We have to be honest with ourselves: the entire premise of the show is a bit crazy. And the writing isn’t the strongest that’s out there. What makes this show is the acting. And this week, JMo hit it out of the park. But we’ll get to that shortly.
Surprisingly, the weakest parts of the episode for me, were Rumple’s scenes. We knew the corn doll would relate back to his parents and abandonment issues (because if there’s one constant in OUaT, it’s parental abandonment), and it’s definitely starting to throw Rumple off his game. When the doll kept coming back I felt like I was reading the “Night of the Living Dummy” Goosebumps books. We know that he is struggling with whether or not to sacrifice Henry to save himself. With him thinking that Neal is dead, Belle is really his only guiding post to ensure that he does the “right” thing, so it made sense that he would somehow conjure a vision of her. His scenes just seemed a bit out of place, and I hope that doesn’t continue as he stays off on his own. I did enjoy him cutting off his shadow. That was pretty cool. Although I wouldn't hide my dagger in enemy territory, but that's just me.
The rest of the episode was very enjoyable for me. Pan is planning on converting Henry to a Lost Boy but there are still a ton of the puzzle pieces missing. What exactly is Pan’s end game? Regardless, that boy is super creepy. I am enjoying the idea of an evil Pan more and more as we go along though. I just hope that his end plan lives up to all the hype.
His scheme this week was to “test” Emma by giving her a map that would lead her to Henry. Of course, the map was hidden by magic and to reveal the map, Emma would have to admit who she was. This really could have gone a lot of ways. Emma has spent a significant amount of time denying who she was or struggling to come to terms with it. Even now, I feel like she can say the words but she doesn’t believe or accept most of them. It took Regina cheating the system and a confrontation with Pan and his boys to force her to accept the truth: even though she has found her parents, she feels like an orphan.
The above revelation could have been so many things. It could have been cheesy, it could have been oversold, or it could have been downright terrible. But it wasn’t. Jennifer Morrison and Ginnifer Goodwin hit this scene out of the park. All Snow has wanted since the curse broke is to have that relationship with her daughter and be her mother. Her visible heartbreak at finally realizing it might be too late made my heart break. But, being Snow, she is still going to do everything she can to try and make it all work out. Emma’s reveal at the despair she felt as a child, only wanting to have her parents, was very poignant. She has spent almost 30 years feeling alone and abandoned. Those aren’t feelings that can just go away and, even if they can all work through their issues, it still may very well be too late to have that kind of relationship that they’d all like to have.
I know we’re going to start seeing Storybrooke again and we’ll definitely see more of the Enchanted Forest over these next few episodes, but I’m really enjoying the amount of time we’ve spent in Neverland. It really lets us focus more on these core six, and I hope we’ll see a lot more of these issues come to the front. This group of actors can make anything work, so keep giving them these type of episodes. OUaT may be a show about magic, but, at its heart, it’s a story about family (no matter how convoluted).
Some final notes:
--- Was I the only one that felt awkward watching Emma try and get the map to reveal itself with everyone staring at her?
--- Charming is again being stupid. You really think lying is the best course of action here? I feel like Storybrooke David is more in charge of the situation then FTL David.
--- I know I said that what happened between Snow waking up and the war was stuff I wanted to see in flashbacks but this was just contrived to be convenient for the plot of the episode. Give me some meatier stuff, writers.
Spot on, great review!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree and great review! :)
ReplyDeleteOne thing I think is interesting is that Emma has to admit to feeling bad about herself, before the map can appear. It's pretty dark and I have to wonder if this acknowledgement will improve her outlook or put her into a slump?
I was hoping the dreamshade might make Charming be less than Charming, but spoilers seem to indicate otherwise, making it seem that he is somehow still honorable. I really would like to see something a little dark from him just for the sake of humanizing him with real issues and flaws.
I'm glad we have gotten Neverland and some of it's themes/story underway and that they didn't muddy it with too much Storybrooke, but I do look forward touching base with them and seeing how some of those subplots parallel and tie into the Neverland plots!
I think Pan was hoping that Emma admitting she felt like an orphan would prove divisive and create issues for her and her parents. Emma keeps insisiting that they need to work together so it seems pretty obvious that Pan's going to work to divide them. Which shouldn't be hard cos there isn't a lot of love for Regina or Hook going round, all he needed was a wedge to break up the Charming family.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I'm too keen to see what's happening to Storybrooke. With Rumple's protective curse and all the villains in Neverland things should be pretty peachy over there.
ReplyDeleteI think that is likely too, but I also could see it as heeling, as with something like PTSD the first step is admitting hard truths in order to start taking responsibility. -But also I don't buy that Pan is black and whitely evil and/or that Neverland couldn't have a backwards philosophy in terms of challenging them, which inevitably pushes everyone, including Peter, to better down the line.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure...how do we know that there aren't others like Tamara and Greg (Believers) out there in TLWOM working without question for Peter Pan/Home Office??? Their technology was also a curious thing since it hinted at "futurism" and/or advanced technology, which doesn't seem to jive with Neverland, but something like a futuristic universe...Plus I hear we may have some candidates run for mayor!
ReplyDeletePeter Pan apparently wanted Henry and now he's got him, I don't think he has any continuing interest in our realm. Even so, I would say that Rumple's protctive spell would prevent any of them from actually making their way into Storybrooke, otherwise it would be a pretty useless spell.
ReplyDeletePeter Pan isn't her bloody shrink, he's kidnapped Henry and apparently has decided he's going to toy with Emma a bit before he kills her. Just because you want Peter to be good so he can stay on the show, doesn't mean he is. Sometimes bad people are just bad.
ReplyDeleteInterview With The Writers September 27:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/q-a-once-upon-a-time-creators-on-writing-a-role-for-kelly-clarkson-20130927
Were you guys nervous about making Peter Pan evil?
Horowitz: Honestly, we're nervous about everything, but that's sort of our approach to storytelling. We like to find ideas that excite us and, if they make us a little nervous, then we head toward that rather than away from it. But as for Peter Pan being evil, our Peter Pan is not, as you'll see, a black-and-white creation of good and evil, just like we like to think all of our characters aren't black and white. What we're excited about is peeling back the layers on our version of Peter Pan so you can understand why he's doing the things that he's doing, starting with taking Henry from our heroes.
Kitsis: We always try to put our own twist on it so, for us, it wouldn't be fun to just do another version of Peter Pan – just like last year, our Captain Hook is a lot different than other Captain Hooks.
I diagree as Tamara went out of her way to kill "The Dragon" before making her way to Neverland. One might want to ask why that is considering they were on a mission to destroy Storybrook until they noticed Henry...
ReplyDeleteI think he definitely still has that ability to drive a wedge in there. There is a increasingly shakier alliance in play and they just need to keep butting heads a little bit more for things to really explode.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to see what happens when the heroes and the two most powerful villains up and leave. There's a power vacuum in Storybrooke and that can lead to some conflict. We still have King George lurking around looking for his revenge on Charming and he is completely willing to play dirty. It could lend itself to an interesting dynamic when they all make it back to Storybrooke (because we all know they will).
ReplyDelete