Once Upon a Time: Queen-Centered Week

"The Thing You Love the Most"

The second episode kept most of its audience and turned in strong ratings. Yay! We got a lot of the Evil Queen's backstory and motives here. Does Regina remember she is the evil queen? It seems like she knows something. Either that, or she is figuring things out. Does Gold remember that he is Rumpelstiltskin? We wouldn’t put it past him. We think his casting is spot-on, by the way.

In our world: Regina sets Emma Swan up to be arrested for stealing Henry’s patient file from his therapist, Dr. Archie Hopper/Jiminy Cricket. If Emma wasn’t extremely dumb in that moment, she wouldn’t have been tricked. Going to someone else’s son’s shrink to ask questions is overstepping your bounds, even if the mom IS evil. Also, she should have known that Hopper wouldn’t risk his professional license and a lawsuit by giving a stranger Henry’s file.

Mary Margaret Blanchard/Snow White starts to trust Emma and bails her out of jail. We like Ginnifer Goodwin’s hair short, and we aren’t against short hair or anything, but does it have to be THAT short in our world? Why not a nice bob just under the ears like she sported in He’s Just Not That Into You? We’re surprised her fairy world incarnation isn’t Peter Pan with that hair and those ears. When Emma recognized Mary Margaret as her supposed mother, we were touched just thinking about what will happen when those parents realize Emma is theirs. Speaking of which: No Charming in this episode? Wake that boy up. We need more testosterone on this show.

Emma takes a chainsaw to Regina’s apple tree, which we thought that was truly awesome. Of course, it wasn’t smart, because now she committed an actual crime for Regina to punish her though. We guess Emma is strong and cool, not smart. The sheriff, who has a crush on Emma, talked Regina out of going after Emma for the tree incident. Enraged, Regina tricks Emma into calling Henry’s fairy tale belief’s “crazy” in front of him. Poor Henry! We guess Regina can’t resort to Ye Olde Restraining Order, because the town is so self-contained, magical, and self-governed that she can’t seek the help of outside law enforcement. Sheriff Dreamboat is all Regina’s got.

Emma makes things up to Henry by telling him that she was just saying that in front of Regina in order to trick her. Aw, kids are so easy to fool with words. That’s a cute kid, and we are rooting for him. Emma is thrown out of the bed and breakfast because of their “no felons” policy. Clearly, no one writing this show knows that you have to be CONVICTED before you are a “felon.” We saw no trial. Also, we don’t know if stealing files from shrinks is a felony. Mary Margaret Blanchard lets Emma stay with her.

We also caught sight of GUSTAVO FRING as the Regina’s henchman, Sidney, who investigated Emma for her. This is a totally different role than Giancarlo Esposito's role in Breaking Bad. Sidney appeared to be friendly and NOT powerful. He was kissing Regina's arse, even though Regina is clearly a jerk to everyone. He's also the face in the magic mirror in the fairy world. We know, it was really dark and foggy, so we weren't sure at first. Don't be sad if you missed it.

In the fairytale world: A lot happened. The Evil Queen got the dark curse from Rumpelstiltskin, who is a surprisingly effective villain from PRISON, and then the Queen traded it to Maleficent in exchange for the sleeping curse Maleficent used on Sleeping Beauty. The Evil Queen had buyer’s remorse when Prince Charming was able to break the sleeping curse on Snow White with just a kiss. She should have remembered that this is what happened to Sleeping Beauty as well. These queens are evil, not smart. Rumpelstiltskin must be the town smartie.

The Evil Queen goes to get her curse back, but Maleficent doesn’t want the Evil Queen to use it, because the curse is just too evil. Maleficent is played by Kristin Bauer (who is Pam on True Blood), but we were not impressed with this new, secondary villain. We think the baddies need to be a little more intimidating. Maybe a different actress needed to play the Evil Queen. She sort of screams “soap opera” to us. The magic fight between the two helped, but it ended a little too slapstick for us. So, anyway, the queens throw down a bit and Maleficent loses.

The Evil Queen leaves with the curse and tries to set it off, but she uses a horse’s heart to activate it, and that’s not enough. The curse fails. The Evil Queen goes to ask Rumpelstiltskin, and he tells her that she must sacrifice what she truly loves in order for the curse to work. Rumpelstiltskin gives her this information in exchange for being important in the new world and able to get favors from the Evil Queen, so long as he says please when he asks. So the Evil Queen kills her own father, whose name was Henry, uses his heart, and is able to cast the “No Happy Endings” curse. We found out that the Queen lost someone or something that she loved, and she blames Snow White for it.

The price for using the curse is that now the Evil Queen has “a hole that can never be filled.” Is there such a thing, we ask? The LOST writers are huge on redemption. We loved the Evil Queen’s stone gnome that ended up in her garden. We kind of hope that Rumpelstiltskin turns out to be the Big Bad, or that there is a player to be named later that will scare us more than the Evil Queen. We like that she has sympathetic moments though.

Episode grade: B