#2x13. making him cry. evil. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

litwitlady · 4 years ago

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2x13 Interlude

Takes place immediately after they find Tripp’s body beneath the tool shed and Michael ostensibly moves yet another body. This is very heavy Alex angst - please be warned. Warnings also for anxiety and panic attacks, abuse and violence. The end is slightly fluffy, I promise. But it takes a minute to get there. I wrote this mostly for myself, but thought I’d share anyway.

After Michael leaves, Alex slips back into the house and heads directly to his old bedroom. The one he shared with Flint for so many long, miserable years. The door is ajar, and he nudges it fully open. He sucks in a breath as he looks around and notices that next to no memories from his childhood remain. The walls have been repainted; all his stuff removed – likely thrown out with some random week’s trash. In the corner by the window, a single desk and chair remain. Both flea market finds he and Greg had hauled home one Christmas. Alex walks towards the small desk and opens the top right drawer wondering if it’s possible his old eyeliner had somehow managed to escape his father’s purge. But no – just a bare, wood drawer. Only the memory lingers.

Alex sits in the middle of the floor and notices one of his knuckles is bleeding. He sucks on the injury and lets the coppery taste of iron sit on his tongue. He thinks about how much blood the past has taken from him, from Michael, from Tripp. That tool shed built by an evil man and maintained by another evil man. Both men a part of him. Connected through the very same blood he spent so many years shedding at his father’s hands. The overwhelming shame of his legacy still clasps at his heart, threatening to never let go no matter how many tool sheds he destroys. Tears crawl down his face, burning his skin along the way.

He reaches inside his shirt and grips Tripp’s dog tags that are quickly becoming the lifeline he never knew he needed. Not every part of himself is inherently evil. God, how much he wants to have faith in that belief. He lays back, staring at the ceiling trying desperately to believe Tripp is just as much - if not more so - a part of him than Harlan, than Jesse. Alex knows he’s done evil things – in deserts halfway across the world. To people – men, women, children – that he’d never even met. How many times he’s lain awake staring at similar blank ceilings reliving those memories and trying to convince himself what he did was for survival, for love of country. But ultimately being left with the hollow truth that none of the people he’s killed had to die in order for him to live. A truth locked deep inside his heart, but not so deep that he can ever forget. No. He’ll have to live with that truth for the rest of his life.

His thoughts wonder back to Michael, replaying the way he’d swung that axe so gleefully. Alex could almost see the weight falling off his shoulders. Closing his eyes, he tries to write that memory onto his heart. That’s how he wants to remember tonight. As a healing for Michael – the boy, the man – he’s loved for the past 11 years. And it doesn’t matter if Michael never loves him again because he’ll have this memory to keep him warm now. Maybe it will never replace the horror of what Jesse did all those years ago. But it’s enough for now. Like a cozy blanket he’ll pull out when those terrible images reappear. He’ll wrap himself tight in this memory of a sweaty, smiling Michael Guerin wildly swinging an axe and destroying the thing that has haunted his hand, his memories, his heart for over a decade.

Several long minutes pass as Alex lays there running his fingers over Tripp’s engraved name again and again. He wants to call Michael. Ask him to come back. To lie there with him for the rest of the night. Maybe the rest of forever. But he can’t because Michael is no longer his. The ache in his heart pulls more tears from his eyes as he curls up on his side. He knows he needs to go home. Take off the prosthetic. Do his PT. That he’ll regret this in the morning when the muscle spasms come for him. But there’s a small voice inside his head whispering that maybe he deserves that pain. After all, he, too, is complicit in so many of the ways Michael Guerin has hurt over the years.

A soft knock on the door jars him from his emotional spiral. He turns to find Greg looking down at him clearly concerned. He sits up, dropping the dog tags back down his shirt to rest against his heart. Greg reaches out a hand to help him up. Alex gladly accepts but can’t quite meet his brother’s eye. ‘You alright?’ Alex sighs and nods. He can tell Greg doesn’t believe him and well, who would?

‘Guerin go home? You guys did some real damage back there.’

Alex doesn’t say anything, just shifts all of his weight to his left leg and grimaces at the pain in his right hip. Greg grabs his elbow to help him balance. ‘Come sit down and talk to me, Alex.’

But Alex doesn’t want to talk. He wants to go home, crawl into bed, and spend the rest of the night chasing nightmares. Or maybe he’ll finally take one of his sleeping pills and erase the world for a little while. At least he has options.

Greg seems to understand. ‘Well, at least let me drive you home. No need to stress your leg any further.’

Alex finds the energy to speak and shakes his head. ‘It’s okay. I drive with my left leg, anyway. Plus, both my crutches are in the car. I’ll be fine. Just been a long day.’ Week. Year. Life. He swallows and tries to muster up something he hopes resembles a smile. Greg’s face lets him know he’s failed. ‘Listen, I’ll come back tomorrow. Help you eat all those disgusting casseroles. I’ll explain everything. I promise.’

Greg helps him out to his car. Once he’s inside with the door blissfully closed to anymore questions, Alex deflates, sagging back against the leather seat, and starts to cry again. He knows that there’s something incredibly broken deep down in the dark place he tries not to think about. The stress of the past week is finally catching up with him and he knows he needs help but can’t figure out how to ask for it. Instead, he starts the car and heads home, tears freefalling and chest heaving. He’s scared to look at the passenger seat, scared he’ll see his father sitting there. Smug and gloating that somehow even in death he’s still winning.

Alex focuses as best he can on the road directly in front of him and manages to make it home safely. When he turns into his driveway, he’s shocked to find Michael’s truck parked in his regular spot – tailgate down and waiting for him like so many nights ago. Alex’s chest clenches at the memory of Michael’s ‘I like Maria, okay’. He can feel panic rising and worries that he’s now in danger of a full-blown panic attack if this night doesn’t end quickly.

He shuts the SUV off but doesn’t move. Tension begins to coil in his chest, wrapping his lungs in a vice grip that he’s having a hard time breathing around. Michael must notice that something’s wrong because he hurriedly moves to open his door and unbuckle his seat belt. Alex barely registers any of this as he tries to focus on his breathing. He can distantly hear Michael calling his name, feel his hand wrap around his neck. And then there’s Michael’s hand on his chest and his hand on Michael’s chest. Alex can feel Michael’s heart beating solidly beneath his palm. Can feel the strong in and out motion of his breathing. He clings to that and tries to match him, breath for breath. It takes a moment, but eventually, the pressure in his head eases, sounds return to normal, and the weight on his chest finally subsides. He sucks in as much oxygen as he can in long, deep breaths.

Michael takes a step back giving him some space, not knowing what to do next. Alex hates the lines of worry written across his face. Hates that he’s the one who has put them there. But he’s also never needed someone as much as he needs Michael in this moment. He moves to get out of the car, but his right leg is no longer obeying him, and he can’t hide the groan that escapes him as he shifts towards the door. But Michael’s hands are there to catch him and ease him off the seat, taking the brunt of Alex’s weight onto his own shoulders.

‘My crutches are in the back.’ Michael helps Alex lean against the driver’s side door and then turns to grab the crutches from their perch on the backseat. He hands them to Alex and watches as he puts his arms through the grips, adjusts his stance until he’s as comfortable as he’s going to get. Alex closes the door behind him and notices that Michael has his keys. He presses the lock button on the key fob and follows Alex up to his front door in silence. Alex suspects Michael’s using his telekinesis to ease the walk. They turn to face each other, neither knowing what to say. All that comes to Alex is a simple thank you. He knows it’s not enough.

Michael thumbs away the tears that are somehow still falling down Alex’s cheeks and unlocks his front door. The alarm starts to beep when the door opens, and Alex gives Michael the code to disarm the system. He makes his way into his bedroom and collapses on his bed. Michael takes the crutches from him and places them next to his nightstand. He kneels at his feet and begins taking off Alex’s shoes. He glances up at Alex, asking for permission to remove the prosthetic next. Alex gives a small nod and watches how gently Michael tends to him, all soft tugs and gentle pulls. He’s too tired to care how intimate a situation this is between the two of them. Too tired to think about Maria or not being good enough. He just unbuttons his jeans and lets Michael pull them off him as he tosses his shirt to the floor.

He watches as Michael grabs the lotion from his bedside and begins to massage the tight muscles in his right thigh, from his knee to his hip. Alex relaxes back onto his pillow, closing his eyes and thinking that maybe the nightmares won’t find him after all. His thoughts drift as Michael’s fingers continue to work their magic, shifting to his left leg knowing how much extra work it’s put in today as well.

What feels like a just a moment later, Alex jerks awake suddenly not realizing he’d fallen asleep. Michael is curled up next to him, snoring softly. He considers waking him and telling him to go home or to Maria or wherever he belongs now. But he can’t bring himself to give up the alien warmth and the way his body fits so perfectly next to his own. It’s selfish and he knows it. But he doesn’t care. Alex settles back against Michael and pulls his arms tightly around him. Michael’s left hand comes to rest on his chest and Alex realizes that the bandana is gone. And for the first time, Alex thinks he feels something inside him start to heal.

#malex #malex fic #alex manes #the angst is so strong with this one

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intezaarlily · 5 years ago

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For the fandom ask: Shadowhunter the TV show specifically

Thanks for the ask! And for sending SHTV even though you don’t watch it ❤️

first character I fell in love with: Isabelle. I was gone as soon as she took out the seraph blade

character I used to love but now do not: none, but Clary is the inverse of this - she got on my nerves initially, but the finale made me love and cry about her and it was such a surprise

ship I used to love but now do not: I liked Clary/Simon/Jace as an OT3 in s2, but after the love triangle passed they stopped having scenes together

my ultimate favorite character: Isabelle, but Alec’s close

prettiest character: Isabelle Lightwood all the way. (Though in the cast, I find Kat Mcnamara most beautiful)

my most hated character: Jordan, because of how 3B ruined Maia’s storyline to have her forgive him

my OTPs: Malec, Clizzy, Raphael/Isabelle and Jace/Maia (these must seem so absurd to you 😆)

my NOTP: Jace/Alec/Magnus

favorite episode: 2x13, 2x18, 3x02, the finale

saddest death: Clary losing her runes/memories doesn’t count as a death but it was one of the most heartbreaking moments of the series, so I’m going with it

favorite season: season 3

least favorite season: s1 was campy and fun, but pretty bad objectively

character that everyone else in the fandom loves but I hate: Maybe Lorenzo, but it’s more disinterest than hate

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: Camille! pls I love an evil woman

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Dot, who is definitely alive, living in a sunny Italian village and baking bread and raising cats in peace

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: Camille/Clary. I read a really good fic and then fell down the rabbit hole.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: Clary/Simon, Maryse/Luke, Helen/Aline

#shadowhunters #ask games #my post

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serenagaywaterford · 6 years ago

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5) Honestly, imo it would made a lot more sense if Serena got involved with the Resistance after 2x08. She's a writer and a good propagandist, June's an editor, they could carefully go behind Fred's back. Also, Commander Lawrence is there. They could have brought down Gilead from within. Maybe I'm being simplistic, but I think it would have given a nice msg. An instigator (and impassioned supporter) of a misogynistic (and homophobic) totalitarian regime becomes a victim herself, but decides to

6) to do sth about that monstrous situation she created, even if that means that she will go down with Gilead. Then again, I do understand why the creators didn't go there. This is the handmaid's tale, not the redeemed fascist's tale. Regarding 2x10, oof. I pride myself in having a hard stomach, but that scene made me REALLY, REALLY uncomfortable (and ENRAGED). (A lot more uncomfortable than the previous ceremonies, which were terrible enough on their own, AND Eden's death* .) And given that

7) Serena has the gall to tell Fred that June hates him, because he raped her. Like bitch, stfu, it was YOUR idea! You raped her and used Fred for the penetration. And not only that, but she manipulated Fred/played him like an instrument. She knows at this point that he's a serial rapist/abuser AND in love with June, so ofc he wouldn't decline the opportunity to abuse her once again. It really is telling that June was screaming Serena's name, not Fred's. I wonder wtf was going on Serena's mind

8) to put the baby's life in danger. She could have punished June after the birth if she really wanted to. That being said, I personally think that Serena was kind of OOC in that episode. Not because she's an angel that is not capable of such hideous things. But, after taking under consideration 2x08 and 2x09, I felt that her 180° change came out of nowhere. Especially, since she took a small taste of her own medicine. She knows what abuse/domestic violence feels like. As for the marital rape,

9) it may have been clichéd, but it would also have made sense. A person that repeatedly rapes a woman, beats his wife and is okay with mutilations draws the line at forcing himself on her? Since when do creepers have standards? One last thing, because I've spammed you enough. *I mentioned Eden's death (which made me cry like a baby). How do you feel about her? Bc was disappointed that the fandom blamed a 15 year old child that was forced to marry a man twice her age. Not only that, but she

10) forgave him and kept Nick and June's secret? // END OF RANT // My apologies.

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I think I have to put a read more here! Eep!

“Then again, I do understand why the creators didn't go there. This is the handmaid's tale, not the redeemed fascist's tale.”

I had to laugh IRL there. Cos, it’s true. It’s June’s story, technically speaking, not Serena’s. And I dunno but I feel like I suspect that’s where they eventually want to take the show. But S2 is too early for that? I personally don’t know why. There’s no law an American programme must go one for 14 seasons. It could easily be a 4 season series. Or 3! But I’ve read things that Hulu wants to keep it going as long as possible. Huge mistake, imo. Organically speaking, Serena changing course after 2x08, or even, at a push, 2x09 would have made much more sense than this “will she? won’t she?” BS they keep doing with her. I think she’s come around in a way she hadn’t before by the finale (or Eden’s murder). But it still doesn’t seem like it’s something she’ll carry through with--especially without June. It’s interesting how much Serena relies on June for incentive/encouragement. Basically everything Serena’s done in resistance since mid-S2 has been because June has done or challenged her or said something to prompt her. I feel on her own, she would be ~meeker. Even things like, “Hey, so I know this way to possible save the baby... what do you think?” is clearly her going “Please say what I want to hear!” It’s like she can’t just do it herself. She needs June’s input. June was calling almost every shot in 2x08. In 2x09, when left to her own devices, Serena folded. It took June screaming at her in 2x13 for her to do anything about reading. So, without June around I feel like Serena will just go back to old ways. Which is ridic cos she is an intelligent, powerful woman when she actually has the balls. The only thing Serena manages to do on her own is assault, hate speech, and war crimes lol. The easy shit.

That said, I kinda like how they ended 2x08. I loved Fred seeing the rose on June’s bedside and putting all the pieces together and seeing that as the true threat: Serena and June as friends/partners in rebellion. The beating scene was horrific too, mostly cos I’m not one of those weird fans that was sitting there cheering, “YAY I’M SO GLAD SERENA GOT BEAT! SERVES HER RIGHT!” (I just... want to throttle every single person who’s said that. Not necessarily cos I wuv woobie Serena sfm but because way to miss the point of the entire series.) but the aftermath was even worse, imo. June reaching out and attempting to maintain the bond, but Fred managed to break Serena really easily. Like it’s just so awful how easy it was for him to snap that bond, cos he knows his wife and her pride, etc. It was ... so manipulative and evil genius. (Although it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, Freddie boy.) It was just such a prime example of exactly how they maintain power in Gilead and how they managed to get it working: estranging women from each other. And it was just such an apt way of visualising the concepts June talked about in S1 about keeping women at arm’s length of each other, suspicious, etc. in order for men to keep power. So, in that sense, I thought it was well done. But then... I was like, “OH FUCK THIS. NOT AGAIN. FUCKING SERENA. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT. WHY CAN’T SHE BE STRONG LIKE JUNE. UGH.”

I dunno.

Yeah. 2x10. I was “lucky” to have seen that scene ahead of time... so I was prepared when it happened during the episode. But it was still repulsive. Aside from the nonsensical writing of the whole thing, it was just gross. And I think maybe you’re the first person that when talking about this has mentioned how grossed out you are by the other Ceremony scenes. So many people just... don’t really mention them. I remember the article about 2x10 and how the showrunners were saying something along the lines of “Is it really that big of a deal when the same thing has been happening the entire time?” Nobody reacted the same way those times, because the Handmaids are quiet and well-behaved during their rapes, even though, on some level I think Serena and some other wives (IIRC) are completely aware of how terrible it is (Serena even admits as much...but does it anyway uuuggghhhhh.) This is the only time June ever fights back and suddenly not only are Fred and Serena faced with the brutal reality of the act but as the audience we are as well. It’s easy to look the other way when nobody is crying or struggling but WHAM. Fuck that. This is gross and horrible and here is what it REALLY is. And it’s hard to swallow.

June crying Serena’s name was probably the absolute worst part, cos it just makes it crystal clear that everyone knows exactly who is responsible for that rape. June knows who has the power, whose idea it was, and she knows the only one to stop it is not Fred. (God, I fucking hate Fred but like you said, he was totally played by Serena. I don’t let him off the hook for it but really it was her idea, 100% and he just thought “Hell yeah! Sounds good!”)

I feel like as much as Serena understood the Ceremony is pretty bad generally, I don’t think she recognised it as “real” rape until that moment. I feel like a lot of those Gilead people are just so willfully blind and selfish and horrible that they actively refuse to see things. Like Serena’s weird ass enthrall about child brides. I know some of that was to get back at June but she seemed genuinely awed by how beautiful it all was. NO BITCH IT’S NOT. IT’S CHILD ABUSE AND SEX TRAFFICKING.

I just have given up trying to understand why Serena would do such a monumentally STUPID and DANGEROUS thing if she honestly cared about the baby--which, incidentally, I do believe she truly loves Nicole and babies. As crazy as that is. Even if her love of Nicole specifically is totally a self-centeredness. But she loves babies. Babies above all else apparently, including other women. And she’s not an idiot. Baby health aside, that is a HUGE crime in Gilead to rape a pregnant Handmaid for any reason. I’m supposed to believe Serena is just so massively upset about June’s false labour that she goes mentally insane, even after being subjected to the similar treatment like a week earlier? It’s a huge, nonsensical risk on basically every single level.

I’ve come to the conclusion, considering all those things you did, it was just bad writing. Her 180 just... is bonkers. I give up. I don’t think there’s any way to logically get from 2x08/09 to 2x10 without taking some leaps. Do I think Serena would punish and abuse June for humiliating her? Absolutely. That’s her MO. She lives for that shit. But rape? It... I dunno again. Fucking weird. I don’t know if it’s on purpose or what, but I do find it interesting that after that Serena never raises a hand to June again, when she had some opportunity. She still punished her by separating her from Nicole but she never physically assaults her again. (Not that I’m saying she’s a changed person or anything. I just thought it was curious but I don’t know if it was deliberate on the show’s part or just a symptom of lack of real opportunity.)

ITA re: the marital rape too. I see no reason Fred wouldn’t escalate to that. It’s all Joseph Fiennes fault. Which is probably what pisses me off the very most. He decided that was just too much for his character? C’mon. That’s too much but what Fred does in the next ep is peachy keen? Oh, right, because in 2x10 we can blame Fred’s behaviour on his evil wife. It’s not really his fault. I see. But you can’t blame Serena for him raping her. Ugh. So, cos, Fiennes doesn’t like it, we lose way more context for Serena--who, lbr, is the more important character in this whole series out of the two of them.

EDEN. OMG BB EDEN.

I’m with you. I was actually pretty disgusted at fandom’s response to her. SHE IS A CHILD. But all these Nick/June shippers were going hogwild attacking her for getting inbetween their precious self-insert fantasy relationship. (I have a particularly low opinion of Nick/June shippers primarily because of their reactions to Eden, tbh. Before that, I was like whatever, each to their own.) This is a story about women and girls in a horrible society, and the focus seemed to be on tearing apart this female child for something she had zero control over. I never got the “Eden is evil and gonna fuck shit up for Nick (and June)!” vibe. She seemed to be a regular girl caught and raised in a misogynistic awful place and just lost. I absolutely ABHORRED the way Nick treated her the entire fucking time. (I honestly hate him so much, and most of that again is due to him since the forced marriage, both in the way he was with Eden and with June. And the number of fangirls fanwanking away all his shitty fucking behaviour and throwing Eden under the bus didn’t help my attitude.)

She’s a KID. FORCED TO MARRY A GROWN MAN. A man who it wouldn’t kill to just be straight up with her and a little bit kind. Fuck. (Serena’s grooming certainly wasn’t good either. Like, seriously lady, shut up. Stop pressuring the kid to fuck an adult man who hates her by telling her “Well maybe you can like it too!” AHHHHH.)

To me, aside from the babies/children, Eden was the most truly good character on the entire show. She was patient, kind, caring, FORGIVING, loving. Completely innocent bb girl. And then she gets fucking murdered for kissing a boy she actually likes and wants to be with. Which, was ........... wow. Gilead’s hypocrisy killing a pious young girl, presumably fertile... Yikes.

And that little girl was more brave than ANY other character. And maybe some of that is teenage thinking but still she was staring down death and refused to back down. Sure, it’s unreasonable, and an adult likely wouldn’t have made that decision... but also what was her option? Repent... and become a Handmaid? That would have been her fate since she’s an adulteress and fallen woman. And since she truly believes in goodness, and God, and Heaven (presumably), she sees it as a way for her and Isaac to be together. Meanwhile, it took a literal death sentence for Nice Guy Nick to actually recognise he could have maybe been a bit kinder to her. Then she’s asking for HIS forgiveness. AH. Eden bb.

I have a lot of feelings about Eden, and the way fandom treated her. Even when she was killed, fans were still calling her stupid and annoying for her choice--likely the ONLY real choice she has EVER had for herself. (I think that concept gets forgotten.) Like WTF sort of world do you live in that you watch a show about fascism and female oppression and turn around and bitch out the YOUNG GIRL strictly for being a young girl in a fascist society?

But hey, this is the same fandom that calls Janine annoying and crazy, and says Serena deserves to be beaten and mutilated by her husband/Gilead. Way to miss the point of the entire show. But that’s a totally other rant for another time, heh.

Also, anon, NEVER APOLOGISE FOR YOUR RANTS. They are so wonderful to read cos I completely agree! And it’s just such a relief to see reasonable people around these parts.

#rants and raves #Anonymous

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago

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2x13, aka I'm now up to a very solid bullet point no.4 on the list of Why And How To Ship Destiel In Seasons 1-3, and I probably need to put it under a cut because this episode is ridiculous. You all probably know it but I want it in one place and this time I'm a bit more awake so adding a few meta thoughts here and there :P

2x13:

TELEVANGELIST You don't have to suffer, you don't have to be lost. The lord is talking to you right now; he's saying, you are my child and you have a purpose! You think God forgot about you? I tell you no! All you got to do is listen! Can't you just hear those angels singing? Isn't it beautiful? It's time. It's time to receive the message he's sending. It's time to listen to the Word of God! Do you hear the glory? I said, can you hear it? I said, can you just hear the glory?

Once again, these 2 exchanges about purpose...

4x01:

DEAN Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell? CASTIEL Good things do happen, Dean. DEAN Not in my experience. CASTIEL What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved? DEAN Why'd you do it? CASTIEL Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.

4x02:

DEAN Proof that there's a God out there that actually gives a crap about me personally? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it. SAM Why not? DEAN Because why me? If there is a God out there, why would he give a crap about me? SAM Dean -- DEAN I mean, I've saved some people, okay? I figured that made up for the stealing and the ditching chicks. But why do I deserve to get saved? I'm just a regular guy. SAM Apparently, you're a regular guy that's important to the man upstairs. DEAN Well, that creeps me out. I mean, I don't like getting singled out at birthday parties, much less by... God. SAM Okay, well, too bad, Dean, because I think he wants you to strap on your party hat.

& here, this is an interesting one I'm sure someone's put the two visually side-by-side already with them both sitting in a hospital staring up and generally Anna using the same sort of aesthetic, but in word choice they compare as well -

GLORIA I've never felt better. SAM So, no disturbances lately? GLORIA You mean am I stark raving cuckoo for cocoa puffs? SAM I didn't say that. GLORIA It's all right. I know what people must think.

4x09:

ANNA I was trying to warn them. PSYCHOLOGIST Warn who? ANNA Everyone. Forget it. It was stupid. PSYCHOLOGIST What were you trying to warn them about? ANNA Look... I get it. You think I'm nuts. If I were you, I'd think I was nuts. But it's all true.

Some more obvious side by sides...

2x13:

GLORIA I know, it sounds strange. But what I did was very important. I helped him smite an evil man. I was chosen. For redemption.

4x16:

CASTIEL Yes. When we discovered Lilith's plan for you, we laid siege to hell and we fought our way to get to you before you— DEAN Jump-started the apocalypse. CASTIEL And we were too late. DEAN Why didn't you just leave me there, then? CASTIEL It's not blame that falls on you, Dean, it's fate. The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it. You have to stop it.

(Ignoring all the earlier stuff, this is what they essentially put Dean to work doing between his random resurrection and telling him it was all just a scam to soften him up for being Michael's vessel. He was SUPPOSED to be filled with a righteous purpose and brought back after doing unspeakable evil in Hell to be redeemed by his actions/choices... Which being possessed would have supposedly to them been the ultimate redemption Dean could ask for... I think he and Cas are seeing right through it by this point but still, it makes it more clear than anything else so far what they ACTUALLY wanted him for)

2x13:

SAM Yeah. Gloria Sitnick. And I'm not so sure she's crazy. DEAN But she seriously believes that she was ... touched by an angel?

4x02:

SAM Well, then tell me what else it could be. DEAN Look, all I know is I was not groped by an angel.

(I like that one because of the way Dean changes the reference when it's about him - after all he's been through he can't imagine anything good happening here so the more innocent "touched by an angel" reference gets corrupted into an attack on himself. And by "like" I mean "AAAAAAH" *clutches Dean girl feels and curls into a ball to weep*)

2x13:

DEAN Well, little odd yes, supernatural maybe. But angels? I don't think so. SAM Why not? DEAN (as if it's obvious) 'Cuz there's no such thing, Sam.

4x01:

CASTIEL I'm an Angel of the Lord. DEAN Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing.

Bonus refuted nonsense line coming out of Dean's mouth just to prove that the show wants you to know with hindsight that this episode is the biggest prank the universe ever pulled on Dean "literally married to an angel" Winchester:

DEAN Yeah, you know what? There's a ton of lore on unicorns too. In fact, I hear that they, they ride on silver moonbeams, and they shoot rainbows out of their ass.

(repeated conversation from Faith to tie 1x12 to 2x13 with reminding us of Dean's stance about believing only the stuff you see bexause these are stepping stones to Dean being proven epically wrong - seemingly culminating in the end of this episode but really just to soften him up for later and I am convinced again that Michael or someone orchestrated this whole little thing for Dean to witness in order to make him a bit more credible and properly awed by divine wrath... Anyway I won't quote all this back to back stuff about seeing is believing but Dean's stance hasn't changed)

2x13:

DEAN You didn't see any fluffy white wing feathers?

2x13:

SAM (nodding to a painting on the wall) Father, that's Michael, right?

#no

FR. REYNOLDS That's right. The archangel Michael, with the flaming sword. The fighter of demons. Holy force against evil. SAM So they're not really the Hallmark card version that everybody thinks? They're fierce, right? Vigilant? FR. REYNOLDS Well, I like to think of them as more loving than wrathful. But, uh, yes, a lot of Scripture paints angels as God's warriors. "An angel of the Lord appeared to them, the glory of the Lord shone down upon them, and they were terrified."

4x02:

DEAN I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos -- you know, Michael Landon. Not dicks. CASTIEL Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier.

(And Dean's problem might be that this 'wrathful' thing didn't stick in his mind because the 'guardians' thing was his impression - what Mary told him, the idea he clung onto all that time with the kind of miserable feeling that it was too good to be true... But bonus points for clearly aligning Michael with what they do and we know with hindsight, it's talking specifically about Dean.)

2x13:

DEAN I mean, what's next, are you going to start praying every day? SAM I do. DEAN What? SAM I do pray every day. I have for a long time. DEAN (startled) The things you learn about a guy.

(... the temptation to add the "I prayed to you Cas, every night!" gif from 8x02. But yeah not the point although a very good point others have made. I love that it establishes that Sam has a completely different relationship to faith and angels than Dean - he's been fighting that it might be angels all episode but this point is where we get a statement on his feelings - that he HAS faith. Sam has faith to be broken, Dean has no faith for the sake of deeply, deeply complicating that for him. And in the end faith is a crappy thing to have anyway in this universe when it comes to higher powers, but when it comes specifically to angels and Cas within that, the lesson is very, very different for Sam as it is for Dean. Mittens just reminded me of Sam casually talking about Cas's vessel as an "it" for example, while Dean thinks of Cas as "he" in any situation, and that's from the end of season 11.)

2x13:

SAM It just, it appeared before me and I just, this feeling washed over me, you know? Like, like peace. Like grace.

oh boy, angels and peace. This is also a great parallel to 12x19 and what happened to Cas with Jack - he sees a future with peace, and Jack uses him but other than giving Cas a very obvious new purpose he doesn't change at his core. Sam is still Sam here, he just utterly believes that he has to go kill this guy and that it's right.

(Jury still out on Jack and what exactly this future is...)

DEAN Well, what's to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her. There's no higher power, there's no God. I mean, there's just chaos, and violence, and random unpredictable evil th, that comes out of nowhere, and rips you to shreds.

(How Dean dies in 3x16 because fuckin' OUCH he's smile-crying through this incredible speech. I think his eyes are still wobbling with tears even when I have it paused)

4x02:

DEAN If he doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. There's no rhyme or reason -- just random, horrible, evil -- I get it, okay. I can roll with that. But if he is out there, what's wrong with him? Where the hell is he while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds? How does he live with himself? You know, why doesn't he help?

Wait I skipped Mary entirely.

DEAN Okay, all right. You know what? I get it. You've got faith. That's — hey, good for you. I'm sure it makes things easier. I'll tell you who else had faith like that — Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me. SAM You never told me that. DEAN Well, what's to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her.

*screams at this incoherently*

Favourite nice bit: makes 1x01 retroactively Destiel because Dean puts this into his life story off-screen. Overt awful use of this line is probably 5x13:

MARY Ohh...quite a kick there. Troublemaker already. It's okay, baby. It's all okay. Angels are watching over you.

Her obliviousness to the Grand Plan at the worst moment in season 5 for feeling they can resist the Grand Plan comes after Dean ironcially names Team Free Will sarcastically and miserably.

Buuut then Mary comes back and everything she ever seemed to have built is all fucked up - her family is gone, her sons are grown up, John is dead, she caused an apolocalypse... But hey, one silver lining - her first real interaction with the concept of the wider family they've made on the other side of all that is seeing there is an angel that watches over her sons after all... He's not exactly what Dean was expecting and he's not what Mary would have expected for totally different reasons, but hey, there he is :')

Although not like this is even something that escapes criticism/being taken too far (it was Cas's downfall in season 6 and 12) - I think this bit from 12x19 shows best how Cas is acting like this in a way where watching over them is crossing a line from fighting with them to feeling like he has to protect them more than they'd want him to

Kelvin: You're doing the right thing, you know. Committing to Joshua's plan, putting angelkind above the Winchesters. I mean, your reputation in Heaven is – Castiel: This has nothing to do with my reputation. I am doing this for the Winchesters. I-I stole the Colt to keep them out of this mission and to keep them safe from Dagon, and I – I will kill this girl so that Sam and Dean don't have to.

Anyway.

2x13:

DEAN That's funny, actually. Seriously. If Father Gregory's spirit is around, a séance will bring him right to us. If it's him, then we'll put him to rest. SAM But if it's an angel, it won't show. Nothin' 'll happen. DEAN Exactly. That's one of the perks of the job, Sam: we don't have to operate on faith. We can know for sure. Don't you wanna know for sure?

I am in a world of pain about Dean wanting to summon an angel to prove it's not their because nothing's out there looking out for them and aaall those times Cas isn't answering when he needs him >.>

That's not a firm meta thing that's just me clutching my heart and sobbing

FR. REYNOLDS Oh my god! Is that ... is that an angel? SAM No, it's not. It's just Father Gregory.

UGH I hate watching Sam's faith take a kicking. Considering how shitty angels and God are to him and how he's the one set up to have it all kicked out from under him... Bleh :P

FR. GREGORY Those innocent people are being offered redemption. Some people need redemption. Don't they, Sam?

Also pointing out again Sam feels guilt/is one of these people who needs redemption, to go along with how terrible he feels about finding out what John said about him/being hunted by other hunters. ... I forget how this episode is used to make Sam feel bad in the here and now because it's so focussed on Dean and where his arc GOES.

...

Anyway this was meant to be a basic compare and contrast post and I got a bit carried away and by a bit I mean a lot but YIKES this episode... It's just such a great little building block episode for a ton of arcs which are really rarely covered before they're in your face relevant.

#2x13 #spn rewatches #weird rewatching

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thegreatmercutio · 7 years ago

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Stop...please just stop. (To whom it may concern)

Malec, Magnus Bane, and Alec Lightwood…

Instead of thinking about the “body-swapping” plot is the means to the “break up” of Malec…instead I challenge this frame of mind…to instead see this plot as an “open door” for Magnus and Alec to get even closer. It will opens wounds and bring much angst between and within them…NONE of these means “end of a relationship.”

Do you give up on the people you love? Do you want them to give up on you? Mostly when you’re in pain.

It’s going to be hard for Magnus. To return to his body after “maybe” days of being violated and abused both mentally and physically by the very individuals who has been hunting him and killing his kind for hundreds of years. (This war between Shadowhunters and Downworlders isn’t new, it just has new players). Magnus’ struggles should not be taken lightly. I will be piss off if they force Magnus to smile and to accept this abuse by 2x13. That’s would be a lost of opportunity for character and relationship development.

Most interesting and my stab of this argument is that Magnus while in Valentine’s body is truly helpless and defenseless. In a glass prison without any alliance or a friend. Not since he was a child that he needed someone to protect him. He needs Alec. Begging and pleading for Alec to see. “If you love me…”

Why not? As strong and powerful as he is, does not mean he isn’t without his human side. Yes, he is the son of a Greater Demon, but he’s also human. That’s what Makes Magnus…relatable and beautiful. That fine line between good and evil. Its all in us. It’s sad, to see how some members of this fandom forbids Magnus to be weak and vulnerable. So, everyone else can cry but Magnus can’t? He’s just a Warlock. A Downworlder…undeserving of having emotions?

Have “some” of you guys missed the little moments since the beginning of season 2…the theme of “protection” between Malec? Magnus asked Alec to let him in, but so did Alec. The Japanese Omamori, the “I am responsible for you”, and the real fear that Magnus was killed when the sword was activated…and the “I can come home with you.” And yes…the whole…“This (their relationship) isn’t going anywhere” talk….and the it takes…“effort” to make a relationship work. You can’t just have the good without the bad. Alec isn’t walking away…why would Magnus? After swallowing his pride (and a lecture from Ragnor) and crashing Alec’s wedding to let Alec know…that he wants him to just "walk away" from their relationship, huh? To allow someone so hateful and racist like Valentine, to win?

The solution isn’t about breaking them up. Maybe give them space to think, sure. The solution should be “opening” them up. An opportunity to be raw and honest. Bare their souls. Not just about their love, but the discrimination and the years of unspoken injustice. But also, an opportunity for Alec and the audience to really know Magnus. His past, his worries, and his fears. Think about the upcoming childhood flashback.

As an audience, I know Alec. His feelings, his loyalty, his love, his fear, his family, and his flaws…now…the audience needs to see Magnus.

(In my assumptions, one of poor choices of this show…and why it’s so easier for some people to be so harsh (pushy, predator…) and unreasonably to Magnus (and Harry) was how little scene time and development they give him…(I can say the same about Luke too)..some people are not so advance in abstract thinking and might need some “straightforwardness”…Yeah, Magnus has feelings and Malec involves 2 individuals not a one man show…Alec is important and Magnus is too...I can go on).

#malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #shadowhunters #the mortal instruments #harry shum jr #matthew daddario #lgbtq representation #lgbt #lgbtqa #otp #love #high warlock of brooklyn #downworlders

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tallskinnyvanillalatte · 7 years ago

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Castle Episodes (Seasons 1+2)

So, I decided to do a Castle rewatch because I miss the show a lot. And I thought I could write down some of my favorite moments and some important moments and just some random thoughts. Not on every episode but those that I thought needed to be mentioned. It’s a personal post, so I might mention episodes that you wouldn’t and it’s possible that I won’t mention episodes that you would. This post is for seasons 1 and 2 only, I’ll start with season 3 now and will publish the post once I’m done with season 3.

1x01 Flowers for your Grave: The pilot. Where everything gets started. Classic.

1x02 Nanny McDead: Some lovely Castle/Alexis moments. Also, “So what” is the ringtone of the dead person.

1x03 Hedge Fund Homeboys: There’s this adorable scene where Castle watches Alexis sleep and he’s really worried about her because of the case and makes sure that she knows that she could tell him everything. Also the next day, there’s this silly moment where Alexis beats herself up over not paying for the subway and not telling Castle about it and he’s like “yeah you need to be punished - mandatory ice cream for breakfast for a week”. It’s super silly but also super adorable.

1x05 A Chill Goes Through Her Veins: We get some first information on Beckett’s mother’s death. Also, Joshua Radin’s “No envy, no fear” plays at the end.

1x06 Always Buy Retail: We meet Alexis’ mom <3 Meredith is exhausting, but I wish we’d seen her more frequently on the show. Especially in the episode where Alexis was kidnapped. Also, Castle gets his “writer” vest in this one. Also the scene where Castle receives a message on his phone with his “dad! dad! dad!” ringtone is HILARIOUS. Also, Castle saves Beckett’s life in this episode. The last scene is too adorable where Meredith tells them that she got a job offer and thus can’t stay in New York. Castle looks super good in this scene and the way he hugs Alexis is so adorable. He looks so cute the way he smiles and how he holds her and my heart just <3 <3

1x07 Home is where the heart stops: Beckett saves Castle’s life.

1x09 Little Girl Lost: A two-year-old girl is abducted. Of course this gets a little personal for Castle. There’s an adorable scene with him and Alexis, where he hugs here. It’s a “pea-pod thing”.”I can’t imagine anything like this ever happening to Alexis” I used that quote on a gifset I made about Alexis’ abduction. (this one)

1x10 A death in the family: Alexis wants to go to the junior-senior prom with Owen and she’s like “please say yes” and Castle goes “If I say yes, will you promise to stay up past your bedtime, have a good time?” It’s so cute <3 And then Martha goes “you’re letting her go out with someone you’ve never met? What kind of a father are you?” and he’s not too sure about it anymore lol and even asks Beckett for a background check on the boy. “Sweety, I want you to know that no matter what you think you look, you’re perfect exactly the way you are” There are so many cute Castle-Alexis moments. The scene where Alexis returns from prom and she and Castle talk - it’s so adorable and he loves his daughter so much, I wanna cry. Also, Castle has some new information on Beckett’s mother’s murder.

2x01 Deep in death: Beckett saves Castle’s life. Also, Castle to Alexis “Thank you. For just... being you.” <3 And Castle apologizes to Beckett.

2x02 The Double Down: Alexis has her first heartbreak. Also the scene where Castle hears Martha and Alexis fighting and he’s worried that Martha is beating Alexis, so he rushes into the apartment only to find them rehearsing for a play lol

2x04 Fool me once: “There’s no one in the world that I trust more than I trust you” <3 Alexis has violin lessons in this episode and her teacher happens to be “a hottie”, so Castle goes into full protective mode and wants his background checked and all that which causes a fight between Castle and Alexis. Also, Beckett reads Heat Wave in the bathtub and later in the precinct bathroom where she checks out the sex scene lol.

2x05 When the bough breaks: Meredith “Cruella” Blake from The Parent Trap is in this one.

2x06 Vampire Weekend: It’s Castle in his Firefly outfit. “Yes, you can go [to the party]. But if anything happens that makes you feel uncomfortable, anything at all, you call me. I don’t care what it is. And there’ll be no punishments, no recriminations, nothing, I promise, so long as you just call.” <3 Also Castle’s evil laughter and then choking. When Alexis calls because Paige is drunk, he just goes “I’m on my way” and takes care of them <3 It’s just so great to see Castle this caring and responsible, you know. He’s this silly child all the time and now he’s actually responsible and a parent. “There’s nothing that you could do that would stop me from protecting you or supporting you.” I just love their relationship.

2x07 Famous Last Words: “Angel” <3 The lead singer of a band Alexis likes is killed. “He called her a ... [realizes Alexis is in the room] B-I-T-C-H” “She can spell, detective” greatest scene. The way Castle looks at her when she leaves is pure love. He loves his daughter so much, it’s beautiful. “Weren’t you opening for P!nk?” OPENING FOR PINK OH MY GOD. lol “what about Alexis? She’s perfect, she has no alibi” lol Castle, your suspecting your own daughter.

2x08 Kill The Messenger: It’s Ryan, Esposito and Castle on the couch with a teacup and a bunch of kittens ;D Martha signs up on “MyFace” and meets Chet. “Are you looking at porn?” “I use Ryan’s computer for that.”

2x09 Love me dead: “You know you can tell me anything, right?” Castle is worried because Alexis is clearly hiding something from him. He got even more concerned when Alexis called Beckett asking for advice and still not talking to him. And Ryan and Esposito aren’t really helping either :D “Maybe she got kicked out of school.” “Or she’s doing drugs.” “M-hm, teen pregnancies are on the rise.” “Woah, you met my daughter. You know that she’s the closest thing to perfect as humanly possible.” <3 Turns out, Alexis only wanted to ask Beckett about an exchange program to France because Beckett had studied abroad. There’s also this scene I’ve seen as a reaction-gif a couple of times where Alexis says that she wants to study in Oxford and Castle goes “You know that’s in England, right” “yeah”.

2x10 One Man’s Treasure: “Big Castle likes to get in the way. I’m sure little Castle is a pleasure.” Alexis is volunteering at the precinct. “First days of preschool, I used to hide in the bushes to make sure she was alright”. “Fact Fiction” plays in this one <3 Alexis closes her “who does that book full of personal pictures belong to” case. The way that Castle looks at her and smiles is just pure pride and love.

2x13 Sucker Punch: The storyline of Beckett’s mother’s murder continues. We meet Beckett’s dad. “I have a hard job, Castle, and having you around makes it a little more fun.” Beckett finds the guy who killed her mother, she just doesn’t know who hired that person. And she has to shoot the guy to protect Castle. The scene in which she tries to get him back is heart breaking. Maybe you should’ve aimed for his shoulder. You weren’t that far apart and he wasn’t in movement, so...?

2x14 The Third Man: Castle ranks #9 as the hottest Bachelor’s in town or something. Alexis’ principal wants a date. And her German teacher Fräulein Sonnenberg (no one is called Fräulein in Germany anymore but we) wanted Alexis to tell Castle auf Deutsch “du hast Sexappeal” lol it’s too cute. Also, Alexis is kinda pissed and annoyed at all this. And when Castle realizes that he grins all over and goes “Oh you hate me a little bit right now, don’t you”. Castle to Alexis: “You’re number one on mine [my list]. Look, it’s my job to worry about you, not the other way round.” Castle’s tie looks slighty different in the restaurant, the color is different. Maybe it’s the light or maybe they messed up.

2x15 Suicide Squeeze: Castle’s father is addressed once again.

2x16 The mistress always spanks twice: We meet Ryan’s girlfriend Jenny <3

2x17 Tick Tick Tick /2x18 Boom: so intense, such a ride, such a thrill. Need I say more?

2x19 Wrapped up: Love the episode, it’s hilarious! Castle thinks he’s cursed because he looked at an ancient mummy. Some weird things happen to him (some of which can be explained because the team tampers with them, others remain unexplained). There’s a scene where the elevator stops and he’s afraid it’s gonna fall, so he lays on the ground while the doors open. I’ve seen this as a gif several times (with the #dead writing on it). When he explains the situation, there’s a random cop just pissing himself in the background, it’s hilarious when you watch him. Also, Castle asks Martha if she would look after Alexis if something happened to him. And later, he asks Beckett, too, because “she looks up to you” <3

2x20 The Late Shaft: The final scene is so adorable when Alexis returns from her five-day-trip and Castle hugs her and goes “my best girl, oh I missed you so much, i’m so glad you’re home”. This scene is so beautiful. The way he speaks and hugs her, it’s just so beautiful, so much love.

2x22 Food to die for: Alexis wants to go on a weekend trip with her friends, but she also has exams coming up and wants/needs to study for those. She feels bad about every decision she makes, so eventually she asks her dad to tell her to stay home and study. That scene is adorable. And then Castle is like “1,001 ways to distract someone who’s studying. We start by freezing ping-pong balls.” Ah I just love their relationship <3

2x23 Overkill: Castle is so jealous of that guy that’s been working with Beckett all the time. He’s always been jealous but it gets even worse in this episode. And at the end of the episode (Lifehouse’s Crash and Burn is playing), he watches Beckett and the guy kiss and it basically kills him. The look on his face, oh boy.

2x24 A Deadly Game: Ah, the episode is so frustrating. Castle and Beckett clearly care a lot about each other, yet they both mess up and don’t get it right. Beckett breaks up with her boyfriend and starts to talk to Castle, thanking him, telling him that she had a great time with him. And then Gina shows up and Castle says they are off to the Hamptons for the summer and it really sounds and looks like Castle and Gina are back together. And I - as a viewer - get so frustrated because Castle and Beckett can’t get their shit together. Man, how did everyone feel when the episode aired for the very first time, not knowing what would happen after the hiatus. Anyway. Alexis is off to a summer program by Princeton University and Castle is so over-protective and in ‘jealous dad-mode’ because the rooms are mixed-gender and Alexis already met with a boy that’s going to the program too. It’s super adorable how jealous and protective he is. And when Castle tells the boys at the precinct about their goodbye, he goes “it was really emotional, there were a lot of tears. ... Alexis was fine, by the way.” :D

#castle #abc castle #castle episodes #personal

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stahlop · 4 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 3x06 “Ariel” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x15 2x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x01 3x02 3x03 3x04 3x05

So secrets is what this episode is all about. It seems like it should have more to do with the Little Mermaid who is introduced, but it’s not. And by the end of this episode everyone is pretty much mad or upset at everyone else, because that is what happens when you keep secrets. But everything is out in the open, so hopefully we can start moving past those secrets and start healing.

Summary: In the Enchanted Forest, Snow meets a little mermaid named Ariel, who Snow helps to win over the prince she’s in love with. In Neverland secrets are revealed when Emma, Hook, Mary Margaret, and David go to rescue Neal from the Echo Caves.

Opening: Ariel on a rock

New Characters:

Ariel/Eric: We meet Ariel when she saves Snow from drowning after she jumps into the sea to escape the Evil Queen’s guards. After she brings Snow to shore, they bond over the craziness of love. Ariel is in love with a human prince that she rescued from a shipwreck. She shows Snow an invite to a ball that is happening that night, and then turns her tail into legs, courtesy of the Sea Goddess Ursula who allows mermaids to have legs on land during the highest tide once a year. Ariel asks Snow to keep the fact that she’s a mermaid secret from Eric so that he can fall for her first. At the ball Eric is immediately smitten with Ariel and they share a dance (after Ariel trips over her heels walking over to him). Eric immediately recognizes her as the woman who saved him, but Ariel denies it. Eric backtracks and says that Ursula saved him and that she gave him a vision of his future with Ariel. If Ariel wasn’t already completely infatuated with him, I’d think she’d be creeped out by that. But she’s not. She tells Eric she’s in his kingdom because she wants to see the world. Eric wants to see the world too, he’s leaving on a grand expedition in the morning. Ariel seems disappointed in this, which is weird because she’ll be a mermaid, so it won’t even matter. But then, Eric invites the girl he just met, but believes she’s a vision of his future, with him on his travels. Thanks to Ariel’s shocked expression, Eric thinks he may have misread the situation. Ariel is confused because she wants to go with him, but she can’t because she’s a mermaid. Eric tells her he’ll wait for her the next day, and if she shows up he’ll be overjoyed, and if not he’ll be heartbroken, but understand. Ariel goes to talk to Snow. She’s upset because she can’t let Eric give up his dream to be with her. I’m confused. How can Ariel do anything with Eric being a mermaid? How would he give up his dream to be with her? She should just tell him she’s a mermaid and swim alongside his boat to all the places he’s going to. Win-win for everyone. Snow tells her she’s afraid of what his choice might be if he has to choose between her and his travels. Again, why does he have to choose? Snow tells Ariel to be honest and lay everything out for Eric. Ariel decides she needs to go and think by the water. She asks Ursula for guidance, and gets it from the Evil Queen pretending to be the Sea Goddess Ursula. Ariel is in complete shock. The Evil Queen convinces Ariel that telling Eric the truth will only make him reject her. The Evil Queen tells Ariel she can keep her legs and never have to tell Eric the truth. Ariel jumps at this. Ariel finds Snow and tells her she has a way for them both to be happy. For her to be with Eric and for Snow to escape the Evil Queen. She clamps a bracelet on Snow which turns her into a mermaid and allows Ariel to keep her legs (not cool, Ariel, you need permission before you do those kinds of things to people). Snow is freaking out, especially because Ariel tells her Ursula gave her the bracelet. The Evil Queen decides to make her entrance then, and Ariel feels very betrayed that the Evil Queen lied to her. She’s confused and wants to help Snow, but both Snow and the Evil Queen convince her to go be with Eric instead, so she leaves. But it’s just a ruse! Ariel stabs the Evil Queen with the fork she pilfered earlier in the neck, takes the bracelet off of Snow, and they swim away. Once they reach safety, Snow tells Ariel to go back and find Eric before he leaves. Eric is brooding forlornly on his balcony waiting for Ariel to arrive. It looks like it’s going to be a happy ending for these two when Ariel surfaces, but the Evil Queen steals Ariel’s voice so she can’t call out to Eric. The Evil Queen mocks Ariel and she swims off crying.

We don’t see Ariel in Neverland until almost the end of the episode. Regina calls her through a shell and gives her back her voice so she can retrieve something for them from Storybrooke to trap Pan. She does not want to help Regina, but Regina tells her that she can give her legs (without giving her tail to someone else), and that she’ll find Eric where she’s sending her. This, of course, intrigues her, and she agrees to help.

Character Observations:

Snow/Mary Margaret: Snow really annoyed me in this episode. She seemed wildly out of character. From what we’ve seen in previous episodes, Snow was hardened by having been on the run for many years at this point. She’s obviously met Charming by the way she speaks of love with Ariel, but hasn’t yet been forcefully separated from him by King George. I don’t know if she’s supposed to be so giddy in new found love or what, but she’s acting like young Snow, and not the bandit thief she is supposed to be at this point. Snow is running from the Evil Queen’s guards and jumps into the sea to escape them. She is rescued by Ariel. Snow seems rather in awe when Ariel reveals she’s a mermaid. She’s confused when Ariel tells her she’s in love with a human prince, and she’s completely flabbergasted when Ariel turns her tail into legs. I get this is probably the first time she’s met a mermaid, but she’s acting like how a young child would act when meeting a mermaid, not a somewhat jaded woman who has only just met ‘the one’. Anyway, Snow decides since Ariel saved her life she’s going to go with her to the ball and help her out. Ariel wants Snow to keep the fact that she’s a mermaid a secret from Eric, which Snow isn’t too happy about, but she goes along with it for now. At the ball, she literally pushes Ariel to dance with Eric. Ariel is upset because she thinks she has to have Eric choose between her and traveling the world, his dream, but Snow thinks she can be his new dream. Snow thinks that Ariel is afraid, if given the choice, that Eric won’t pick her. And I still don’t understand this argument because Ariel is a mermaid and can’t go with him, and he can’t join her in the sea, so why does he have to choose anything? Snow tells Ariel to be honest with Eric so he can have all the facts when he makes his choice. And she tells her that love is worth the risk, and at least she’ll know she’s tried. If I’ve placed this right on the timeline, then Snow and Charming have only been exchanging letters at this point, so she hasn’t risked anything yet. Unless she just means the adventure they went on. Ariel needs to think things over. Snow is on the docks when Ariel finds her with amazing news on how she can stay human and how Snow can escape the Evil Queen. Snow wonders how that’s possible (with seriously the worst line reading I’ve ever heard; she sounds like a middle schooler saying that line on stage, and as a former middle school drama teacher I can confirm that is exactly what they sound like), and Ariel shows her the bracelet, before putting it on Snow and turning her into a mermaid, which Snow is not happy about. Snow sounds like she’s about to cry (once again in a child-like way). Ariel tells her that Ursula gave her the bracelet and that Snow can now have a wonderful life under the sea away from the Evil Queen. All Snow gets from that is that Ursula, the supposedly mythical Sea Goddess gave Ariel the bracelet. Snow is getting a little hysterical that Ariel is getting presents from a not real person, but that’s when the Evil Queen appears and sheds the ruse of pretending to be Ursula. Snow informs Ariel that it’s the Evil Queen. Considering Snow jumped into the sea to escape the Evil Queen’s guards, she doesn’t look that frightened at all of what the Evil Queen might do to her. She even helps convince Ariel to leave and pursue Eric. While the Evil Queen is belittling Ariel, Snow just sits there and watches. She doesn’t even try to escape (I know she’s having trouble with her tail, but she is literally just sitting there watching the conversation). Snow tells Ariel she’s tired of running and to just leave her (what?), and to go find happiness with Eric, and why isn’t the Evil Queen tearing out Snow’s heart right now? Why is she just letting her sit there and tell Ariel what she should do? And when Ariel does go, Snow is just sitting there like, ‘oh, well.’ This is not the feisty Snow we’ve come to know and love. I don’t even know who this Snow is. And then the Evil Queen starts choking her and Snow seems surprised. Surprised! Why is she surprised that the Evil Queen is trying to kill her? Maybe she expected her to take her heart instead. I don’t know. Luckily, Ariel saves her and they swim off in the sea in the slowest swim getaway I’ve ever seen. They make it to safety and Snow tells Ariel to go after Eric.

Mary Margaret also doesn’t like keeping secrets. Hook comes to the Charmings to tell them about Neal being alive and on the island. They’re both hesitant, but Mary Margaret’s tracker skills come in handy and she notices signs that someone has been at the camp. She automatically wants to tell Emma, but David and Hook want some more proof before telling Emma. Mary Margaret remarks that secrets seem to always keep us from the people we care about. Is she speaking from experience? Is she referring to some of the evil things Regina and Cora have done? I don’t understand what this is in reference to as Mary Margaret always seems to tell the truth (except when she was dating a ‘married’ David). Of course, when Emma asks where David and Hook are going, they can’t even agree on a simple cover story, so Mary Margaret blurts out that according to Pan, Neal is alive. Emma is, of course, skeptical, but Mary Margaret tells her that just because it’s too good to be true, doesn’t mean it is (I don’t think that’s what Emma is worried about, learn to read your daughter Mary Margaret). And then she brings out the big guns, telling Emma she owes it to Henry to find out if his father is still alive. Sigh. While following the drag marks, Emma tells Mary Margaret that she kissed Hook and Mary Margaret seems frazzled about it. Mary Margaret thinks Emma is telling her this because of the fact that Neal may be alive. She tells Emma to open herself up to the hope that Neal is alive and Emma wants to know why she should risk that. Mary Margaret tells her she deserves a happy ending. Well, it’s not with Neal. Again, learn to read your daughter. Emma’s obviously distressed by this and Mary Margaret is not getting this at all. She thinks that Emma doesn’t want to be happy. Of course, not knowing about how Neal put her in jail isn’t helping in Mary Margaret’s Neal love. Mary Margaret tracks the drag marks to the Echo Caves. Hook tells them they’ll have to reveal secrets to get to and rescue Neal. Mary Margaret actually looks a little scared at this revelation. They see that Neal is inside the Echo Caves, but they can’t reach him. Hook starts them off with his secret and a bridge starts forming. Mary Margaret goes next and reveals that she wants to have another baby. This is a secret because she doesn’t want to hurt Emma by essentially replacing her, but she feels cheated out of getting to experience motherhood. Of course, this won’t happen because of David’s secret that he can’t leave the island due to what happened in Good Form. Mary Margaret is pissed that David kept the Dreamshade poisoning a secret from her. That secret is enough for Emma to get across and rescue Neal. After they leave the cave, David tries to apologize to Mary Margaret, but she is not having it. And she has every right to be mad, because he lied and he dashed her dreams in one second when he revealed the truth.

The Evil Queen/Regina: Once again she is spying on Snow through a magic mirror. At least there’s another mirror for her to be looking through this time. She catches her talking to Ariel and her guard identifies Ariel as the woman who rescued Snow due to her unmistakable red hair (he also thought she had a tail, but he might have been mistaken). The Evil Queen is mad because he let her get away because he thought Snow was dead, so she kills him instead. The Evil Queen comes up with a new idea, which is apparently imitating a long thought dead Sea Goddess, complete with Caribbean accent. Ariel is gullible enough to believe that this is truly Ursula, or maybe just desperate enough. And I’m really wondering what the Evil Queen is doing with her arms, because it looks like she’s swimming even though she’s on top of the water and it’s really weird. After rolling through some Little Mermaid references, Ariel says she needs to tell Eric the truth, but the Evil Queen disagrees. She tells Ariel that Eric will never accept her as a mermaid, but instead offers her a gift to let her live as a human. After Ariel turns Snow into a mermaid, the Evil Queen appears and reveals that she tricked Ariel. She is reveling in the fact that she finally has trapped Snow and mocks Ariel until she finally leaves to go find her true love. She starts choking Snow instead of just ripping out her heart and crushing it. Unfortunately, Ariel comes back and stabs her with a fork and she and Snow escape. Now she’s really pissed, so when Ariel comes back for Eric, the Evil Queen takes her voice as punishment and leaves a heartbroken Ariel under the sea. But then, she’s confronted by the real Ursula through her magic mirror for pretending to be her, leaving the Evil Queen just a little bit frightened.

Regina is trying to teach Emma magic by using her anger. I think that works for Dark Magic, but for Emma’s Light Magic, I think she needs something different. But she does manage to light the fire on accident by yelling at Regina. And Regina is all smug about it. After they find out Neal might be alive, Regina leaves the group to go find Henry on her own. She won’t be distracted by whatever game Pan is playing. And she doesn’t like that Emma is going to go after Neal rather than their son. She comes across Gold with Belle and starts choking her. She’s pissed that Gold is falling for Pan’s games as well. Gold tries to stop her, but eventually Belle turns into Pan’s Shadow. Now Regina is raving mad at Gold for falling for Pan’s trap. She tells Gold that she needs him to get Henry back. He tells her the only way for him to stop Pan is to die himself. Regina tells him she’s the only one who gets to kill him. Gold is insistent, so Regina brings up that maybe they can find another solution that doesn’t require killing him. Regina starts talking out what they might be able to do and Gold realizes he has something in his shop in Storybrooke that could work. Regina rightly asks him why he didn’t bring this device in the first place, but Gold tells her he was planning on dying so it didn’t matter. Regina laughs at him because she doesn’t believe that would have ever happened. She talks about his survival instincts as well and how he would never kill himself. Gold agrees. Regina says they need to get back to Storybrooke to get the item and bring it back to Neverland. Gold says they can’t just cross realms, but Regina knows a way. They go to the water and Regina calls for someone through a shell. Gold asks if she’s going to call a giant squid, but instead she calls Ariel. Regina says Ariel is going to help them and Regina realizes that Ariel still can’t speak and gives her back her voice. Ariel doesn’t want to help, but Regina tells her she can give her legs and the place she’s sending her to is where Eric is.

Emma: Regina is teaching her how to control her magic, but she doesn’t want to go dark doing it. Regina riles her up until she gets mad enough to start a fire. Emma is slightly impressed with herself. Emma notices the men about to leave camp and asks where they’re going. Mary Margaret can’t lie and tells her Neal is alive. At first she doesn’t believe it, but she realizes that it may be the truth. You can see a whole plethora of emotions going across her face as she processes this information. Mary Margaret shows off more evidence that someone was dragged off, and Regina is getting pissed at Emma for believing Pan’s BS. Regina decides to leave the group and Emma isn’t happy about it. But Regina isn’t going to waste time looking for Neal over her son. Emma looks conflicted. She tells Mary Margaret that Regina could be right and Pan is lying to them, but Mary Margaret gives her whole hope speech and convinces Emma to look for Neal. She also guilts Emma into going after Neal because she ‘owes’ it to Henry. While they’re following the drag marks, Emma tells Mary Margaret that she kissed Hook. Emma is viewing Mary Margaret more as her friend than her mother here. You can tell she’s telling her almost as if she were a teenager telling a friend about a crush, something she obviously didn’t get to do as a teen. Mary Margaret starts asking the hard questions (Why? Did it mean anything?). Emma gets flustered trying to defend why she did it. Mary Margaret takes this to mean that Emma isn’t sure how Neal will take it. Emma reiterates that they don’t even know if he’s really alive. Mary Margaret tells her she should open up to the hope that he’s alive. Emma gets all defensive, but Mary Margaret tells her she deserves a happy ending. I’m sure Emma is thinking more about the fact that she’d never have to deal with the guy who broke her heart and sent her to jail pregnant, but of course, Emma still hasn’t told Mary Margaret any of this. They get to the Echo Caves and Hook explains that you have to tell your darkest secret to get to its treasure (Neal). Emma thinks this whole thing is ridiculous. They enter the cave and clearly see Neal on a cliff in the middle of a deep ravine. Emma looks terrified that he’s actually alive. I’m sure she was hoping this was all a trick. She even backs up a little when Neal calls to her. Hook goes first in telling secrets. He tells them he kissed Emma and she rolls her eyes since she can’t believe that that would be his darkest secret. He tells her that he’s realized he can move past his first love because of meeting her. Emma looks frightened of this as well. Mary Margaret goes next and starts heaping praise on Emma, who looks very uncomfortable with all of it. After Mary Margaret and David’s secrets, Emma is able to get across. She tries to hack away at the cage, but Neal tells her she has to tell a secret to get him out. You can tell she really doesn’t want to admit her secret. Neal swears she can tell him anything, so she does. She admits to being terrified when she found out he was alive. She realized she’ll always love him, but she really hoped he was dead so she wouldn’t have to deal with all the pain he’d brought to her all over again. That makes the cage disappear. And this was a totally missed opportunity for Emma to tell her parents about Neal framing her and putting her in jail. I feel that’s a much darker secret than how Emma feels about Neal, because I also believe that Pan probably has rigged the bridge to appear at certain secrets that he knows will hurt the group. Neal hugs Emma now that there is no cage in the way, and Emma looks conflicted again. Outside of the cave, Emma attempts to apologize for how she feels to Neal, he tells her it’s okay, but she tells him it’s not. She can’t change how she feels and she’s trying to be strong and fight back tears the entire time. He says he doesn’t blame her, and he has a secret too. He’ll never stop fighting for her. Here’s my take on what Emma said to Neal in the Echo Cave. She says she loves him and she always will. But just as I’ve said previously, they don’t know each other anymore. They were 17 and 23 the last time they were together (technically older for Neal). How many people can say they’re the same people they were 12 years later? Not to mention that Neal was engaged to Tamara less than a week ago! So Emma may say she loves him, but that’s 17-year-old Emma talking. The one who hasn’t experienced love since because she walled up her heart. No way do I believe she is still in love with him today, in the here and now.

Gold: He is attempting to see the future to help him. Pan appears and tells him that he can’t see the future there because time doesn’t move in Neverland. Gold tries to threaten Pan, who just laughs at him. Pan has made him his favorite breakfast. Gold is trying desperately to hold it together against Pan. He’s taunted by Pan about losing Neal, again, and not being able to rescue Henry because he’d have to go through him, and he can’t. Gold is getting fed up with Pan, who tells him he’s just trying to point out the silver linings. Gold tells him that by killing him all their troubles would end. Pan tells him that they both know that won’t happen. Pan tells Gold he can leave the island, but Gold won’t go without Neal and Henry. Pan tells him they’ll never forgive him. Gold says he can’t know that, but Pan asks him if he’s forgiven his father, and therein lies the truth, because he hasn’t. Pan tells him to go back to Storybrooke, and Belle, start a new life, a new family. Leave everyone else behind as that’s the only future he can have. Pan leaves and Gold is visibly shaken. Gold is looking at his doll when Belle appears to him again. She tries to convince him to go home to Storybrooke and start a new family, the same things Pan just said to him, but Gold doesn’t see that. Belle says she’s really there and Gold just has to take his hand and they can go back to Storybrooke together. He’s about to take when Belle starts choking and Regina appears and basically tells Gold he’s an idiot. He’s actually shocked when Belle turns into Pan’s Shadow. Regina lays into him for believing that was really Belle, but Gold just wants to know why she’s there bugging him. She wants his help finding Henry. They argue because the only way Gold knows to stop Pan is by him dying. Regina thinks with their combined magic they can beat Pan, but Gold tells her she’s never faced Pan, so she doesn’t know what she’s dealing with. Regina wonders if they can figure out a way to contain him instead of killing him. Gold remembers something from his shop that can help. Regina can’t believe he didn’t bring it with him. Gold reminds her that he came here to kill Pan and die in the process. Gold mocks Regina when she talks about crossing realms to get back to Storybrooke (and he has every right to as he helped her enact the Dark Curse just to cross realms), but Regina has a plan. They go to get Ariel to help them. I have to admit, Gold has been a lot less sinister and a whole lot more angsty since they’ve gotten to Neverland, and it’s weirding me out. He’s such a strong character, he shouldn’t be about ready to cry every time he sees Pan. I guess we’ll find out soon why he’s so weird around him.

David: He’s worried about Regina teaching Emma magic. Hook comes and tells David and Mary Margaret about Neal being alive. David wonders why Pan would tell Hook. Both David and Hook think they need to keep it a secret from Emma until they have more proof. Mary Margaret doesn’t like that idea. David tells her sometimes keeping secrets helps protect the people you love (well he is speaking from experience). But David and Hook suck at lying, so Mary Margaret ends up telling Emma. They end up at the Echo Cave, they have to tell dark secrets to get to Neal. He’s upset when Hook confesses to kissing Emma, but Mary Margaret tells him this is not the time. Mary Margaret pours her heart out about wanting another baby, but unfortunately, David’s secret is that he was hit with Dreamshade and now can’t leave the island because of the cure. He looks absolutely devastated when telling this to Mary Margaret, because he’s basically told her to go find someone else to have a baby with since he can’t be there for her. He tries to talk to Mary Margaret after they rescue Neal, but she’s not having it right now.

Hook: He immediately goes and tells the Charmings that Neal is alive. So glad he didn’t sit on that information. He and David both agree not to tell Emma yet. They tell Mary Margaret that they just want confirmation before telling Emma. But they suck at cover stories so Emma finds out. They end up at the Echo Caves and Hook’s secret is not just that he kissed Emma, but that her kiss sparked something inside him that made him realize he could move on past Milah. And that he could fall in love again (presumably with Emma if she’d let him). After they rescue Neal, he overhears Neal telling Emma he’ll always fight for her, and Hook looks heartbroken, since they just shared that amazing kiss a few hours ago.

Questions:

How did Mary Margaret manage to get a haircut while in Neverland?

Why do the dresses in Eric’s kingdom look like 1990’s Homecoming Dance dresses? They definitely don’t match any of the other kingdoms we’ve seen women’s wardrobe-wise.

Where and how did Ariel and Snow get dresses for this ball? Did Ariel have something of value in her collection for them to sell?

How does Ariel know the dance that she and Eric dance to?

The Evil Queen’s guard tells her that he recognizes Ariel as the woman who rescued Snow, but the Evil Queen implies that the guard thought Snow was dead. So which was it? Did he think she was dead or did he think she was rescued by Ariel?

Why does Mary Margaret ask Emma who she kissed? There are two men in their group and one is her father.

Why does Gold have to die to defeat Pan? Is that because of the prophecy, or because it’s actually the only way?

Why does Ariel change out of her dress into her on land ‘mermaid’ outfit to go think?

Is Ariel the mermaid the Evil Queen had gone to make a deal with Rumpelstiltskin about in Skin Deep?

Was Belle Pan’s Shadow the whole time, or was Belle really just a figment of Gold’s imagination and Pan just took advantage of it this time?

Why doesn’t Gold mention that Neal is on the island to Regina? Why doesn’t he mention that he and Neal rescued Henry and then they were separated? He doesn’t know Neal was captured. And for that matter, why doesn’t Regina mention that the rest of the crew is looking for Neal because Pan told them he was alive?

How do the drag marks Mary Margaret is following lead to the Echo Cave when Neal was put in the box and taken to the Echo Cave later on?

How did Hook lose half his crew to the Echo Caves? What were they searching for in there?

Were the waters Ariel lived in part of what Cora put in her bubble? If not, why hasn’t she aged? Do mermaids age differently than humans?

Why does Ariel try to speak when Regina calls her? Hasn’t she been without a voice for almost 30 years now?

Observations:

Those are definitely a stunt doubles’ hands saving Snow in the water. And they seem to be very masculine as well.

Apparently rescuing people is something Ariel does.

Items in Ariel’s collection: pocket watch, mini ship’s wheel, belt buckle, fork.

Oh, look, both Snow and Ariel still have perfect makeup on despite being in the water.

Ursula is a Sea Goddess.

Once again, someone transforms and they’re automatically wearing clothes.

No one has seen the Sea Goddess Ursula in over 1000 years.

From the way Snow talks about love, I’m assuming she’s met Charming during Snow Falls, but we haven’t reached where she has to break Charming’s heart in 7:15 AM.

Rumplestiltskin’s favorite breakfast is eggs in a basket.

Snow has attempted to teach Ariel about forks and other human things.

I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a nod to how Sebastian pronounces Ariel or the Evil Queen just misheard through the mirror, but she completely pronounces Ariel’s name wrong.

Regina mentions they’ve been on Neverland for a week.

There is no blood on the fork when the Evil Queen pulls it from her neck, nor is there any blood (or puncture wounds) on her neck.

Mermaids can travel between worlds.

This and the past two episodes (Nasty Habits and Good Form) have all taken place over one day.

Ugh! I’m not happy that Neal is now with the group. Hook is upset because he just bared his soul to Emma and now he has competition. Snow is pissed at David because he lied to her and is now stuck on Neverland, so she’ll either have to stay with him or live without him. And Gold is hopefully now back in the right headspace to defeat Pan now that Regina has gotten rid of his Belle visions. Looks like Ariel is on her way to Storybrooke, so hopefully we’ll get to see the real Belle and a few other Storybrooke citizens.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

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stahlop · 4 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 3x02 “Lost Girl” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x111x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x032x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x152x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x01

This episode is all about knowing who you are. We have Emma who still feels like an orphan, despite having found her parents, Snow White who almost gives up her kingdom because she’s lost her way, and Rumple who feels like he’s still that coward from years ago. They all have to go through something to move past that hurt and shame inside of them and become a Savior, a Queen, and a hero. Unfortunately, the whole storyline is really slow.

Summary: Pan gives Emma a map to find Henry, but warns her that only she can unlock the map when she admits who she really is. In the past, Snow White is having doubts about taking back the kingdom, until Charming takes her to an enchanted weapon that helps her injure the Evil Queen.

Opening: Sword in the Stone

Character Observations:

Gold: He immediately cuts off his shadow and gives it his dagger to hide so that even he can’t find it. I guess if you’re magical you can have your shadow taken from you without risk of death? Or maybe it’s different for people from the Enchanted Forest then from Earth? Not sure. Either way, Gold no longer has his shadow or his dagger. Gold is looking at the doll when he hears rustling. A hooded figure steals the doll and it turns out to be, Belle? Gold is confused about how Belle is there, and she doesn’t really answer his questions about it, just asks her own about his wardrobe. She thought it was his past, he tells her it’s now his future so he can save Henry. She tells him that there’s still hope and that he would never go completely dark again. He almost kisses her before he realizes that something is amiss. At first he asks her questions about Storybrooke, but then thinks that she’s a trick of Pan’s. She tells him he conjured her. Gold is understandably confused about that, because he seems to think he has everything under control, so Belle asks him why he conjured her. Belle brings him to a ledge overlooking the ocean. Is this the same place Henry and Pan flew from? It looks like it, but they may also only have one cliff and have to dress it up differently each time. They argue about why he’s brought Belle to the island. He claims he doesn’t know why he’d imagine her there and she insists he does (is he literally arguing with himself right now if Belle is a figment of his imagination?). He finally admits he’s a coward just like his father. He finally admits that Pan wanted him to leave Henry and Gold would get to live. Belle says he’s afraid he’ll make the selfish choice because he knows Henry will lead to his death. Belle reminds him how he spent most of his life looking for Bae after he abandoned him. He wouldn’t do the same to Henry. He needs to let go of the past. We finally find out that the doll is the last thing Gold’s father gave him before he left. So that’s why he’s so sentimental about it. Belle tells him to let go of the past so he doesn’t make the same mistakes. She leaves and Gold drops the doll over the cliff’s edge. Except the damn thing keeps coming back like a bad penny. It falls from the sky back at Gold’s feet. He sets it on fire and crushes it beneath his foot, but there it is, completely unharmed, just behind the next bush. Gold decides it’s probably best to keep it on him after that. But he looks really worried, which is not a look we normally see on him.

Emma: While Gold is busy trying to move past his past, Emma is being forced to relive hers in order to save Henry. Hook is leading them to a ridge to be able to see the whole island. Emma defends him when Regina is being a bitch again. Emma thanks Mary Margaret for some water and Mary Margaret asks her to call her mom instead. Emma is not comfortable with that. Only in life and death situations. Do you not know your daughter yet, Mary Margaret? They reach the ridge and find the Dark Jungle has grown more than when Hook was last there. Emma worries that it will be too late when they find Henry. Mary Margaret assures her that it’s never too late. Um, if Henry is dead then it will be too late. Emma is woken by the sound of the Lost Boys crying. She ventures away from their camp (though she does try to wake the others, but they’re all sound asleep). Emma finally meets Pan and she immediately puts a sword to his throat (good job, Emma). He tells Emma he’s there to help her find Henry. He’ll give her a map that only she can open if she stops denying who she really is. Regina wants to use magic to unlock the map, but Emma is determined to figure it out herself. She also doesn’t want to risk ruining the map. Emma tries naming things about herself to unlock the map with no success. Mary Margaret and David are trying to help her, but they are so overeager that Emma is clearly uncomfortable with them there. And while Mary Margaret tells her not to hold anything back, it’s very obvious that she doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Everyone thinks Emma saying she’s the Savior will unlock the map, but it doesn’t. Regina decides to use a locator spell on the map to find Pan’s camp. Emma does not look convinced this is the right decision. Way to be a leader, Emma. And then Regina tells Emma to be a leader and lead them into the Dark Jungle after the map after Emma said she didn’t want to use magic to find Henry. WTF! Regina snarks at Emma if she’s ready to thank her yet. Emma says she will, but then the map stops. The gang goes on ahead convinced that Pan is there, but Emma looks very uncertain about everything. They do come across a camp, but no one is there. Emma sees someone who she thinks is Henry, but it’s actually Pan dressed in Henry’s clothes. She wants to know where Henry is, but Pan tells her she broke the rules, she doesn’t care, she wants Henry. Pan tells her cheaters never win, so the Lost Boys attack. Emma has a little freak out when she gets the upper hand on one of the Lost Boys. Pan reminds Emma that the map will only reveal itself when she stops denying who she really is. Mary Margaret and David try to lift Emma’s spirits, again, but she rebuffs them, again. Mary Margaret goes to talk to her privately, but Emma doesn’t want to talk to her. She is too afraid of hurting Mary Margaret’s feelings about how she felt when she was fighting the Lost Boy. Emma claims that she stopped fighting him because he was just a boy, but Mary Margaret keeps pushing her. Eventually, Emma says the boy reminded him of her when she was in the foster care system; a lost girl who desperately wanted a family and couldn’t understand what she’d done to make her parents give her up. On Neverland, she feels like an orphan. Bravo to Jennifer Morrison and Ginnifer Goodwin on this scene. I know it made me cry. The map finally unlocks. Emma apologizes to Mary Margaret, but Mary Margaret knows it’s the truth and that its her job to change the way Emma feels. They tell the rest of the group that the map is unlocked and they make preparations to leave. Hook flirts with Emma, but in a sincere way, and she seems slightly uncomfortable about this new dynamic. Pan comes by while Emma is alone and picking berries and she tries her best to ignore his taunts. But then he says she never forgave her parents for abandoning her and Henry hasn’t forgiven her either. Which, I call Bull. Shit. Henry has told Emma numerous times he knows why she had to give him up. And he didn’t have a hellish childhood like Emma did. Pan says by the time she gets to him, Henry will never want to leave the island. Emma’s not buying what Pan’s selling and walks off, but not before Pan gets out one more quip about her leaving the island an orphan.

Snow/Mary Margaret: Snow has just been woken by Charming and proposed to and wants to take back the kingdom. She has now gone to a village in her kingdom and makes a passionate speech about fighting the Evil Queen, but the villagers are too scared to fight with her. Then the Evil Queen comes to threaten them some more. Snow and Charming both grab their swords, but the Evil Queen ties Charming up while she offers Snow a deal. She wants Snow to give up her claim to the throne and exile herself. She wants Snow to live a life where she sees everything that should have been hers taken over by the Evil Queen. She wants Snow to get down on her knees and swear on her father’s grave that the kingdom belongs to the Evil Queen. Snow wonders what happens if she doesn’t, so the Evil Queen grabs the nearest villager (a young girl) and starts magically choking her. Snow runs after the Evil Queen with her sword, but the Evil Queen poufs away leaving Snow sprawled on the ground. The Evil Queen gives Snow a deadline and says she’ll start killing a loyal subject a day if Snow doesn’t take the deal. So this is different from the way things currently are, how? The Evil Queen tells her she may have been a princess but she’ll never be a queen. Snow is pretty much done at this point. Her confidence is shot and she wants to take the queen’s deal. Charming says the Evil Queen will still menace the people but now they’ll have no one to protect them. Snow doesn’t think she did such a great job protecting them today. Grumpy says as her friends, the dwarfs will do whatever she decides. David reminds her that she’s Snow White, but she’s not sure who that is anymore. This is an interesting dichotomy here, because Charming only knows her as the Bandit Princess who tried to rob from him. He doesn’t know the innocent Snow who had everything her heart desired from her father and who grew up with Regina as a stepmother. So when he calls her Snow White he’s referring to the strong woman he met in the woods, whereas Snow doesn’t know who she is anymore, bandit or princess or both. Snow makes up her mind to take the exile deal since they’ll all be alive and can live together. Snow is working off some anger by doing target practice, but she hasn’t hit a target yet. Charming tells her he made a deal with Rumplestiltskin to find a weapon that can help her defeat the Evil Queen. She wants to know how the weapon can help her defeat the Evil Queen. He tells her by showing the Evil Queen who Snow really is. He then helps her with her stance and she shoots the arrow into the bullseye. They get to the weapon and it’s Excalibur, the sword in the stone. Charming can’t remove it from the stone and offers for Snow to try, but she doesn’t think she’ll be able to if he couldn’t get it out. Charming tells her the legend states only the true ruler can get the sword out. Snow is able to get it out, and she is shocked! Snow is chock full of confidence when she sees the Evil Queen. Snow is not taking the deal. This time the Evil Queen starts choking Grumpy. Charming reminds her that she can defeat the Evil Queen because she pulled the sword from the stone. This time when Snow goes after the Evil Queen and she poufs away, Snow is smart enough to swing behind her and she ends up cutting the Evil Queen’s cheek. Snow is in awe of what she’s done, the Evil Queen is now shocked. Snow tells her this is her kingdom and she will fight for it. The village rejoices. Snow calls upon Rumplestiltskin to pay the price for Charming, but he tells her he didn’t help her prince. She doesn’t believe him since she’s holding Excalibur, but Rumplestiltskin tells her it’s a fake and the real Excalibur is in Camelot. And I’m not sure what’s up with Ginnifer Goodwin’s acting in this scene, because she’s really hamming it up. She reminds me of how Bailey Madison plays young Snow. Which is great for a child, but not for a grown woman. Snow is adamant that the sword must be Excalibur because she was able to strike the Evil Queen, but Rumplestiltskin’s not having it and he takes the necklace from her neck for wasting his time. Snow comes back to Charming and the dwarfs, pissed as hell. She wants to know why he planted a false Excalibur. He just wanted her to realize that she has the strength inside her. They kiss, all is well.

Mary Margaret is now trying to get Emma to realize who she is, although she won’t like it in the end. We start with her trying to get Emma to call her mom, like she did in Storybrooke. Emma’s not so comfortable with that when they’re not about to die. Mary Margaret says she gets it, but the second Emma walks past her, her face falls in disappointment. When they realize they can’t see Pan’s camp from the ridge, Emma worries that they’re going to be too late to save Henry, but Mary Margaret, in her hopeful manner, tells Emma that it’s never too late. After Emma gets the map Mary Margaret reminds Emma that Pan is playing a game, so that means they can win. Emma is trying to unlock the map and Mary Margaret and David are acting like cheerleaders. It’s actually really annoying. Like they’re literally sitting across from her cheering her on and giving words of encouragement, but they’re also trying to get her to admit to being the Savior, which is not the answer Pan is looking for because the map is still blank. Regina uses her magic to find Pan’s camp and when they get there, no one is there and Mary Margaret thinks maybe Regina’s magic didn’t work. Regina gets pissed that Mary Margaret is blaming her for something going wrong, again. I think Mary Margaret has every right to blame Regina, it’s not like her magic is usually used for good. And usually when she uses it, things tend to go wrong. Anyway, Pan has the Lost Boys attack and David gets his jacket ripped by an arrow possibly laced with Dreamshade while saving Mary Margaret. She notices that Emma is kind of freaking out over one of the Lost Boys after the fight ends. Once again, Mary Margaret starts spouting off platitudes and Emma is just not having it. She follows Emma when she goes off by herself and tells her they need to keep fighting. Emma thinks they’ve already lost because saying she’s the Savior hasn’t revealed anything. Mary Margaret realizes that Emma isn’t who she thinks she is, or at least tries to hide who she used to be, and asks why she freaked out with the Lost Boy. Emma is really trying not to delve into the past to upset Mary Margaret, but she keeps pushing her. Eventually, Emma blurts out about feeling like an orphan and wanting parents and crying herself to sleep at night and all the things she knows Mary Margaret doesn’t need to know, or Emma didn’t want her to know. And Mary Margaret is crying and feeling guilty the whole time. Luckily, this revelation opens the map. Emma doesn’t understand why, but Mary Margaret does. Emma finally admitted she still feels like an orphan, despite having found her parents is what she’s denied about herself. Emma tells Mary Margaret she’s sorry for feeling that way, but Mary Margaret accepts that it’s the truth, and it’s her job to change the way she feels by being her mother.

Charming/David: Charming is all about empowering his love to do what he thinks is best for her. She’s scared (obviously) of the Evil Queen, especially since no one wants to help her fight, so he has to convince her that she’s still the feisty bandit he met in the forest that didn’t take any guff from anyone. But she doesn’t know who she is anymore. Snow decides to take exile. Charming isn’t happy about that. Grumpy accuses him of only wanting to be with Snow for her kingdom, despite that he woke her with True Love’s Kiss. Charming is offended. They tell him that if he wants to change Snow’s mind they need to do it without their help. Charming goes to Rumplestiltskin for help. Rumple can’t help him. Charming knows he must have something, just name his price. Charming goes to Snow who says she won’t change her mind about exile, but Charming tells her about a magic weapon that can help her defeat the Evil Queen by showing her who Snow really is. Snow eventually agrees. They ride to the weapon, which happens to be Excalibur. Charming can’t get the sword out because he’s not the true ruler of the land. But Snow gets it out easily, and Charming reiterates it’s because she is the true ruler of the land. The Evil Queen comes to exile Snow, but when she refuses she starts to choke Grumpy. Snow doesn’t know what to do, but Charming tells her she can do this, and helps give her some of her confidence back. Snow manages to nick the Evil Queen and she tells her she will fight for her kingdom. Charming couldn’t look anymore prouder or turned on by that. They all rejoice when the Evil Queen poufs off. Charming is staring into the lake looking like a proper prince when the dwarfs apologize to him for calling him a gold digger. They drink, but then Snow comes back from meeting with Rumple and is pissed because she found out Charming lied to her about Excalibur. Charming looks like a husband who’s just been caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing when Snow confronts him and it’s hilarious. He tells her he needed her to believe in something he already knew. Snow’s freaking out about having stood up to the Evil Queen, but Charming tells her she did that all on her own. The lie about Excalibur just gave her a little push. She kisses him and they’re all good now.

David, on the other hand, is being an ass and a liar, when he’s not being Emma’s cheerleader that is. If you are on a strange island that you’ve never been on with someone who has been on that island and lived there, shouldn’t you listen to them and not fight them on every single little thing? Because that’s how David is acting toward Hook, and it’s really annoying. I’m really confused as to why David is leading the group when he has no idea where he’s going. Then, Hook pulls his arm back as he’s about to machete his way through some Dreamshade, and David barely listens to the reasons why he shouldn’t hack through the thorns. Hook gives his suggestion about which way to go, and David decides to go a different route, and everyone follows him! I get that Hook is the ‘bad guy’, but do they all really not trust him enough that they’ll follow David who has no clue what he’s doing? They eventually make it to the ridge but they can’t see anything so they bed down for the night. After Emma receives the map from Pan, Regina wants to use magic to unlock it, but everyone is against that, including David who agrees with Hook about not breaking Pan’s rules. Wow! David is actually agreeing with Hook! Who’d have thunk it? Emma is trying to figure out who she is to unlock the map and Mary Margaret and David are cheering her on. Okay, they’re lending moral support by building her up positively, but they’re just really annoying when they do it. David thinks using magic on the map is a bad idea and Hook agrees with him. David doesn’t like agreeing with Hook. Regina uses magic to find Pan, David once again takes the lead. But Pan isn’t happy they broke the rules so the Lost Boys attack, and David ends up getting sliced by a Dreamshade laced arrow. Except he tells Mary Margaret it just sliced his jacket and that’s it. Apparently, keeping the truth from his wife to ‘protect her’ is something he hasn’t stopped doing. David and Mary Margaret try to talk to Emma, but she’s not up for their cheeriness. David attempts to go talk to her again, but Mary Margaret stops him to talk to her instead. Later on, after Emma unlocks the map and they camp down for the night, David goes off on his own to reveal that he did indeed get sliced by the arrow, and we can see that his veins around the cut (which has also stopped bleeding) have started to turn black due to the Dreamshade. Looks like David is in real trouble.

The Evil Queen/Regina: The Magic Mirror informs The Evil Queen that Charming has awoken Snow with True Love’s Kiss. She doesn’t seem that angry, just upset that her plan didn’t last that long. The Evil Queen interrupts Snow’s speech to the villagers about taking back the kingdom, noting that they don’t seem too enthused to help her. She offers Snow a deal: declare her queen and put herself, Charming, and the dwarfs into exile. She tells Snow that killing her cursing her everlasting sleep hasn’t worked, and the better punishment would be to make her live in exile knowing that the queen has taken everything that was supposed to be Snow’s. That’s actually growth for the Evil Queen at this point. She’s looking at the bigger picture instead of right in the moment. Too bad it doesn’t stick. If Snow doesn’t take her deal, someone will pay the price. And to prove her point, she starts choking a young girl with her magic. Snow tries to go after her with her sword, but the Evil Queen just poufs away and tells her she has until sunset the next day to make up her mind or she’ll start killing a peasant a day. She also tells Snow to stop denying who she is; she may have been a princess, but Snow will never be queen. The next day the Evil Queen goes to Snow to ask her what her decision will be. Snow doesn’t take exile so The Evil Queen starts magically choking Grumpy. Snow once again goes after her with her sword, but the Evil Queen poufs behind her, and Snow manages to scratch her cheek with her sword. The Evil Queen is stunned. She wasn’t expecting Snow to be able to hurt her. Apparently, this makes her change her mind about killing a villager a day, because now she’s talking about an all out war. Hey, Evil Queen. You are right up in Snow’s face right now. Grab her heart and crush it. No one could stop you at this point. Or send a fireball to kill the entire village or even Charming. I don’t understand why she has all this power and she’s really just all talk. Anyway, she poufs away probably to go lick her wounds.

Regina is all about not listening and whining this episode. Seriously, she’s just so annoying. First she complains about traipsing through the forest when she could have just magicked them all up to the ridge they’re headed to. But Hook points out that she doesn’t know where it is because of the thickness of the jungle. Then she follows David instead of Hook, who actually knows the island. She even throws Hook a look that basically says David will never trust him, and it’s weird. When they get to the ridge and see the Dark Jungle has grown more since Hook was last there and they can’t see the camp, Hook suggests bedding down for the night and Regina is outraged that Hook would suggest sleeping when her son is in danger and possibly suffering. Notice that Regina always refers to Henry as her son and acts like no one is serious about saving him. They are all on Neverland to save Henry! Hook tells her they need rest if they want to save Henry. Regina is not happy about this (spoiler, she’s never happy). When Pan gives Emma the map she immediately wants to use magic on it to unlock it (what happened to the magic is like a drug arc she was going through last season to prove she had changed for Henry? Is magic no longer considered a drug now that Emma has it?), but Emma is adamant that she can figure it out and unlock it herself. Regina also thinks the map is a distraction for them to not look for Henry. No one wants her to use magic on the map, because they think she might hurt the map. She says it’s a risk she’s willing to take (she’d rather blow up their only way of finding Henry just to prove she’s right by using magic?), but no one else agrees. Regina looks annoyed the whole time Emma is trying to unlock the map. When Emma admits she’s the savior and that doesn’t work, Regina takes the map and puts a locator spell on it. It leads them to the Dark Jungle and even though Regina put the locator spell on the map, she makes Emma lead since Emma had insisted on being the leader. So petty. As the map leads them deeper into the Dark Jungle, Regina starts getting smug and asks Emma if she’s going to thank her for her help. Really? You don’t think for one second that because you used magic you might be headed into a trap? They reach an empty camp and because no one is there Mary Margaret comments that maybe Regina’s magic didn’t work right and Regina gets upset that Mary Margaret is blaming her for something again. Regina, grow up!! I swear she gets worse with every subsequent episode. She had some good growth last season and then Cora made her get off track, then she almost sacrificed herself for Henry, and now she’s bitchy Regina again. During the fight with the Lost Boys Regina uses her magic against them (even though Pan just said using magic was cheating, but whatever). Emma finally unlocks the map, and they decide that they need to stop playing Pan’s game and make Pan play theirs. Regina questions this, but eventually agrees. I don’t understand why she’s questioning this or wants to work on her own. So far everything she has tried has failed, while Emma has been the one to actually get things done. I’m really not liking Regina this season. She’s whiny, and bitchy, and has lost any growth she had from season 2. Last season I actually cared about what happened to her, now she could fall off a cliff and I wouldn’t care.

Hook: Flirtatious as ever with Emma and David (although, mainly to get under David’s skin which is hilarious). He’s the only one in the group familiar with Neverland, yet David doesn’t trust him so no one else does either. David fights him when he tries to cut through some brambles, but Hook knows it’s Dreamshade, which is the poison he used to try and kill Gold. I don’t understand why David is fighting him so hard when he knows nothing about Neverland and Hook lived on the goddamn island! Hook knows he’s a villain but takes offense at Pan not being one when Emma explains that Pan is the hero in all the stories in her world. Hook wants to know how handsome he is in Pan’s books, but Emma thwarts his preening by telling him that perms and waxed mustaches are not handsome. Once they get to the ridge, Hook is disappointed to find out that the Dark Jungle has grown so much they can’t see Pan’s camp. He suggests sleeping for the night to gather their strength. Despite Regina’s protests, everyone actually agrees with him this time. Hook and Regina argue about the map Pan gives Emma. Hook talks about how Pan likes his games and when Regina thinks the map will lead them into a trap, Hook reminds her the whole island is a trap. Regina wants to use magic but Hook tells her breaking Pan’s rules would be unwise. David actually agrees with him and Hook quips about winning him over. Later, when Regina steals the map from Emma to use magic on it, David says it’s not a good idea to use magic and Hook agrees with him. David can’t believe he and Hook agree again and Hook says he’s winning him over. I smell a bromance blooming between these two. Hook is not happy that the map leads them into the Dark Jungle, since he told them never to set foot in there. When they get close to Pan, Hook warns Emma to be careful because while Pan looks like a boy, he’s actually a demon. The Lost Boys attack them and Hook warns that the arrows are tipped with Dreamshade. Hook ends up fighting with Felix and reminds him of Rufio and that it will be a far worse fate for him. Eventually, Pan calls everyone off. Emma finally manages to unlock the map. Hook congratulates her on her patience with Regina and tells her that patience will help her defeat Pan, and then he offers her some rum. She quips about rum being the solution to everything and he says it doesn’t hurt. He’s interested in how she unlocked the map and in getting to know her better. It’s one of the first times he’s truly sincere with her, and you can see how uncomfortable Emma is with it. Not because it’s creepy, but because that might mean Hook is a real person and not just someone she banters with.

Pan: He’s a lot of talk. He talks and talks and talks. And he makes threats, but, with the exception of the Lost Boys attack, he doesn’t actually do anything. He’s more annoying than anything else, because he also says the same things all the time. This time it’s that Emma needs to stop denying who she really is, over and over. Then he threatens that Emma will be an orphan again by the time they leave the island. I mean, at least he’s not villain monologuing, but repetitive monologuing is just as bad. Maybe he and Bell should hang out with the whole, repeating the same thing over and over dialogue.

Questions:

Why did Gold’s shadow change from one that looked like him to the generic shadow that Neverland boasts?

Still wondering how the magic mirror works. Why can she see through to places that obviously don’t have mirrors or reflective surfaces, but Rumple felt it was necessary to cover his mirrors in Skin Deep so she couldn’t spy on him? If she doesn’t need a mirror, then covering his mirrors wouldn’t matter.

Why are we back to Snow’s hair looking so awful? Are they spending all the stylist money on special effects?

Why are Mary Margaret, David, Hook, and Regina still wearing their jackets when Emma has taken off her turtleneck and is traipsing around the hot jungle in her tank top?

Okay, I get that David does not like Hook, but he’s the only one with knowledge of Neverland. Why won’t he listen to him?

Where was Hook when everyone was sleeping? We saw everyone at camp but him. Was he keeping watch? Because he didn’t do a great job seeing as Emma wandered off and Pan found her.

Would Regina really risk blowing up the map with magic?

Who’s the sheriff of Storybrooke now that both Emma and David are in Neverland?

Why is Emma still wearing her false eyelashes in Neverland? How is Regina’s hair still flipping when it’s obviously humid out?

After the scene in the village, the front of Snow’s white bodice was covered with dirt and mud. How is it perfectly clean the next time we see her? Actually, how has she kept her white, leather outfit so clean? Why white? Did the costume designer decide she needed to wear that because of her name?

How did David get to and from Rumplestiltskin’s castle so fast? We’ve seen in Skin Deep that his castle is in the mountains and not in a location that is just easy to pop in to for a quick favor.

Didn’t David need a potion from Gold to pour over Jefferson’s hat to locate him in We Are Both? How does Regina do a locator spell just using magic?

If the sword is from Camelot, shouldn’t the person who pulls the sword from the stone be the ruler of Camelot? Not the Enchanted Forest.

Is Belle really conjured from Gold’s head or is she something more? Neverland does run on imagination, so it’s not a stretch to think your thoughts could manifest as reality.

So, since Snow didn’t take the deal with the Evil Queen, is someone going to die everyday still?

Where did Snow’s mother’s necklace come from? It only shows up on her neck when she and Charming go to find Excalibur. What does Rumplestiltskin want with it?

Observations:

Considering it’s only supposed to have been maybe a week or so since Charming woke Snow, his hair goes from the short cut he had in season one, to his current longish cut.

Love that Charming and Snow both unsheath their swords at the exact same time. They’re already so in sync with each other.

Dreamshade is the poison Hook used to try and kill Gold back in The Queen is Dead.

What Emma says to try and unlock the map: Her name, being Henry’s mother, she used to be a bailbondsperson, she’s currently the sheriff of Storybrooke, she’s the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, she’s the product of True Love, she was born in the Enchanted Forest, she’s the Savior.

Hook mentions Rufio to Felix. In the movie Hook, Rufio is the new leader of the Lost Boys and Hook kills him.

The Evil Queen has quite the interesting wardrobe this episode. She goes from an Elizabethan style dress to what I can only describe as an 80’s hair band inspired form fitted gown and headpiece.

I finally realized what’s been bugging me about Mary Margaret’s hair. It’s too fluffy. Maybe it’s the humidity of the jungle, but it looks more like a teenage boy cut rather than the cute pixie cut she’s been sporting.

Sorry this review took me so long to get out, but I was really bored with it. Mary Margaret and David seem to be very out of character with their over-cheerfulness when it comes to Emma. Regina is just whiny and bitchy. Gold seems to be having some sort of mental breakdown. Pan is not as dastardly as Hook is making him out to be. Hook and Emma seem to be the only people in character as we get more hidden feelings exposed from Emma and more flirting from Hook.

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stahlop · 5 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 2x20 “The Evil Queen” Review

Well, Hook is back, and he pulled one over on Regina, so that was a highlight of this episode. I liked the flashback much better than Storybrooke because Greg and Tamara suck. Like can someone tell me how Tamara managed to get Hook into a moving van? Was he still unconscious hours later and did no one notice her dragging around a guy who looked like a pirate around (because there’s no way she could have carried him)? We’ve lost the bean fields thanks to Regina, and we saw a really weird zombie Maleficent.

Summary: In the Enchanted Forest the Evil Queen wants to see what the villagers really think of her so she magically changes her appearance and ends up rescued by Snow White. In Storybrooke, Tamara and Greg recruit Hook to help them with their plan, while Regina recruits him to help her get the fail-safe. Emma doesn’t trust Tamara and drags Henry into her plan to find out what she’s really up to.

Opening: The Evil Queen’s castle

Character Observations:

Evil Queen/Regina:

If you were on the fence about whether the Evil Queen was evil before, then this pretty much solidifies it. She kills an entire village just because they won’t tell her where Snow White is. AN ENTIRE VILLAGE! Who does that and still thinks they are beloved by their people? Before she kills the village she tries to play the victim again by telling them Snow killed her father, but of course they don’t buy that and that’s how they all end up dead. The Evil Queen is very delusional. She talks to Rumplestiltskin, not understanding why the villagers won’t take a reward for information about Snow White. She feels that since she is the queen they must love her. Um, that’s not how it works. Seriously, you hated your mother and now you’re acting just like her; why would you think that would mean your kingdom would automatically love you when you treat them like shit? The Evil Queen actually tells Rumplestiltskin she’s not evil, that they only call her evil because Snow calls her that. I think the slaughtered villagers would disagree there. Once again, Regina doesn’t know how to take any responsibility for her own actions. It’s always someone else’s fault. Anyway, the Evil Queen decides that if she kills Snow that the people will then love her, since Snow won’t be around anymore (what the hell is that logic, they’ll probably love her more). The Evil Queen wants to learn Cora’s shape shifting spell to find Snow as a peasant. Rumplestiltskin tells her that it took Cora months to learn that spell, but he can transform her, but she’ll be without her magic until she transforms back. He changes her to look like a peasant with a different face. Of course, the first thing the Evil Queen sees in the village is someone using a life-sized doll of her to throw darts at her heart for a prize. The Evil Queen is appalled that no one is standing up for her. The villagers say that Snow White should be their queen, even though the Evil Queen points out that she’s a bandit and a murderer. You can see the villagers nodding their heads no in disagreement with her. They decide to burn the doll of the Evil Queen and she tries to stop them, but that’s when her guard comes and tries to arrest her for treason (for burning the likeness of the queen). She tries to tell them she’s the queen in disguise, but she has no magic to prove it (even though she knows their names and other things about them), so they arrest her and decide to cut off her head in the town square. Luckily, Snow shoots some arrows and fights the guards and saves her, but not before she gets cut by a sword and then faints after the whole thing. The Evil Queen wakes up to Snow taking care of her. She says her name is Wilma and that her family works in the mills. She’s shocked when Snow tells her she knows how to kill livestock, but she covers it by saying that she was a princess. The Evil Queen is confused as to why Snow is helping her when she’s essentially being hunted and she’s a stranger. Snow tells the story of the Evil Queen saving her when she was a child (without mentioning who it was), and how that changed her as a person because she saw the goodness in this person who saved her. The Evil Queen actually starts crying when Snow talks about how there can be a genuine, selfless connection between strangers. Snow most likely thinks she’s crying because of the pain (she’s dressing her wound), but the Evil Queen is shocked that Snow thought so highly of her as a child. Maybe she even feels a little guilty? The Evil Queen wonders what happened to the stranger, most likely expecting to hear that it was the Evil Queen, but Snow just tells her she’s gone but she hopes she comes back someday. The Evil Queen is visibly moved by this statement. After two days the Evil Queen is healed enough for them to leave. Snow gives her a sword just in case and the Evil Queen is conflicted about whether to go through with her plan to kill Snow with the sword after the kindness she’s shown her. She asks Snow if she would kill the Evil Queen if she were in front of her right now. Snow says some things that makes the Evil Queen realize that Snow knows her pretty well, even if she won’t admit those things even to herself, and eventually Snow says that she wouldn’t kill the Evil Queen. The Evil Queen doesn’t think anyone can be that good, but Snow’s opinion differs from that. The Evil Queen realizes that Snow still thinks there is good in her. Snow tells her that she’s seen it and that she could be that person again. The Evil Queen is really thinking about what Snow has said and maybe she could change. She asks if Snow would forgive the Evil Queen and be a family with her if the Evil Queen changed. You can see young Regina in her face; the hope and innocence on her face of possibly having a relationship with Snow where they don’t hate each other. Snow says she would, but puts it in the realm of having a feather bed, things that won’t be happening. The Evil Queen, sincerely, tells Snow that sometimes people can surprise you, and Snow is surprised by the village of dead people that she comes upon that the Evil Queen had killed during her earlier tantrum. The Evil Queen tries to comfort Snow, telling her it’s not her fault, and Snow realizes that. She also realizes that she wouldn’t forgive the Evil Queen. She’s gone too far. The Evil Queen’s face when she realizes that she’s lost Snow’s faith is heartbreaking. Lana Parilla does a great job in this scene. She brings up the story from before, about the Evil Queen saving her life, but Snow never mentioned who it was. The Evil Queen tries to back track by saying she read between the lines, but Snow knows something is up and points an arrow at her. The Evil Queen tells her there is good in her, but Snow doesn’t believe her, so she immediately tries to conjure a fireball, which of course doesn’t work. She calls for Rumplestiltskin, to no avail, realizes that the sword will do her no good, and runs off. The Evil Queen limps into Rumplestiltskin’s castle and he pretends not to know her. He finally tells her he did tell her to call him when her little adventure was done, but he never said he’d answer. The Evil Queen is frustrated. She demands Rumplestiltskin change her back, but he wants her to not only admit he was right, but what he was right about (the kingdom never loving her). She looks absolutely devastated about that. Rumplestiltskin wants to know what she’s going to now, and she gets her normal evil grin on her face and tells him she’s going to punish them. So glad to see she learned a lesson throughout this. Rumplestiltskin changes her back, and she finally acknowledges herself as the Evil Queen.

Meanwhile, Regina is disguising herself as a fisherman down at the docks to eavesdrop on David and Mary Margaret’s conversation about giving Regina a choice when they return to the EF. Either she comes back with them and lives the rest of her life in Rumplestiltskin’s old jail cell or stays behind in SB. Well, she can’t have that (and go check out what she says in the blooper reel, because it’s hilarious). She goes to Henry and lays out her plans to him (she tells him they’ve been hiding the beans, she has a fail-safe that will destroy SB, and they’ll escape to the EF while everyone else dies). She does the blame thing where she says Mary Margaret, David, and Emma made her the Evil Queen (no, trying to kill them all with your mother made you the Evil Queen again). She says only Henry sees the good in her, and that going to the EF is her chance for a fresh start and to be a hero. Henry is horrified that she wants to kill everyone just so they can be together. She thinks if they don’t have anyone around Henry will truly be hers and she’ll be a hero. What in the what? How in her twisted mind does this make any sense. First of all, Henry is not an object. He doesn’t belong to anyone. Secondly, how does destroying SB and killing everyone make her a hero? Henry tells her she’ll be a villain if she kills everyone. And Regina, of course, blames everyone else for keeping them apart (again, you tried to kill them). He tells her he could never love anyone that did that and why would she tell him her dastardly plan anyway? Regina shows her hand by telling him she has no one else to talk to. Henry swears he will stop her, but Regina erases his memory of the talk so he can’t; once again proving that Regina is a villain because she thinks of no one but herself. Back in her office, Regina is admiring the bean plant she now has in her office, lit very nicely in a terrarium, when Hook comes to pay her a visit. He explains about Greg and Tamara’s plans and how they want him to betray her, but he’d rather skip that and just work with her and Cora. Regina gets sad when she tells him Cora is dead. He plays on her emotions about Cora to convince her to work with him so he can help her with his revenge. She shows him the beans and he again compares her to Cora, so she wants him to help her get the fail safe, if she can trust him. She has him at total destruction of SB because that will include Gold, so he’s in. They go down the elevator in the library to underneath SB. Hook tells Regina that getting revenge will leave her empty, and that it’s an end, not a beginning. She reminds him that she will have Henry after it’s all said and done. Regina notices the magic cuff on Hook’s arm as Cora’s and wants it. Hook tries to keep it for himself, but eventually lets Regina take it. She seems very happy to have a small trinket of Cora’s, even though she has all of her stuff in her vault still. Or maybe it’s just because she’s planning on leading Hook to his doom. They are in the caverns under SB and Regina says the fail safe had to be well hidden and well guarded. Hook doesn’t understand who is guarding it, until Regina pushes him down a cliff as a distraction. While he fights zombie Maleficent, she goes to Snow’s glass coffin and gets a jewel needed for the fail safe. Regina comes back up the elevator and is surprised to see Hook up there, as a) the elevator needs someone else to bring it up if you’re not using magic, and b) zombie Maleficent was supposed to kill him. Regina looks really confused as he explains how he almost stopped his plan when she told him about killing everyone, taking Henry, and moving on. She’s even more confused about ‘his plan’, as she thought she was the one in charge. Hook brings in Greg and Tamara and now Regina’s just angry that Hook was stupid enough to fall in league with two amateurs, until she tries to produce a fireball and it doesn’t work. Greg tells her that won’t work anymore, and Regina finally has the good sense to look scared. She figures out it’s the cuff blocking her magic and blames Hook for giving it to her, and he reminds her she rather insisted that he give it to her. Regina mocks Greg for using magic against her, but he’s quick to tell her it’s science, not magic. Regina reiterates that she doesn’t know where Greg’s father is, but he doesn’t believe her. He also tells her he has another mission, and when Regina asks what it is, Greg is smart and doesn’t monologue about it. Instead, he has Tamara bag her.

Emma/Henry: Emma runs into Tamara at Granny’s, literally runs into her, with the intention of looking through all the stuff she dropped. She notices a paper with everyone’s names and alter egos on it. She asks Tamara how she’s doing with all she’s learned. Tamara says she’s okay and that Emma should understand that it’s a lot to take in. Emma insists she had Henry to help and Tamara says she has Neal to help her. Emma, as subtle as a hammer, brings up what it would mean for Henry or Neal if people were to find out about SB. Tamara assures her she’ll keep the secret, but Emma detects that she’s lying. Emma has figured out that Tamara is the ‘She’ August was warning them about, but Mary Margaret doesn’t think so. She has an excuse for everything Emma brings up, including knowing that Tamara lied to her. Mary Margaret points out that her superpower doesn’t work when she’s emotional and Emma is offended that Mary Margaret thinks she’s jealous of Tamara because she’s with Neal (well, maybe if you told her what he did to you she wouldn’t think you were jealous!). Mary Margaret pulls out the Henry card, that if Emma accuses Tamara of something, that Henry will see it as a way for his parents to get back together with Tamara out of the picture. Henry has overheard the whole conversation (that’s what happens when you live in a loft and the only doors are to the outside and the bathrooms). Emma recruits him to help, but looks pretty guilty about it. They go on a stakeout to watch for Neal and Tamara leaving Granny’s (it’s raining out, why would they leave?). They try to come up with code names but Henry doesn’t like any of the ones Emma comes up with. Henry talks about how he thought they’d be in the EF doing EF type stuff and Emma asks if he wants to go there if there was a way. Henry figures out pretty quickly that there’s a way back, despite Emma telling him there isn’t (she’s a terrible liar), he figures out Anton brought beans with him. Henry thinks he, Emma, and Neal should all get a castle together when they go to the EF. Emma starts sputtering over that scenario, but Neal and Tamara exit Granny’s so they have to duck. Emma is breaking into Neal and Tamara’s room and Henry is subtly trying to get his parents back together already. Emma straight up tells him that she is not getting back together with Neal. Henry thinks that under the right romantic conditions it could happen. Emma reminds him that she is not after Tamara because of Neal, she has suspicions outside of her dating Neal. She finally gets the door open and makes Henry the lookout and tells him to just hit the door if he sees someone. Emma starts searching and comes across a creaky floorboard just as Neal comes back up. Henry does his best, but he’s clueless when it comes to hitting the door. Neal taught Emma that move so he knows she’s broken in. Emma first tries to lie, but then tells him her theory that Tamara is who killed August. Neal isn’t buying it. Emma tells him that Tamara lied to her, but Neal says he never believed in that. She finally brings out that she saw Tamara’s list, but Neal apparently helped her make that list so she could know who the townspeople were better. Emma swears she’s not jealous. She tells Neal about the loose floorboard and promises to drop it if there’s nothing there. And nothing is there. Neal comments that he knows Tamara being there must be hard, but Emma isn’t playing into it. She takes Henry and leaves. Henry and Emma are lamenting over ice cream at the loft. Henry tells Emma he believes her about Tamara. Emma’s glad because she knows she’s right, even if she couldn’t prove it. Henry says when they do prove it, they can all go back to the EF. Emma still doesn’t seem too happy about that idea.

Snow White/Mary Margaret: Snow rescues a shape shifted Evil Queen from the royal guards when they try to execute her. She’s a pretty good swordswoman and archer. She has brought the Evil Queen to a lean-to that she is living in to help her heal after she was injured during her rescue. She basically talks to the Evil Queen about how she thinks the Evil Queen could be good again. She has seen good in her and she would forgive her if the Evil Queen asked for it. Snow would even be willing to have her as family again, but she never believes it will happen. You can see, though, that Snow would really like to have her stepmother back, as she’s the woman who raised her after her mother died. But then they come across the village the Evil Queen had slaughtered. This must be the first time people have died because they helped Snow, because she blames herself. The Evil Queen tells her it’s not her fault. Snow knows that and doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forgive her now, because there can’t be any good left in her if she could do something like that. She now believes that there never was any good in the Evil Queen. Then the Evil Queen messes up, and Snow figures out that Wilma is the Evil Queen in disguise. She holds her captive with an arrow, but she still can’t kill her and when the Evil Queen runs off, Snow lets her go.

Mary Margaret still feels bad for Regina. When she and David are discussing going back to the EF, she feels guilty about leaving her behind, but David says they can’t bring her. Mary Margaret says that Henry won’t like it because Regina is still his mother. David begins to say that every time Mary Margaret gives her another chance, and Mary Margaret finishes it with Regina slips. No, she doesn’t slip, she doesn’t even take the chance. David wouldn’t even give her a chance when she did try to change in SB. No wonder she went to Cora’s side when no one believed in her. This is the one time I feel others are at fault for Regina’s backslide. At the loft Emma is trying to convince Mary Margaret about Tamara being bad news. Mary Margaret is in complete mother mode, trying to make sure Emma doesn’t tell Henry about her theory and also pointing out that Emma’s superpower doesn’t work when she’s emotional. Honestly, I’m a bit mad that Mary Margaret doesn’t believe her. Emma has given no indication that she has any feelings towards Neal, and she tells Mary Margaret as much. Mary Margaret just turns it into Henry thinking that if Tamara is out of the picture then his parents can get back together. Which, she’s not wrong, but at the same time, give Emma a little credit in explaining that’s not going to happen to her own son. Also, why is Mary Margaret treating Emma like she’s a teenager who is telling her about the gossip at her school. Because that is exactly what this scene reminded me of. At the end of the episode, Mary Margaret, David, and Leroy discover the bean fields have been burned down. Mary Margaret doesn’t know who would do this. Seriously? You can’t think of anyone who could discover the beans by magic and destroy them?

Rumplestiltskin: He’s not making the Evil Queen feel any better about what she’s been doing. He points out everything she’s been doing to make her kingdom not like her, but the Evil Queen is not having it. He also points out that they’ll never love her, but she doesn’t believe that either. She thinks she can make them once Snow is dead. She also decides she’s going to have to find Snow herself. Rumplestiltskin points out that it won’t be easy in her outfit (since it’s obvious she’s the queen), and that gives her the idea to shape shift. Rumplestiltskin tells her it would take too long to learn the spell, but he can change her himself. His price is for her to cut off trade from King George’s kingdom, which we all know is because he needs George bankrupt for the future to get the ball rolling on the curse and Snow and Charming to meet. The way his mind works is just so dazzling sometimes. It’s like a chess board and he has to move all the pieces and anticipate what his opponent is going to do to get everything in place. Rumplestiltskin warns The Evil Queen that she might not like what she hears while strolling about, but she doesn’t care. Rumplestiltskin does not come the three times The Evil Queen calls on him to save her. She eventually travels to his castle and he jokes about not knowing her and that he already has a promising maid. He says he told her she could call, but he never said he’d answer. The Evil Queen wants him to change her back but he wants her to not only tell her he was right, but what he was right about (the kingdom never loving her). His manipulation of The Evil Queen would be so magnificent if you didn’t know what it would bring in the future, and the fact that he’s doing it all for his own gains. When the Evil Queen tells Rumplestiltskin she will punish them all, he just giggles.

Hook: He is back and is completely sated by the fact that he finally got rid of Gold. Unfortunately, Greg and Tamara show him that his crocodile is, in fact, still alive, so they offer him a job. They offer to help him kill off Gold if he helps them. They tell him they can kill magical creatures. Hook wants to know the price for taking the job. They want him to help him find Greg’s father. He seems angry that they want him to help with something so mundane, but they tell him it’s Regina who took him, and he looks like he’s going to at least think about it. He goes to see Regina and tells her about Greg and Tamara’s plans and how they want him to betray her. He wants to just form an alliance with her and skip the betrayal part. Regina doesn’t know if she can trust him. He tells her he took up with her mother for a reason and damn if him talking about forming an alliance between the three of them doesn’t sound like he’s aiming for a threeway with all of them. Anyway, Regina informs Hook that Cora is dead, and he actually looks upset, but most likely he’s thinking he’ll have to change his plans since we know he’s going to betray her. Or maybe he just feels slightly more guilty about setting her up for betrayal. He gets all solemn and tells her that all Cora wanted was for her to win, so he’ll help her with her revenge, and Regina is still reeling over her mother’s death so she buys this. She buys it so much that she shows him the magic bean plant. He calls it an escape plan and evokes Cora again by saying how much she’d have loved that and how she wanted to take her back to the EF and start over. Regina says she’s going to do that with Henry and Hook can help her escape from the total destruction of Storybrooke. Hook is ecstatic to learn that the total destruction means Gold will also be killed, so he’s all in. They go to the elevator and he thinks Regina needs him to lower her down, but she has magic, so she’s going to need him for something else. They get to the bottom and Hook goes on about how their need for revenge has left them lonely and that it will be their end, not their beginning. Regina disagrees since she has Henry. Hook moves his arm to let her lead the way and Regina notices the beanstalk cuff on his wrist. And how she manages to notice a black leather cuff on a pirate who is wearing all black is beyond me. But she does and she wants it back. He tries to make it seem like he has some claim to it as he and Cora were friends, but Regina wants it so he gives it to her. Hook comments on the precarious place she has hidden the fail safe (underneath Storybrooke), but Regina says she needed it to be well hidden and well guarded. Hook is more concerned about who’s guarding it, and decides that he needs to look over the side of the precarious ledge they’re standing on. Regina simply answers a friend and then tells him she’s the reason why this mission is a two-man job, she needs him to be the distraction. And then she pushes him over the ledge. I’m seriously questioning how Hook managed to live for so long when he puts his back to another villain so easily. And down Hook goes, most likely breaking those ribs of his again. Definitely making his limp much more worse. Maleficent reconstitutes herself into a zombie of sorts, and Hook’s beginning to think he may not make it out. But then he gets his cocky swagger back, recognizing that it’s Maleficent. She comes after him a few times and he does manage to get her with his hook, but she just goes back together due to Regina’s enchantment. And this time she comes back even bigger. Hook looks a little scared again. Regina comes out of the elevator and is surprised to see Hook there looking all sexy (okay, maybe that was just me). He does comment on his good looks, saying he’s startling, some would say striking, and I agree. Regina’s shocked because he shouldn’t have been able to survive zombie Maleficent, but Hook says he excels at surviving. He almost believed everything she said to him about a fresh, clean start, and he keeps moving closer and closer to her and his eyes are just so blue! Regina is starting to get a little twitchy, especially when Hook says he almost put a stop to his plan, which confuses the hell out of Regina because she thought she was the one in control. He confirms it was ‘their’ plan (Greg and Tamara’s), and that they saved him from whatever Maleficent was. He introduces Greg and Tamara and tells her they have a way against magic. Regina is looking at Hook like he’s the stupidest person in the world until she tries to use magic and can’t. Regina figures out that the cuff Hook gave her is blocking her magic somehow. Hook reminds her that she rather insisted that he give it to her. He tells her that Greg and Tamara rigged it with something that blocks her magic and that it’s rather impressive. Hook just sits back and watches as Greg and Tamara take her down.

Questions:

Why are Mary Margaret and David hanging out on the dock in the rain in what I’m assuming is still winter? Are they on a date?

How can Snow see with that hood over her eyes?

How (and why) did Snow drag Wilma to her lean-to to help her heal?

Exactly how does Regina think Henry will react to her killing everyone? She’s already seen his reaction from just telling him. What does she think will change when she actually executes her plan?

Why doesn’t Regina have her bean plant somewhere a little safer than her office, like say in her mansion? She doesn’t even cover it up when someone comes in.

Why does Tamara’s list look like a cast list for a show? Why didn’t she just put the name with a dash or a backslash?

How does Neal know who everyone in town is to help Tamara make her list? He didn’t grow up with any of those people. Did he ask Emma? His father?

How does Hook know what an elevator is? I know he trapped Belle in there in The Outsider, but did he know what it was? Did he learn from Tamara bringing him down from Neal’s apartment?

Exactly how is Hook supposed to distract zombie Maleficent if he’s dead? That was a pretty far drop and if he wasn’t a magical fairy tale character, he’d be dead.

Is there humidity down in the caverns? Regina goes in with straight hair with barely a curl and comes back with a nice flip hairdo.

Observations:

The glass still hasn’t been fixed in the clock tower from when Cora threw Johanna threw it in The Queen is Dead.

When Hook is looking at Gold and Lacey, it’s still the same night as their date from Lacey, unless Lacey only owns one dress.

If you have someone else perform a shape shifting spell on you, you lose your magic ability.

The book Regina uses to erase Henry’s memory is Cora’s spell book.

The bean pod has 3 beans in it.

Hook has a limp. This is because Colin O’Donoghue had broken his leg (and why he’d been absent the past few episodes).

Tamara’s list has the following people on it: Mary Margaret/Snow White, David/Prince Charming, Regina/Queen, Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin, Archie/Jiminy Cricket, Mother Superior/Blue Fairy, Marco/Gepetto.

Snow’s hair looks fabulous for living in the woods. Even better than when she’s living in the castle again with Charming.

I find it hard to believe that Regina would recognize a leather cuff that Cora wore, or that Cora would even own a leather cuff when she was technically royalty.

Hook knows Maleficent from the EF.

Just a few days ago Emma and Henry finally made up and she’s already lying to him about not being able to go to the EF.

Greg and Whale should get together with all their science talk.

Timeline Issues:

The Enchanted Forest portion takes place about three years before the curse based on Rumplestiltskin’s comments about his new maid (when Belle started), and wanting the Evil Queen to stop giving financial aid to King George’s kingdom (so that he would have to ask Midas’s kingdom for help eventually).

Once Upon a Time First:

Hook stating that he’s a survivor.

So, Regina is still blaming everyone else for her failures. She has not learned anything! It’s so frustrating. Hook is as sexy as ever. And that’s all I have to say about that. But seriously, watch Hook’s facial expressions in every scene, they are fantastic! There is no way to get home now that the beans are gone, but I still feel like we’ll be using the beans somehow. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Only two episodes left for this season!

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#once upon a time #once upon a time review #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time 2x20 #once upon a time the evil queen

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stahlop · 5 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 2x21 “Second Star to the Right” Review

Oh, man! What the hell just got unleashed on us! Bae lived with the Darlings and got taken to Neverland and found himself about Hook’s ship! Tamara killed Neal! Regina actually killed Greg’s father! And this is all going to be tied up in the next episode?

Summary: After going through the portal, Bae finds himself in Victorian London and ends up living with the Darling family. David and Mary Margaret go to extremes to find Regina, while Emma is still convinced that Tamara is up to no good.

Opening: Big Ben turning to 8:15

New Characters:

Wendy Darling: She’s not afraid of Bae when she first meets him. She comes after him with a statue before realizing that he’s just hungry. She starts hiding Bae in a crawl space in the wall of their nursery. Bae asks if her parents suspect and she makes the statement that all kids think is true, ‘they’re grown ups, they can’t see anything that’s not right in front of them.’ Which of course is when her parents show up and demand to know who Bae is. When they find out he’s an orphan, Mrs. Darling invites him to stay with them. Bae wakes up that night while Wendy is waiting for the Shadow to come. She and her brothers are very excited about the Shadow coming. She tells Bae that the Shadow started appearing around the same time Bae appeared and it’s so wonderful because it can change shape and travel between worlds. And it’s so wonderful because it has magic. This instantly sets off Bae’s alarms, since he came to this land to get away from magic. He tells them not to let the Shadow in and Wendy is disappointed. John accuses him of not believing, but he tells them he comes from a land that is full of magic, which makes Wendy excited again. Wendy, when the boy from the magic land tells you to stay away from magic, listen! Bae tells Wendy and her brothers that magic destroyed his family and Wendy finally looks chagrined about entertaining the idea of going with the Shadow. Bae makes Wendy promise not to let the Shadow in, and she unhappily agrees. The next day Wendy is sitting out by that damn open window (someone needs to teach her to respect an open window!). the Shadow comes back and Wendy is as excited about it as she always is. She claims that this magic is different, it’s from a place called Neverland where there are no grown ups and you can fly. Bae tries to keep her in the house, but she’s determined to go. She comes back the next morning and while she’s telling Bae about all the wondrous things you can just see that she is trying not to cry because her magical adventure was not all she thought it was going to be. She tells Bae that once nightfalls you can hear all the children crying for their parents and they aren’t allowed to leave. It’s called Neverland because once you step foot on the soil you can never leave. She’s in tears now. Then Wendy reveals that the Shadow wanted a boy and that’s why she was allowed to go home, but he’ll be back for one of her brothers. Wendy finally admits that she should have listened to Bae about magic. That night the Darling children booby trap the nursery so the Shadow can’t take John or Michael. Ok, I get the lights and the matches, because that can make a shadow disappear, but what exactly were they hoping to accomplish with jacks on the windowsill? Seriously? It’s a shadow, not a burglar. The Shadow gets through all their traps, because it’s a shadow, and Bae herds everyone into the crawl space, except for Michael. Wendy’s freaking out because the Shadow’s going after her brother, but then Bae offers to go instead, and Wendy’s even more upset because this is all her fault (yes, it definitely is, listen to Bae next time). So, yeah, Wendy made some bad decisions and now Bae is off to Neverland.

Character Observations:

Bae/Neal: First of all, I loved how seamlessly they transitioned from Bae falling through the portal in the previously ons straight into the opening scene. Also, the actor playing Bae’s voice has changed since last season, so there’s that. So, Bae pulls himself up on the other side of the portal and immediately starts calling for his Papa :(. And then, he almost gets run over by a horse and carriage, but jumps back in front of a sign that says Kensington Gardens. And then, if you still weren’t sure where we were, Big Ben starts ringing. Bae has found himself in merry ole London, England, and from the shadows of the people we see, Victorian London, England. Six months later Bae is living on the streets of London and looking like Gavroche from Les Miserables. He’s not having much luck finding food until he sees a window open at a very nice house. He sees some fresh bread laid out on a table and just goes to town on it and stuffing some in his pockets. And then a big St. Bernard starts barking at him from under the table and Wendy comes out. But once she discovers he’s hungry she gives him more food. And apparently lets him live in the crawl space in the nursery. That seems really cramped. The Darling parents discover him and Bae is quick to tell them both his parents are dead and he can’t go back to the workhouses. Mrs. Darling takes pity on him and lets him stay. Bae is so excited to have found such a loving family. Wendy wakes up Bae that night to inform him about the Shadow that’s been visiting them. At first, Bae is entranced by Wendy’s wonder and excitement about the Shadow, until she mentions magic. Then he is all business, making sure they don’t open the window for the Shadow. John accuses him of not believing in magic, but Bae tells them he came from another realm where magic ruined his life and it’s not to be trusted. He makes Wendy promise not to go with the Shadow. But, she doesn’t listen. Bae awakens a few nights later (he has a bed now), and Wendy is waiting for the Shadow. Bae tries with all his might to keep her in the nursery, but she’s convinced that Neverland will be wonderful and she goes off with the Shadow. Bae has slept on the windowsill (of an open window that he literally could have rolled off of) and is there when Wendy returns. She tells him of all the wonderful things in Neverland. He questions why she came home then. She tells him of the children crying for their parents and how the Shadow doesn’t let them leave once they’ve touched the soil. She tells Bae that the Shadow wants a boy and is coming for one of her brothers. Bae is determined not to let magic destroy another family. They set the nursery up to ward off the Shadow, but it doesn’t do any good. Apparently the Shadow can blow out candles and open locked windows. Michael doesn’t make it into the crawl space where they’re all hiding so Bae goes out and offers himself to the Shadow as long as the Shadow promises never to bother the Darlings again. He thanks Wendy for letting him be a part of her family and the Shadow takes him. the Shadow flies Bae through the London rooftops (and Bae looks like he’s in danger of hitting those chimney’s more than once). Once they start getting close to Neverland, Bae can hear the children on the island crying and he remembers Wendy’s words about not being able to leave, so he struggles against the Shadow’s grip. He remembers the matches in his robe pocket and lights one and that finally gets the Shadow to let go of him and he falls into the ocean. The Shadow can’t find him in the water and gives up (pretty easily). Luckily, he’s pulled out by one Captain Hook and aboard the Jolly Roger. And that’s the story of how Neal met Captain Hook!

At six in the morning, Tamara is going out for a run, so that wakes up Neal. He then hears a fight happening outside and hears his father’s voice. Neal breaks up the fight and then berates Gold for essentially ignoring him since he’s been in town since the whole reason for the curse was so he could find him. Neal is upset that Gold hasn’t even met Tamara yet, but Gold thinks Neal is still hung up on Emma so she’s not important. Neal tells him he hasn’t changed and he’s not worth his time. Gold wonders why he’s still in town then. Neal has to remind him of Henry, and then tells Gold to stay away from both of them. Emma comes by Neal’s room to search it. She thinks she has something to do with Regina’s disappearance and Neal can’t believe Emma is still on the Tamara is evil kick. Emma finds sand in the closet after Neal tells her that Tamara likes to run in the woods. She thinks that Tamara is lying to him about other things if she can lie about this so easily. Neal doesn’t think it’s a big deal. Neal and Emma are on the beach searching for Tamara. Neal thinks Emma is letting her emotions get in the way and that’s why she’s trying to break up him and Tamara. Emma tells him that it hurt that he didn’t come after her in jail and that he found Tallahassee with someone else. Neal is about to defend himself again when Tamara runs up. After she runs off Emma decides she needs to search somewhere else, but Neal finally, FINALLY apologizes for letting August convince him to send her to jail. And he’s sorry that he never searched for her because he was afraid she’d never forgive him since he never forgave himself. This is completely contradictory to what he told August in Selfless, Brave, and True where he was worried about Emma breaking the curse and his father finding him. Neal tells her there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t regret leaving her. Well, that may be true, but you were too much of a coward to find her again because you were afraid of your father. Too bad you’re exactly like him. Look, it’s great that Neal finally apologized to Emma, because he needed to do that, but the fact of the matter is that he never would have come back to find her if she hadn’t found him first. He knew the curse was broken and he was still too pissed at his father, 100 and some odd years later, to go find Emma in Storybrooke. So, I still can’t forgive him, but I guess I can understand why Emma might. After a phone call from David, Emma and Neal go into the cannery looking for Tamara and Regina. Emma wants to make sure Neal has her back. He tells her he does if it turns out to be Tamara, even though he doubts that it is. David radios Emma that they found Regina with Greg and Neal immediately does an ‘I told you so’, but then Tamara comes up behind Emma and knocks her down with a pipe. She takes Emma’s gun and points it at Neal and goes on about how magic is a poison and needs to be gotten rid of. Neal seems to be focused more on the fact that she lied to him rather than the gun pointed at him! He finally gets her to admit that she’s been lying to him from the beginning and she never loved him. Neal is devastated, but tells Tamara he can’t let her leave SB, so she shoots him! Neal is just like WTF! But he still doesn’t realize how serious she is until she points the gun at his head. Luckily, Emma, finally recovered from the pipe to the back, kicks the gun out of Tamara’s hand to save Neal. Emma and Tamara fight and Neal isn’t doing so well. Emma gets the upper hand and then Tamara throws a bean and both Emma and Neal are pretty much screwed. Emma is holding Neal by his hand, but he tells her that she won’t be able to hold on to what she’s holding onto and him at the same time. He insists she let him go even if it means his death. He doesn’t want Henry to grow up without parents like they did. Emma tells him she loves him. He says it back and then lets go. Ok, I have to assume that all this is said in the heat of the moment because just five minutes ago Neal was in love with Tamara and accusing Emma of being jealous. Neal thought he was going to die so that’s why he tells Emma he loves her back. Unless he’s still loved her all these years. But, it’s also been 11 years since they’ve seen each other and they are two totally different people so Neal could be in love with 17-year-old Emma, but he doesn’t know 28-year-old Emma at all. He lets go of Emma’s hand (a nice juxtaposition to when his father let go of his hand in Desperate Souls) and falls into the portal, most likely to his death. RIP Neal.

Gold: He is continuing to be a complete asshole. Honestly, what the hell is Belle going to think when she gets her memories back? The guy that I love decided to be everything I hate just because my alter ego decided she liked power better than being good. I have no idea if they’re having sex, but would it be considered consensual, and how would Belle feel about it since Gold is pretty much using her body just because the person in it looks the same? The whole thing is repugnant. But onto the actual plot. Neal interrupts Gold telling Whale to kiss his boot for daring to look at Lacey. Neal stops him from kicking Whale’s face in and Gold is pissed. He sends Lacey off to the pawn shop while Neal berates his father for spending all this time looking for him and now barely acknowledging his existence. True statement. Neal gets hurt that his father isn’t even trying to have a relationship with him and that he’s never even attempted to meet his fiance, Tamara. Gold tells him that he’s obviously still in love with Emma. Neal tells him he hasn’t changed and he’s not worth his time. Gold fights back saying that Neal is still in town for a reason and Neal reminds him of Henry, and that’s the only reason he’s still there. Gold at least looks upset about that. Did Gold really forget about Henry being Neal’s son and that’s the reason he’s in town, or is he so self-centered that he thought Neal was there for him and Emma? Like, I don’t even understand what’s going on in his head anymore. David and Mary Margaret go to cash in the favor Gold owes David by having him help them find Regina. Gold happens to have one of Regina’s tears which will help them find Regina by combining it with one of Mary Margaret’s tears and dropping it in her eye. Weird. Lacey comes out after they leave seeing that he really can do magic and is impressed. She wonders why he never told her about this. Gold tells her about magic coming with a price and how it drives people away. Lacey tells him he’s hanging with the wrong kind of people then. She wants to see what else he can do, so he makes a necklace appear out of thin air and gives it to her. Lacey asks if he can make her immortal like him, he tells her yes. Okay, Gold, you know Belle wouldn’t want that at all. He tells her about the prophecy that foretells his undoing. He tells her that it’s complicated when she tells him to get rid of whomever will be his undoing. She thought nothing stood in his way. And then he pulls her to him in what would be a really sexy and seductive mood if it were any other two people in this situation, and he tells her he is that man. Gross.

Emma: She’s on the hunt for Regina. She, David, Mary Margaret, and Henry realize she’s missing, and most likely not by her own volition since her office is unlocked and the security system has been overridden. David suggests that she took a portal back to the EF, but Emma, rightly so, says she wouldn’t leave without Henry. David and Mary Margaret think Gold overpowered Regina, but Emma says he’s too preoccupied with Lacey (I’m glad someone in this town notices these things). Emma is convinced it’s Tamara again. David and Mary Margaret don’t think it is and think she needs to get off that train. Emma points out that Tamara came to town the same day August was killed, but David and Mary Margaret still aren’t on the same train as her. Emma tells her parents to go to Gold and find something that will help them and she’ll look at Tamara’s room again. Emma tells Neal she’s there to search his room for real this time. Um, that usually requires a warrant, but small town and emergency, I’ll allow it. She tells Neal that Regina is missing and Neal can’t believe she suspects Tamara. Emma finds sand on the floor of their closet and since Neal tells her Tamara runs in the woods that’s proof in her eyes that Tamara is a liar and has probably lied to Neal about other things. I mean, it’s true, but it’s also a big stretch. They go looking for Tamara on the beach and Neal thinks that Emma is jealous. Emma asks him what he wants to hear. How it killed her that he never came looking for her? That he found Tallahassee with someone else. Thankfully, Emma knows how to hide her emotions well because she plays this off as if it doesn’t bother her much when we know she’s constructed high walls around herself so that it will never happen again. Tamara interrupts their moment with her jog and Emma starts to realize that maybe she is jealous since Tamara kind of just proved that she was jogging along the beach and Emma doesn’t pick up a single lie . God dammit, Emma! You really need to get that super power under control. Neal gives a big apology speech that Emma doesn’t want to hear at first, but by the end she’s kind of okay with it and starts looking at Neal like he might not actually be a villain in her story. But I still think she’ll never be able to forgive him completely because he completely changed the trajectory of her life and not in a good way. Later on, Emma and Neal are walking along the docks when David calls her and tells her about Mary Margaret smelling sardines, Emma figures out pretty quickly that Tamara played them because the cannery is right there. Emma questions Neal’s loyalty when he comes with her into the cannery, but he says if Tamara is the bad guy he’s got her. She and David almost shoot each other, but he gives her a radio and they go their separate ways to look for Regina. When David and Mary Margaret find Regina and Greg, they radio Emma and tell her. She’s shocked that it’s Greg, and Neal basically tells her ‘I told you so’, except that Tamara then bashes Emma with a pipe and takes her gun. Emma wakes up in time to save Neal from getting shot a second time and fights with Tamara. She gets the gun but Tamara has a magic bean and she uses it to create a portal so she can escape. Emma is holding onto a pipe for dear life so she doesn’t go down the portal. Neal eventually helps her down and they’re about to leave when the portal opens up a little bigger and Emma is once again holding on for dear life while trying to keep Neal from going down the portal. He wants her to let him go, but she knows he’ll die because he’s been shot. He goes for the Henry angle so she’ll let him go, but she can’t let him go. She doesn’t want him out of her life again. She tells him she needs him and loves him. Neal tells her he loves her too and then lets go. The portal closes and Emma is left on the cannery floor with a big hole beneath her. Emma is devastated. Now, I know this seems like Emma has been jealous and that she wants to be with Neal again, but I disagree. I think this is Emma trying to be a comfort to him because she knows he’s going to die. She does care for him, but he was engaged to Tamara not five minutes ago. He barely apologized to her. This is teenaged Emma telling him these things, not the Emma of now. Present day Emma would never lay her heart out like that unless she knew it wasn’t going anywhere. And yes she’s crying over him, but he was still a big part of her life and he’s Henry’s father so regardless of her feelings for him now, she’s still mourning the part he played in her life overall and whatever the future may have brought them (though I still don’t believe it would have been an intimate relationship). Emma comes back to the loft completely shell-shocked and informs her parents that Neal is dead and Tamara killed him. David tries to comfort her and Emma doesn’t know how she’s going to tell Henry. David gives her the most fatherly kiss and this is just a real good father/daughter moment right here.

Mary Margaret/David: They annoy me a lot in this episode. David wonders why Regina would need to override her alarm code. Well, David, you’re supposedly an officer of the law, figure it out. Luckily, Emma is there to help him out. Mary Margaret is at least smart enough to figure out someone broke in and stole the beans, but when Emma thinks it’s Tamara, she gives that condescending mom stare to her. The ‘we’ve already talked about this, honey, and you were wrong’. They think Gold took Regina, but Emma’s apparently the only one observing the town nowadays, because she knows he only has eyes for Lacey. David and Mary Margaret both think Emma is wrong about Tamara and don’t want to go down the wrong path looking for Regina. Emma tells them to go to Gold and find something to help them find Regina while she looks into Tamara again. They go to Gold and remind him that he owes them a favor, so he reluctantly helps them find Regina. He wants to know why they want to help her, and Mary Margaret says she owes Regina after killing Cora. Interesting choice of words instead of saying she feels guilty. Gold wants a tear to mix with Regina’s, that he so happens to have, and Mary Margaret quickly thinks of something to make herself cry. Gold mixes it and tells them to drop it in Mary Margaret’s eye and she’ll basically see and feel everything Regina does. David tells Mary Margaret she doesn’t have to do this, but she thinks if she helps find Regina it will help heal her darkened heart. David just looks at her like there isn’t anyone more good and selfless in the world, and he drops the potion into her eye. At first it looks like it isn’t going to work, but then Regina starts getting electrocuted and Mary Margaret starts convulsing. David isn’t sure what to do, but he’s freaking out about it. Mary Margaret seems to pass out for a minute, and when she comes to she tells David that it was the worst pain she’d ever felt and that Regina is strapped down and powerless to fight back. Mary Margaret couldn’t tell where Regina was, just that she was cold and that it smelled like sardines. David relays this to Emma who figures out Regina is at the cannery and tells David and Mary Margaret to meet her there. David and Emma almost shoot each other because apparently David can’t sneak into someone’s supposed secret hideout without making a ton of noise. They split up and eventually find Regina with Greg. David and Mary Margaret catch Greg about to kill Regina and David shoots the machine that was administering the electricity (why didn’t he shoot Greg instead? At least shoot him in the leg or something so he couldn’t run off?). Greg manages to get away (because David is incompetent), and Mary Margaret won’t let him go after Greg because Regina needs medical help from Mother Superior. Um, can’t you just call for her and she’ll appear? Isn’t that how it worked back in the EF? Isn’t that what basically happened in Selfless, Brave, and True when they needed her to help August? Why can’t Mary Margaret stay with Regina and call Mother Superior (hell, call her on the phone and get her to come over) while David goes after Greg? Anyway, at least he’s smart enough to tell Emma that it’s Greg they caught with Regina. Mary Margaret and David have brought Regina to the loft and Mother Superior uses her magic to remove the cuff and heal her (again, why couldn’t this have happened at the warehouse?). Emma comes in and they immediately know that something is wrong. They are in shock when she tells them Neal is gone and ‘she’ killed them (they know it’s Tamara, she doesn’t have to clarify, they know). David does the fatherly thing and comforts Emma, while Mary Margaret is watching over Regina. She is shocked that David and Mary Margaret saved her. David says they’re family, regardless. Regina is worried because Greg and Tamara still have ‘it’, and Mary Margaret has the good sense to be worried about what it is they have. They are appalled about the fail-safe. Especially since her plan was to take Henry with her to the EF and leave them all to die. But they have bigger things to worry about since Regina no longer has the trigger.

Regina: She is bound to a medical slab. We start with her trying to see where Hook stands on this whole matter. He just wants to kill Gold and Regina scoffs that he doesn’t even know who he’s working for. Greg comes in with his electrocution machine and she sarcastically asks if it’s part of his mission, but he’s clear that this is personal. Greg starts putting electrodes all over Regina and it’s clear he wants answers about his father, and he’s willing to hurt her to get them. She’s adamant that he left town, but Greg still doesn’t believe her. He turns the machine on and Regina is her normal, sarcastic self, asking if the machine is supposed to frighten her. But you can see that she’s nervous when Greg starts attaching the wires to the electrodes. He once again asks where his father is. Regina rolls her eyes and gets electrocuted for it. This goes on for a while. Tamara comes in after distracting Neal and Emma and Regina calls them fools who go around stealing magic. Greg tells her they’re there to destroy magic and Regina looks confused. I don’t blame her because she told Henry in Welcome to Storybrooke that magic can’t be destroyed when he tried to blow up the well. But I’m sure Greg and Tamara wouldn’t believe her anyway. Regina laughs at Tamara when she tells her that they’re there to cleanse the world of magic. She thinks it’s ridiculous that the two of them could destroy magic. But she sure as hell gets nervous when Greg tells her there’s more of them all over the world. Regina tells them that it’s not going to work, but Greg tells her it’s been done before, that Storybrooke is not the first bit of magic to cross over. Later on, Tamara sees Emma and Neal on the monitors and tells Greg they have to go. Regina is not looking so smug anymore. Her eyes are red and teary and she looks like she’s praying Emma finds her soon. Greg puts the dial up to a 9 and you can see Regina visibly wince before he even asks her where his father is for the last time. She finally tells him before he can electrocute her at such a high level. She killed his father the minute he left town and buried him at the campsite. She says this with such venom in her voice. I suspect she’s pretty sure she’s going to die at this point. Much like when she said she told the kingdom she regretted not being more evil when Snow and Charming almost executed her in The Cricket Game. She tells Greg to go ahead and kill her. She just wanted to see the look on his face when she told him. So he electrocutes her at a level 9! He does it two more times before David finally he comes in and shoots the machine. Regina is pretty much out of it by this point, so she doesn’t get to see David and Mary Margaret rescue her. She wakes up in their loft and is astounded that they saved her. They tell her she’s family. She tells them Greg and Tamara have the fail-safe. They can’t believe she was going to kill everyone with it. Regina’s pissed they were going to abandon her in Storybrooke, because that’s the same thing as killing everyone. Again, Regina is playing the victim when she was going to do something much worse. But that’s all to say that she doesn’t have it anymore and that’s a big problem.

Greg/Tamara: Tamara pretends to be training for a marathon so she can meet with Greg in secret at the cannery. Tamara shows Greg the magic portal beans that she found in Regina’s office. Greg gets jealous that she knows what they are because Neal told her. She tells him that as soon as this is all over she’ll be taking off the engagement ring. Greg gives her the fail-safe diamond they found on Regina and she says she’ll send it over to the Home Office to look at. Greg sets Regina up to be electrocuted so he can get information about his father from her. Regina tells him he left town, but Greg refuses to believe that his father never came to find him. He wants Hook to lend him a hand (with his good hand), but Hook isn’t so much into torturing the Evil Queen as he is killing Rumplestiltskin. He tells Greg to find him when that part of the plan is happening. Greg asks Regina where his father is and when she refuses to answer him, she gets her first dose of electrocution. Tamara ‘runs into’ Neal and Emma on the beach to throw them off the track. She tells Greg they believed her. Greg ups the dial and electrocutes Regina some more. She calls them fools for stealing magic but Tamara tells her that’s not what they’re doing. She talks about magic being unholy and needing to be cleansed from the earth, and it feels like Tamara is talking about The Crusades or something. Tamara and Greg are pretty confident that they will do what they’ve set out to do. Regina doesn’t believe the two of them can destroy magic, but Greg informs her that there are more of them everywhere. After he ran away he talked about the magic he saw and magic believers found him, believers that don’t believe magic belongs in their world and are willing to do something about it. They also sound like they’re in a religious cult. Regina tells them destroying magic won’t work, but Greg tells them they’ve done it before. He tells her they are there to stop magic and electrocutes her again. Tamara sees Emma and Neal on the cannery monitors and tells Greg they have to go. Greg still hasn’t got the information about his father. He and Tamara argue, and he tells her they wouldn’t even know about Storybrooke if it wasn’t for his father, so Tamara tells him to meet her later while she runs off. Greg turns the dial up to 9 and this scares Regina enough that she finally tells him that his father is dead and she buried him near their campsite. Greg doesn’t believe her and electrocutes her again. Greg tells Regina she’s never going to hurt anyone ever again, but David comes at that moment and shoots the machine. Greg runs off because Mary Margaret is insistent that they save Regina instead of go after the guy who tried to kill her. David tells Emma that it was Greg, but then Tamara hits Emma with a pipe. Neal focuses more on the fact that Tamara was lying to him this whole time rather than the fact that she just hit Emma with a pipe! She grabs Emma’s gun and tells him that she is working with Greg and they’re there to get rid of magic, something he should be familiar with. Neal again is stuck on the lying part. He finally puts together that their whole relationship was a lie. I see how Tamara managed to dupe him for so long; he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Tamara tries to get him to understand that it was her job, and he finally realizes she never loved him (dude, get off this track), and that’s when he tells her he can’t let her leave. She gives him a warning and then shoots him about one second after that. Cold-blooded. Damn! She’s about to shoot him point blank in the head when Emma kicks the gun away. Tamara and Emma fight (and Tamara’s a good fighter, definitely trained) and Emma thinks she has the upper hand when she gets her gun back, but Tamara pulls out one of the beans and throws it at them and runs off. Greg is digging at the campsite and finds his father’s skull. He’s completely devastated. Tamara finds Greg reburying his father and tells him she’s sorry. She tells him the Home Office has gotten back to them about the diamond. She tells him he’ll never believe what it does, and that the Home Office wants them to move to the next phase of their plan. Greg is shocked that they want them to move so quickly, and even Tamara is a little wary. They have to blow Storybrooke off the map.

Questions:

Why does it look like Gold, Lacey, and Whale are having their fight after a night of drinking? Are they just leaving The Rabbit Hole at six in the morning?

How does Tamara send over the fail-safe diamond to the Home Office and get the information back all in one day? Does she actually send it to them, or do they just know what it is from a picture?

How long was Bae in the crawl space before the Darlings discovered him?

Is the Shadow there for Bae since it started coming to the Darlings window at the same time he arrived?

How did magic kill Bae’s mother? Didn’t Rumplestiltskin just tell Bae she ran away and died? Or was kidnapped by pirates and died? (I know he told Bae she died)

Really David, this is how you want to use your favor? To find Regina?

How the hell does Gold have a tear from Regina?

Why doesn’t Gold make a locator potion to find Regina? Why do they have to use a potion that makes Mary Margaret see, feel, smell, touch, and hear what Regina is going through

What magic did Greg see in Storybrooke as a child? His father mentioned that it seemed as if the town had dropped on top of them, but all Greg saw was a storm. And then he couldn’t find Storybrooke when he brought the cops, but that could have been the hysteria and fear that just prevented him from finding it. So really, Greg never originally saw any magic. He just knew that Regina tried to steal him from his father.

How does Wendy know so much about where the Shadow is from? It doesn’t talk. How does she know it’s realm is different from Bae’s and that you can fly and all that?

Ok, I get that Neal happened to be with Emma when she went to go search the cannery, but why is David bringing Mary Margaret along on police business when someone potentially dangerous is there?

Why is Mary Margaret still wearing her coat when she’s caring for Regina? Or did she change out of the blue sweater and is now wearing a trench top?

How did Greg happen to find the exact spot his father was buried in? Besides not having been there for 28 years, they had a pretty big camping area when they were there.

How did Tamara find Greg where his father had been buried? They were supposed to meet at a rendezvous point.

How do the folks at the ‘Home Office’ know what the fail-safe is? Is there a Curses 101 book that they can look these things up in?

Observations:

Kensington Gardens is the setting of the prequel to Peter Pan, titled Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. It is also where a statue of Peter Pan is currently located.

Gold tells Whale to kiss his boot and Neal says he’s surprised he didn’t turn him into a snail. Rumplestiltskin did this to the man who tried to take Bae in Desperate Souls when he became the Dark One.

Neal doesn’t think it’s odd that Tamara takes several hours a day to go running since she’s training for a marathon. So, I looked it up and Google says that you should cap a run at three and a half hours while training, so I guess it’s not that odd.

Bae goes from sleeping on the floor to having a bed within a day, unless it takes the Shadow a lot longer to come back.

There is no mention of Peter Pan on Neverland.

Gold gives Lacey the same necklace Belle dreamed of him giving her in The Crocodile.

Emma tells David and Mary Margaret to look for Regina in the cannery basement, but there are windows all aroundwhere Greg and Regina are with the sunlight shining in when they are found.

Big Ben is at 8:15 when the Shadow takes Bae past it.

The Shadow takes Bae toward the second star to the right.

Yeah, Tamara hitting Emma with the pipe would definitely have broken her neck. No way she could have survived that.

Timeline Issues:

I’m pretty sure we’ve established that Gold is a few hundred years old. He became the Dark One when Bae was 14. So, let’s say he’s been the Dark One for 200 years. If it is currently 2013 in the timeline, and since we’ve seen that the EF and our realm run concurrently, that should mean that it was at least 1813 when Bae dropped into London. Except that the story Peter Pan was published in 1904, which means Bae would have had to have dropped into the Darling’s lives at least a few years before the book was published. Let’s put Bae coming to our world in 1902. That would mean it would have been 111 years since he dropped through the portal. Now, he may feel like he’s been around longer since Wendy says time works differently in Neverland, and it would also account for how long Hook has been around, but that doesn’t explain why Gold says he’s a few hundred years old when he’d really only be around 160 or so (and no, his time stuck during the curse doesn’t count toward his age).

So Greg and Tamara know that the diamond is part of the fail-safe, which means they are going to try and destroy Storybrooke themselves. Hopefully, Emma finds them before that happens. I’m looking forward to Bae and Hook discovering that they have a connection with Milah. Tamara and Greg keep referencing the Home Office, which seems pretty ominous. And we saw the true version of Wendy in Neverland, and it was not all it was cracked up to be. Neal is gone, but at least Emma got some closure before it happened. The final episode is next!!!!

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

@searchingwardrobes @thisonesatellite @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81 @lfh1226-linda

#once upon a time #once upon a time review #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time 2x21 #once upon a time second start to the right

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stahlop · 5 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 3x01 “The Heart of the Truest Believer” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x111x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x032x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x152x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22

Well, here we are. Season 3! And we are in Neverland! And Peter Pan is an evil little sucker. And Rumple has some emotional connection that we don’t know about. Plus a lot of fighting, evil mermaids, flying, and some things going on in the EF. This episode deals heavily with the idea of belief and believing, so I think we’ll be seeing a lot of that in this story arc. So batten down the hatches, we’ve got an unbelievable season ahead (see what I did there? Huh? Huh? Whatever.)!

Summary: While Emma tries to dissuade her parents, Regina, and Hook from tearing each other apart, Henry encounters a scared Lost Boy on Neverland and reminds him of the power of belief. In the Enchanted Forest, Neal goes to his father’s castle to figure out what’s going on with Emma.

Opening: Henry and Peter Pan flying.

New Characters:

Peter Pan: Although we don’t know he’s Peter Pan until the end; he finds Henry when he’s running away from the Lost Boys and pretends to be another scared boy. My only problem with this is that the actor playing Pan looks at least 16, so him pretending to be scared to an 11-year-old Henry is a little odd. Maybe it’s supposed to be believable because Felix (Lost Boy Leader’s name according to the credits) is creepy as fuck. Also, why are the Lost Boys so old? Wasn’t the whole point of coming to Neverland to never grow up and be a kid forever? Wendy (in the Disney version) wanted to go there because she was being kicked out of the nursery because she was almost 13. So why are the Lost Boys teenagers? This makes no sense to me. But I digress. Henry tells him how Pan sent people to kidnap and the boy tells him if Pan sent for him he wants him for something. The basic gist of this whole ‘game’ is that Pan is pretending, he wants to make sure that Henry’s belief in magic(?) is real, and tricks him into using pixie dust in order to fly. Only then does Pan reveal himself to Henry and that he basically needs him because he has the heart of the truest believer. And then, in the most menacing way, he calls the Lost Boys and says they’re going to play. Yikes! What has Henry got himself into?

Character Observations:

Emma: We start with Emma giving birth to Henry 11 years ago. Her leg is shackled to the hospital bed and there is a prison guard watching over her. She absolutely refuses to see the baby when it’s born and says she can’t be a mother. But she’s absolutely devastated. We then move to the Jolly Roger where they are going through the portal, a true picture of a mother going after her son. Mary Margaret and David try to cheer her up, but instead, she blames them for giving her hope, for telling her that life is a fairy tale when that’s not her experience, and she can only go off of her experiences when saving Henry. She is just letting them have it while trying to keep herself together, and it’s some of the best acting I’ve seen Jennifer Morrison do on this show. She is so tired of the optimism that David and Mary Margaret have about everything and just wants them to realize that so many bad things have happened to them and to deal with that. But they refuse to deal with reality and still hold on to hope, aggravating Emma even more. Gold comes out, now dressed like Rumple, and tells everyone that he is going to get Henry back. Emma, still upset from her talk with her parents, wants to know why Gold doesn’t think she can get Henry back. He tells her she doesn’t believe in her parents, magic, or herself. Emma says she’s pretty sure she believes in magic after everything they’ve seen, and that’s exactly the point. She only believes in what’s in front of her, she can’t talk a leap of faith without evidence, and since Neverland runs on imagination, that’s not going to fly. He basically tells her she’s the same person who came to Storybrooke and she can’t do anything without a little hand holding. Emma takes her stress out Sarah Connor style by doing pull ups down in the crew’s quarters, delighting Hook to no end. Hook gives her Bae’s old cutlass to fight with. They toast to Neal with some rum before their lovely moment is interrupted by a mermaid attack. Everyone attacks them in different ways, but Mary Margaret and Emma catch one in a net and decide to bring it on board the ship. Everything starts going to hell when they bring her aboard. She calls a storm and everyone starts arguing with each other. You can see that Emma is finding this very strange and that this isn’t normal fighting. Regina finally turns the mermaid into a wooden statue and Emma is freaking the fuck out, especially because a wall of water comes at them after she does that. Emma and Hook are desperately trying to regain control of the ship while Mary Margaret and Regina duke it out. Hook and David end up fighting as well and Emma finally realizes that their fighting is causing the storm. She can’t get their attention, so, in a leap of faith, she jumps off the ship, which probably would’ve gotten them to stop fighting even without the rigging that flies off and hits her in the head, knocking her out under the water. Luckily, everyone works together to save her, and they get her back on the ship and she doesn’t have any type of head injury (not even a bruise!). But their working together gets the storm to stop and Emma gets in an ‘I told you so’ after she coughs up the water that could have drowned her. They finally make it onto Neverland and Emma goes into leader mode. She even admits that she was wrong and Gold was right about belief. Her parents think there’s a right way to find Henry, but Emma wants them to be who they are and do whatever it takes, no matter the consequences to save Henry and just cooperate with each other. Regina questions Emma’s role as something other than the Savior. She tells Regina she is a mother and their leader. She’s pretty much had enough of Regina’s lip and basically tells her to keep out of her way as they try to save Henry. They head off into the jungles of Neverland. So Emma has finally accepted her role as Henry’s mother and is finally taking a leadership role instead of letting everything just fall in her lap. We’ll see how she fares with Henry’s other mother.

Gold: He’s not very helpful to anyone. He does decide to dress more Enchanted Forest appropriate by wearing his crocodile skin outfit. He tells Emma that he’ll be the one to get Henry back since she doesn’t have enough belief. His speech borders on religious when he talks about taking a leap of faith (something Emma does later by jumping into the water and Henry does with the pixie dust), and then he vanishes from the ship, leaving his cane behind (I guess being back in a magical place makes it so he doesn’t need his cane anymore). First he comes across the carnage that is Greg and Tamara. She is still alive so he makes it so she can tell him what happened to Henry. Tamara tells him that Henry ran, and then tries to justify her actions by saying she didn’t know she was working for Pan. She also apologizes for killing Neal. She asks for his forgiveness and Gold is done with this. He almost looks like he’s sympathetic to her plight, but then rips out her heart and crushes it. Bye bye, Tamara. You really did get what you deserved. He wanders around the island until he senses Felix nearby and tells him to come out. Felix addresses him as Rumplestiltskin and Gold does his little Rumple hand gesture with the biggest expression of disdain on his face. It’s hilarious. Felix tells him Pan welcomes him to the island and is happy to see him again. So now we know that Pan and Rumple have some sort of past together. What it is remains to be seen. Gold finds it hard to believe Pan wants him there. Felix tells him as long as he’s not there for the boy, he’s welcome, otherwise he’s Pan’s enemy. So I guess he’s Pan’s enemy. Gold tells him nothing’s changed then. So I guess they’re already enemies. Felix tells him he won’t survive against Pan. Gold isn’t particularly disturbed by this. He’s more concerned about how many Lost Boys he can take with him when he goes down. Gold thinks their confrontation is over until Felix throws him a straw doll which instantly reduces Gold to tears. Holy crap! Who knew Gold could be so emotional when it didn’t have to do with Belle or Neal? Felix says something about things they haven’t thought about in years having the ability to make them cry, so I’m assuming his doll has something to do with Gold’s childhood. Felix leaves Gold crying over the doll in the middle of the jungle. Well that took a turn.

Regina: Annoying as ever, she immediately lays into Hook for the ship slowing down, and if he didn’t realize what the purpose of their trip was, it was to go rescue Henry (because they went through a portal just for the hell of it?). Like this whole conversation is completely ridiculous. Then she tells Hook about how Greg called her a villain, which she seems incredulous about (does she really not think she’s a villain, she is the Evil Queen after all), and that Greg said villains don’t get happy endings. Hook and Regina reflect on this and how they might have been wasting their lives if that’s true. Didn’t they have a similar conversation when they were below the library in The Evil Queen? Where Hook asked if their pursuit of vengeance was basically an ending and not a beginning? So, Regina doesn’t see herself as a villain, and she continues this belief throughout their journey. When the mermaids are attacking, she’s not a villain by sending fireballs after them. When Emma and Mary Margaret capture one, she yells at her (and is not above torturing her) for information, eventually causing a fight between herself and Mary Margaret (Regina wants to kill her or torture her for information, whereas Mary Margaret wants to free her), and Regina turns the mermaid into a wooden statue satisfied that that will end the storm. Except it brings a huge tidal wave upon them instead. She seems genuinely shocked that this plan didn’t work. Listen to Emma and think things through, Regina!!! Always thinking in the short term and never looking at the whole picture. Mary Margaret and Regina continue to go at it with each other (involving an actual fistfight between the two of them) and Regina, once again, plays the victim when Mary Margaret tells her to stop ruining her life. When Emma jumps off the ship she tells Mary Margaret she can’t see her in the storm to bring her back up. But they all end up working together to save Emma which stops the storm. Once they dock, Regina says she can fix the Jolly Roger and they can go with Hook’s original plan, but Emma tells her to save her magic and says that Pan already knows they’re there. Emma makes a moving speech about believing in each other and Regina poo poos this as her wanting them all to be friends. That’s not even close to what she said. Emma says they just need to be who they are to succeed and she calls Regina a villain in this speech. Regina keeps a very cool facade when Emma goes on about being a mother and their leader (both roles that are usually Regina’s forte), but seems to be on board when they go further into the jungle.

David/Mary Margaret: I just want to roll my eyes at their optimism like Emma does. Their unwavering belief that everything will work out is very annoying. They are genuinely shocked that Emma doesn’t share their optimism. You can see that Mary Margaret is doing all she can to not dissolve into tears when she tells Emma that her experience is all she has to go on and she could share some of her wisdom with her. But Emma reminds them that they are the same age with the same amount of experience. Ok, I see where Emma is coming from, but being the same age does not give them the same level of experience. They both have different experiences that they can both learn from. Mary Margaret is doing everything she can to placate Emma, but Emma is pissed off. Mary Margaret tells her that the moment she lets go of her belief the moment things will ultimately get worse (how much worse can it get? You’ve already been cursed, lost your daughter, Johanna was killed, and now your grandson has been kidnapped?). I’d be frustrated too. David and Mary Margaret are trying to control the ship when the mermaids attack, and David’s the first to do something useful by making explosives and shooting the mermaids with the mini cannons (I will not be capsized by fish). And he looks hot doing it. Whew! Mary Margaret gets the idea to catch the mermaids, I’m not really sure what the thought process there was. Later on she thinks that talking to them and seeing if they can make some sort of deal with them will work, but all in all, the capturing a mermaid plan basically almost killed them all. When questioning the mermaid, David first goes from the yell and threaten approach (even bringing a sword to her throat, and Mary Margaret looks horrified at this), while Mary Margaret thinks that killing them with kindness is the way to go (she thinks they are scared of Pan and doing his bidding, even though Hook tells her mermaids are liars and just want to kill them). Regina continues to try and kill the mermaid even though everyone else tells her not to and she brings on a huge tidal wave when she turns her into wood. Mary Margaret blames Regina who doesn’t think this is her fault. She wants her to undo the spell and Regina calls Mary Margaret a naive princess, so Mary Margaret punches her! Damn girl! Get out all that pent up frustration! They continue punching each other so David goes to break them up, but Hook tells him to let them fight because he needs him to help with the ship, but he uses a derogatory term for women and David punches him. So now they’re fighting. He even tries to stab Hook with his own hook. Talk about cold blooded. They finally all get their acts together when Emma jumps in the water to stop them from fighting. Mary Margaret and David are terrified. They all work together, with David jumping into the water to save her and the others pulling them up with rope. Once on the island, Emma tells them all they need to work together and David and Mary Margaret don’t want to work with Regina and Hook. I’m confused as to why they think they’re there then if they weren’t all going to work with each other. David wants to do things the right way (which is what exactly?), but Emma says they just need to be heroes while Regina is a villain and Hook is a pirate. They need those skills to get Henry back. When Emma says her skill is being a mother, Mary Margaret gets the proudest look on her face. Like Emma’s finally understanding what being a parent is all about. And then after she tells Regina to either help or get out of her way, David is the first to follow with a proud daddy smirk on his face.

Henry: Basically, he’s running from the Lost Boys. He has belief in magic and flies. And now Peter Pan and the Lost Boys have him surrounded.

Greg/Tamara: They know they’re in Neverland because it’s the mother lode of magic. They want to destroy it. Henry asks them who they work for that works on Neverland, but Greg says it’s none of his business. The Home Office takes care of them. Henry wonders how they’ll get back home once they destroy magic, but Greg is deep into the ‘it doesn’t matter as long as it gets done’ belief to worry about little things like getting home. They immediately realize something is wrong when their communicator is filled with sand. Tamara even wonders if it’s a toy and Henry remarks that it’s a good thing they don’t ask questions. Greg just gets angry while Tamara starts getting worried. Greg builds a fire to send a signal, but Tamara thinks the broken communicator was intentional. That’s when the Lost Boys emerge. They tell Greg and Tamara they’re the Home Office, and Tamara is getting really frightened now that they know the Home Office is run by teenagers. Henry clarifies that they’re the Lost Boys. Henry’s confused as to why the Lost Boys want to destroy magic, and Greg reminds him that that was their mission. Felix tells him they only told him what he wanted to hear so they could get Henry. Tamara finally gets some balls and asks how they’re getting home and Felix tells her they aren’t getting home. Greg tells them they aren’t getting Henry, but Felix summons the Shadow who rips Greg’s shadow from his body and kills him. Tamara tells Henry to run and gets shot with an arrow from a Lost Boy. Now, I have to admit, I really didn’t like Greg, but this was an awful way for him to die. After everything he went through as a kid he just wanted some justification in destroying magic, and unfortunately, he found the wrong organization who just used him for their own means. Tamara manages not to die right off the bat and is found by Rumple later. He heals her so she can tell him where Henry went. She apologizes for everything and asks him for forgiveness over what she did to Neal. But Rumple don’t play that game and takes her heart and crushes it. RIP Greg and Tamara, you will not be missed in the slightest.

Neal/Mulan: Ugh! I really wish Neal was just dead and I didn’t have to deal with all this. First off, we get no explanation about how they rescued Phillip from the wraith, he’s just there with them. Neal wakes up and is bandaged pretty modernly for being in the EF. Mulan immediately thinks he’s lying about being from the EF since he’s wearing clothes like Emma and Snow did. Which makes no sense because she knows about the curse and how they were all from the EF, so of course he’d be wearing modern clothes if he was from the same place they were. Once Mulan mentions Emma and Snow, Neal wants them to help him find her because Emma’s in danger. He also mentions Henry and Aurora quickly comes to the conclusion that he’s Henry’s father. Mulan questions how Neal got there, but he explains about the portal. He tells her they’re all considered fairy tale characters, or legends. When Aurora can’t make contact she thinks the worst. Neal realizes he needs to go to his father’s castle and reveals his father is the Dark One. Mulan and Neal have a deep discussion about why Emma never mentioned him when she was there. Neal says he broke her heart and then never came back for her even though he loved her and he regrets it. He claims he didn’t try because he didn’t want to be rejected. Or, maybe because you were engaged to Tamara up until she shot you? Seriously, what is up with all the Neal retconning. He didn’t want to risk seeing his father so he let Emma go to jail for him and then didn’t ever look for her once the curse broke because he’d moved on and still didn’t want to deal with his father. This whole still loving Emma thing is bullshit! Mulan seems to understand his regret more than she should. Still wondering if she’s in love with Phillip or Aurora. They get to the castle and Neal realizes that someone is there because they left out a goblet of wine. Then an arrow comes shooting near his head and Robin Hook makes his entrance. Neal is in disbelief. He tells Robin he can have the castle, he just needs to find something first and Robin believes he is the son of the Dark One, because who would admit to that if they weren’t. He also tells Neal that Rumplestiltskin spared his life and Neal wants him to help him find whatever he needs to pay for that debt. Neal is looking for something magical that his father would have hidden away. Neal finds his father’s old cane, swings it around, and uncovers a magical cabinet. Convenient. Neal claims it’s blood magic that made it so he could uncloak the cabinet. Neal finds a crystal ball and laments about how he’s been running from magic most of his life and now it’s the only thing that can help him. Boo hoo. But he can’t make the crystal ball work. Like your father said, you have to believe. Mulan tells him he needs to think of Emma and not a place. And when he does he recognizes that she’s in Neverland. Uh oh!

Questions:

I get having a guard while Emma is giving birth, but shackled? I’ve given birth three times and trying to move without help after you’ve given birth is almost near impossible. I’m honestly surprised she didn’t break the cuff with the sheer force that is necessary to give birth.

With the way Henry fell out of that portal (and that he couldn’t brace himself since his hands are tied), shouldn’t he have broken something? That was a pretty high fall from the portal.

Why didn’t Greg and Tamara’s portal spit them out in water since they went into it in water?

Why does Regina ask Hook about the ship slowing down? He hasn’t cast anchor, it’s not a car, it doesn’t just slow down. That’s not how it works. If Hook hasn’t put the anchor down then the ship is slowing down most likely due to lack of wind, or the fact that they just shot out of a portal, not because of anything he’s doing.

How is Aurora’s dress not shredded by now? She’s in the same dress that she was wearing in Broken.

Why is Aurora’s first reaction to not being able to reach Henry in her dream that he’s in trouble and not that he’s not asleep?

How does Neal a) know about his father’s castle (he left the EF before Rumplestiltskin owned a castle), and b) know where this castle is?

Doesn’t wearing a bag crossed over where Neal just got shot hurt? He’s acting like he was never shot at all.

Anyone else think David’s face is a little too close to the mini cannon? I was afraid he was going to at least burn his eyebrows off.

Why are Mary Margaret and Regina still wearing their suit jackets in the middle of a storm? Emma took off her turtleneck and David rolled up his sleeves. Having that extra soaking layer must suck.

First of all, Robin Hood says he arrived at Rumple’s castle shortly after the curse (I’m assuming after it ended) to find it already looted by thieves. Did it get looted after Rumple was taken captive by Snow and Charming? Secondly, why did he decide to go back to Rumple’s castle after he was tortured and nearly killed the last time he was there? Did he know Rumple had been imprisoned beforehand?

I thought Felix was with the Lost Boys chasing Henry. Did he decide to take a break when they discovered Gold was on the island?

Where did Mary Margaret’s bow and quiver full of arrows come from? She only had a backpack when she came aboard the Jolly Roger in And Straight on ‘Til Morning.

Why is David questioning working with Regina and Hook to get Henry back? They all made the journey to Neverland. Were they just going to leave Regina and Hook on the ship?

Observations:

The lights flicker when Emma gives birth to Henry. The last time we saw this was in the Pilot. It seems this is a manifestation of Emma’s magic in our world.

It looks like Gold lost all the gray in his hair when he had his wardrobe change.

Apparently getting your shadow ripped from you will kill you.

Snow didn’t teach Aurora how to control the dreams and walk the dream world. Henry had the amulet that Gold gave him that let him control things (and David later broke). Not that they ever used it after the first dream.

Neal explains how portals work. You have to think about the place you want to go to.

I don’t know if it’s because of the difference between filming a live ship and then greenscreening a background when filming the actors, but the ship looks like it’s barely moving when it’s just a ship shot, and then it’s speeding along when you see the water behind the actors.

Robin Hood is played by a different actor than when we last saw him in Lacey.

I’ve decided that the forest that we saw in Cora’s bubble must be Sherwood Forest, as that’s the only explanation for Robin Hood to still be in the EF, and why he hasn’t aged.

So that’s the season premiere for season 3! We are officially in Neverland. We don’t even see Storybrooke. And we have to deal with characters we don’t particularly care for in the Enchanted Forest (although I like the smarminess of this Robin Hood). We’ll see how this all comes together. Some other thoughts: Regina is still Evil Queen Bitch. She seems to have learned nothing from her brushes with death just that morning. David and Mary Margaret also seem to think that if they just do the right thing then everything will be alright, when we’ve yet to see that work out for them. Emma is the only one who seems to have made any growth by calling herself Henry’s mother and finally taking a leadership role in finding him. And Hook just fancies Emma when she’s not yelling at him.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

@searchingwardrobes @thisonesatellite @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81 @lfh1226-linda

#once upon a time #once upon a time review #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time 3x01 #once upon a time the heart of the truest believer

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stahlop · 5 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 2x19 “Lacey” Review

Ok, so, I’m now remembering why I felt season two wasn’t so great originally. Greg and Tamara. I love both the actors (I mean, Ethan Embry as Greg was brilliant in Empire Records and Sonequa Martin-Green as Tamara I loved on The Walking Dead (RIP Sasha). But now that Cora is gone I feel like the rest of this season is almost being tacked on unless something big is about to happen. Both Regina and Gold are struggling between being good and evil, neither of whom are trying to be good for themselves but for other people. We also got another fairy tale character in a flashback who I hope becomes more significant in the future.

Summary: Belle ‘regains’ her memories as a barfly named, Lacey, and Gold tries to win her heart. Regina discovers that Neal is Henry’s father and suspects that Emma is hiding something from her. In the EF, Robin Hood tries to steal a wand from Rumplestiltskin and gets tortured for his actions, but Belle frees him, despite what consequences it may bring.

Opening: Robin Hood shooting an arrow.

New Characters:

Robin Hood: I know we technically don’t find out his name until almost the end of the episode, but it’s pretty obvious from the moment we meet him who he is, so let’s not pretend we don’t know who he is. He breaks into Rumplestiltskin’s castle to steal a wand. First off, he’s cocky as hell if he thinks he can break into the Dark One’s castle without him finding out. True that it’s the middle of the night, but Robin Hood has got some balls. He’s also dumb as hell if he thinks an arrow to the chest will kill him. Did he not do any research about Rumplestiltskin and the fact that he’s immortal? Robin seems very surprised that the arrow from his magic bow that can hit any target didn’t kill Rumplestiltskin. I’m very surprised that Rumplestiltskin decides to torture Robin instead of kill him right on the spot. Gaston came to fight for Belle and Rumplestiltskin turned him into a rose which killed him right on the spot, yet Robin is just getting tortured (ok, it’s still bad, but killing him outright would have seemed the more obvious choice)? Belle goes in to rescue him. He’s strung up by his wrists, and for the amount of blood Rumplestiltskin had on him (and the apparently other aprons that needed washed), Robin has very little blood on him. I expected him to be disemboweled or cut to shreds at least. Robin is afraid that Belle will get punished for letting him out, but Belle won’t leave because she’s afraid of going back on her deal with him. Robin is waiting for a Marian who is sick. He heals her with the wand he stole, and she’s pregnant. They run off when Rumplestiltskin fires an arrow at them but ‘misses’. I’m assuming we’re going to see Robin and Marian again and that’s why Robin didn’t die in this episode.

Sheriff of Nottingham/Keith: In the EF he seems to be a drunk (as evidenced from him having a hard time getting off his horse and his flask). He’s delighted that Rumplestiltskin has a beef with Robin Hood, but he also knows that Rumplestiltskin likes to make deals, so he has one for him. Idiot. Don’t go making deals with him when you don’t have to. He tries to get Belle for the night, but Rumplestiltskin says she’s not for sale. He attempts an hour, then twenty minutes. You’re not doing much to help your cause here Nottingham. Rumplestiltskin pretends to think about it, but then steals Nottingham’s tongue and tells him he tells him what he wants to know and he’ll get his tongue back. Nottingham agrees. We learn that Robin Hood ruined Nottingham, stole his woman, and made him the laughing stock of Nottingham (and this is where we learn he’s the Sheriff of Nottingham, also, I’m thinking making him a laughing stock wasn’t very hard). He also tells us that the thief is in Sherwood Forest. And if you still aren’t sure who our thief is, he tells us his name is Robin Hood.

I don’t think we ever get Nottingham’s SB name, but the credits list him as Keith, so that will be easier than calling him Nottingham here as well. We first see Keith hitting on Lacey in the bar and he is an A number one creep. He tells her he’s had his eye on her for a while. Now that we know that he wanted to make a deal for her back in the EF, this is even more creepy. She blows him off pretty quickly though. But apparently she kept in touch with him or got his number because she leaves her date with Gold to go make out with him behind Granny’s. Ew. When Gold grabs him off of Lacey he snivels that he didn’t know she was here with Gold and runs off. Keith later goes to apologize again to Gold, because he didn’t realize they were still together. Gold informs him that they aren’t together, so Keith assumes everything is okay between them then, and tries to shake Gold’s hand. Of course, this is when Gold decides that he’s tired of doing the right thing and takes Keith’s tongue again so no one can hear him scream while he beats the crap out of him.

Character Observations:

Belle/Lacey: We are back to right after Belle is taken to Rumplestiltskin’s castle after agreeing to be his maid in Skin Deep. It might be one or two days after she went to work for him, and the chipped cup scene should have happened at some point here, because she was still in her gold dress, and Rumplestiltskin gave her the list of what she had to do in the castle. She is crying because he’s locked her in a dungeon. Rumplestiltskin complains about the noise and gives her a pillow. Belle thinks she can finally sleep because she’ll be more comfortable, but he really gave it to her to muffle her crying. Then Robin Hood breaks in and is captured and tortured by Rumplestiltskin. Belle is horrified at what Rumplestiltskin is doing, especially because all he tried to steal is a wand. Rumplestiltskin says the thief tried to steal from him. And you get skinned alive if you steal from the Dark One. Belle says no one knows that. Rumplestiltskin says they will now and leaves. Really, no one knows that bad things would happen if you steal from the Dark One? I’d think that was just common knowledge. So Rumplestiltskin leaves and Belle takes the opportunity to free Robin. He wants her to come with him, but she made a deal with Rumplestiltskin and won’t go back on it. She’s putting her kingdom before herself. She’s not afraid that Rumplestiltskin will kill her for freeing the prisoner? She’s known him for about two days at this point. Belle is reading a book when Rumplestiltskin goes to torture Robin Hood again and finds him missing. Belle admits to letting him go because she doesn’t think he deserves to die. Rumplestiltskin tells her she reads too many books (where’s the lie?). She talks about seeing the good in him and he only wanted to escape with his life, but Rumplestiltskin shows her the empty wand holder. Belle, always thinking the best, says he must have needed the wand for something. Rumplestiltskin says that people who steal magic never have good intentions. Belle still doesn’t like that answer so she counters with you never know what’s in a person’s heart until you get to know them. Rumplestiltskin is going to find Robin, kill him with his own bow, make Belle watch, and make her clean it up. Belle finally looks frightened. In the carriage to find Robin Hood, Rumplestiltskin is worried because he’s losing track of the thief, Belle suggests giving up and going home, but Rumplestiltskin can’t let him get away because of his reputation. Belle thinks letting people know he’s not such a beast is a good thing. She asks him why he didn’t kill her for letting the prisoner go. He claims it’s because good help is hard to find. She tries to convince him that he’s a good man underneath and not so dark and yada yada yada, all the things we always hear her say about him and he’s never going to change Belle! Honestly, I wonder if Emilie DeRavin just stopped looking at her scripts because she just says the same thing in every single episode. Ugh! There’s a difference between finding the man behind the beast and just being a fucking psychopath who likes power and killing people. But I digress. Eventually she agrees that he’s dark, because Rumplestiltskin won’t even give her an inch about being a better person. They come across the Sheriff of Nottingham who wants a night with Belle in exchange for information. Belle looks shocked but doesn’t seem worried that Rumplestiltskin will sell her for information. Walking in the forest, Belle tells Rumplestiltskin she won’t stand by and watch him kill a man. Rumplestiltskin reminds her that’s the whole point of him bringing her with him. They find Robin and he’s healing a woman who is sick with the wand. Belle is truly happy that he didn’t use it for power or evil, and that she was right about not knowing what’s in someone’s heart. Rumplestiltskin pushes Belle into the ground so she can’t get away? I’m not sure why he does this, because it doesn’t stop Belle from continuing to talk or from seeing that the woman is pregnant. Belle doesn’t think he’s the type of man to leave a child fatherless. Oh plot contrivance, just the one thing that will make Rumplestiltskin not kill Robin Hood. He fires a warning shot instead. Belle asks what happened and he claims to have missed, but she knows she got to him because any arrow fired from that bow always hits its target. Belle’s delivery of the line about the bow is the best. It’s the only time I’ve seen her be sarcastic. Be more sarcastic Belle. She hugs him for sparing Robin’s life. When they return to the castle, Rumplestiltskin shows Belle the library. He claims it’s just another room for her to clean, but she sees through his facade. She tells him he’s not who she thought he was, and she’s glad.

We don’t really know much about Belle’s Lacey persona. We know she is the complete opposite of Belle. She’s loud, a flirt, and boasts a wardrobe similar to cursed Ruby’s. She likes her alcohol and she’s an expert pool player. She also likes hair bands (as evidenced by her knowledge of Van Halen). She agrees to go out on a date with Gold, but apparently she only does it to be nice, and had hoped that he was a little more like the rumors about him (that he wasn’t a good guy). She doesn’t even feel bad that she caught him making out with Nottingham while they were on a date together. But she’s much more into him once she catches him beating the crap out of Nottingham. They go through the same dialogue they went through as Belle, where he’s not who he thought she was, but she’s glad. And he tells her he is darker.

Rumplestiltskin/Gold: So Rumplestiltskin is pretty much an ass through most of this episode. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but he’s just taken in Belle and he’s already annoyed with her crying and she’s already having to clean up blood soaked aprons. He leaves the castle in the middle of torturing Robin Hood for some reason, and when he gets back, Belle has freed the prisoner. Now, from what we’ve seen of Rumplestiltskin in the past, this is not usually his MO. Usually he just kills the person forthright. So why the show? Is it so Belle knows exactly who she is dealing with? Or does he really want to send a message through Robin? I honestly doubt that anyone would steal from Rumplestiltskin without a good reason. Belle makes it seem like no one knows what he would do if someone stole from him, but considering he’s the DARK ONE, I think they’d get the picture. So Rumplestiltskin decides to hunt down Robin Hood, kill him with his own bow, and make Belle watch since she’s the reason he escaped. Belle keeps trying to wear him down the whole trip, talking about how there’s good in him and he can change, but Rumplestiltskin has been evil for so long that he’s not buying what she’s selling. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t pull out her tongue just to shut her up and I don’t feel that he has any particular feelings for her at this point. He honestly just wants the company. At least he was smart enough not to make a deal with Nottingham for Belle. When they finally do catch up with Robin Hood, Belle convinces him not to kill him because his wife is pregnant, and he couldn’t leave a father childless. Oh look, it’s the one thing that will make Rumplestiltskin have feelings. He shoots the arrow and ‘misses’. Belle is surprised when he decides not to go after Robin Hood, but Rumplestiltskin decides he’s not worth the effort. Belle sarcastically reminds him about the bow but Rumplestiltskin pushes it off as the bow losing his magic and suddenly Belle is right there in his space and he’s a little lovestruck. Belle hugs him and he seems really confused. Probably also that he’s not used to human contact, it’s been awhile since Cora. And as Belle turns away he looks at her with this school boy longing, as if he can’t quite believe what just happened. Belle asks if he’s coming and he gives a shy little smile while picking up his quiver and it would be so cute if it wasn’t Rumplestiltskin and we didn’t already know he’s an asshole and he’s never going to change. Rumplestiltskin ends up showing Belle the library. She thinks it’s a sweet gesture, he tells her that it’s just another room to clean. She takes his hand, he’s shocked by the touching again, and she tells him that she was wrong about him. No, she really wasn’t. He still tortured a man just that morning!

Gold, on the other hand, is having feelings of guilt. He has a dream that it’s Henry’s birthday and he essentially kills him in front of his family because of the prophecy. He startles awake about that. Gold is watching Neal and Henry pretend sword fight at the park. Regina comes by and wonders why Gold’s son is playing with Henry. Gold gleefully informs her that Neal is Henry’s father. Regina thinks Gold planned this, but Gold chalks it up to fate. Regina plays on his fears by telling Gold that none of them will accept him as a doting grandfather. Gold thinks he can do it, but Regina reminds him that darkness always wins out for him. If his own son couldn’t bring out the good in him, who will? And that would be Belle, but Belle still doesn’t know who she is yet. He goes to visit her in the hospital. She’s surprised to see him because the last time they spoke in The Miller’s Daughter he was about to die. She’s glad he’s okay though. She’s finally come to terms that they may have been together in the past. Gold is happy that she’s accepted that. She tells him she remembers him healing her, and it sounds like he’s going to pass it off as meds and what not, but he does tell her it will make sense when her memories come back. Belle wants Gold to help her regain her memories. He agrees as long as she helps him bring out the best in him again. He goes to get her discharged. By the time he comes back, Belle is gone and there is just a matchbook for The Rabbit Hole left behind. He heads to the bar and finds Belle there, except she is no longer Belle, she now thinks her name is Lacey, and she’s essentially a barfly. Gold is very confused as to how Belle turned into Lacey. He goes to see Regina who he accuses of giving Belle false memories, but Regina reminds him that she crossed the town line, so she just jump started Belle’s cursed memories. Regina mocks Gold by saying he won’t kill her to get real Belle’s memories, because he’s on his best behavior for his son. They discuss true love’s kiss as a way to break Belle’s cursed memories, but Regina doesn’t think Lacey will go for Gold. Regina is incredibly calm through this whole exchange, while Gold is getting more and more enraged. So Gold does something that no one expected, he goes to David for help. He wants to know how under the curse David Nolan won Mary Margaret’s heart. David doesn’t want to help because of the whole Gold getting Mary Margaret to help kill Cora thing. But Gold reminds them it was basically a kill or be killed situation. Gold is fine with David not helping, but he let’s David know he’ll owe him a favor if he helps him win Belle/Lacey. David tells Gold that there was still a sliver of Snow and Charming inside their cursed personas, so Gold needs to remind Lacey of the man she fell in love with. Gold goes back to The Rabbit Hole with David as his wingman (the whole situation is hilarious) to try and woo Lacey. He immediately tries to go after Keith for flirting with Lacey, but David stops him. He goes to talk to Lacey but she starts talking about Van Halen and Gold has no idea what to do. He complains to David that they have nothing in common but David tells him he just needs to find a way in. He asks her out and she mentions that she’s heard rumors about him. People are scared of him, he tells her not to let that deter her. They make a date for Granny’s. On the date, Gold is extremely nervous. He orders burgers and iced tea for both of them (Belle’s favorites), but Lacey would rather have chicken parmesan and a bottle of wine. She thinks Gold is a classy guy despite everything she’s heard about him (being ruthless and sometimes people get hurt). Gold says he’s a simple shop owner and procurer of hard to find objects. He says people believe the worst in him but he wants her to believe the best in him. Lacey says she doesn’t see the man that the rumors depict. Gold takes that as a compliment. Lacey says the line about not knowing what’s truly in someone’s heart and Gold gets so flustered that he spills his iced tea on her. She goes to clean herself up and Gold’s practically patting himself on the back. The food arrives and Lacey still isn’t back. Gold catches her making out with Keith behind the diner. Lacey pretty much tells him that she only went out with him to be nice, but she’s not nice, Gold is nice (ha!). Gold tries to get things back on track by saying that’s what she always loved about him, and Lacey gets pissed off because she is not Belle. Gold finally realizes that he can’t get Belle back. Gold runs into Keith again, who apologizes, but Gold’s done. He has no one to be good for anymore (um, are we not even trying to redeem ourselves for Neal anymore?), so he starts beating the crap out of Keith. Lacey sees this and is enthralled. She likes the bad side of Gold, the one everyone talks about. She wants to date this Gold, and Gold is just happy to be with someone who looks like Belle, but lets his dark side out to play. Because that’s not creepy or anything.

Emma: She is shown the bean fields by her parents and doesn’t know if she wants to go back to the Enchanted Forest with everyone. Mary Margaret apparently has changed her mind and wants to go so she can put the whole Cora debacle behind her. Also, I love the whole exchange between Anton and Emma, that they’re actual friends. I’d forgotten that she didn’t even know he was in town because she was in New York. Emma realizes that David and Mary Margaret didn’t tell her about the beans because they want to go back. They tell her they want her and Henry to come too, but Emma insists that this realm is her home. David tells her it’s been nothing but cruel to her and she could get her happy ending in the EF. Emma’s not so sure. Emma’s at the docks looking at the storybook when Regina interrupts her. She’s upset that Emma didn’t tell her about Gold being Henry’s grandfather. Emma reminds her that she was too busy trying to keep Regina and Cora from killing her whole family. Regina continues to insult Neal and Emma until Emma tells her to stop worrying about everyone else and start focusing on being the person Henry wants her to be before he’s gone for good. Regina wants to know what Emma means by that. Emma tries to play it off as just a figure of speech and that there’s not a scheme out to get Regina, but she doesn’t believe her. Emma is not a good liar at all. Later on Neal brings a sleeping Henry home. She asks Neal if he ever considered going back to the EF. He’s not interested. Emma and Neal discuss who Storybrooke might not be safe from since August doesn’t remember anything as Pinocchio. Neal tells her she’ll figure it out because she doesn’t stop until she finds what she’s looking for.

Regina: She’s all about doling out the insults to Gold and feeling sorry for herself in this episode. She’s shocked and angered to find out Neal is Henry’s father. She insists that Gold had to know as he procured Henry for her. She doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence. Gold informs her that it’s just fate. Regina’s probably just thinking that now she has another rival for her affections for Henry. Regina tells Gold they’ll never accept him because he covets darkness over everything else. Gold tells Regina she doesn’t know him. She knows him well enough. She ends with the scathing insult that if he couldn’t change for his son, who will he change for. Hey pot, meet kettle. Regina goes to visit Belle. I have no idea why she does this, just to mess with Gold apparently. Because she knows Belle is the only person who can make Gold a better person? Whatever. She picks up a matchbook off the floor and tells Belle she must have dropped it. It causes Belle to get somewhat hypnotized and ‘regain’ her memories. Gold confronts Regina in her office about Belle’s memories. Regina tries to blame it on him since he gave her the curse in the first place, she just jogged the cursed memories out. Gold wants her to fix it, but she can’t because she crossed the town line. Regina mocks him about not killing her because Neal is in town. She continues to mock him about ways to win Lacey over. She is overly calm in this scene whereas Gold keeps getting angrier and angrier. She wishes him luck as he storms out. Regina confronts Emma about Neal being Henry’s father and Emma not telling her. Emma reminds her that she and Cora were trying to kill her family. So I see we’re back to selfish Regina and it’s all about her again. She’s upset about Neal still being in town. Emma says he wants to spend time with Henry. Regina says neither Emma nor Neal wanted to be with Henry the first 10 years of his life. Again, Regina seems to have no compunction about the fact that because of her curse, Emma had no choice but to give up Henry because of how she’d been raised. But sure, let’s just blame Emma and Neal for their circumstances. Emma makes a comment about Regina becoming the person Henry wants her to be before it’s too late. Regina realizes this might mean something, despite Emma blowing it off and trying to placate Regina. She vows to figure it out. Regina later notices the Charming’s bringing all the dwarves back from somewhere and uses magic to find the bean fields. She has a mix of anger and joy on her face when she finds them and realizes what they are.

Tamara/Greg: Greg has made a map of all the places he’s seen magic in SB (do they not realize the whole town is magic?). Tamara asks Greg if he’s had any luck with finding his dad. Greg says no, but he’s sure he’s in town somewhere. He asks Tamara about the package. She says it was too big so it’s just outside the town line. They’ll get it at night. That night Tamara pulls into town with a moving trailer hitched to a car. They finally reveal that the package is a person, and oh look, there’s Hook, foiled again. How many times has he been bested now? Maybe I should keep a running list.

Questions:

Why is Belle still in the hospital? Could her father not bring her home while she was recovering? Or couldn’t someone just bring her to her apartment behind the library that she’s been living in?

Why is Belle always in full makeup? Did she bring her makeup kit over with her to be Rumplestiltskin’s maid?

How does Robin Hood not know the Dark One is immortal?

What is up with Emma and Mary Margaret’s matching hats? That hat seems way out of character for Emma.

They were able to grow a whole vineyard of beans from one clipping? Do we just have amazing soil in this realm considering it’s been maybe a week since they got back from New York and the beans are almost ready?

Why are Tamara and Greg referring to Hook as the package when they are alone? Do they think someone is listening in on them?

Where did Belle get a book from when she didn’t know about the library yet? Did she bring her own books with her? I’m pretty sure she didn’t get to bring anything with her.

How did Belle not notice the wand was missing? She was sitting right next to it!

Where did Lacey get her ‘Lacey’ clothes? They wouldn’t have been in Belle’s wardrobe. Does Lacey have an apartment somewhere that was waiting for her if Regina had ever freed her during the curse?

What is up with Rumplestiltskin’s accent in this episode? It is all over the place.

Why is Regina still mayor? Wasn’t she asked to leave during Lady of the Lake? Did she just resume office again when she was being evil with her mother?

Where did the Lacey persona come from? Lacey didn’t exist during the curse. Belle didn’t have any memories of anything during the curse except being in the mental ward. So was her cursed persona just waiting to be activated like David’s in The Shepherd just in case Regina decided to let her go free?

Why does Gold say for the first time ever he’ll owe David a favor? Does he mean for the first time ever he’ll specifically owe David a favor? Because in Welcome to Storybrooke he did Mary Margaret a favor for saving his life, so it’s not the first time he owes anyone a favor. The wording of it just sounds off.

Since when does Granny’s table have tablecloths? Is this the night dining decor for dates? Do a lot of people come out for dates to Granny’s? Are there no other restaurants in town?

When did Lacey contact Keith? Did she randomly run into him at Granny’s when she was in the restroom, or was she running off and just ran into him outside?

Who does Lacey think Belle is? Does she realize that she was Belle and she just thinks her real memories came back? Or does she think Belle is someone else entirely? Shouldn’t she be a little more freaked out that everyone thinks she’s someone named Belle and she can’t remember that part of her life?

Neal mentions that Pinocchio is cooler than August because he steals less of his money. Did he tell Emma that August stole the $20,000 that was meant for her?

How was Tamara planning on getting the moving trailer inside the town if August was supposed to have left town with her car in Selfless, Brave, and True? And is Greg’s car fixed now? It was in pretty bad shape after his accident.

Did Hook never have to pee or eat or drink water in the back of that moving trailer. That’s been there for at least two days since Tamara arrived in town.

Observations:

There are 11 candles on Henry’s birthday cake in Gold’s dream, even though Henry is already 11 and he’d be 12 on his next birthday.

Poor Belle, she’s always in a dungeon of some kind. In this episode that is where Rumplestiltskin has her, she was in Regina’s dungeon for years, and then she was in the basement during the entire curse.

The wand that Robin steals is the same wand in Gold’s dream that Henry picks out. It is also the same wand that he stole from Cinderella’s fairy godmother in The Price of Gold.

The bow that Robin Hood has, that always hits its target, is the same bow that Rumplestiltskin gives Snow in Heart of Darkness to go kill the Evil Queen.

Regina triggers Lacey’s memories the same way she triggered David’s in The Shepherd.

Lacey is playing pool with Mr. Clarke, the only other townsperson who has reverted back to their cursed persona.

I counted at least 3 times that the word beast was used to describe Rumplestiltskin: Rumple uses it when he gives Belle the pillow, Belle uses it when talking to Robin Hood, and she uses it again when Rumple questions what people would think of him if he let Robin Hood go.

Don Juan was nothing before he made a deal with Rumplestiltskin.

Emma is looking at a picture of her parents when they were pregnant with her in her nursery in the storybook.

Timeline Issues:

The wand that Robin Hood steals from Rumplestiltskin is the same wand that he killed Cinderella’s fairy godmother for in The Price of Gold, except that doesn’t happen until around the same time as Snow and Charming’s courtship. Snow and Charming are already married when they attend Cinderella’s wedding and we know she and Snow are also pregnant around the same time because in Storybrooke, Ashley was ready to pop out her baby. But we also know that after Belle left Rumplestiltskin’s castle, she was held captive for at least 2 ½ years because of the markings on the wall that we saw in Queen of Hearts. So I have to assume that he procured the wand, Robin Hood stole it, Robin gave it back to the fairies, and then Rumplestiltskin killed the fairy godmother to get it back. Otherwise, it makes no sense why he had the wand at this point in time before he killed the fairy godmother.

So, Gold goes to get Belle discharged from the hospital. Regina comes in and ‘triggers’ Belle’s memories. By the time Gold comes back, Belle is gone. He picks up the matchbook and decides to go see if she’s there. So, let’s say this whole thing takes an hour from Gold going to get Belle discharged (because seriously, how long could it really take?) to Gold going to The Rabbit Hole to look for her. In that time, she’s managed to a) find clothes, b) find money to buy (several) drinks, c) introduce herself and get friendly with the bartender enough so that he recognizes her from Gold’s description, and d) has already started hustling Mr. Clarke at pool.

All in all, not a huge fan of this episode. Though I am glad to see Hook back. But having to take orders from Greg and Tamara seems beneath even him. So Gold is dark again because Belle is the only one who can make him good, even though Neal is there and probably willing to have a relationship if he’s seen his father change. What was the point of the curse if Gold was going to give up on Neal so easily?! And Regina has reverted to her backhanded comments. She was definitely more season one Regina than we’ve seen all season. Lacey doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. She’s just an excuse for Gold to be who he’s always been without the guilt. Hopefully, a cure will be found soon, although, will Gold want it is the question. And will somebody please tell me what Greg and Tamara are up too? So far all they’re doing is annoying me and I want them off my screen.

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@searchingwardrobes @thisonesatellite @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81 @lfh1226-linda

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stahlop · 5 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 2x15 “The Queen is Dead” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14

Well, Cora has certainly had her hands in the pot for a very long time. We find out that she not only killed Snow’s mother, but also orchestrated young Regina saving young Snow (which young Regina had totally called her out on in The Stable Boy and Cora had denied). And Mary Margaret has terrible birthdays. Too many people die on them. And we get confirmation that Neal has been alive for a couple hundred years, and the fact that he knows Hook and how to steer his ship, I think Neal has definitely been in Neverland for awhile. And Neal has a fiance, so thank goodness we’re not going to go down the Neal/Emma train that Gold was so into. Ew!

Summary: Mary Margaret and David rush to find Gold’s dagger before Cora and Regina find it. Hook makes his way to New York and manages to find Gold and stab him with poison. In the Enchanted Forest, Snow’s birthday celebration is marred by her mother’s sudden illness and Snow goes to great lengths to try and save her.

Opening: Library and Clock Tower

New Characters:

The Queen: She’s never given a name in this episode, maybe we’ll find out in the future. She’s a benevolent queen. She doesn’t believe they are any better than anyone else in the kingdom just because they’re royalty. Something she has to teach young Snow, when she becomes a little brat. It’s nice to see where Snow gets her heart from. She has a mother that not only teaches her what is right and wrong behavior, but also doesn’t let Snow get away with acting like most royalty would. The queen tells Snow that when they crown her with the tiara on her birthday, it will represent that she always holds goodness in her heart. They all look in the mirror and the the queen has some sort of attack, but tries to convince Snow that she is fine. She continues to tell Snow she’ll be fine, but then she starts coughing up blood, and Snow knows she won’t be fine. After Snow goes to see the Blue Fairy, she tells her mother she couldn’t save her because she wouldn’t take another life. The queen is visibly relieved to hear that Snow didn’t do something dark. She tells Snow that it wasn’t fear about killing someone else, it was strength. She’s very proud of her. Snow begs her to not to leave, but the queen says she’ll always be with her if there is goodness in her heart. And then she dies. That escalated very quickly, whatever she was poisoned with worked really fast, Leopold couldn’t even get home to see her before she died.

Character Observations:

Snow/Mary Margaret: Basically, we get to see that Snow was a brat at one point, and her mother taught her about goodness and treating people with respect, whether they were royals or servants. Snow is tested when her mother is dying by Cora pretending to be the Blue Fairy. She gives her a candle that would save her mother, but it would require killing someone else in the process. Had Snow not been taught goodness from her mother, she may have just killed a random peasant, but instead, she comes to terms with the fact that her mother’s life is no more important than anyone else's. Snow thinks she couldn’t do it out of fear, but her mother tells her it took strength. And then her mother dies and Snow mourns. The funeral is being held on the day that was supposed to be Snow’s birthday celebration (that sucks, my grandfather was buried on my mom’s birthday (her father) as it was the only day we could get the rabbi, so I get Snow’s feelings on this). Johanna gives her a pep talk about how the kingdom will get their strength from her, and Snow questions where she’ll find her strength now that her mother has died. Johanna lets her know she’ll still get it from her mother. Snow puts on a brave face for the funeral and leads her kingdom for the first time.

Mary Margaret is not having a good day. It’s her birthday and she does not like to celebrate her birthday. David tries to play it off like he had no idea it was her birthday but she’s not buying it. She finds a present that someone left for her. It’s her tiara and it’s from her old servant Johanna. Mary Margaret goes off to find her. She finds her gardening behind her house and they reunite. They bond over their shared grief of missing Mary Margaret’s mother. It’s almost like Snow is at least getting her surrogate mother back. They hear something in the woods, and wouldn’t you know, Cora and Regina just happen to be digging, looking for the dagger and talking about it, right behind Johanna’s house. Mary Margaret overhears them and specifically that Cora will make the Dark One kill anyone Regina likes. Mary Margaret goes to tell David (who she finds knocked because of Hook), and tells him what she overheard. Mary Margaret thinks she can talk to Regina and put some doubt about Cora in her mind. Regina meets Mary Margaret at Granny’s and she thinks Mary Margaret asked her to come to tell her about Henry. Mary Margaret comes straight out and tells her she knows all about Cora and the dagger. Regina tries to say what she does is her business, but Mary Margaret basically tells her that a war is about to happen and she needs to choose the side of good. Regina says she’s always been good; Mary Margaret added the evil part. Mary Margaret tells her what she’s doing isn’t good and questions why she’d go back to being like this after working to change. Regina says it got her nowhere and accused of murder. Regina tells her to stay out of her way. Mary Margaret reminds her that Cora doesn’t care about Henry, just about power, and she doesn’t care about Regina. Regina asks what Mary Margaret would know about mothers. Ugh! Poor Mary Margaret. Her mother died when she was young and then she never got to be a mother to Emma. Mary Margaret, David, and Mother Superior try to use fairy magic to break into Gold’s store, presumably to see if they can find the dagger, but he’s protected it and Mother Superior can’t get in with her magic. Mary Margaret makes reference to using dark magic like before, but Mother Superior has no idea what she’s talking about. Luckily, Emma calls David with the location of the dagger right at that moment. Mary Margaret and David find it attached to one of the hands on the clock tower and they are happy that they can now control the Dark One, but Cora and Regina show up to fight for the dagger. Mary Margaret practically rubs it in Regina’s face that good has won like usual, which, of course, means evil is about to triumph. Because Cora poufs Johanna in and Regina takes her heart. Johanna begs Mary Margaret not to give them what they want, but Mary Margaret can’t bear to have another mother figure die when she can help her. But then Cora says something that makes Mary Margaret realize that Cora was pretending to be the Blue Fairy when she was a girl. Mary Margaret wonders if her mother was actually sick, and Cora says she actually was, but Mary Margaret realizes Cora is the cause for everything. Cora then mocks Mary Margaret about not using the candle, and Mary Margaret wants to know why Cora did all this to her. Simply put, Cora wanted to make Regina queen. It’s nothing against Mary Margaret personally. The look Mary Margaret gives Regina at this point is really interesting. Like, Mary Margaret knows how awful Cora is by reputation, but she’s never realized the extent Cora went to put her daughter on the throne. She actually looks like she feels sorry for Regina at this moment. Cora puts more salt in the wound by saying if she doesn’t give up the dagger she’ll lose another connection to her mother. David tries to convince her that they’ll still win even if Cora has the dagger. Johanna tells Mary Margaret to let her go, but watching Johanna’s reaction when Regina squeezes her heart is too much to bear. Cora is still using her mother against her and it’s getting to be too much for Mary Margaret. She throws the dagger down for Cora and is hysterically crying at this point. Regina puts Johanna’s heart back and as they go to hug Cora throws her out the clock tower. Regina makes a comment about what good gets you before she and Cora pouf away. If I was Mary Margaret I’d probably be catatonic by this point. Too many bad things have befallen her. She is hysterically crying with David trying to figure out how to care for his grief-stricken wife. Mary Margaret and David bury Johanna and Mary Margaret is blaming herself and taking stock of the situation. Following goodness has cost too many lives. She runs through all the times she did the ‘right’ thing and what it cost them in the end. David reminds her that they still have time to get the dagger before Gold gets back to town and carry out justice, but Mary Margaret doesn’t want justice. Mary Margaret says they’re always trying to get others to change, but maybe she needs to change instead. She’s going to kill Cora!

Past Cora/Cora: And speaking of Cora, we all thought she was a real piece of work in previous episodes but she’s really pulling no punches in this one. Like What The Fuck! She purposely poisoned Snow’s mother, posed as the Blue Fairy to get Snow to doubt herself, and caused Snow’s horse to spook, all in hopes of making Regina queen. I’m surprised she didn’t kill off Henry, Sr, to try and marry the king herself. She’s closer to his age than Regina was. Either way, Cora seems to have a personal vendetta against Snow’s mother. This does not seem like a random royal that Cora decided to target to make Regina the eventual queen. Especially with her comment about Snow finding out what it's like to be the miller’s daughter and then saying she’s going to turn Snow’s heart black as coal and ruin the queen’s legacy. That is some pure rage right there.

Cora will do anything to get the Dark One dagger. She may have been playing the doting mother to Regina in the past few episodes, but she’s showing her true colors in this one. She and Regina discover that the location of the dagger is not where the map says it is. Cora says she can find it, it’ll just take a little longer. Cora and Regina manage to find it right when Mary Margaret and David find it in the clock tower. Cora conjures up Johanna as incentive for Mary Margaret to give her the dagger. Cora lets Mary Margaret know that it’s not good or evil that wins, but who has the power. David attempts to shoot Cora, but she magics his gun away (never bring a gun to a witch fight). Cora tells Mary Margaret to surrender the dagger because she’ll follow her mother’s advice at all cost since all she ever wanted was for her to be good. Mary Margaret realizes that’s what she said to the Blue Fairy and that the Blue Fairy was actually Cora. Cora does not deny it. In fact, she revels in this secret finally coming to light. All she wanted was for her daughter to be queen, and she’d do anything to make sure that happened. Cora uses manipulation to eventually get Mary Margaret to give up the dagger (using her mother and Johanna’s connection to her), and then Cora kills Johanna anyway, because she simply doesn’t care about anyone but herself. She and Regina pouf away. At Regina’s office, Regina is upset that Cora never told her what she did to make her queen. I mean, to be fair, young Regina would’ve been horrified to find out what her mother did, and since Regina banished her to Wonderland before the wedding, there was never really a chance for her to find out. Cora just brushes it off. She knows now. Regina also realizes that Cora set up Snow so that Regina would rescue her. Cora wonders what this means to Regina, now that she knows. Regina says it means Cora won, so what does she need the dagger for? Cora says she’s still all about helping Regina get Henry, and that by the time Gold returns, Mary Margaret, David, Emma will be a distant memory (what does that mean?). Cora strokes the dagger lovingly, which does not go unnoticed by Regina.

Regina: She is blindly following her mother which is really bad. I know part of it is that she’s finally feeling like her mother is taking an interest in her and not just using her for her own agenda, but by the end she’s starting to wonder if she’s wrong about that. We start with Regina digging where Hook told them the dagger would be. Regina doesn’t seem to be able to find it and Cora immediately wonders if Regina read the map right. They determine that Hook gave them the wrong location. Regina is frustrated but Cora says she can figure it out given time. Regina goes to meet Mary Margaret and assumes it’s about Henry. It’s not. Mary Margaret comes right out and tells her she knows she’s working with Cora and that they’re looking for the dagger. Regina immediately gets defensive and tells Mary Margaret what she does is her business. Mary Margaret tells her she’s willing to give her another chance to fight for the side of good. Regina is not having this conversation again. She thinks maybe she is good and it’s because of Mary Margaret that she’s known as evil, since she apparently added that to her name. Mary Margaret says the things Regina does are not good. Regina’s pissed because she tried to change, but all it got her was a bunch of people who were certain she couldn’t. She tells Mary Margaret to stay out of her way. Mary Margaret tries once more by telling Regina that listening to Cora is a mistake. Cora doesn’t care about Henry, just power and Regina says that power is how you get things. Mary Margaret says that Cora doesn’t care about Regina and Regina asks her what she knows about mothers. Way harsh, Regina. Cora and Regina show up at the clock tower at the same time Mary Margaret and David find the dagger. Regina follows her mother’s orders, taking Johanna’s heart so Mary Margaret will give up the dagger. When she finds out that Cora poisoned Mary Margaret’s mother and did it all to make her queen, the expression on her face is heartbreaking. You can see that she is struggling to come to terms with what her mother did while still maintaining the facade of being united with her mother. But she is shocked by this new information. The lengths her mother went through to make her queen. She later confronts her about this in her office. Notice how Cora takes the position of power by sitting at the desk. Regina figures out that Cora was also responsible for Snow’s horse spooking, setting her whole future trajectory (remember, she had asked her if she had anything to do with it in The Stable Boy and Cora had denied it). Regina says she won by making her queen, since that was what Cora always wanted for her. So what will having the dagger accomplish, especially since David and Mary Margaret now know they have it and they can’t make Gold kill everyone without blame? Cora basically says to trust her as she strokes the dagger, and Regina’s face definitely conveys that maybe Mary Margaret was right and Cora doesn’t care for her or Henry.

Emma/Neal/Gold: She and Gold are keeping their distance from Henry and Neal, as they are both mad at each of them. Emma is beating herself up over lying to Henry about Neal. Gold is confident that Henry will forgive her. Gold wants Emma to convince Neal to come back to Storybrooke with them. She says she already gave him his favor, but he says she’ll do it for Henry because he’ll want to get to know his father (and so he doesn’t run away to NYC like he did to Boston to find her). Emma says Henry will be happy with Neal until he lets Henry down, and she knows he will. Then he’ll understand that she lied to protect him. Gold compares her to Regina. Um, no. Regina lied to protect herself. She made Henry think he was crazy and insane. That is not what Emma is doing. Emma doesn’t feel like this is what she is doing either. Gold says she lied to protect herself. He says she wants a second chance with Neal, and no, ew, no. Emma cannot have carefully constructed these walls to want to get back with the guy who framed her and put her in jail. I don’t care what his reasoning was. Emma wants to know why Gold would think she’d want to get back together with Neal, and he says it’s the look on her face. Are we seeing the same look? I’m seeing a ‘I wouldn’t let that guy touch me again with a 10 foot pole look’, but apparently Gold is seeing, ‘How did you guess I secretly still desire my ex.’ Henry and Neal come back out with pizza and Emma asks Henry if he likes it, and he says he does, because it doesn’t lie. And poor Emma’s face just falls. Emma subtly talks to Neal about coming back to Storybrooke. Like how was Neal expecting this to work out? Henry has school and a family in Storybrooke. He can’t just stay in New York. Emma thinks from Neal’s apartment that he doesn’t have much going on, but Neal says looks can be deceiving. He tries to tell her something, but gets interrupted by Henry wanting to go on the subway. Neal and Henry go back up to the apartment to get Henry’s camera while Emma and Gold wait down by the buzzers, and Hook decides to attack right at that moment, stabbing Gold with his hook. While Hook villain monologues to Gold, Emma hits him on the head with the trash can. Neal comes down concerned and Emma tells him an old enemy found them. Neal recognizes Hook which surprises Emma. Neal gets Gold up to his apartment while Emma locks Hook up in a storage closet (should I be keeping a tally of how many times Hook has been bested since meeting Emma?). Emma says he had a map on him which means he sailed his ship into NY. She tells Neal it was cloaked when he wonders how he was able to do that. Henry is worried about Gold and goes to ask him if he’s alright (um, no, he just got a hook in the chest), but Gold goes all feral on him and blames him for the whole thing. Is Gold blaming him for coming back for his camera right then, or for bringing them to NYC in the first place? Because Hook would have waited until they got back and attacked him regardless. Neal wants to take Gold to the ER but Gold has figured out there was poison from another realm on Hook’s hook and he needs to get back to Storybrooke because there’s magic there. Neal suggests driving there, but Gold needs to get there fast, so he says they need to take the Jolly Roger. Emma doesn’t know how they’ll do that without a captain, but Neal says he can sail it. Gold realizes what that means, but Emma is still questioning how he knows how to sail a pirate ship. Emma wants to know how Neal knows Hook. Long story short, our world wasn’t his first and he’d be a couple hundred years old if he’d come straight here. Emma is trying to process the information that not only is Henry’s father from the Enchanted Forest, but is also a couple hundred years old. Emma’s phone finally charges back up and she sees texts from Mary Margaret and David. Emma tells Gold that Cora is after his dagger, and he doesn’t want to give up the location, but she emphasizes that they’re family now, so he needs to trust them. Neal and Emma go to get the car that will take them to the ship. Emma is surprised that Neal is doing so much for Gold, but Neal says there’s a difference between running from someone and watching them die. He still doesn’t think reconciliation is possible. They get to a car and Emma hopes he isn’t going to hotwire it like back in the day, but he says it belongs to a friend. Neal wants to quickly get back to the conversation they were having before (and Emma seems a little nervous about it, like maybe he’s going to talk about getting back together), but now they’re interrupted by the person who owns the car and who is also Neal’s fiance, Tamara. Emma tries to keep a neutral face, but you can see there’s something else going on behind the mask she puts up. I’m hoping it’s relief that Neal won’t try to get back with her. I’ll even be happy with shock that Neal cleaned his life up enough that he found a woman willing to look over his conniving ways. I might be vomiting if it’s sadness that she can’t get back together with Neal.

Questions:

What seems more plausible: Hook lied about the location of the dagger before he knew Cora was going to betray him, or Gold hid it again before he left town because Belle could no longer protect it in her amnesiac state?

Why is Regina digging to find the dagger? Can’t she or Cora just use magic to get it out of the ground (if it had been there)?

Why hasn’t Emma filled in the pieces to Henry about Neal? He already knows she was in jail and that he was born there. Has Henry not figured out that Emma and Neal were separated right before she went to jail? Shouldn’t Emma tell him why she went to jail in the first place? Or is she doing the ‘noble’ thing and letting Henry make his own judgements about Neal?

Why is the queen’s bedroom at the end of a large hallway with no doors?

How is the cloaking magic on the Jolly Roger still working outside of Storybrooke?

We know that the Blue Fairy was Cora in disguise, but was Cora disguised as Johanna as well? How else would Cora know to pretend to be the Blue Fairy if she hadn’t put the idea in Snow’s head?

What would happen to the Gold’s power if he died of natural causes?

Where did Johanna come from in the scene where the queen dies? There is no one next to Snow and then Johanna is right there in the next scene.

Why did they hold the queen’s funeral before the king came home? Who made the arrangements?

Observations:

The flowers Johanna is planting and that Snow leaves on her mother’s body are snowdrops.

When Johanna calls Mary Margaret, Snow, she tells her she goes by Mary Margaret in Storybrooke.

Snow was born during the harshest winter, hence why she was named Snow.

I know that the fashions in the Enchanted Forest aren’t equivalent to the ones on Earth, but the queen is wearing a dress that is more Dark Ages, and Snow’s big fluffy skirt is more Restoration, which is a good 300-400 years apart.

The queen never makes Snow apologize to Johanna.

Snow was so named because she was born in the harshest winter.

Regina is doing all the digging in the forest, Cora is apparently just supervising.

Henry has gone back to calling Emma by her name instead of mom.

Well, Neal has finally confirmed that he went to another realm first (most likely Neverland), and that he’d be a few hundred years old if he had (you’re still a few hundred years old technically). Which also means that Rumplestiltskin and Hook are a few hundred years old as well.

Regina’s horse is named Rociante which is the name of the horse in the novel Don Quixote.

Timeline Issues:

How did it become winter already? We established in Child of the Moon that it was most likely May (based on when sunset was). Into the Deep and Queen of Hearts both took place a few days after that. The Cricket Game was maybe a week later, so we’re into June now. The Outsider was also maybe a week later with In the Name of the Brother, Tiny, and Manhattan all taking place within a day or two. At the most, we could possibly be in July. But Johanna makes reference to Snow being born in the harshest winter and it’s currently Mary Margaret’s birthday, so unless they’re celebrating Mary Margaret’s cursed birthday, the timing doesn’t make sense (and I don’t think Johanna would know Mary Margaret’s cursed birthday, especially since she didn’t know her cursed name). Also, there is absolutely no snow on the ground and there would definitely be snow in Maine during winter time. According to Google, Maine gets snow regularly between November and February.

So, that was that. Cora has always been a manipulative bitch, she’s just more crafty and cunning than we gave her credit for. Regina is beginning to have doubts because of all the secrets Cora is keeping and because she can see her mother admiring the dagger and it’s power. Mary Margaret is keeping with the tradition of having mother figures die on or around her birthday. And Emma, Neal, Henry, and Gold will soon be on their way back to Storybrooke on the Jolly Roger.

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