(Be
advised, I can’t talk about this without spoiling a major plot development from
season 1.)
This
isn’t one of the most prominent relationships on Once Upon a Time, but I adore it.
Since the initial premise of the show placed most of the characters
under a curse that, among other things, made time stand still, Emma grew up
while her parents stayed the same age in Storybrooke. So, when the curse breaks and the Enchanted
Forest folk regain their true memories, the mother and father Emma has looked
for her entire life stand in front of her, and they’re her age. Thus begins two of the most unconventional
parent-child relationships on TV.
Emma’s
relationship with Snow is interesting, too, but today’s post is about Emma and
her dad. Magic weirdness aside, it’s a
tough situation – Charming and Emma have spent 28 years apart. He hasn’t felt those years, being frozen in
time (and in a coma) for most of it, and he doesn’t know who either of them are
when they meet. Emma, on the other hand,
has been wondering about the unknown parents who seemingly dropped her into the
world and then erased every hint of their existence as she was shunted around
the foster system, made some bad choices, and put her life back together. She doesn’t know that his sword protected her
the moment she was born, that he fought tooth and nail and nearly died getting
her out of the curse’s reach.
So when
Charming gets his memory back, he’s every inch the proud papa who knew his
little girl could save the day, and Emma is very not ready to deal with him or
Snow. The father who, in her mind,
abandoned her, is both Prince friggin’ Charming and a 20-something (in fact,
Josh Dallas is a couple years younger
than Jennifer Morrison.) She doesn’t
know how to wrap her head around a relationship like that, and an awkward stretch
of episodes is spent with him wanting to make up for lost time and her wanting
to avoid the issue. She’s had a
difficult life, and she can’t simply forgive and forget because her dad was a
fairytale character under a curse, and her cold shoulder serves to remind him
of all the years he couldn’t be there for her.
As time
goes on and Emma starts to open up, though, she and Charming develop a really great
dynamic. He works alongside her at the
sheriff’s department where they make a good team. Both are trackers who are handy in a fight,
and she gradually gets used to him having her back. While he’s protective, he still lets her
stand on her own, and when it comes to sharing, Charming is good about waiting
for Emma to come to him. He always lets
her know he’s there for whatever she needs, to help or to listen, but he doesn’t
push. As a result, he’s been a sounding
board when she’s confused, a comfort when she’s upset, and a support when she’s
overwhelmed.
I
really have to hand it to Jennifer Morrison and Josh Dallas. Any time you have two good-looking actors of
the same age portraying a familial relationship, you can run the risk of
inappropriate chemistry; too many onscreen siblings have trouble giving off
consistent “sibling” vibes, and it gets weird.
These two have an even harder task, making the audience buy him as her
dad, but they’re more than up to the challenge.
In all their interactions, you never lose sight of the fact that she’s
his daughter. There’s even a scene where
he’s teaching her to dance, a dream sequence in which he’s regretting all the
years he missed with her. Both are
dressed to the nines and dancing to lovely music, and it’s father-daughter all
the way. He’s warm and paternal, and she’s
slowly, beautifully becoming an incurable daddy’s girl. I love it.
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