Once Upon a Time- Episode 3.03 "Quite a Common Fairy" Review- The show struggles with storylines, but it's pretty solid

First of all, sorry that this review is coming so late: I’ve been dealing with some health issues lately and I have been unable to do anything at all, I couldn’t even pick up my computer. Luckily I’m all better now, and it’s time for our weekly review, and it’s… a solid one. Not the best episode the show has done, but a fairly entertaining hour of television with some clunky effects, some fine acting there and there and some themes revisited. So, let’s talk about it.


I’m glad we get a Regina centric episode this week. In season 2 Regina proved to be at her finest when she was playing conflicted and she became a fan favorite among OUAT’s fan. Is she my favorite character? Probably, sometimes I disagree with her completely or I think she is taking the wrong approaches, but there’s something in bad people trying to be good that is just compelling. And that’s what this episode is mostly about.

We start the episode with our main group of heroes going for Henry just to find out that as soon as they were getting to Pan’s camp he moved it away with magic, so that means the map is essentially useless; they might know where they are, but they can’t reach them. So a frustrated Regina suggests that their best shot is that she and Emma combine their magic and ambush Peter’s camp. I like how desperate Regina is to find Henry, it kind of pushes her into interesting places.

Anyway, Hook suggests that a friend from the inside can get them into Pan’s camp, and it turns out to be Tinker Bell. Regina immediately says no, claiming that she is not going to help them and she insists that she and Emma should just teleport them all there. Emma can see right through Regina and realizes that she must have done something to Tinker Bell, to which Regina replies “what I always do”, which is a brilliantly delivered line by Lana Parrilla. I’m serious, the actresses on this show are on fire this season!

As the plot progress, Regina decides to stay behind while the whole party goes to find Tinker Bell, but the one who find the fairy is Regina herself. To this point I was expecting more from their history. The facts are these: While still a queen and still married to Snow’s father, Regina faced some bad times as she felt like she was caged in her queen’s life with nothing to do and nowhere to go (it seems she was so depressed that she did not only stop attending Rumple’s magic lessons, but also might have subconsciously tried to kill herself). So, in her aid, Tinker Bell comes and they forge and almost immediate friendship at first.

Tinker Bell, however, is warned by the Blue Fairy to leave Regina alone as she is dangerous, but she can’t help herself, she wants to aid Regina so badly that she goes on the Blue Fairy’s back and tries to help Regina anyway. She leads Regina to where she can find her happy ending, and she leaves her to it, but as she comes close to the door where she could meet the man of her dreams (a man with a lion tattoo), she freaks out and leaves. Then, when Tinker Bell asks her how did it all go, Regina lies and says that the man wasn’t meant for her, that the spell was wrong, but Tinker Bell knows it’s all bullshit and confronts her, but Regina is in so deep in her choice of not letting herself being helped that she just doesn’t listen, and as a result, Tinker Bell loses her wings for aiding her in the first place and essentially becomes human.

This flashback is an improvement over what we saw last week, but I was hoping for something a little bit darker or more serious than this. While not a total drag or boring, it does feel a little cheesy time to time, and OUAT is not exactly pretty good at delivering the cheesy/awkward moments like another show called Sleepy Hollow.

Still, while the story is not the best the show has done, it does lead to a good scene where Tinker Bell confronts Regina. She is mad at her as she lost everything to help her and Regina didn’t take it. And as it seems that Tinker Bell is ready to kill Regina, she makes the ultimate argument in her favor: she takes out her heart, she hands it over to Tinker Bell and let her see what she will become if she executes her. It’s smartly executed, and well thought scene.


As Regina convinces Tinker Bell not to kill them, Emma, Snow, Charming and Hook all come together, weapons raised, looking for Regina; I like that all of them look so set on rescuing Regina if necessary, it’s exactly the kind of thing she needs to see with her own eyes, that she is part of the team.

Snow easily convinces Tinker Bell to help them by telling her that she is welcome to go home with them and leave Neverland; while a little bit too easy of a solution to get the fairy to work with them, I can understand the point Snow makes, and to be honest, I don’t think anyone who has been on Neverland for god knows how would hesitate to leave given the chance. So now Tinker Bell should give them a chance (but only one!) to infiltrate Pan’s camp.

Meanwhile, the episode explores some other plots as well: Henry is still with the lost boys and he gets to see some of their nasty habits first handed. He is given a crossbow with a poisoned arrow and he is supposed to shoot an apple over a kid’s head, but instead he tries to shoot Pan, who stops the arrow in middle air. Bumped by his failed murder attempt, Henry shuts down a bit, but Pan still approaches him and tells him that he is the savior who is going to bring magic back to all the realms in the universe. Now this plot… I’m not sure what to think of it. Sure, it was about time the show gave Henry something to do besides being Regina and Emma’s son, but this kind of importance to a character that is not fully developed and is not really interesting to begin doesn’t strike me as a good idea.

And on the C plot of the week, we have Neal’s quest to get to Neverland, which is as simple as borrowing Robin Hood’s kid and ask him to say to a window at night “I believe” so a shadow would pop out and drag him to Neverland. This part of the plot was mostly busy work to transport Neal from Enchanted Forest to Neverland, it doesn’t have much more relevance than that, except that we get to see Mulan being inspired to tell Aurora that she loves her, but finds out that she is pregnant and so she decides to join Robin Hood’s band instead.

And now we get to the revelation: as they prepare for camp, Tinker Bell asks Regina if she ever went back to find the man with the lion tattoo to which Regina replies with a simple no. Then Tinker Bell explains to her that it wasn’t only her life that she ruined, but the one of the man as well. And as the episode comes to close, we see Mulan joining Robin Hood, who happens to have a lion tattoo. Cut to black.

OUAT is hurting a bit by having so much stuff to deal at the same times, and it seems that it times it doesn’t know exactly how to juggle them all, but most of the time it’s fine; we have our usual dose of good character development with Regina, some plot developments, and mostly it feels like the show is moving forward. I’m just hoping it’s not about to turn on the wrong direction.

Grade: B

Stray Observations:

-“Snow White? That’s her name? Even I think that’s too precious, and my name is Tinker Bell” Awesome line right there.

-Charming is keeping it quiet about his wound. Hook advices him to tell Snow, but he wouldn’t listen. God, he is so damn predictable! I hope this change soon.

-I’ve never liked the Blue Fairy, she’s too self-righteous.

-The scene with the flower background is so obviously CGI that it hurts. Couldn’t OUAT afford better effects? Or at least, choose some other background?

-I hope that somehow Robin Hood ends up in Neverland soon so we can explore Regina’s love life, something the show has only done in flashbacks.

-Next week: Our heroes will try to put in motion their rescue mission, which is assured to fail because the season is just starting.

Pablozky
I'm currently studying Psychology while also writing fantasy books (one already published in my home country, Chile, you can check it out on the facebook icon). I watch many different types of shows, including my favorites Revenge, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time and about 23 more. Currently writing articles and some reviews as well