Once Upon a Time: Episode 1 - 5
After season two of Once Upon a Time I decided not to keep doing episode-by-episode reviews of the show as I no longer found myself hugely invested in the storylines or the characters (half my favourites were gone, the moral framework of the show was incomprehensible, and I couldn’t care less about whatever Greg and Tamara were up to). If experience in fandom has taught me anything, it’s that spending time on something you’re not enjoying is just plain silly and that it’s better to ditch something sooner rather than later. But I hadn’t completely thrown in the towel, and decided to continue to watch the show, not commenting on episodes as they aired, but in bigger blocks after a five week period. So, these are my collected thoughts on the first five episodes of season three...
So we pick up where we left off, with Henry having been kidnapped by Greg and Tamara and his extended family set sailing after him in Hook’s ship: Emma, Regina, Charming, Snow and Rumplestiltskin (I’m still not sure by what names I should be calling the latter characters). Henry has been taken to Neverland, and things get very Lost very quickly, what with traipsing through the jungle, psychological mind-games, numerous flashbacks and Clare Belle wandering about as a not-quite-real vision.
But so far I’m enjoying it much more than season two, partly because the storylines feel more under control and less made-up-as-we-go-along, but also because I’m not watching it on a weekly basis. When you watch episodes in quick succession you don’t get disappointed by expectations that are built up in the intermediate days. There also seems to be a tighter grasp on character consistency and what the writers are trying to achieve with each character’s arc. Rumplestiltskin and Regina are still struggling towards some semblance of redemption, whilst still relying on “villainous” tactics to achieve their goals, whilst Snow and Charming are attempting to establish a parental rapport with Emma, made all the more complex due to Emma’s own identity crisis and broken heart. Hook, who I had pretty much written off as the world’s worst pirate last year, emerges as a much more interesting (and competent) figure, and though I initially blanched at the thought of Peter Pan as a villain, the actor and the writing is so good that I’m rapidly warming to the concept.
So, let’s go through the characters one by one...
Greg and Tamara
I have mixed feelings about what happened to these two. Much like the rest of fandom, I was not a fan of either of these two characters, finding their motivation (especially Tamara’s) obscure, their storyline confusing, their theme (of technology versus magic) boring, and the characters themselves intensely annoying. So to have them removed from the show so quickly and efficiently is surely a good thing, right? Well...
I don’t think there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind that they were killed off due to fan negativity; much as Nicki and Paulo were disposed of in Lost after a similarly bad audience reaction. But unlike Nicki and Paulo, whose presence was somewhat superfluous and whose departure neither added nor subtracted anything from the main thrust of the storyline, season two of Once Upon a Time spent a MASSIVE amount of time introducing Greg and Tamara, weaving them into the flashbacks, establishing a veil of secrecy around them, having them form relationships with other characters, and being all coy about their goals and motivation. To ditch all that and kill them off so immediately is tantamount to admitting that all of that set-up was a complete waste of time. So sure, I’m not sorry to see them go, but a braver option would have been to address the problems in the characters and try to fix them.
In short: if you screw up, you have to work to make it better, not take a shortcut.
As it is, we’re left with a gazillion questions that will never be answered (foremost being how on earth a bunch of Lost Boys managed to trick two adults into thinking they were working for the government) and a sense that the story itself is entirely at the mercy of fan reaction. Writers won’t always make good decisions, but as a viewer, I like to think that they trust those decisions and will put effort into making them work. How am I supposed to get invested in anything if I know they’re capable of cutting their losses and throwing in the towel at any given point? Tamara in particular was a complete cypher from start to finish, and I’m continually disappointed that not only are POC on this show continually killed off, but that in this case the character in question was written so poorly that audiences were cheering for her violent and prolonged death.
Rapunzel can’t get here quick enough.
The Charmings
Throughout season two, the show never really slowed down long enough for Snow, Charming and Emma to simply be in each other’s company, discussing the past and working through their issues. On the one hand, I can kind of understand that, since they are selling this show as an adventure story, but it did feel like an emotional gap was left in the proceedings. Now, by putting this family in one location, united by a single goal, there’s more room for them to bond as the mother/father/daughter that they actually are.
I’ve never quite understood the swathes of Snow White hate that seems to be prevalent in this fandom (seriously, what’s up with that?) and here I’m glad the writers have taken a step back and decided to treat her attempts to bond with her daughter as something that’s difficult and complex, with Emma even pointing out that the two of them are technically the same age! Seriously, these two are never going to have a proper mother/daughter relationship, and I’m glad they’re acknowledging that it’s not simply because of their twenty-eight year separation, but because the mechanics of the curse have screwed so thoroughly with their time-lines that they’re still operating more as friends than a parent and a child. Perhaps the most heart-rending moment was when Snow hopefully/gently tells Emma that it would be okay if she addresses her as “mum”, only for Emma to establish that she’s not ready for that.
It’s doubly sad because you know on some level that she wants to (way back in Hat Trick she confessed to the Hatter that there’s nothing she wanted more than for “that woman in the other room to be my mother”), but the breach between them is still too wide for them to jump straight to their happy ending.
As for Emma, her theme seems to be one of identity. In the space of a few years she’s gone from being an orphan to becoming a daughter and a mother, and she still doesn’t really know what to do with either one. As the “test” that Pan set her demonstrates, she still defines herself not as a saviour but as an orphan, and that’s a good starting point for a season-long arc. The fact that she’s in Neverland, the quintessential home of lost children, works wonderfully on a thematic level.
(In fact the more I think about it, the more tempting it is to write a meta on the subject of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and how Once Upon a Time plays with its content, themes and catchphrases. The use of disembodied shadows, the repetition of “bad form”, the emphasis on mothers, even the throwaway “Rufio” gag - there’s a wealth of material here, and probably more to come that could make up a pretty interesting discussion on this story and its meaning).
Finally, Charming is still getting short-shift, and I’m still waiting on a genuine one-on-one bonding moment with his daughter, but at least he’s back to being active, honourable and (reasonably) intelligent. For the most part his poisoning felt more like something the writers came up with in the attempt to give him something to do, though it would appear it’ll have some significance in the wider plot-arc now that he’s apparently trapped on Neverland, having drunk its healings waters. I’m still up in the air about whether his decision to keep it a secret was wise or not: I think perhaps his initial quiet was justified as he thought that getting his hands on pixie-dust was just a matter of time, but after that it came across more like silence for the sake of nobility rather than pragmatism, making the whole thing a bit tedious (even if it did allow for some fun Charming/Hook banter).
But on the subject of The Good Prince archetype, I read a rather fascinating review of Frozen over the weekend, which contained this insight:
At this point, though, Prince Charming is dead. He’s been dead for years. The Shrek franchise killed him, and his heirs are the ridiculous, preening buffoon of Enchanted and the various insipid suitors of Brave. Last year’s little-seen Mirror Mirror offered the closest thing to a bona fide Prince Charming of any family film I can think of in the last decade or more (he was still kind of silly).
Hollywood animated heroes and/or love interests are allowed to be redeemed rascals (Tangled, The Princess and the Frog, Sinbad) or they may be seemingly unmanly misfit/underdogs who make good (How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, Rio, Happy Feet, etc.). But your actual manly hero is practically a thing of the past, alas.
One of the comments of the review had this to say:
Prince Charming isn’t dead-he lives on Disney-ABC’s fairy tale mash-up “Once Upon a Time”; he’s just pretty lame. They didn’t set out to make him a joke, but by this point the writers have essentially acknowledged that the audience finds him ridiculous, to the point that an antagonist commented to Snow White, “You’re going to marry *that*?”
Wow. Harsh stuff. But kinda true.
I’ve got a bit OT here, but it’s an interesting question: is Prince Charming dead? I think the most pure archetype of a genuinely heroic manly man that we’ve had in recent years was Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn, but he doesn’t really fit the bill considering his age and narrative, and though Arthur from Merlin may have had touches of this trope, his arc was very much defined by his growth from spoiled brat to responsible king (and then the writers turned him into a moron anyway). Prince Henri in Ever After (a movie I love BTW) was an immature princeling who had to be schooled by Danielle over the course of the movie, and even the other princes featured on Once Upon a Time are pretty bland.
There are very few classic romantic heroes left in the world, in fact it almost feels like that emasculation or tomfoolery (or whatever you want to call it) is inevitable whenever a kick-ass princess is on the scene, almost as though writers just can’t help but poke fun at male characters who ascribe to honour and chivalry and decisiveness. This is part of the reason why I could never warm to The Mists of Avalon (“strong” female characters are great, but it feels like cheating when they’re surrounded by male idiots) and I confess that I kind of miss the old-school romantic male lead.
I sure as hell wouldn’t want to see our female characters go back to swooning damsels in distress, but I’d also like to see them matched with more worthy male counterparts. Guys can be dashing and manly and gentle and smart without taking anything away from the girls.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled OUaT review...
Henry and Peter Pan
I’ll admit, I’m not a fan of Henry. And I feel really bad about that because - duh - he’s just a kid. But the Special Snowflake syndrome gets on my nerves when it’s affixed to such an emotive-less child (if you’re reading this kiddo, I’m really, really sorry, and you shouldn’t listen to internet reviewers anyway) and most of the time he comes across as a Walking MacGuffin.
That said, I liked Pan’s reasoning behind why Henry is so special. His credentials as the boy with “the heart of the truest believer” have been proven over the past two seasons, and that he’s the product of both good and evil is an interesting factoid. That said, I’ve never liked stories that establish people as “special” simply because of who their parents are (or what destiny states them to be), so unless they actually have plans to explore what it means for Henry to be the progeny of heroes and villains and how it effects who he is and the choices he makes, it’s just going to come across as window-dressing. Unfortunately, he’s always been a bit of a cypher to me, for I’ve never fully understood just how much he grasped about the curse, how he managed to figure out what was going on in Storybrooke, where the storybook came from, or why he came across as generally well-adjusted despite his upbringing. He was always more of plot-device than a character.
I was also on the fence about the idea of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys as villains. I blanched at first, because the whole thing seemed like a complete distortion of the source material. Granted, the show has played fast and loose with such things before, but Peter Pan has a special place in my heart, and it was initially disconcerting to see the spirit of childhood in all his capriciousness and heartlessness be warped into something that’s genuinely creepy and menacing - and way too Machiavellian to bear any resemblance whatsoever to a child.
And yet Robbie Kay’s performance is incredible. He wouldn’t look amiss playing an elf in The Hobbit, but his appearance gives this version of Peter Pan a truly eldritch air, one touched with a genuine sense of darkness and mischief. The literary Pan is big on playing games, so it makes sense that this one has organised Neverland into his own personal chess-board, one where each participant must follow his rules if she/he wants to proceed, whether it’s Emma and the invisible map, or Rumplestiltskin being chased by the small doll. His gradual “temptation” of Henry works well too, showing a deft touch in the way he strokes his ego, makes him doubt his family, and draws him into the lifestyle of the Lost Boys.
Finally, his motivation seems to be sound. Though the theme of science-versus-magic that Greg/Tamara introduced seems to have been dropped, it’s replaced with something far more interesting: that of Pan’s need to replenish magic in Neverland, which is explicitly fuelled by the belief of others. This explains his deep interest in Henry and Emma, providing a reason as to why he doesn’t just kill all of them. It also suggests that all his psychological games are done with the intent of leading each character towards a specific goal, one of his own making. What can I say, I love Puppet/Chessmaster characters.
Rumplestiltskin and Belle
I’m afraid for now that I’m not fully invested. As great as Robert Carlyle is, masterfully mingling the Dark One’s mannerisms with Gold’s speech patterns (that weary hand-flourish he made when Felix appeared was marvellous), I feel the writers really dropped the ball on this character in season two, and it’s going to take a while for me to get back on board. His complete lack of interest in Neal coupled with his genuine attempt on Henry’s life are totally incompatible as character traits, and along with Regina teaming up with her fiancé’s killer to get revenge on a small child for the death of said fiancé, there’s only so far “complete self-delusion” will take me when it comes to trying to understand motivation.
And Belle, unfortunately, continues to bore me to death. I hate saying that about a female character, especially one based on my favourite Disney Princess on a show that’s filled with complex and likeable women, but there it is. I mean seriously, they’ve made her a spiritual guidance councillor to a villain who has never shown much interest in listening to her - and much like Charming’s fatal wound, I can’t help but feel that the whole subplot is present simply because Emilie de Ravin was under contract and they couldn’t think of anything else to do with her.
Though I have to say my interest is piqued by that creepy doll that refuses to be destroyed or left behind. Whatever it is, it’s enough to move Rumplestiltskin to tears. And if Belle ends up being a construct of Pan’s making, I might well warm up to their scenes in hindsight.
Hook and Neal
As with a lot of other things introduced in season two, these two characters proved to be some of the weaker aspects of the storyline, though (unlike with Greg/Tamara) you can tell the writers are trying to rectify the situation. Shifting Hook from a dumb and sleazy pirate to a helpful cohort with specialized information and a rapport with Charming as well as with his potential love interest has done him a world of good, and he’s emerging as one of the strongest supporting elements of season three. If there was ever a contender for Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, it’s this guy and it’s been done in a way that doesn’t feel like a total retcon of his character.
The portrayal of Neal is still on shaky ground though. Again, I’m aware that this is not a popular character in fandom, and though the reasoning behind this is less inexplicable to me than the hate for Snow, I still can’t quite bring myself to hate a fictional character (I’ve been there; it’s exhausting and ultimately futile). Yet I think the writers are going easy on him in a way that’s detrimental to their attempt to win the audience over. For instance, they’re having him do all sorts of “cool” things, like summoning the squid and outwitting Pan, when the key element of any attempt to rehabilitate unpopular characters is to address their faults, provide consequences for said faults, and work from the ground up.
In this case, people still seem to be sore over Neal sending Emma to jail (apparently “for her own good”) and moving on with his life afterwards, whilst she is still disproportionately hung up over him. It’s an unpleasant imbalance between the two characters, and it’s not really helped along by the complete lack of resemblance between Dylan Schmid and Michael Raymond-James. It’s strange enough considering how well they do with the casting of other characters (the eerie similarities between child/adult Snow and young/old Cora), but becomes even more glaring when there’s such a huge disconnect between old/young Baelfire, which in turn impinges on his scenes with Rumplestiltskin.
Like I said, I’m far from hating the guy, but I’m still not particularly fond of him either. I liked him best when he was focused on saving Henry, but unfortunately Henry was unconscious for the whole thing.
And I suppose it was only a matter of time before these writers introduced a love triangle, though perhaps I won’t find this one as unpalatable as I usually do for one very simple reason: Hook has a reason to care about Neal just as much as he does Emma. Seriously, there’s a reason why the Arthurian love triangle is our most famous one, and it’s because it’s not just about two guys in competition for a girl, it’s about emotions and morality and conflicted feelings that flow between all three people. So when Pan gives Hook the information that Neal is still alive, his conflict is not essentially “what do I do to keep the girl?” but “what do I owe the boy that I failed?”
Mulan and Aurora
Yes, I ship it.
Now, if anyone has followed by reviews for any length of time, they’ll know I’m a fairly easy-going shipper, and as boring as that makes me sound, I’m usually just happy to take whatever the writers give me in terms of romantic relationships. It’s never my key interest in any show, and that such a thing as ship wars exist genuinely befuddles me. Also irritating is when fans of any ship (het or slash) manage to convince themselves that their ship is bound to happen, only to get vicious toward writers or characters when it inevitably doesn’t.
All that said, I’m really wondering (and hoping) if they’ll go there with Mulan and Aurora. I mean, Philip is about as interesting as watching paint dry, and there were several factors in the way this story played out that strongly suggested Mulan was in love with Aurora, most notably in the line (after Aurora asks if she should get Philip): “No that’s unnecessary, it’s you I want to talk to. You see... why are you smiling at me?”
Now, if this was indeed leading up to a declaration of love to Philip, then I’ve no idea why she would want to speak only to Aurora, or why she seemed to nervous/excited about it. That’s not the demeanour one has when telling your friend you’re in love with their significant other, so I think it’s not a stretch to say that we have our first LGBT character on Once Upon a Time. Though in saying that, the writers also seem to have hedged their bets so that those so inclined could pass off Mulan’s words and demeanour as being directed at Philip if they so choose. Would this lack of clarity count as queerbaiting? I guess it all depends on what happens when these characters next appear. The problem is that I can’t see that getting rid of Philip is an option considering they’ve already done that plot-line once before, and they’ve now established that a baby is on the way. Gah, it’s so frustrating!
I wait in hope, because honestly - I’ve had ships that didn’t sail before (in fact my OTP to end all OTPs fizzled away into nothing), but this will be the first time I’ll be genuinely disappointed if there isn’t some sense of validation for this ship.
Ethics
Well you know how I like me a juicy moral conundrum to chew over. Sadly, the show was pretty bereft of this sort of thing throughout season two, with the good guys held to standards of behaviour that defied all logic and bad guys treated as poor sad woobies whose rampant destruction was just a manifestation of parental issues that they couldn’t possibly be held responsible for. As I said at the time, it was like watching Voldemort from A Very Potter Musical boo-hooing that: “you think that killing people might make them like you, but it doesn’t - it just makes them dead!” Except that there it was a joke, and here the writers actually seemed to want us to feel sorry for the villains behind rather than the victims of Rumplestiltskin and Regina’s actions.
More than anything it was this mentality that put me right off the show, but thankfully things have seemed to tipped back into a better sense of equilibrium when it comes to what’s acceptable, what’s not, under what circumstances the rules can be bent or broken, and what the consequences for such transgressions might (or might not) be. As such we have the squabble over whether or not to dispatch of the mermaid on board ship in the first episode, with Regina gunning for her death and Snow arguing that their better option is to let her go (for both moral and pragmatic reasons), immediately raising the question: how far are these women willing to go to protect themselves and save Henry?
At the time it was Emma who Took a Third Option by throwing herself overboard (having realized that the storm was a manifestation of their argument), but the question is again asked when the trio of women trap a Lost Boy and realize that they have a way of communicating with Henry. Once again Snow and Regina are on opposite sides, and it’s Emma that makes the final call: in this case, deciding to strip the boy of his free will and possibly endanger his life by having Regina rip out his heart and make him her puppet. It’s not a pleasant decision to make, but the show frames it as a necessary one. As Emma made a point of saying, they’re going to need heroes AND villains to get Henry back, which on a Doylist level gives the writers’ license to utilize some of Regina’s and Rumplestiltskin’s tricks and tactics to negotiate the jungle, and on a Watsonian level allows the different characters to react to morally ambiguous behaviour and decide what they are and aren’t willing to live with.
At times Regina is clearly wrong about what it is they should be doing (killing the mermaid, messing around with the map) but I was glad that the narrative didn’t immediate punish her for taking the Lost Boy’s heart and using it to communicate with Henry. In times of jeopardy, there is justification for certain deeds, and as long as they’re handled maturely the writers can milk the potential for drama without throwing everything into a stark black-and-white framework (as they did with Snow’s decision to kill Cora).
Flashbacks
They’re getting a little redundant, aren’t they? In the first season they had a very specific purpose: to explore life in the Enchanted Forest, providing context and character insight to the denizens of Storybrooke as they went about with their cursed lives. Now it seems they’re there to tell us things we already know. Or don’t need to know.
Still, a few little interesting tidbits pop up here and there. I like that sheer boredom was a key factor in turning Regina towards evil, a component of her post-marriage life which gave her the time and space she needed to brood on her discontent. Other than that, the conflict between herself and Tinkerbell was a little anti-climactic: though I can see why Tink would be upset at the consequences of Regina’s rejection, by this point the audience has seen her do far worse things.
The flashbacks involving Charming and Snow preparing to win back the kingdom post-proposal really should have been used throughout season two, paralleled with the contemporary conflict in Storybrooke (perhaps with Regina and Snow/Emma vying over the position of mayor). It’s no use crying over spilt milk, but... dang. It’s so obvious.
In any case, I liked that it was Charming who acted as a helpmate and guide to Snow White rather than the other way around, finding a way to galvanise her into winning back the kingdom. Also, watching the dwarfs get uber-protective of Snow and try to haze Charming was a lot of fun, and reminded me a bit of the rapport these characters had in Mirror, Mirror (it’s actually a really sweet movie, and I ended up enjoying it infinitely more than Snow White and the Huntsman).
Though for all its feel-good themes, it’s still a sobering thought to consider that Snow and Charming’s decision to fight for the kingdom and become its rulers are what led directly to the curse and their separation from their daughter. If they had taken Regina’s offer of exile, things would have worked out quite differently for them. Of course, if they’d done that, there’d be no story either.
Lastly, Hook’s backstory was a bit daft. If it weren’t for the sail of Pegasus feather I would have assumed that this flashback took place in our world (or at least the Victorian England dimension) because there’s been nothing in the Enchanted Forest that has hinted at a time or place that would have navy uniforms like that. Wherever they are, they’ve been sent by an unspecified king to fetch a particular plant from Neverland, apparently because it has medicinal properties. Only when they get there, Peter Pan warns them that it’s poisonous and can only be used for nefarious purposes.
This leads to all sorts of stupidity, such as a) Killian’s brother scratching himself with said plant to prove that it’s harmless, b) said brother falling into unconsciousness immediately even though Charming has been trooping around the jungle with the exact same injury for days, c) Killian not considering that even though a plant may appear poisonous if you do something stupid with it, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it doesn’t also have healing properties, and d) deciding to mutiny against his king and adhere to his own strict code of conduct and honour by... becoming a pirate. Yeah, most of that was pretty dumb.
Miscellaneous
That Regina/Snow/Charming/Hook were causing the storm with their fighting was a bit hokey, but also quite reminiscent of several Peter Pan tales, particularly the latest 2003 adaptation (which I LOVE) in which the climate of Neverland is caused directly by Peter’s moods. Also, I’ll never say no to murderous mermaids. Most of the time I hate it when mythological monsters are turned “friendly” but despite The Little Mermaid, these creatures have generally managed to keep their edge (see also Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Shores). Heck, at this point they’re probably more intimidating than vampires.
Alas, Snow’s terrible wig is still around.
Wow, can we please not have Peter Pan make any more sexual innuendoes toward Emma? Because compared to a prepubescent kid making suggestive comments at a grown woman, I find I don’t care that he’s evil.
I’ll confess to being a little disappointed that Excalibur ended up being a Magic Feather. I wanted to see another woman pulling the famous sword out of the stone: Kayley in Quest for Camelot couldn’t, but Xena once did in a throwaway gag.
Shout-out to fellow kiwi girl Rose McIver as Tinkerbell, though I’m slightly underwhelmed by the character at this point. And when she complained that people had stopped believing in magic, I was rather devastated that someone didn’t suggest they all start clapping.
I am however impressed with Felix, even though he looks a little too old to be a Lost Boy. Still his voice and demeanour is so sinister and effortlessly creepy; he makes a good number two for Pan.
The green screen still awful. Can’t they just go on location? At times you can actually see the fuzz around the characters’ heads, and it pulls me out of the scene every time.
Combining Peter Pan and the Pied Piper was an attempt at character composition that didn’t grate: in fact, it actually makes perfect sense (far more than Rumplestiltskin being the Crocodile).
And so this is the new Robin Hood, replacing Tom Ellis in the role. Usually I hate it when actors get switched, though all things considered, I actually like this one better. He just feels more like a legendary English folk-hero. I actually first saw this version of Robin on Wonderland (the spin-off) and he works well as a relatively minor character who flits in and out of the story, but clearly has an important life off-screen. His son Roland is adorable (did you catch the little actor corpsing when he pre-emptively says his line and all the others rush to stop him?) but I’m pretty disgruntled that they’ve killed off Marian. Seriously, STOP KILLING OFF MAID MARIAN. IT WILL ALWAYS, ALWAYS SUCK.
What’s up with the three painted stripes that Rumplestiltskin puts over his face?
Although it doesn’t really sit well with the idea of him having “the heart of the truest believer”, I liked the way the pan-pipe music played out in regards to whether or not Henry could hear it. For once the show didn’t feel the need to spell things out, and instead delivered the exposition early on (in the flashback) and let the audience figure out for themselves what was happening and what it meant when Henry suddenly heard the music.
And since Neal gets a hard time, I’ll end on a positive note for him: I like that his experience of Neverland makes him quite adept in negotiating its terrain, and that he’s remembered enough about Pan (and his arrow-catching abilities) to coat the shaft rather than the tip of the arrow in order to immobilize him.