Once Upon a Time Season 1 Episodes 17 & 18 Review

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Episode 17: Hat Trick

Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan & Sebastian Stan as Jefferson ABC's Once Upon a Time, Hat Trick picture image

Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan & Sebastian Stan as Jefferson

Emma and Mr Gold find that Mary Margaret has escaped and Emma needs to find by 8 A.M or they are screwed. While Emma is looking for Mary Margaret, she meets a guy named Jefferson,  who is apparently hurt. Emma takes him back to his house where he gives her some delicious tea but it turns out to be deadly poison.  Actually it’s just a roofie. Emma escapes from her restrainments and finds Mary Margaret in the house and tied up. As Emma and Mary Margaret try to escape Jefferson threaten them  with a gun and makes Emma tie Mary Margaret back up and then demands Emma makes a hat that works. Turns out Jefferson knows about the dual worlds and that he is a fairy tale character and he wants Emma to make a hat because she has magic and the hat will enable him to go home. Emma does make a hat but she knocks him out as she just thinks he is crazy. Mary Margaret, freed by Emma, helps defeat Jefferson who along with his hat is knock-out the window but he vanishes. Also Mary Margaret gets back in time but that wasn’t part of the plan cooked up by Regina and Mr. Gold, who surprise, are working together. Oh Mr.Gold playing both sides.    

In the fairy Tale world Jefferson lives with his daughter, Grace. Grace is also in Storybrooke but is called Paige and has a different family and doesn’t know Jefferson. Jefferson wants to live a peaceful humble  life but that darn Evil Queen wants him to take her to Wonderland via his magic hat. Jefferson at first says no but wants a better life for his daughter so he agrees. Before they enter Wonderland Jefferson tells the Queen that the same number of people who enter must leave together, rule of the hat. They enter Wonderland so the Evil Queen can take something that the Queen of Hearts stole. They get it back and it turns out it’s her father, Henry. Since it’s now three people the Queen makes it so Jefferson can’t leave. Jefferson gets captured by the Queen of Hearts and she takes his head, it’s what she does. He is fine  though and is told that he will have to make another hat to get out of wonderland which drives him mad. Mad Hatter, it’s not subtle.

  

Again, what happened to Emma’s lie detection? Jefferson was faking his injury which is a lie. Can she only spot when people say lies and not fakers? It’s just irritating. Also I love that his name is Jefferson, nice little reference to Jefferson Airplanes. I had a good laugh at that one. I do like that Jefferson is half mad for knowing the truth. I did like this episode. The Storybrooke parts were better than the fairytale plot.

Episode 18: The Stable Boy

Lana Parrilla as Regina & Noah Bean as Daniel ABC's Once Upon a Time, The Stable Boy picture image

Lana Parrilla as Regina & Noah Bean as Daniel

Mary Margaret asking Regina what she ever did to make her hate her so much is like what Esmeralda said to Frollo when she was in jail for murder. I’m sure it was unintentional but it made me chuckle.  So this episode reveals why Regina hates Snow White a.k.a Mary Margaret. Regina in the Fairy Tale world was in love with a stable boy named Daniel, but her Mother, Cora, wants Regina to aim higher in status. One day Regina saves a little girl from a runaway horse. The girl is Snow White and her father asks Regina to marry him which her mother says agrees. Regina asks Daniel to  marry her and Snow sees them kissing. Regina begs Snow not to say anything as her mother wouldn’t understand. Snow does tell Cora since she wants Regina to be happy and have a relationship with her mother. Cora then takes Daniel’s heart and crushes into dust. Regina finds out Snow told her mother and that her mother was behind the whole thing of Snow’s Horse going wild so Regina could get the attention of the King.

Apparently this whole murder/missing person plot was all Mr. Gold’s doing really just to get Mary Margaret out of Storybrooke since the curse can’t left them leave so she will die I guess. Emma talks to August about approaching the case differently which causes Emma to return to the place where the heart was found. They find a shard from the shovel the was used to bury the heart. Emma breaks into Regina’s garage and indeed the shard matches her shovel. However Sidney planted a bug in Emma’s office so Regina is able to switch out the shovel before Emma can lawfully confirm the match. Also Regina confesses to Mary Margaret that she knows she didn’t kill Kathryn. The episode ends with it being revealed to Emma, August and Ruby that Kathryn is alive.   

First off, I’m not shocked. This why I have been trying to watch and episode and then write the posts instead of binging watching a bunch then writing. I will admit between episodes  7-13 I was binge watching it, which is more fun since this show is REALLY watchable but I did ask back in episode 16 if Kathryn was really dead. Full disclosure I did watch/wrote my assessment of  episode 16  Heart of Darkness the day before I watched/wrote this one, so it was fresh in my head.

I did really enjoy this episode, Barbara Hershey is like the perfect casting for Regina ambitious mother. Bailee Madison, young Snow, matched Ginnifer Goodwin’s inflections perfectly, easily one of the better child actor in the show.  I don’t know how I feel about the reason for Regina’s evilness  and her bitterness towards Snow. I mean tragic love is it? That is only reason really for her cruelty? She isn’t mad at her mother?  Snow was well intentioned and a child. I did like the episode but does seem too simplistic even for a fairy tale.   

Bailee Madison as Young Snow White, ABC's Once Upon a Time, The Stable Boy picture image

Bailee Madison as Young Snow White

Once Upon a Time Season 1 Episodes 15 & 16 Review

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Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White & Meghan Ory as Red Riding Hood ABC's Once Upon a Time, Red-Handed picture image

Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White & Meghan Ory as Red Riding Hood

Episode 15: Red-Handed

Red gets an episode! Red a.k.a Little Red Riding doesn’t like being locked inside with granny when there is a wolf on the prowl. She also longs to run off with her bae, Peter. After a wolf attack Red meets Snow White but Snow introduces herself as Mary though first as Margaret. Red decides that if she can catch the wolf while it sleeps she and Peter can run off together. Red proves a great tracker and finds that the wolf’s track turn into a human and leads to her window which makes her think that Peter is the wolf, also Peter and the wolf, so cute. Red goes to Peter to ties him up so he can hurt anyone but TWIST it’s Red who is the wolf, it’s a family trait.

The Storybrooke plot still continues the hunt for Kathryn. While Emma investigates, Ruby quits her job at Granny’s and stays with Emma and Mary Margaret. Ruby then gets a job working with Emma because she has good phone skills. As Emma assistant she gets grilled cheese and helps in search for the lovely the Kathryn, one of those is important to the plot. Turns out David has been sleepwalking again and can’t confirm his whereabouts. Ruby then finds a box with a human heart in it and inside the box are fingerprints belonging to Mary Margaret. It’s Once Upon a Time; CSI.

This episode was pretty good. The werewolf angle is typical for Little Red Riding adaptations but it’s nice that Red is the wolf and her hood is a magical article that controls her transformation. The cloaks in this episode were real pretty.

 

Ginnifer Goodwin as Mary Margaret & Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan ABC's Once Upon a Time, Heart of Darkness picture image

Ginnifer Goodwin as Mary Margaret & Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan

Episode 16: Heart of Darkness

Snow White has become a Grade C Biatch since she has forgotten love. The Dwarves stage an intervention with Jiminy. It ends with Snow White saying she has to kill the Queen, pretty standard intervention. Grumpy takes Snow to Rumpelstiktskin to fix her but Rumpelstiktskin hasn’t been able to bottle love yet and instead of helping Snow’s new bitch attitude he enables her to murder the Queen with a good shooting location and an arrow that always finds its target.

James/Charming shows up at Rumpelstiktskin’s place and exchanges his cloak for intel on Snow’s plan and that true love kiss on the lips cures curses or the potion Snow took. James/Charming finds Snow and plants a kiss on her but since Snow isn’t herself the kiss doesn’t work. Snow ties him up and he begs her not to kill the Queen. Jiminy helps his escape and James/Charming blocks the arrow that Snow fired at the Queen. James/Charming declares his love for her, they kiss and BOOM Snow White remembers and isn’t a jerk anymore. But that ass-hat king turns up and takes James/Charming away leaving Snow vowing she will find him. Rumpelstiktskin then extracts a piece of James/Chamring’s hair from his cloak and bottles it with Snow White’s hair thus making a True Love potion, I guess love is stored in the hair.

In Storybrooke Mary Margaret is being questioned and in turns out that the box the heart was found in was Mary Margaret’s jewelry box. Emma investigates if there were signs of a break in but instead she finds a weapon that matches the murder weapon. Mary Margaret then hires Mr.Gold as her lawyer. Henry tells Emma that Regina has a key that might open Mary Margaret’s apartment which she does, making Emma and Henry suspect that Regina framed Mary Margaret as the Evil Queen hates Snow White. David then remembers himself as James/Charming begging Snow not to kill “her” which leads him to think she killed Kathryn. Mary Margaret then finds a key to her cell and leaves.

While I did like this episode there are a few things that are just weird. First is David’s memory. The way it’s shot makes it a first person perspective which means we have to interpret it as he sees what we see. David doesn’t question that in this memory Mary Margaret has longer hair and there is snow on the ground, two things that he should realize BEFORE he doubts her innocence, or at least question his memory more. David is a dummy. Also is Kathryn really dead? We know Graham didn’t have his heart and was still able to live. And finally fingerprint the knife! It was found in Mary Margaret’s apartment but did Regina ever get her to touch it? And was it the murder weapon? I don’t know, I like the episode but the whole murder plot is very boring, Regina is like Papaletine here, of course she is behind it all.

Once Upon a Time Season 1 Episode 2; The Thing you Love the Most Review

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Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills & Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan Once Upon a Time Season 1 Episode 2; The Thing you Love the Most picture image

Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills & Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan in ABC’s Stone Once Upon a Time

This episode mentions Honey Crisp Apples which are super delicious and the apples I have been eat all week  and unless Honey Crisp have a massive variation of size and color the apples in this episode are not Honey Crisps. They look more like Red Delicious. But I know nothing about apple varieties and this a classic case of tangental nitpicking, so on to the actual episode.

First thing be ye first thing, I really enjoy the pacing of the show.  The fairly seamless back and forth between the Fairy Tale backstory and Real Life curse breaking detectives is fun. I liked the not so subtle choice of cinnamon to infer the characters of the possible connection between them, Snow White/Mary Margaret, Emma, and Henry all like cinnamon on their hot chocolate. That sounds good, am I related them? I kid.

The bitch game of one-up-mannanship was a little tiring, one frames the other and the other hacks the one’s non Honey Crisp Tree, what a cliche! Anyway the fairy tale plot centers around how the Evil Queen’s curse. Apparently in this world of Fairy Tales, Curses can be traded. Ok, that’s weird. Also I didn’t care for the styling of Maleficent. Why does she look all soft? I know it’s a re-imagining but I don’t get the choice of it. In fact the Snow White’s Evil Queen looks more Maleficent. Also I also don’t know why but the Evil Queen’s Leather pants and lace widows peak gives me an odd combo of amused and cringing. I get the stye is going for a Shabby Chic style, kinda like that movie The Secret of Moonarce.  Why are Fairy Tales Shabby Chic?

Anyway, so Evil Queen knows that this curse means amnesia and not being in the fairy tale world. And she activates the curse so she can be happy and all she has to do is make a deal with Rumplestiltskin, who the one who gave her the curse before she traded with Maleficent and she has to kill her father because she has to kill the thing she loves the most. Her father is also named Henry, Dun, Dun, Dunnnn. I actually liked that plot point. Rumpy a.k.a Mr Gold also seems to knows about the curse or he know something. Rumplestiltskin seems to be more OP in this version. Wait why was he in jail in this first place? And if he knows that Emma could break the curse and brought Henry to Regina so that Emma would come someday,  why would he want the curse broken? He has a pretty good thing going on with the curse. Like what is his motivation for wanting to return to the fairy tale world? Or is like an impulse where he know there a curse and wants to break it but doesn’t know what it means or the details but then again he remembers the details of the deal he made with the Evil Queen?  I’m just going to stop and let the show answer the questions because I have more and I’m sure they will get answered.

 

Anyway it was a fun episode, still don’t care for the boy though.