I honestly didn’t know how to grade this episode. I went back and forth with a “B” and “B+”, but by the end I decided to go with the “A-”. This isn’t the strongest OUAT episode I’ve watched, this isn’t perfectly structured, or greatly paced, but damn it! It made me feel; there’s a lot of build up and narrative to get through the first part of the episode, but by the end it feels earned. And it set ups a lot of storylines that are going to be very fun and intriguing to watch: Regina is going undercover and Emma is definitely going to go evil. Snow’s words about Emma’s potential for darkness sound more like a prophecy than a concern: she will learn the truth about what she and David did and everything is going to go bananas. And that’s the best way to revitalize the show.
OUAT can only go so far with their structure of heroes vs villains, and big bads of the season; the best they could do is to start dropping hints that everything isn’t black and white and add some more layers of complexity over both sides. Season 3 did a wonderful job humanizing Regina, Hook and Rumple - at least him during S3A -, while season 4A worked with the heroes, making them more relatable and less idealized. So now it seems we keep working on here and the heroes actually have some darkness to them, and things are bound to become more interesting.
So, let’s get rid of the flaws right away: the pacing starts off slow; scenes take their time and everything is developing a bit slowly, so while watching I was just hoping something would happen so that it brought some energy to the whole thing. In the end the slow pace is merely build up, so it’s not really something bad, but I would have hoped for something that went along quicker.
But aside from that, I don’t really have much complaints. It’s really interesting the route they are taking: the flashback quest to the tree of wisdom is a classic fairy tale route and I always like when OUAT revisits fairy tale plot devices and makes them their own; the twist here is that Snow and David weren’t able to get an answer from the tree because Snow was with child, and Emma had both the potential for great good and great evil, and as such it interfered with the process, as she was basically a schödinger cat the tree couldn’t read and as such couldn’t give an answer to.
It’s an interesting way to give Cruella, Ursula and Maleficent some time with Snow and David, and for us to be introduced into the explanation of why Emma could hold some darkness even when she was born out of true love. I think it’s simple and effective; by using an old plot device with a few tweaks OUAT feels a bit more like the show it was on season 1, picking up old stories and making something new out of them.
Talking about powerful moments, little things did get to me: Regina apologizing to Gepetto for the way she treated pinocchio was a wonderful little scene, and it shows that Gepetto could gaze into the best of Regina when he gave her August’s bag. Without many lines, just the expressions and the air around them made for a really beautiful small scene.
Emma and Hook’s conversation felt a bit more dictated by the plot due to Snow and David listening in the worst timing possible, as she opens up to Hook about her vulnerabilities, about how she chooses to see the worst in people, and it is a bit ruined by the fact that one is thinking “oh, now Snow and David won’t say anything”, which is exactly what ends up happens.
But still, there’s plenty of secrets and lies around everyone and the biggest threat to hit Storybrooke is not the presence of the queens of darkness per se, but the possibility of those secrets coming out, and they will, creating some serious havoc.
I like that magic is not overused or abused, it is there but it doesn’t dictate the narrative, instead it is the choices the characters make what actually gets things happening. It is the secrets they keep, the lies they tell, the movements they make and what they keep silent what makes the episode. And honestly, as quiet as it was, OUAT truly benefited from trying something a bit different from its usual straight forward good guys vs bad guys with the tweaks it introduced.
Grade: A-
Stray Observations:
-How long until we know about Ursula and Hook’s backstory? My bet is episode 15.
-Even though I know the queens of darkness were up to no good, there was some serious discrimination going on. It’s interesting to see how the town feels more involved as they show they don’t forget and that they don’t agree with everything that Emma and company choose to do. It’d be interesting to see more redeeming villains like Regina getting this treatment and how they would react to it, it’d make for some interesting real life analogies to discrimination.
-Belle’s reaction to Cruella and Ursula showing up to the pawn shop was surprisingly well made and refreshing. Instead of just wondering in shock what they were doing there, she went straight to business.
-Snow and David have to work on their excuses? Hiking? The way they said it was totally unconvincing. Lucky for them, Emma chose to believe them - which shows us that her “super power” has not been working as it should, and for quite a while; wasn’t she supposed to always detect when people lie? It seems she has a blindspot for those she loves.
-Who else found awkward the Emma and Pinocchio conversation? It felt a bit uncomfortable.
-I like how Cruella and Ursula played Snow and David. It shows that they know them and that they are smart.
-Maleficent's resurrection has to be one of the best CGI moments on OUAT. For a show that is underwhelming plenty of times in that department, it surely made a pretty good job on that sequence.
-So Henry may have found the first clue to find the author. Any guesses on who he is and how he is going to be introduced? I still hope to see a fourth wall break and show one of the writers of the show, but maybe that’s too “Supernatural”-esquee for OUAT.
-Rumple remained quite silent during this episode, which made me feel like Robert Carlyle was just getting his check for the episode, but you can never have too much Robert Carlyle on OUAT, so you may just ignore that random thought.
-Regina going undercover sounds sooo boss! I honestly can’t wait to see it.
-My favorite scene from the episode has to be the end sequence with Regina and Snow talking; Lana Parilla and Ginnifer Goodwin own the scene and the way Snow talks about what shouldn’t happen makes it sound like a prophecy. Bring it on OUAT! I want to see where you take us next!
