Once Upon a Time - "Kid, telling someone their soul mate is in a coma is probably not helpful."

"Snow Falls"

Why can’t Emma be Jennifer Morrison’s actual age? She’s 32, and she looks 35 (um no, she doesn't). She’s not working for us as a 28-year-old woman. This episode was written by Liz Tigelaar, the creator of Life Unexpected. We prefer writers from LOST do all the writing, because we are still a little miffed at Liz for the whole second season of Life Unexpected, which blew the big one and made us think the show deserved to be cancelled.

We get to see Prince Charming and Snow White meet in flashbacks, and it was during this meeting scene that we started wishing that the prince had a real name that wasn’t “Charming.” That’s seriously annoying. But later, we found out that the prince’s fantasyland name is “James.” So much better. So we will start calling him James immediately. James took the scenic route in his carriage with his fiancée. His fiancée was presented as the woman every girl hates and every guy complains about, but still dates anyway. She was blonde, critical, and a complainer. Her name in the real world is “Catherine,” but we didn’t catch her name in the fairytale world, so we are going to call her “Debbie Downer.” Snow White is clearly better than Debbie Downer, because Snow White wears pants.

Debbie Downer was whining when the carriage came across a fallen tree in a road. Obviously, this tree was to serve as a distraction while a robber grabbed some jewels from the carriage. That’s really what James gets for carrying a tiny man-purse full of jewelry. The robber turns out to be Snow White. Now, there are two movies coming out about Snow White later, and they both seem to have wildly different takes on the story. We’re pretty sure neither of them thought to have a Snow White who STEALS THINGS. But it’s alright, because she tries to only steal from the Evil Queen, and she does it to survive.

Later, James catches Snow White in a net trap and recognizes her as Snow White. He whips out a WANTED poster with a drawing of Snow. Underneath, it lists her crimes. Murder, treason, and treachery. Now, we are familiar with the crimes “murder” and “treason.” These are things people can actually be charged with in our world. But treachery? We like the sound of it. To what should it apply? How about whipping out your phone and texting while someone is talking to you? That sounds right. In the fairytale world, however, this seems to mean “ticking off the queen.” Snow tells James that none of it is true.

James asks Snow to just give him back a ring that was in the man purse. That was his mother ring that he intended to give to his future bride. It was an arranged marriage, but there are kingdoms to unite and all that. We wonder what, if any, relation James has to the Evil Queen, since they are both royalty. How many kingdoms are there in the fairytale world, and just how small are they, anyway? Snow reveals that she has fairy dust that can hurt the Evil Queen and she is saving it for that foe. Then Snow bashes James in the head and runs away, but some of the Evil Queen’s knights catch her and try to cut out her heart. James kills the knights and saves her.

Snow White is a little more cooperative after this, and she takes James to the creatures she stole the engagement ring from. They are trolls, and they are fabulously ugly. Like idiots, Snow and James have the WANTED poster with them, and the trolls decide to snatch Snow rather than trade the ring back. James fights them off and Snow runs, thinking James is behind her. He’s not, so she goes back and uses her fairy dust to save him. He is touched that she sacrificed it for him. They are very clearly crushing on each other and there is a nice little scene where she tries on the ring, but they part ways without even smooching. We like that the show wants to drag this out. If they fall in love too quickly, we jaded viewers won’t believe it.

As for the real action, David Anders is on this show, since he can’t be Sark on Alias anymore and John Gilbert from The Vampire Diaries is dead. As usual, Anders plays a sketchball. Only he’s a doctor this time. Dr. Sketchball (real name: Dr. Whale). Mary Margaret goes on a date with him, but he is eyeballing the half-dressed Ruby (Little Red Riding Hood, who we didn’t know was a super slut), who is waitressing at the restaurant. Mary calls for the check and runs into Emma on her way home. Emma is sleeping in her car, even though we thought Mary had offered her a place to stay last week. We guess not. She just had Emma over for a visit. At the end of THIS episode, Mary offered her guest room, and Emma accepted.

Henry has figured out that the coma patient, a John Doe, is Prince Charming. Henry gets Emma to convince Mary to read to the patient from the storybook. While Mary reads to him, John Doe grabs her hand. Mary goes to get Dr. Sketchball, and the good doctor tells her that there is no change. He suggests that she fell asleep or imagined it. When Mary leaves the room. Dr. Sketchball calls Mayor Regina and tells her what happened and that there was a slight change in the patient’s brain activity. Regina looks concerned and angry, as usual.

The next day, it is discovered that John Doe is gone. Emma and everyone watching suspects Regina at first, but it turns out that he just got up and walked out of the hospital and into the woods. Henry says that John Doe is clearly looking for Snow White. Regina has been John Doe’s emergency contact since she found him, unconscious, on the side of the road a few years ago. Mary, Emma, and Sheriff Graham go looking for John Doe, because he’s in no physical condition to be on his own. Henry follows them against the wishes of every adult in town. It's pretty clear, at this point, that Sheriff Graham is the Huntsman who let Snow White go in the fairytale world, out of pity. This mirrors his real-world self. He works for Regina, but he disobeys her when he thinks she's being too harsh.

Henry lets everyone know that John Doe will likely go to the Toll Bridge (because it’s so much like the Troll Bridge - there's even grafitti on it to make it look like it says "troll"), and Henry is correct. They find John Doe lying in the water, face down. Mary does CPR and her “kiss” wakes him. When John Doe returns to the hospital, Regina shows up with his wife, Catherine, who is the real world version of Debbie Downer. Gasp. Prince Charming has a wife? That’s….just wrong. In any case, it’s going to complicate things for Emma, Mary, and Henry. But wait. Snow White married him first in the fairytale world, and they didn’t get a fairytale divorce, so the first marriage stands, right?

We chuckled, because no matter where Ginnifer Goodwin goes on TV, she finds herself in a marriage with more than one woman. Clearly, blondie needs to die. Emma comforted us by suggesting to Regina that the whole thing was a “load of crap,” and that it was really convenient for Regina to waltz in with this blonde chick as soon as John Doe (David) wakes up with amnesia. There’s a possibility that Catherine might be lying about being his wife. Then Regina says, “Not having someone is the worst curse imaginable.” Well, that’s depressing.

Episode grade: B-