Once Upon a Time “Second Star to the Right... And Straight on ‘til Morning...”
Well, that’s that. Season two is over and though there were a few surprises here and there, I’m not hugely enthused about the prospect of the next season. When it airs on New Zealand television, I may well wait the extra few months in order to marathon the whole thing on DVD.
As a season finale, I suppose it did the trick. Although the plot wasn’t hugely inspired, it certainly felt more cinematic than the usual episode, and ended on a note that admittedly was fairly riveting. A ship full of people who can barely stand each other sailing off into the unknown? That’s a recipe for hilarity.
What with Hook’s presence it was only a matter of time until they incorporated the rest of the Peter Pan story into the show, and I must say that I was caught me off-guard as to how sinister it all was. Are we meant to believe that Peter Pan is going to be the Big Bad of season three? Really? The Lost Ones (especially their leader) were very creepy, particularly in regards to the way they could materialize out of nowhere, presumably having the ability to crawl up the side of the ship in total silence. That goes ditto for the shadow that visited the Darling family, what with its utter silence and glowing eyes.
It was nice to finally get some backstory on what happened to Baelfire after getting sucked into the portal and before turning up in modern-day Manhattan, and given his recognition of Hook in the aforementioned episode, it was bound to include the Darling family in some capacity. (Though having illuminated the park sign that said “Kensington Gardens” I’ve no idea why the show felt the further need to give us a “London, England” caption. If the audience doesn’t twig after the first clue, they should have been made to wait until Wendy made her appearance).
That said, I enjoyed their take on Wendy Darling, especially since the actress seemed to be channelling Rachel Hurd-Wood, the Wendy of my heart. It was certainly difficult to watch Baelfire lose not one but two surrogate families over the course of two episodes, especially since he willingly went with the shadow in order to spare the Darlings any loss. And colour me astonished that I actually found myself growing interested in Hook for the first time since his introduction. I really got the sense that he desperately missed Milah and was eager to make amends with Baelfire by keeping him safe from the Lost Ones and taking him on board as part of the Jolly Roger crew.
Bae makes an interesting point when he confronts Hook with Milah’s picture and tells him that he’s not so different from Rumplestiltskin. It’s truer than even Bae realizes: both men are obsessed with revenge, both were abandoned by their own fathers, both are genuine about their affection for Bae, and both are responsible in their own ways for what happened to Milah. This was reflected nicely in the Storybrooke plotline in which both Rumplestiltskin and Hook are moved by their mutual love for Baelfire (and their regret in failing him) to work together to save Henry, the only part of him (and Milah) that they have left.
Regarding Baelfire, I really like the child actor who plays him - especially since he bears such a strong resemblance to the actress who played Milah - but I’m still a bit disappointed in the casting for Neal. He looks nothing like what he did as a child! Not even the mannerisms or speech patterns are the same, and it’s all the more apparent next to the uncanny resemblance of Bailee Madison to Ginnifer Goodwin.
Also, I couldn’t help but facepalm just a little at Rumplestiltskin’s reaction to news of Neal’s “death.” I mean, pretty much everything that has happened on the show has been part of Rumple’s Xanatos Gambit that he himself put into place in an attempt to find his son. And then when his son is finally found and brought to Storybrooke, he apparently loses all interest in trying to re-establish a rapport with him. And then after making a pretty serious attempt to kill Henry at the playground, he decides to go in search of his grandson and save his life in order to honour his son’s memory and redeem himself.
Honestly, the villains on this show are just bonkers. Though I suppose the heroes aren’t that much better what with the Charmings deciding to endanger the town and everyone in it to save Regina even though the only reason the curse failsafe was put into Greg/Tamara’s hands in the first place was because Regina planned to use it to escape with Henry and kill everyone in her wake and then have the gall to accuse the Charmings of doing the same thing with the magic beans, only WITHOUT any resulting genocide, a tiny detail which she oh-so-conveniently decides to omit.
And unfortunately, the constant pendulum-swinging between the murder of innocents and the heartfelt desire for redemption means that I simply can’t believe in these characters’ story-arcs. What’s the point of any step forward when they’ve already crossed so many lines?
Tamara and Greg are still boring, especially now that Tamara is coming across as some sort of religious fanatic (calling magic “unholy”, claiming that she wants to “cleanse this land” and talking about the “sacredness of the cause”). I’ll admit that I was vaguely interested in the truth about what happened to Greg’s father, but that he was apparently killed and buried in their old campsite (how would Regina know where that was?) was just another nail in her character’s coffin and a fairly lacklustre conclusion to the mystery. And then the two of them abandon their whole plan in order to kidnap Henry and spirit him through a portal to... Peter Pan? Wouldn’t he count as a “magical” being what with the whole flying, pixie dust, eternal youth thing?
Oy. And I wouldn’t mind the fact that Henry is constantly being characterized as a Special Snowflake Plot Device that all the other characters from Emma to Regina to Rumplestiltskin to Snow to Charming to Hook (Hook!) are all connected to and who they care about the most if the actor was even remotely charismatic. Yeah, I know it’s mean to say that about a kid, but it’s fairly obvious when you compare him to the other child actors on the show: Young!Snow, Baelfire, even Wendy and Pinocchio were all lively, excitable, relatable children. But Henry just comes across as incredibly bland.
As does the drippy Belle. I can’t believe they’ve done this to my favourite Disney Princess. With only a few exceptions, her entire story-arc this season has revolved entirely around her toxic relationship with Rumplestiltskin. In her flashbacks she was a pawn to Regina and a hapless servant to Rumple. In Storybrooke she became a device to develop Gold’s angst and then loses her memories because someone wants to punish him. She sits in the hospital with total amnesia and then gets magically brainwashed into acquiring a fake personality, again because someone wants to punish him. She becomes Lacey for no discernable narrative purpose and only becomes herself because (in Gold’s own words) “I need you.”
Throughout everything she is completely passive and stripped of any semblance of agency. She does nothing. She achieves nothing. Even in regards to her importance to others, her influence doesn’t change anyone or anything. The fact that she left Gold because he had returned to his manipulative and vicious ways is never addressed - she just hugs him in relief and kisses him goodbye. And none of this is helped by Emilie de Ravin’s increasingly bad acting. I watched her goodbye scene with Rumple through my fingers, I was cringing so hard. When I should have been outraged that Belle was left on the docks whilst Rumplestiltskin sailed off for adventure, I instead felt relief that a) they’ve finally been separated, and b) if that doesn’t mean she’ll get some development of her own, she’ll hopefully have a smaller part in season three.
And I hate that I feel that way. I don’t WANT to dislike any of these characters, especially not the female ones on a show that does so well with its portrayal of girl power and womanhood.
But I’ll take the return of Mulan/Aurora over any more Rumple/Belle any day.
To finish, there were a few little things I enjoyed:
Granny babysitting with a crossbow.
Archie’s speech in the diner about how Snow and Charming are their leaders (even if they were about to follow the dumbest plan ever).
Grumpy giving the potion to Gold to give to Belle because of what she did for him the past, thus showing her more respect in a single scene than Rumple has over the course of the entire show.
Charming back on top of his game; first punching Hook and then threatening to “shoot him in the face.” Charming (not David) often reminds me of the way Lancelot was perceived in the Merlin fandom - so often pegged as a doofus when in fact he was consistently the most noble, intelligent and proactive character.
Neal finally apologising to Emma.
Seeing Mulan and Aurora (and Philip I guess) at the very end.
So... that’s that. I have no idea how many people were actually reading these things, especially since they were posted so long after the show aired on American television, but I’m glad I made it to the end and if you've been lurking I hope you've found all this vaguely interesting. It feels as though all my shows have suddenly ended all at once: Doctor Who and Once Upon a Time. I suppose it’s time to get back to Xena Warrior Princess and Warehouse 13...
As a season finale, I suppose it did the trick. Although the plot wasn’t hugely inspired, it certainly felt more cinematic than the usual episode, and ended on a note that admittedly was fairly riveting. A ship full of people who can barely stand each other sailing off into the unknown? That’s a recipe for hilarity.
What with Hook’s presence it was only a matter of time until they incorporated the rest of the Peter Pan story into the show, and I must say that I was caught me off-guard as to how sinister it all was. Are we meant to believe that Peter Pan is going to be the Big Bad of season three? Really? The Lost Ones (especially their leader) were very creepy, particularly in regards to the way they could materialize out of nowhere, presumably having the ability to crawl up the side of the ship in total silence. That goes ditto for the shadow that visited the Darling family, what with its utter silence and glowing eyes.
It was nice to finally get some backstory on what happened to Baelfire after getting sucked into the portal and before turning up in modern-day Manhattan, and given his recognition of Hook in the aforementioned episode, it was bound to include the Darling family in some capacity. (Though having illuminated the park sign that said “Kensington Gardens” I’ve no idea why the show felt the further need to give us a “London, England” caption. If the audience doesn’t twig after the first clue, they should have been made to wait until Wendy made her appearance).
That said, I enjoyed their take on Wendy Darling, especially since the actress seemed to be channelling Rachel Hurd-Wood, the Wendy of my heart. It was certainly difficult to watch Baelfire lose not one but two surrogate families over the course of two episodes, especially since he willingly went with the shadow in order to spare the Darlings any loss. And colour me astonished that I actually found myself growing interested in Hook for the first time since his introduction. I really got the sense that he desperately missed Milah and was eager to make amends with Baelfire by keeping him safe from the Lost Ones and taking him on board as part of the Jolly Roger crew.
Bae makes an interesting point when he confronts Hook with Milah’s picture and tells him that he’s not so different from Rumplestiltskin. It’s truer than even Bae realizes: both men are obsessed with revenge, both were abandoned by their own fathers, both are genuine about their affection for Bae, and both are responsible in their own ways for what happened to Milah. This was reflected nicely in the Storybrooke plotline in which both Rumplestiltskin and Hook are moved by their mutual love for Baelfire (and their regret in failing him) to work together to save Henry, the only part of him (and Milah) that they have left.
Regarding Baelfire, I really like the child actor who plays him - especially since he bears such a strong resemblance to the actress who played Milah - but I’m still a bit disappointed in the casting for Neal. He looks nothing like what he did as a child! Not even the mannerisms or speech patterns are the same, and it’s all the more apparent next to the uncanny resemblance of Bailee Madison to Ginnifer Goodwin.
Also, I couldn’t help but facepalm just a little at Rumplestiltskin’s reaction to news of Neal’s “death.” I mean, pretty much everything that has happened on the show has been part of Rumple’s Xanatos Gambit that he himself put into place in an attempt to find his son. And then when his son is finally found and brought to Storybrooke, he apparently loses all interest in trying to re-establish a rapport with him. And then after making a pretty serious attempt to kill Henry at the playground, he decides to go in search of his grandson and save his life in order to honour his son’s memory and redeem himself.
Honestly, the villains on this show are just bonkers. Though I suppose the heroes aren’t that much better what with the Charmings deciding to endanger the town and everyone in it to save Regina even though the only reason the curse failsafe was put into Greg/Tamara’s hands in the first place was because Regina planned to use it to escape with Henry and kill everyone in her wake and then have the gall to accuse the Charmings of doing the same thing with the magic beans, only WITHOUT any resulting genocide, a tiny detail which she oh-so-conveniently decides to omit.
And unfortunately, the constant pendulum-swinging between the murder of innocents and the heartfelt desire for redemption means that I simply can’t believe in these characters’ story-arcs. What’s the point of any step forward when they’ve already crossed so many lines?
Tamara and Greg are still boring, especially now that Tamara is coming across as some sort of religious fanatic (calling magic “unholy”, claiming that she wants to “cleanse this land” and talking about the “sacredness of the cause”). I’ll admit that I was vaguely interested in the truth about what happened to Greg’s father, but that he was apparently killed and buried in their old campsite (how would Regina know where that was?) was just another nail in her character’s coffin and a fairly lacklustre conclusion to the mystery. And then the two of them abandon their whole plan in order to kidnap Henry and spirit him through a portal to... Peter Pan? Wouldn’t he count as a “magical” being what with the whole flying, pixie dust, eternal youth thing?
Oy. And I wouldn’t mind the fact that Henry is constantly being characterized as a Special Snowflake Plot Device that all the other characters from Emma to Regina to Rumplestiltskin to Snow to Charming to Hook (Hook!) are all connected to and who they care about the most if the actor was even remotely charismatic. Yeah, I know it’s mean to say that about a kid, but it’s fairly obvious when you compare him to the other child actors on the show: Young!Snow, Baelfire, even Wendy and Pinocchio were all lively, excitable, relatable children. But Henry just comes across as incredibly bland.
As does the drippy Belle. I can’t believe they’ve done this to my favourite Disney Princess. With only a few exceptions, her entire story-arc this season has revolved entirely around her toxic relationship with Rumplestiltskin. In her flashbacks she was a pawn to Regina and a hapless servant to Rumple. In Storybrooke she became a device to develop Gold’s angst and then loses her memories because someone wants to punish him. She sits in the hospital with total amnesia and then gets magically brainwashed into acquiring a fake personality, again because someone wants to punish him. She becomes Lacey for no discernable narrative purpose and only becomes herself because (in Gold’s own words) “I need you.”
Throughout everything she is completely passive and stripped of any semblance of agency. She does nothing. She achieves nothing. Even in regards to her importance to others, her influence doesn’t change anyone or anything. The fact that she left Gold because he had returned to his manipulative and vicious ways is never addressed - she just hugs him in relief and kisses him goodbye. And none of this is helped by Emilie de Ravin’s increasingly bad acting. I watched her goodbye scene with Rumple through my fingers, I was cringing so hard. When I should have been outraged that Belle was left on the docks whilst Rumplestiltskin sailed off for adventure, I instead felt relief that a) they’ve finally been separated, and b) if that doesn’t mean she’ll get some development of her own, she’ll hopefully have a smaller part in season three.
And I hate that I feel that way. I don’t WANT to dislike any of these characters, especially not the female ones on a show that does so well with its portrayal of girl power and womanhood.
But I’ll take the return of Mulan/Aurora over any more Rumple/Belle any day.
To finish, there were a few little things I enjoyed:
Granny babysitting with a crossbow.
Archie’s speech in the diner about how Snow and Charming are their leaders (even if they were about to follow the dumbest plan ever).
Grumpy giving the potion to Gold to give to Belle because of what she did for him the past, thus showing her more respect in a single scene than Rumple has over the course of the entire show.
Charming back on top of his game; first punching Hook and then threatening to “shoot him in the face.” Charming (not David) often reminds me of the way Lancelot was perceived in the Merlin fandom - so often pegged as a doofus when in fact he was consistently the most noble, intelligent and proactive character.
Neal finally apologising to Emma.
Seeing Mulan and Aurora (and Philip I guess) at the very end.
So... that’s that. I have no idea how many people were actually reading these things, especially since they were posted so long after the show aired on American television, but I’m glad I made it to the end and if you've been lurking I hope you've found all this vaguely interesting. It feels as though all my shows have suddenly ended all at once: Doctor Who and Once Upon a Time. I suppose it’s time to get back to Xena Warrior Princess and Warehouse 13...