Top Five Casting Decisions: Guest Stars (Once Upon a Time)

I love me a smorgasbord of acting from a big ensemble, which is part of the reason why I continue to be drawn to shows like Lost or Once Upon a Time, even when the writing goes off the rails. Today, I’m looking in particular at guest stars on Once Upon a Time, the sort who were featured prominently in the show’s various half-season arcs. While some of these stories were definitely better than others, I still appreciated the revolving door of characters they offered up. Here were my favorite performances from actors who took a turn in the Once Upon a Time sandbox.

 

Robbie Kay as Peter Pan

Does the Pan/Neverland arc come together the way it ought to? Not really – far from it, in my opinion. But none of that is down to Robbie Kay, who’s utterly watchable as the show’s dark take on Peter Pan. Through Kay’s compelling performance, we get the danger and menace of The Boy Who Never Grew Up, whose games can turn deadly and whose charismatic hold over his Lost Boys fuels his continued power.

 

Elizabeth Mitchell as Ingrid, the Snow Queen

Once Upon a Time tried to sell us on plenty of villain sob-stories over the years, but the only one that I really found compelling all the way through was Ingrid’s. Much of that is down to the writing, which didn’t use her tragic history to wave away her villainous actions, but a lot of credit also goes to Elizabeth Mitchell’s fine performance. She’s so quiet and still, imbuing Ingrid with both delicate sadness and soft menace. You can see how she’d draw in lonely misfits like Elsa and Emma, if only for a time.

 

Elizabeth Lail as Anna

I also think Georgina Haig does a terrific job as Elsa, but this post is already leaning heavily on the Frozen arc, and Elizabeth Lail is an utter delight as Anna. I love how well she nails Anna’s bubbly determination, friendly and optimistic to a fault but much stronger than a lot of people would give her credit for. Even as I enjoy Elsa getting to know the residents of Storybrooke, I relish every flashback of Anna’s whirlwind tour of the Enchanted Forest.

 

Elliot Knight as Merlin

I’ve talked about Merlin before, and even though I maintain that the show doesn’t give the character his full due, Elliot Knight is fantastic in the role. He brings such a steadiness as the powerful nigh-immortal, this grounding presence of a man who’s lived and seen it all. This is a tricky air to pull off, but Knight does it with aplomb, drawing you into all his scenes despite the inconsistent writing.

 

Karen David as Jasmine

I loved Karen David in Galavant and I’ve always been a Jasmine fan, so it was a delight to see David pop up on the show as one of the beloved princesses of my childhood. As with Merlin/Knight, Jasmine isn’t always well-served by the storyline, but David conveys that essentialness Jasmine-ness throughout.

A Few Notes on “Ruby Slippers” (Once Upon a Time)

This past week’s episode of Once Upon a Time, in terms of a plotline long promised by the showrunners, was a mixed bag for me.  Some aspects of it felt really annoying and cop-out-ish, while I felt others were executed well.  Spoilers ahead.

So, in the first half of the season, when Mulan and Red suddenly appeared back on the show in the fairyback for a random, non-arc-related episode, I know I’m not the only one who thought I knew where they were going with it.  At this point, The Powers That Be had already gone on record promising an upcoming LGBTQ relationship, and the return of Mulan – who disappeared from the show immediately after outing herself to the audience over two seasons ago – obviously seemed relevant.  It’s true that I still wonder about what might-have-been with her and Aurora, and that Red (who’d also been absent for a long time) had never given any indication that she might be queer, but 1) with Phillip as her True Love, the ship has definitely sailed re:  Aurora, and 2) the first meeting between Mulan and Red felt pretty charged to me, so I was open to it.

Fast-forward to this week, with Mulan and Red surfacing again after an additional half-season absence.  We find out they’ve been traveling together all this time and have landed in Oz (How?  Goodness knows anymore with this show,) and the promised LGBTQ romance does indeed happen… but Mulan isn’t a part of it.  Instead, it’s Red and Dorothy, who Red meets, falls in love with, and has a curse-breaking True Love’s Kiss with in the course of one episode.  The storyline has its good points, but overall, I feel like I got a bait-and-switch.

To be fair, the show may have felt it disingenuous to pair up the only two queer women, and so kept Mulan and Red as friends and brought in Dorothy for the latter.  I can also buy that they may have a classic “fairytale romance” for the couple, complete with insta-love.  For me, though, neither reason is worth going this route instead of Mulan/Red.  True, we only see Mulan and Red interacting in one previous episode, but we do see them working/fighting alongside each other and seeming to make a connection.  Beyond that, we know both Red and Mulan individually from seasons past, so we can go much further in connecting dots between them because we’re already invested in them.  Dorothy, however, joins the story in her second appearance on the show.  We don’t know her or why Red would be drawn to her (and frankly, she’s so abrasive in their early scenes together that I really don’t know why Red is into her.)  Not to mention, Dorothy’s guest-star status makes the already-slim chance of repeat appearances from the couple even slimmer.  And finally, while I’m ultimately happy that Red found her True Love, when will it be frickin’ Mulan’s turn?  She’s so great, and I’d really like to see someone love her.

What I did like is how the characters react overall in the storyline.  Upon realizing how deeply she cares for Dorothy, Red is surprised but not bewildered/ashamed/etc.  She’s afraid to tell Dorothy how she feels, but mainly because she thinks Dorothy is freaked about Red being a werewolf.  The fact that they’re both women is never brought up as a concern or hindrance.  Similarly, Snow easily recognizes Red’s love for Dorothy and is nothing but happy for her friend, speaking poignantly about taking a chance on love.  I also like that it’s clear Mulan and Red are just friends; though I still would have preferred Mulan, at least her poor heart isn’t getting broken again.  And of course, props from the show for not holding back, either from the initial True Love’s Kiss or the ladies’ making out post-love-declaration.

Once Upon a Time: Season 1, Episode 17 – “Hat Trick” (2012)

I’ll be honest – about half of my motivation for initially checking out Once Upon a Time was the knowledge that Sebastian Stan had had a small but beloved role in it (the other half, by the way, was stuff I’d heard about Mulan,) so it’s not really surprising that I was more than ready for Jefferson’s first appearance on the show.  But even apart from that obvious check in the plus column, “Hat Trick” is one of my favorite episodes from season 1 and, really, I think it’s still one of the best the show has ever done (episode spoilers.)

At this point, Storybrooke is still under the curse, Emma is a disbeliever in Henry’s stories and her role as the Savior, and the show is dividing its screentime between the main characters/seasonal arc and more minor Enchanted Forest denizens, giving us side plots of Emma meeting and helping these characters in present-day Storybrooke.  We get some of both in this episode.  Snow/Mary Margaret has escaped jail, mistakenly thinking that Emma helped her get out, but in fact, Emma is desperate to find her before her arraignment, lest she get in even worse trouble.  Along the way, she meets and is captured by Jefferson, an unstable young man who corroborates Henry’s stories and insists that Emma, the Savior, is his only hope for being reunited with his daughter Grace.  In flashback, we see how Jefferson is separated from Grace when Regina talks him into making a return to his old ways:  opening portals between worlds with the aid of an enchanted hat.

There’s a lot to enjoy here.  I really like the story of Jefferson and Grace, which is emotional and well-acted by all involved.  I like seeing Emma pull out all the stops to help Mary Margaret, and I love Mary Margaret discovering her inner badass princess/bandit Snow White, if only for a moment.  I like the inventive direction the show takes with the introduction of the Mad Hatter, opening up the series to other worlds beyond ours and the Enchanted Forest (some might argue that it’s not been a development for the best, since the show hasn’t always used its expanded universe well.)  Similarly, I like how elements of the Mad Hatter story manifest in Storybrooke.

But all that (even Sebastian Stan playing one of my favorite characters of his) doesn’t live up to what this episode really delivers in terms of the show’s mythology.  Before seeing “Hat Trick,” I was moderately entertained by Once Upon a Time and found some of the characters/actors quite engaging, but after seeing “Hat Trick,” I was invested in this narrative.  Jefferson’s conversations with Emma are so vital, both for Emma’s journey as a character – she still doesn’t want to believe, but against her will, she’s starting to – and for the trajectory of the series. 

Jefferson isn’t the only character in Storybrooke who retains his Enchanted Forest memories under the curse, but he’s probably the most interesting to me.  I love his observation about this world, that “everyone wants some magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”  And his response to Emma’s insistence that “this is the real world” is exactly what she needs:  “A real world.  How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one?  There are infinite more.  […]  They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last.  […]  Some have magic, some don’t.  And some need magic… Like this one.”  Though Once Upon a Time has a number of thematic cores, I think this one might be the most profound and well-articulated.  Moving forward, it’s what allows the day-to-day and the fantastical to exist side by side.  Bringing magic to a world that needs it.  How cool is that?

A Few Thoughts on Merlin (Once Upon a Time)

I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a Crimes Against… post.  For me, Once Upon a Time’s Merlin isn’t a beloved character done a disservice by the writers, nor is he a character so badly mishandled that he never really gets a chance to be.  Instead, this featured character on the show’s latest half-season is presented from the get-go as really great and amateur-hour bad at pretty much the same time.  (Merlin-related spoilers for season 5A.)

I think the best way to describe it is this:  I love the way Merlin is, but I hate the things he does.  Does this make anything resembling sense?  Let me start with a little setup, and then we’ll move on to this frustrating dichotomy.  I do really like the general slant of Merlin’s backstory.  His power isn’t innate like Emma’s or Zelena’s, but he doesn’t seek it out like Rumpel, either.  Instead, this 1000-year-old wizard is created through no intention of his own.  An age ago, Merlin is a runaway (soldier?) lost in the desert, and after his companion tries to touch the Holy Grail and is destroyed for his unworthiness, Merlin dares to ask permission to drink from the same cup.  His life is more than saved by its waters – he’s made ageless and nigh-immortal, wielding incredible power.  I like that he’s just an ordinary guy who was given power and immortality without looking for it, and that he really doesn’t have any guidance as to how to use it, instead finding things out for himself.

Okay, so that’s the Merlin we’re given.  I’ll jump to the not-so-good now and work my way back to the positives.  A number of the heroes on Once Upon a Time spend far too much of their screentime unfortunately saddled with the Idiot Ball, and Merlin, it seems, gets more than his fair share.  So many of his actions during his time on the show range from nonsensical to downright baffling.  For someone as long-lived and powerful as he is (not to mention his little gift of prophecy,) he’s remarkably prone to being played for a chump, and I just plain don’t get wide swathes of what he does.  Why does he visit Emma as a child to warn her against reforging Excalibur when he wants her to do just that in Camelot?  Why does he leave a cryptic magical voicemail for the heroes instead of talking to them when they’re right outside, and for that matter, why does he say Nimue is their only hope when that makes zero sense?  Why does he get owned so completely by Arthur, and why is he just randomly cooking up a Dark Curse, sans freshly crushed heart, when things are going south?  For such a powerful, mythic, and long-awaited character, he hardly contributes to the good fight in any meaningful way.

But here’s the thing – when you take out all the brain-dead stuff he does, Merlin is awesome.  Illogical, but true.  Now, a lot of this is down to Elliot Knight’s fine performance (Once Upon a Time has always had a phenomenal casting department.)  Merlin just exudes the presence of a man who has absolutely been around for 1000 years and moves through a more rarefied plain than us mortals.  At the same time, he doesn’t act like he’s above others; instead, he’s a warm, calming figure who works alongside the less godlike heroes with quiet assurance.  I love his easy, clear-eyed command of his magic, and it’s cool that, though he can see the future, he’s still a strong champion of free will.  He believes in the good of others without wearing rose-colored glasses, and he himself has been a force for good for so long despite ample opportunity to use his immense power for ill or his own personal gain.  True – if his actions always matched his awesomeness, he could wrap up the whole half-season conflict in two episodes tops, but surely there’s a middle ground where he isn’t constantly doing stupid, ill-advised things Because Plot.

Let Me Take a Moment to Geek Out about Emma Swan

So I love Emma, no secret.  She’s my most consistently-favorite thing about Once Upon a Time, and she’s just such a BAMF, such a hero, and such a compelling character.  When I’ve had issues with the show over her, it’s been with the show itself, which has mucked around with her story in ways unbefitting her awesomeness.  (Spoilers for the end of season 4 through season 5, particularly the most recent episode, “Nimue.”)

At the end of last season, when Emma became the Dark One to save someone else from it (seriously, how amazing is she?), I was cautiously excited.  Excited because the show hadn’t had a really great Emma-centered storyline in a while, the plot brimmed with possibilities, and I knew Jennifer Morrison could act the crap out of it.  Cautious because, while potentially incredible, it also seemed wildly complex, and I wasn’t sure the writers would do it justice.  My reactions so far this season have been mixed.  Morrison is predictably excellent, and certain elements are very well done – the fraught dynamic between Emma and Hook is especially great.  However, Dark One!Emma’s evil Storybrooke plan feels vague and drawn-out, and I think the story is poorly-served by yet another memory-loss spell – the device feels like a contrived way to keep the Camelot stuff in flashback instead of playing out linearly.  Also, why is it Hook the only one with any sense of urgency over Emma’s situation?  I mean, sure, the others are concerned, but most of their plans are pretty weak, and they get distracted at the drop of a hat.  Emma’s parents haven’t had any significant scenes with her this season; there’s no excuse for that.

…But I digress.  Easily, my favorite parts of the season to date have been the scenes in Camelot when Emma is still wrestling with the darkness.  While the writing is a little fumbling, it’s so interesting to watch her slowly succumb, fighting to get her head above water and then getting pulled back under, seduced inch by inch.  The arc isn’t over yet, so we’ll see if it ultimately shakes out in a satisfying way, but this week’s episode had a scene that makes the whole story worth it, no question.  In order to help Merlin get what he needs to pull the darkness out of her, Emma has to confront the spirit of the first Dark One.  The darkness whispers in her ear, filling her with its poison and using her body to wield its magic against Merlin.  Emma is so tired, fighting but fading.  She’s terrified of what’s inside her and what she’s capable of.  The darkness wants her to kill Merlin and accuses him of trying to make her ordinary, unextraordinary, to keep all of Emma’s magic for himself (it’s no coincidence that this scene is happening near the last spark of the fire Prometheus brought down from Mt. Olympus,) to let her be nothing.  Emma is trembling with exertion as she draws herself up, leans into the storm, and shouts, “I am not nothing!  I was never nothing!  The power you have I don’t need!”

Basically – holy crap.  What a beautiful, fierce culmination of Emma’s journey as a character, the lost girl without a family who never felt like she belonged, the woman who tried to resist the mantle of a hero, the woman with innate magic who feared her own power.  For the Dark One plot to come to a head with Emma confronting the darkness within her and battling it with self-love is so astoundingly uplifting.  Stunning.  I had to watch it three times before I could continue with the episode, and when it was over, I still had chills.  This is Buffy (“No weapons… no friends… no hope.  Take all that away, and what’s left?”) pressing the sword blade between her bare hands and answering, “Me.”  There are so many reasons that Emma is a hero of mine, but this is the only one I need.

Crimes against Will Scarlet (Once Upon a Time)

To be fair, I should have tempered my expectations in this case, since I know screentime and characterization for Once Upon a Time’s supporting players can be spotty.  However, the Knave was easily my favorite part of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, and I was delighted to hear he’d been snatched up by the main show.  His opening scene on the show, wherein he remarks that Emma doesn’t “seem the type to shoot a man in the back” and waits just long enough for her to make a “what are you talking about – you’re facing me” face before turning tail and running off, is terrific, and pure Knave.  Unfortunately, season 4 majorly squandered Will, almost exclusively giving him inconsistent scraps in other people’s plots.  Will-related spoilers for season 4, as well as relevant Once Upon a Time in Wonderland stuff.  (Note:  I’ll mostly call him “Will” instead of “the Knave of Hearts,” since that’s how the show has been referring to him.)

First, I know Once Upon a Time likes its shiny new character toys, and they had some enticing ones last season:  getting the Frozen gang in the fall was an enormous coup, and the back half of the season had so many villains, there wasn’t time for much else.  Still, what’s the point of bringing Will over from Wonderland if they weren’t going to do anything with him?  I could see keeping him an ice for a bit – like I said, tons going on, and I imagine Frozen was an unexpected acquisition – but a whole season?  That’s just irresponsible storytelling, and unfair to the actor.

Last season, Will had shockingly little to do.  The first half largely has him playing comic relief or acting as a sounding board for Robin Hood.  Even more bizarrely, the second half pairs him with Belle as a midgame roadblock for her and Rumpel.  This latest development is a giant waste of time, since he’s clearly just a footnote in Belle and Rumpel’s story.  Worse, the relationship is revealed as a twist, so we have no idea how or why it started.  I can’t figure out what led to Belle’s interest in Will, and plot-wise, I couldn’t begin to tell you what Will is doing with her.

This leads to to my next gripe:  there’s been nothing to explain why Will is in Storybrooke, how he got there, and where Ana is while he’s cozying up to Belle.  Did the Rabbit open a portal?  Was it something curse-related?  Was it an accident or a punishment, or did he mean to come here?  Does he have a plan?  Is he trying to get back to Wonderland?  Where’s Ana, and why is he seeing someone else?  The first half of the season dropped a few mysterious hints – digging up the beach to retrieve something he’d previously hidden, breaking into the library looking for something about the Red Queen – but there’s been nothing for over 15 episodes.

He might as well be a new character with some similar traits.  Not only does the show seem disinterested in answering these questions, it also wastes well-established facets of his character that relate to the current goings-on.  Twice in the season, a major character has their heart stolen, something Will knows an awful lot about – on and before the events of Wonderland, he spent a long time without his heart, and I’d say he has the best “heartless” characterization of anyone on either series.  However, he has no insight into either event.  I’ll give him a pass on Hook, since they’re not well acquainted and aren’t fans of each other, but what about new squeeze Belle?  This man knows exactly what it’s like to be without one’s heart, and he didn’t notice any change in the woman he’s dating?  No, he needs Rumpel to tell him, and while his reaction does indicate his familiarity with the experience, I’m putting that down to the actor.  God bless Michael Socha, who does what he can with the dregs he’s given, because the writing not helping him at all.

Relationship Spotlight: Prince Charming & Snow White (Once Upon a Time)

The usual Once Upon a Time disclaimers – the writing can be all over the place, and there have been times when Snow and Charming, separately or together, have simply not cut it.  But when these two are on point, they’re so lovely that I don’t mind their cheesy Disney-ness one bit.  This is what an Enchanted Forest power-couple looks like.

As with Snow herself (and Charming, though he doesn’t have his own write-up yet,) part of my love for this relationship is simply that it surprised me so much.  Going into the show, I thought, “Fairy tale deconstruction!  Sweet!  …Oh – it centers around Snow White and Prince Charming?  *grumble, grumble*”  When Henry talks about their universally-beloved love story, my eyes want to roll.  Obviously, Disney isn’t the be-all-end-all of this story, but it’s the best-known version, and let’s be real – their actual relationship is hardly the stuff on which stories are made.  (It doesn’t help that I can’t stand Snow White in it, and Prince Charming is a total non-entity.)

Fortunately, the show gets this, and when Henry waxes poetic on Snow and Charming’s story, he means the story from The Book, ie, the one that only he knows but he acts like it’s common knowledge (right up there with Rumpelstiltskin being the Beast to Belle’s Beauty.)  And The Book’s version is way better.  Even before we get into their history, our first glance of them – the happily ever after, in which Charming wakes Snow from the sleeping curse – is just miles ahead of the movie.  The second she wakes, they’re playfully teasingly each other and tossing out a little gallows humor.  Clearly, these are two people that know each other, and each gets how the other ticks.  They’re strong individuals who, having just escaped death, heartbreak, and dark magic, can take a moment to be a little silly and enjoy one another’s company.

(On a related note, I love that when Snow finds Charming injured at the end of the pilot, the first thing she does is kiss him with this optimistic look on her face.  It really nails what kind of world their relationship exists in; past precedent has shown that, when they’re in dire straits, their love is literally tough enough to pull them out of it, and it makes total sense that Snow would try it.)

And then, with their backstory, they just get more awesome.  The nuts and bolts are fairly basic – a from-different-worlds meet-cute, slowly-developing interest in and respect for each other, being badasses, saving each other’s lives, realizing that neither is what they seem at first, and then obstacles, obstacles, obstacles until the season 1 finale – but the execution is superb.  Both are just ridiculously likeable and click instantly, and it’s obvious from the start how they bring each other up.  Each is immediately a stronger, brighter, truer person in the other’s company, and despite the litany of roadblocks that crop up, you know that nothing is going to keep them apart.

I’m a fan of action duos, and these two bring it like bosses.  Over the years, they’ve occasionally kept secrets from each other or boxed one another out of their plans, but they’re undeniably best when they’re working together, and they do that a lot.  They fight alongside each other, they go on quests together, they rule the kingdom as a team, and they’re both quick to rush to the other’s aid, even though each has total faith in the other’s ability to take care of themselves, just because they want to be there.  (As I’ve said, I also like that Charming has no qualms about Snow being a kickass warrior.  The whole “Woe is me!  My girlfriend is too strong, and I feel emasculated!” angle is so depressing and used way too often, and it delights me that it’s never an issue here.)

Relationship Spotlight: Mulan & Aurora (Once Upon a Time)

First off, way to go, Supreme Court!!  I’m so happy about the ruling, and in light of it, I want to spend some time exploring LGTBQ in the media – the good, the not-so-good, and the puzzling.  It won’t be all LGBTQ all the time (I’d have a hard time with Buster Mondays otherwise!), but expect plenty more in the near future.  Spoilers for Mulan-Aurora plots on Once Upon a Time.

These two are maybe an odd subject to start with.  After all, they’re not a couple – all signs point to Mulan falling for the straight princess – and I’ve complained before about Mulan disappearing from the show immediately after being confirmed as queer.  Not exactly celebratory, right?  There are better examples of fictional same-sex relationships I could’ve highlighted for my first post in our brave new country.  So why am I writing about Aurora and Mulan?  Because a big primetime ABC/Disney show features one of the coolest Disney Renaissance princesses falling in love with one of the first classic Disney princesses, and I just love that that happened.

Admittedly, I’d heard Mulan-Aurora rumblings before watching Once Upon a Time, so when I got to their story, I was viewing through a will-they-won’t-they lens, which may not have been the writers’ intention.  It’s possible that, initially, their story is what it seems on the surface:  Mulan travels with Phillip to help him find and rescue Aurora from the sleeping curse but is secretly in love with him herself.  She’s then harsh with Aurora because she’s jealous and blames Aurora for the dangers Phillip is put in on her behalf.  Wholly possible.  But for me, the other story, the one they ultimately go with, is much more interesting.  Mulan travels with Phillip to help him find and rescue Aurora from the sleeping curse but is secretly in love with Aurora herself.  She’s then harsh with Aurora because she’s worried about Aurora’s safety, is afraid she won’t able to protect her, and doesn’t know how to deal with her feelings about that.  At the same time, she blames Aurora for the dangers Phillip is put in on her behalf because Phillip is her dear friend and she knows firsthand what someone will risk when they love Aurora, and she’s upset that Phillip has Aurora’s heart when she can’t bring herself to voice how she feels.

Do you see how much more involved the second reading is?  There’s the obvious fact that it’s longer and more complex.  It’s also a lot less clichéd (not without cliché – Pining for the Straight Friend is an old chestnut, but I’ll take it over The Boy Likes the Pretty Girl Instead of the Tomboy or Two Women Resent Each Other Because of a Guy.)  And as that last point shows, it’s more interesting from a gender perspective as well.  Mulan snapping at Aurora because she’s jealous is petty.  Mulan snapping at Aurora because she’s trying to juggle her hidden affections with her fear that she can’t keep Aurora safe is a lot meatier.  It’s made more complex when Aurora doesn’t take kindly to being treated like a china doll, so she pushes back against Mulan, which just makes Mulan double down on the brusque, protective routine.  Eventually though, Mulan reluctantly adapts as Aurora grows and starts to take on a more heroic role (in her own way – I like that Aurora isn’t a fighter, but she’s still strong.)  Though Mulan continues to look out for Aurora about all else, each sees the other’s worth, and they accomplish things together.

So, even though Phillip is Aurora’s True Love and, in the end, Mulan leaves because it would break her heart more to stay, I like these two.  I like their plot, I like how they grow alongside each other, and I love that a mainstream TV show wrote a love story (even if it was unrequited) between two Disney princesses.  That’s a lot of wins in my book.

Once Upon a Time: Season 4, Episodes 22-23 – “Operation Mongoose”

Other than Who, I don’t do many episode reviews, but Once Upon a Time just finished its fourth season, and I have lots of opinions.  Plenty of “This show – I tell ya” opinions that make me shake my head a lot, but also “Aw, show – you got me” opinions that remind me why I keep watching.  There be spoilers ahead!

First of all, while I was never too sold on the whole “get the Author to write me a happy ending” arc, I’m annoyed with how it culminates in these episodes, because it doesn’t actually do what it claims.  The big premise earlier in the season is that the baddies (and reformed baddies like Regina) decide it’s time for the villains to get their happy endings and circumvent the apparent interference of the book.  It’s what brought Rumpel and the “Queens of Darkness” back to Storybrooke this spring, and it’s been Regina’s main goal for a while.  However, in the alternate universe we get of the Author’s new book, we don’t see villains getting happy endings.  Rather, we see villains transposed into heroes.  Rumpel is an honest-to-goodness white knight (complete with an over-the-top “hero” voice that cracks me up,) and Regina essentially just trades Enchanted Forest plots with Snow, with a little Emma thrown in for good measure.  And for the most part, that’s not what the Author quest was about.  The villains don’t want to be heroes, they just want the heroes’ endings.  Rumpel is the perfect example – he could have had a life with Belle, but he wanted to be blissfully in love and be evil with impunity.  He didn’t want to give up the perks of his villainy, and he didn’t want to put in the work toward redemption.  Almost all of his story here flies in the face of his actual goal.  (The scenario is maybe a bit closer to what Regina wanted, a little cosmic acknowledgment of how far she’s come and a right to happiness, but her storyline in the book isn’t that happy, so it’s not fulfilling its promise on any level.)

Meanwhile, most of the heroes are flipped to the opposite of who they really are – Hook is a coward and a bit of dweeb, and Snow swaps roles with Regina, complete with sorcery, a magically brain-washed boy-toy/slave in Charming, and a league of nasty dwarves to do her bidding.  By positioning Snow as the main antagonist, the story is still following its backwards thinking.  It’s not a world where the villains win; it’s just a world where the heroes have the names of the old villains and vice versa.  I was hoping for something dark and cool, kind of like the Angelus/Darla/Spike/Dru flashbacks on Buffy.  But this doesn’t even seem to understand what it set out to do.  That said, Ginnifer Goodwin’s performance as evil Snow White is spectacular, and her hair is fabulous.  I especially love that, despite all the character similarities, she really doesn’t act like Regina.  In fact, the soft, gentle voice she uses is the closest she’s ever sounded to the movie version of Snow White, and that sweetly false innocence makes it all the more demented and awesome.  For the record, I also love Emma with Deckhand!Hook; the sword-training scene is great, and it’s great that she believes in him even when he’s not him.

I’m apprehensive about the ending.  Emma becoming the Dark One could be an amazing story, something dark and intense, an excellent plot for Jennifer Morrison.  It could also be very easy to completely botch, and I’m not sure how much confidence I have that the show can tip the scales the right way.  However, whatever comes next, that final scene is so Emma.  Emma frakking Swan, people – when an insidious force of evil is released into the world, she lets it bind itself to her so it can’t take any of her family or friends, filling with evil so they won’t have to.  Next time you’re wondering, show, that’s what a hero looks like.

Relationship Spotlight: The Knave of Hearts & the Red Queen (Once Upon a Time in Wonderland)

In light of recent aggravating plots on Once Upon a Time, I’ve been reassessing its spin-off.  I don’t know that Once Upon a Time in Wonderland’s best matches that of the main show, but its lows aren’t exactly in a league of their own.  At any rate, Wonderland has definite qualities, one of which is this relationship (Knave/Red Queen spoilers to follow.)

With the Knave and the Red Queen, there are a few permutations to explore.  There’s Will and Ana, the original Enchanted Forest couple.  Rich in love and not much else, Ana dreamed of better things, and her dreams grew so large, her love for Will couldn’t anchor them.  Her dreams made them cross worlds, and when Wonderland wasn’t everything it promised, dreaming soured into wanting.  She couldn’t bear to lack what others had; in her quest, her fury to have, a king offered her wants and dreams, a whole world of having, and all it cost her was her love.  Will couldn’t stand being bartered away, discarded for courts and courtiers and baubles.  His pain tore him to so many shreds, he couldn’t see how quickly and completely she regretted her decision.  He couldn’t live with the wound, and he couldn’t live with how much he still loved her in spite of everything, so he made a bargain with a monarch of his own, a queen who offered him oblivion.  And all it cost him was his heart.  She pulled it from his chest, separating him from his love, his anguish, and his free will.  As long as she own his heart, she commanded him, but even when Alice recovered it for him, he couldn’t carry it within him.  He remembered the pain, and he preferred the empty place where it ought to be.

These are the flashbacks that unroll throughout the series.  They’re the characters we come to understand, but not the ones we meet.  We meet the jaded, sardonic Knave and the icy, aloof Red Queen.  The Knave is Alice’s ne’er-do-well comrade who only feels the surface of things (even now, his friend doesn’t know he’s still without his heart,) and the Red Queen is the cold ruler in league with a sorcerer to break the laws of magic, both relentless and ruthless in her pursuit of her goals.  But while Jafar wants the power of a genie without the rules that constrain them, there’s only one law of magic the Red Queen wants to break:  she wants to change the past.

Okay, so breaking the laws of magic isn’t cool (especially when your plan puts the same abilities in the hands of a dangerous megalomaniac with a grudge,) but it’s telling that the Red Queen isn’t seeking to force the Knave to love her, another piece of verboten magic she stands to gain.  She doesn’t want to negate her past actions – she wants to fix them, to keep herself from trading love for dreams.  Even though, as usual, she’s so blinded by what she wants that she can’t see the fallout (I repeat, breaking the laws of magic isn’t cool,) this distinction makes all the difference.  The Red Queen aims to return the days she spent without the Knave, to be Ana and Will again, to keep his heart from being broken so completely that he can’t bear to have it in his chest.  I know I quoted “Moments in the Woods” yesterday, but it still applies – she wants an “or,” not an “and,” and therein lies the hope for them.  It’s not wealth and power and position and Will, it’s just Will.  Not that I endorse living wholly for one other person (we’ve been over this,) but it’s not about the dreaming or the wanting.  It’s about realizing one wasn’t worth the other, and taking back her mistakes.  Although the revelation isn’t enough to make Will wipe the slate clean, I think it’s what makes the slightest crack in his walls, just enough to let a reconciliation in slowly, by degrees, as they both remember who they were and start to see who they can be now.