Once Upon a Time--Is It Fall Yet?!!!! by Rachel

The show I'm most excited to see return this fall season is without a doubt Once Upon a Time. Its freshman run was, to use an already tired and admittedly horrible pun, pure magic.

The cast was phenomenal. Lana Parrilla made bad look so good--and not just because of her gorgeous yet horribly impractical outfits, although those are a definite bonus--but because she took what everyone loves about a great baddie--moral ambiguity, a genuine lust for power/desire to inflict pain, but also that truly unique mix of lingering morality that had her hesitating to literally crush the hearts of her father and the best-dressed sheriff on the eastern seaboard, Graham--and imbued it with humanity. She took a character that could've been an "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too" cardboard cutout every week and made us sympathize with her...to an extent. 

Jennifer Morrison also shined for me. I'd gone into it thinking that I'd have to endure Emma until the interesting fairy tale story resumed each ep, but she won me over in just a few minutes. Flawed, damaged, and more than a little hard-headed, Emma isn't a cut-and-dried "I'm here to rescue you" type hero. She's a leather jacket wearing, swaggering, sarcasm oozing, female Han Solo with a gun--or more recently a sword--and perfect blond curls. I find myself just as riveted to see how her story will go next season, now that she knows her parentage as the savior-spawn of Snow White and Prince Charming, as anyone else's.

Ginnifer Goodwin was a huge draw for me; first, she's a native of my home state of Tennessee; and second, the woman is an incredible talent. She took the blandest fairy tale heroine of them all--honestly, Snow cleans and sleeps away the majority of her own story--and turns her into an ass-kicking, sword-toting but still feminine hero that I totally adore. "Snow Falls" was the first episode of the series I saw and from the moment Snow White clocked Prince Charming with a rock it was game on for me. I was watching this thing until the bitter end. The show benefited tremendously from the smoldering chemistry between Goodwin's Snow and Prince Charming, Josh Dallas. Those two had me swooning with every longing look, bawling into the proverbial Haagen Daas with every heartbreak, and growling in frustration with every screw up--usually as a result of perpetually inept Romeo, David Nolan (Charming's Storybrooke alter-ego). And no, David we still haven't forgiven you for giving poor Mary Margaret the wrong Valentine's day card. That one made women everywhere wince.

This upcoming season now that the curse has been broken and everyone's memories restored, a twist I did not see coming so soon, I'm hoping to see the wonderful chemistry of Goodwin and Dallas once again front and center. They are the emotional heart of the show and there were entire episodes that felt like a bad breakup when those two were missing. 

This article would be pointless if I didn't mention the utterly inspired performance of Robert Carlyle as the wonderfully demented man-behind-the-curtain Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold. From the moment he climbs down into view in his cell in the pilot, the man demands attention. Everything, the contacts, painted skin, the wild outfits, but most importantly, Carlyle's own speech and mannerisms hold the viewer in thrall. I was equal parts mesmerized and terrified by Rumplestiltskin. He has all of Regina's evil and lust for power, but he is so childishly gleeful in every scene that he keeps one constantly feeling off balance. Mr. Gold is an enigma wrapped in a mystery wearing a perfectly tailored suit. The moment he finally reveals himself to Regina in the jail cell in "Skin Deep" had me literally on the edge of my seat. It was quite clear that he knew more than he let on by that point, but Parrilla and Carlyle commanded the screen with dueling threats that made it quite clear that Storybrooke wouldn't be anywhere near big enough to hold the two villains when the gauntlet finally got thrown down. And by the finale...oh, the gauntlet has most definitely been thrown, ladies and gents. 

So, in short, Once Upon a Time stole my heart and mind away last season, and it will steal yours too if you buy the DVD and/or visit Netflix or iTunes to catch up prior to the beginning of season 2 on September 30th. 

Rachel