad time to tell you I’m sleeping with your daughter?
Regina is able to save Snow just as Emma, Charming and Belle burst in. Belle says she has figured out that Zelena is attempting a time travel spell, which no one has ever done before. For some reason, Snow and Charming’s baby is the key. Snow thinks that Zelena is going to chance the past by killing Eva so Cora could have married Leopold. With the knowledge from the flashback scenes, everyone realizes if Zelena succeeds Snow, Regina, Emma and Henry would have never been born.
Over at Zelena’s house, Rumple kisses her to try to get her dagger. It was awkward and weird, but still not the worst kiss in this episode.
After spending her entire day working with the Charmings, having a heart-to-heart with Snow and wearing matching colors and handing hands with Emma, Regina listens to what Snow said about her heart finding the right person and not letting anything hold her back. So, she goes to the woods and finds Robin Hood. And then she kisses him.
Because of course she does. She kisses her average-looking white guy, just like everyone does on this show. Though I love starting at Lana Parrilla’s face and shipping SwanQueen, all jokes aside for a second I’m kind of sick of this show and its heterosexual-true-love-leads-to-marriage-leads-to-babies values. I’m not going to stop watching the show, because I love making it as gay as possible and reading too much into the unintentional subtext, but the show is starting to concern me in terms of LGBT characters’ presence on television. Just read what Kate from Autostraddle said she explains it better.
I’ll see you next week for more SwanQuenn jokes.
Once Upon A Time: “The Miller’s Daughter”
Posted: March 11, 2013 Filed under: Once Upon A Time | Tags: Cora, Regina, Rumple, Rumple and Cora Leave a comment
Grade: B+
Airdate: 3/10/13
As I have said in a few earlier posts, sometimes I am turned off by promos. Ones teasing the death of a character are always the worst. Usually the promo will give you a group of about five to six characters that might be killed. Right off the bat you know there are characters the show can’t kill. In Once Upon A Time‘s case it is Snow, Charming and Emma leaving the two possible deaths to Cora or Rumple.
The episode seemed to be aware of that fact and told us early on that either Rumple (Robert Carlyle) is going to die from his poisoned chest wound or Cora (Barbara Hershey) is going to be killed by Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin). To keep with the Cora-Rumple pairing, the Fairytale World story line told us about how the two of them met and how Cora went from being a miller’s daughter to high-class. For the past couple of episodes flashbacks were only used to show us story lines we already knew. Luckily, OUAT got away from that his episode.
Young Cora, played by Rose McGowan, goes to deliver flour to the palace. She is then tripped by the visiting princess, who we subtly find out later is Snow’s mom, and is forced to apologize for getting flour on her by the King, who is currently planning to marry off his son, Prince Henry, to the highest bidder.
Regina (Lana Parrilla) and Cora have the dagger and know everyone else’s plans because they tapped Snow’s phone. Cora relieves that she wants to kill Rumple and become the dark one herself. Regina seems only mildly okay with the plan, but helps her anyway because Regina’s motive haven’t made sense for a while.
In the Fairytale World, Young Cora sneaks into a ball and dances with Prince Henry. But his father spots her and tries to kick her out because she can be any help to them. She then says she can spin straw into gold as a last-ditch effort to save herself. The king then locks her in the tower and tells her if she spins all the straw into gold by morning she can marry the prince if not she dies.
Back in Storybrooke, our heroes arrive via pirate ship. Henry (Jared Gilmore) is quickly taken out of the episode by former hero-turned babysitter Ruby (Meghan Ory). The rest of the Charming family plus Neal/Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James) take Rumple to his shop. Snow gets into a small disagreement with Charming (Josh Dallas) about killing Cora to protect their family. Rumple has Emma (Jennifer Morrison) put a protection spell on the place, which she enhances with some humorous invisible chalk. He then lets Snow find the enchanted candle from last episode that restores a life for taking a life. Rumple is able to convince her to use it on Cora pulling the I’m-your-grandson’s-other-grandpa card.
In a rather confusing OUAT way, Snow has to hold the candle over Cora’s heart and say her name for it to work. But her heart is in Regina’s vault. So she has to curse it and then somehow get it back into Cora’s body. As Rumple lies dying on the bed in his shop, Regina and Cora break in to square off with Emma, Charming and Neal. Snow runs off to the heart vault without anyone noticing.
The Fairytale World story line was a little predictable but we hadn’t been told it already so it was an improvement. Rumple appears in the tower with Young Cora. He offers to spin the straw for her but she wants to be taught. They make a deal and Cora promised her first born to him. She is able to impress the king, Prince Henry proposes to her. But, she is in love with Rumple — I saw that coming. They change the deal and take the first borne out. Cora was planning to run away with Rumple and not marry Henry but after the king tells her “Love is weakness” she removes her own heart and breaks up with Rumple.
Back in the battle in Mr. Gold’s pawn shop, Emma and Neal make Cora choose between Rumple’s dagger and Regina. She chooses the dagger, but Emma doesn’t kill Regina. She pushes her away and jumps behind the protection spell with Neal. Regina is seemingly unfazed by her mother choosing power over her life and runs off to get Cora’s heart after she realizes someone is getting close to it.
As Emma, Neal and Rumple are hiding behind the spell. Neal/Bae makes up with Rumple. He also called Belle to say good-bye to her as one of the show’s weak attempts to keep Emilie de Ravin as part of the cast. Over in the heart vault, Snow finds Cora’s heart and curses it. Regina then runs into her, but Snow tells her she got the heart for her so that Cora could finally love Regina. That was an early season one, outlaw Snow White level of cunning and maybe a little too evil for the current Snow.
Cora breaks through the protection spell and transports Emma and Neal into the woods. Cora admits to Rumple that she had to rip her heart out because he was the only man she had ever loved and “love is weakness.” She is about to stab him with the dagger when Regina puts Cora’s heart in her body from behind. Rumple is suddenly healed. Cora is happy for a moment before she dies in Regina’s arms. Regina blames Rumple but he says he didn’t have anything to do with it. Snow then runs in remorsefully trying to stop Regina from putting the heart back.
Regina could have easily said “I will destroy your happiness” to Snow right there, because we are back in season one, just with magic and a more messed up family tree. The show seems to be fully aware of that because the next episode is called “Welcome to Storybrooke.” I am interested to see how the story line is going to play out with many characters now having magic. I am also a little concerned that the show is recycling old story lines. It is just killed off is only real villain and replaced it with the sometimes evil, sometimes damaged ally Regina. According to the promo, Regina gets her hand around Snow’s heart in the next episode but like I said earlier the show can’t kill off Snow White.
Once Upon A Time: “Queen of Hearts”
Posted: December 5, 2012 Filed under: Once Upon A Time | Tags: Cora, Hook and Belle, Mulan and Aurora, Regina, Snow and Emma Leave a comment
Grade: B
Airdate: 12/2/12
Going into its midseason finale Once Upon A Time had a lot of questions to be answered and a couple problems left to be solved. Most of those questions have been answered and almost all the problems are solved. Is that a good way to head into the second part of the season? I’m not really sure yet.
The episode starts in the past in the Fairytale World. Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) tries to get Belle (Emilie de Ravin) to help him kill Rumple (Robert Carlyle) but that only gets him capture by Regina (Lana Parrilla).
Regina is about to enact the curse and says she will bring Hook to a land without magic with her where he could easily kill Rumple. But, he has to go to Wonderland and find her mother, Cora (Barbara Hershey) and take her heart. Regina enchants his hook so he can do that, which explains how he took Aurora (Sarah Bogler)’s last episode. I already expected Cora was the Queen of Hearts and I was 100 percent certain at this point. The episode waits a little bit longer to tell us, though.
Hook goes to Wonderland using Jefferson’s hat and is instantly taken to the Queen of Hearts. No surprise it is Cora. He tries to take Cora’s heart but it isn’t in the regular place. I’m not even sure if it is in her body at all. That was a weird detail and I liked it. Cora responses to Hook’s threat by grabbing his heart and making him tell her everything. She seemed genuinely surprised that Regina sent him to kill her and that she was evil. Cora quickly turns Hook, because he is a pirate and his loyalty switches every couple seconds, and tells him to take her to Regina so she can take her heart.
In Storybrooke, Charming (Josh Dallas) is still under the sleeping curse, waiting for his wife to return and break it. Rumple tells Regina that they need to booby trap the portal in case it is Cora who comes through because she would only cause trouble for both of them and the ones they love most–Belle and Henry (Jared Gilmore). Regina doesn’t like the idea at first because it would also kill Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) if they are to come through first. Rumple points out that might not be so bad for Regina because then she would be Henry’s only family.
In the present Fairytale Word, Emma, Snow, Mulan (Jamie Chung) and Cora-controlled Aurora make it to Rumple’s cell but can’t find the enchanted squid ink. They do find a piece of parchment that Rumple wrote “Emma” on over and over again. I instantly thought, “I bet that is written in the squid ink,” sadly our heroes did not think of it so quickly. Aurora closes the door, trapping the four of them in the cell just as Cora and Hook arrive. Cora shows them she has Aurora’s heart and squeezes it, getting a freak out from Mulan and angry backlash from Snow. Cora quickly steals the magic compass from Emma and heads off the Lake Nostos, the lake with the siren and magical but dried-up water.
Our heroes have a pity party for a while, with everyone blaming themselves for their situation. Emma realizes her whole life has been planned out by Rumple. He had the ink so he could of escaped, but it didn’t matter because he needed Regina to enact the curse and Emma to come along and break it so he could travel to a land without magic and go find his son, Bae. Emma says she’s no savior and only broke the curse because Rumple helped her. Someone in that explanation of motives, Snow realizes the “Emma” paper was written in the magic ink. She blows it off and the cell door disappears. Aurora decides she is too dangerous to go after Cora and Hook with them. Mulan ties her up and promises to get her heart back.
In the past in the Fairytale World, Hook has brought Cora’s “body” to Regina. She asks for a moment alone with Cora and tells her she had to kill her because she couldn’t risk her coming to Storybrooke and messing up her plans. Regina says that she still loves her and love is weakness. After Regina leaves, the obvious not dead Cora tells Hook that she couldn’t kill Regina because she also still loves her. They then go and put a counter curse of the safe haven as Regina’s curse takes away the rest of the Fairytale World. Cora says she is going to wait to go to Storybrooke until after the curse is broken and Regina has nothing because then she will need her mother again. So, Cora’s motive aren’t entirely bad? I was not expecting that.
Back in Storybrooke, Rumple and Regina collect enough magic to put a trap on the portal, which is the well in the woods. Henry finds Regina and Rumple right after they death trapped the portal. He pleas with Regina trying get her to turn off the death function because he thought she wasn’t using magic for evil anymore.
Meanwhile in the Fairytale World, a fight breaks out between Cora and Hook and Emma, Snow and Mulan at the lake right after Cora got the portal to Storybrooke working. Just as Emma is able to knock out Hook and get the compass back, Cora tells Snow she is going to take her heart to give to Regina. Emma pushes her out of the way and Cora ends up with her hand around Emma’s heart. Cora tells her love is weakness but she replied with, “No, it’s strength,” after Cora tries to take her heart but can’t. And then she knocks her out with some kind of force field spell thing–Rumple later says it is magic that Emma has because she is the product of true love. Emma is super confused and so is Snow but she says they can discuss it at home and they jump into the portal.
On the other side, Regina tries to prove she isn’t evil to Henry and uses as much magic as she has to stop killer trap. I thought it was going to kill her and I actually had a freak out moment and realization that I still feel sorry for Regina. The rest of the episode is really a fairytale ending. Snow and Emma get back safely. Snow breaks Charming’s sleeping curse with true love’s kiss. Everyone goes to Granny’s to celebrate but they don’t invite Regina. I felt sorry for her again.
Somewhere in the crazy lake fight, Mulan was able to get Aurora’s heart from Hook. She gets back to Aurora and prepares to put her heart back. They have a cute moment of nervousness, but Mulan is able to successfully put it back. There seemed to be a weird amount of sexual tension between the two of them in this scene. Was I the only one who noticed that? Probably, I just really want the show to make at least one Disney princess gay. Alas, they set out to find Philip’s soul because Cora told Aurora it is trapped in a different land.
The episode ends with everyone walking down the street just like they did in the first episode. But, just off shore Cora and Hook are riding to Storybrooke on a pirate ship. Hook had stolen the dried-up magic bean from the giant and apparently it worked.
A lot happened in the episode, but some of it was predictable, a couple problems were resolved to quickly and a couple questions were answered too quickly. Also, if Cora just wants to be there for Regina is the only threat she and Hook bring is Rumple’s possible death? Because after he was fine with killing off Emma and Snow in this episode, his likability has decreased a bit.
Once Upon A Time: “The Crocodile”
Posted: October 22, 2012 Filed under: Once Upon A Time | Tags: Belle, Captain Hook, Cora, Rumple and Belle 1 Comment
Grade: B+
Airdate: 10/21/12
I would like to start this post out with a problem I have been having with the season two of Once Upon A Time so far. I understand that the show has a set story structure. Each episode tells two stories: one about something that happened during a characters life in the Fairytale World and one about what is currently happening to them in Storybrooke. Usually, the two stories are connected and the main characters are either directly involved or interact with the people who are. Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin)’s story line has been pulled out of the structure and it is beginning to annoy me. I am not saying there is an easy way to fix this but I’m going to be pretty frustrated is Emma and Snow are only in every other episode all season.
So, there was no Emma and Snow this episode making Belle (Emilie de Ravin) and Rumple (Robert Carlyle) the focus. The story starts with Belle have a nightmare that Rumple has not changed is still the evil Dark One. She wakes up and finds him in the basement doing magic. She confronts him about this, he gets mad and she runs off. They have an unstable relationship.
I really like Belle, her story is really interesting. And much like the pairing of Mulan and Aurora, Belle being Australian just seems to fit perfectly. Why making the only French character one of the few to have an accent and Australian for some reason works I don’t know but it does. Another thing that I had not thought about before is that Belle is the only one who has not lived in the modern world. That created a couple of cute scenes of Red (Meghan Ory) explaining what things like pancakes are. I’m still trying to figure out why Belle wears cute little dresses and 3-inch heels every day, maybe that has something to do with her being the most Fairytale World-ish.
Speaking of the Fairytale World, we are given the story of how Rumple lost his wife Milah, played by Rachel Shelley, to Killian Jones aka Capt. Hook, played by Colin O’Donoghue, and his crew. Milah runs off with Hook after Rumple chickens out of dueling with him to get her back. He runs into them sometime later when he is the Dark One looking for a magic bean so he can go after Bae. Rumple challenges Hook to a duel again after is told Milah is dead. It turns out she isn’t, she’s a pirate and they have the bean on the ship.
Back in Storybrooke, Rumple is trying to find Belle and enlists the help of acting Sheriff Charming (Josh Dallas) and Red, who says she got her enhanced sense of smell back. So, Red is a werewolf? Belle ended up getting kidnapped by her father Moe, played by Eric Keenleyside, who says he has to make her forget that she loves Rumple. He decides to do this by having her chained to a mine cart and sent over the town line. I feel like Belle is Storybrooke’s Sansa Stark, everything just keeps getting worse and worse for her. Rumple is able to use magic and save her at the last second. Belle tells Rumple and her father that she has to make her own choices and doesn’t want to see them anymore.
Earlier Belle had told Red she was really into books and Red suggested that she become the librarian. Red seems to have taken over the protective female role of the town now that Emma and Snow are gone. Rumple gets words of this and finds the key to the library for Belle. Rumple uses the dating advice of honesty, which he got from Charming, and tells Belle that he is only using magic to try to get Bae back. Trying to get Bae back seems to be why he gave Regina the curse in the first place, so he could go to a land without magic. Belle tells him that maybe they can get a hamburger sometime because she has never had one before. Aw Belle, you are too cute.
Speaking of something that was not cute or expected, Rumple and Milah get into it on Hook’s ship. He realizes they are in love and Milah tells him the only reason she was able to leave Bae was because she was suffering because she never loved him. That leads to Rumple tearing her heart out and crushing it Regina/Cora style. Rumple seems to always be walking the funny-crazy-scary line. Rumple then cuts Hook’s hand off trying to get the magic bean. He doesn’t though and Hook uses it to go to Neverland, so he can get eternal life and kill Rumple.
The episode ends with Hook standing on the beach across from the safe haven in the present Fairytale World and being joined by Cora (Barbara Hershey) because they are working together to get to Storybrooke to kill Rumple and see Regina, which cannot be Cora’s real reason.
The Rumple craziness and the Belle cuteness made up from the lack of Emma and Snow. So, overall this episode was pretty good. Next week’s episode is called “The Doctor” so hopefully we are going to find out who Dr. Whale is. Also, I saw an interview with Jennifer Morrison during which she said episode six is her favorite because we got some of Emma’s back story. Should be a good couple of weeks.
Once Upon A Time: “Lady of The Lake”
Posted: October 16, 2012 Filed under: Once Upon A Time | Tags: Cora, Emma and Snow, Lady of the Lake, Lancelot, Once Upon A Time Leave a comment
Grade: A
Airdate: 10/14/12
After giving us only a minute and a half of Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) in last week’s episode of Once Upon A Time, the show made up for it in this episode. Their story line and everyone else’s, except Cora’s, played into this week’s theme: parents put their children first, as said by Charming’s mom, Ruth.
Normally, the show is divided into two story lines: what is happening in Storybrooke and what is happening in the Fairytale World. This week we had past and present story lines in the Fairytale World and Storybrooke.
The episode starts with Charming (Josh Dallas) and Snow’s camp being invaded by King George’s army. I hope we get to see more of how Charming and Snow retook the kingdom because that hasn’t really been explained yet. Charming and Snow split up and agree to meet at his mother’s cabin. Snow is quickly captured by Lancelot, played by Sinqua Walls.
He takes her to King George, who decides cursing her so she can’t have children is a worse punishment for Charming than killing her. Obviously this curse has to be lifted but I was sad watching Snow cry a little bit about it. The King released her and Lancelot turns on the king, finds her and agrees to go to the cabin with her because the king is sending men their capture Charming and his mother, Ruth, played by Gabrielle Rose.
Jumping into the future in the Fairytale World, we rejoin Emma and Snow in the dungeon. Snow wakes up just in time to tell Emma that Cora (Barbara Hershey) is more dangerous than Regina and that they can’t trust her. Snow spends a lot of time looking out for and protecting Emma this episode. “Parents put their children first.” They are taken out of the dungeon to speak with the leader of the remaining members of the Fairytale World, which turns out to be Lancelot.
Snow tells him that she and Emma need to find a portal back to Storybrooke. Snow decides the wardrobe that Emma was sent through is the best place to start. So, they head off with Mulan (Jamie Chung) to fight through the ogres to get to the palace. Aurora (Sarah Bolger) still blames Snow for Phillip’s death and seems to be plotting to kill her. Yeah go see how that works out for you, Sleeping Beauty. I love that the show is playing up that Aurora is the worst Disney Princess and I still love her being paired with Mulan, who treats her like an annoying little sister the whole episode. “Sisters put their younger sisters first?”
Snow and Lancelot get to Charming and Ruth shortly after she has been shot with an arrow by King George’s men. The three of them take her to the lake with the siren that Charming got the magic water from in hopes that it can save Ruth. When they get there only one drop is left. Snow has told Ruth, but no one else, about King George’s curse, which could also be cured by the water. Ruth tells Snow that she should take it because Charming has always wanted a family. “Parents put their children first.”
Ruth and Lancelot trick Charming and Snow that Ruth drank the water. Instead, Ruth had him put it in the wedding cup after Snow decides to have Lancelot marry her and Charming before Ruth dies. Snow doesn’t find out until after Ruth died and thanks Lancelot for it.
Back in present day Fairytale World, Snow has to save Emma from an ogre attack and Emma has one of many “my mom is a bad-ass” moments. They eventually reach the palace and the wardrobe is still there. Snow says that they will have to get it back to the safe haven to see if anyone can get it to work. Just than Lancelot walks in and says he can help. But after slipping up and telling them something Emma only told Cora, we discover that Lancelot has been dead for a while and he is actually shape-shifting Cora.
Emma, Snow and Mulan work together to fight of Cora. But, Emma is forced to burn the wardrobe to get Cora to leave. She apologizes to Snow saying that she couldn’t let Cora get to Henry (Jared Gilmore). Snow pretty much says “parents put their children first” to Emma, which causes a really cute and incredibly well acted scene of Emma crying and telling Snow that nobody has ever put her first before. And Snow did and still is. Emma doesn’t have a lot of emotional stuff, but when it happens it is always my favorite part of the episode.
I know I left Storybrooke out of this post, but nothing really happened. It was mostly just Henry trying to get Charming to let him help find a way to get Emma and Snow back. It was similar to season one episodes of him trying to convince Emma to let him help. In the end Charming did and decided to teach him how to sword fight. I don’t think it is possible for Charming to be any cuter. In one episode, we watched him cry over his mother dying, get super excited about having a child and buy his grandson swords.
The episode ended with King George/Albert Spencer, played by Alan Dale, sitting in his car watching Charming sword fight with Henry. “Parents put their children first?”
Once Upon A Time: “We Are Both”
Posted: October 8, 2012 Filed under: Once Upon A Time | Tags: Cora, David, Henry, Regina, Regina's mom, We Are Both 1 Comment
Grade: B+
Airdate: 10/7/12
I really liked the title of this episode of Once Upon A Time before I even saw it, because it seemed to sum up the confusion I was having with what to call the character. David/Charming (Josh Dallas) summed it up perfectly in that he is both David Nolan and Prince Charming and would not give up one to be the other.
That is a problem facing Storybrooke when the dwarfs test the barrier of the town. Sneezey is elected to go across and losses his memory once he does. So, everyone is still stuck in Storybrooke, which has gone down hill significantly since last episode. The town was severely damaged by the wraith, everyone is still confused about being there, and nobody knows who is in charge. The town is looking to Charming for answers, but he is too distracted trying to get Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) back. For most of the episode, control of Storybrooke is left to Red (Meghan Ory) with Henry (Jared Gilmore) desperately trying to help.
David runs around town getting clues about how to find his family from Rumpel (Robert Carlyle), Regina (Lana Parrilla) and Jefferson (Sebastian Stan) until Red steps in as the voice of reason and tells him that he needs to stop everyone from trying to leave town. He does stop everyone and gives a very good “We are both” speech. This episode developed Red’s character a lot and she is far different from Ruby. We also found out that the Enchanted Forest still exists but nobody knows how to get back there.
Intertwined with all this is Regina trying to get her power back. Apparently, the wallpaper trick was just an one-time thing. The episode flashes back to the Fairytale World with young Regina, who is easily identified by braids, trying to get away from her mother, Cora, played by Barbara Hershey, and not marry Snow’s father. Cora keeps using magic to stop Regina from leaving. Regina’s father tells her that Cora got her magic from a book that was given to her by Rumpelstiltskin.
Regina summons him with the book and he tells her that they are destined to work together just as he and her mother had. He then gives her a portal that goes to “an annoying little land” for her to push Cora through. That reaffirmed my theory that Cora is the Queen of Hearts. I’m a little confused on that now, but more on that later.
Regina pushes her through and gives the book back to Rumpel saying that she doesn’t want to turn into her mother and use magic. She changes her mind after admitting that she loved how the magic made her feel. I’m starting to think the show is using the bad magic is drugs metaphor that Buffy used. Rumpel says he will teach her to use magic because one day she will do something for him. I’m not sure what he meant by that. Was it the curse, something we haven’t seen or has it not happened yet?
Back in Storybrooke, Regina gets the book from Rumpel again and uses it to get her power back. She then threatens the town until Henry gives himself up to her so she will stop. She is forced to use magic to keep him. But, she starts to realize she is just like her mother, tells Henry she doesn’t know how to love very well and lets him go home with Charming. I actually started to feel a little sorry for older Regina. Good job, OUAT.
Hey, did you noticed that some people are absent from this post? Just when I thought the episode was ending without any news from Emma and Snow, we are dropped into the Fairytale World with them for about a minute and a half. They are tied to the back of Mulan’s (Jamie Chung) horse as she and Aurora (Sarah Bolger) are taking them to the safe haven. When they get there, Snow attacks Aurora and tries to escape with Emma, but this only leads to Mulan lassoing her around the ankles and knocking her out. Emma freaks out and she and the unconscious Snow are thrown in the dungeon. Emma trying to get Snow (she is calling her Mary Margaret) to wake up and someone else in the dungeon asks if they need help. The person calls herself a friend, steps into the light and it is Cora.
Snow, wake up before your daughter makes the same mistake of trusting Cora! Now, either Mary Margaret did not reveal that she is Snow White or nobody believed her. Cora hasn’t seen her since she was a girl, so maybe she will not recognize her, but Snow will know who she is and hopefully realizes how dangerous she can be. This all has me a little confused. Mulan and even Aurora, who had been asleep for a year, know who Regina is, so wouldn’t they know who Snow is too? And Regina pushed Cora into “an annoying little world” so how is she is in the regular Fairytale World.
Overall good episode. It raised a lot of questions and even made me feel sorry for Regina. If there was more Emma and Snow this episode would have gotten an A.
Reviews By Marika 
Recent Comments