Storybrooke, Maine: Sidney goes to Emma with the news
that Regina had him fired from the paper. He wants revenge on Regina for that
and for making him look like a fool in the election for sheriff. He tells Emma
that Regina has stolen $50k from the town. Emma and Sidney break into Regina’s office and find evidence that Emma deems “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Fruit of
the poisonous tree, in legal terms, refers to “the principle that prohibits the
use of secondary evidence in trial that was culled directly from primary
evidence derived from an illegal search and seizure.” So, no Emma. The stuff
you found in Regina’s house wasn’t the fruit. It was the tree. Don’t worry.
Lots of real cops don’t know the rules of criminal procedure either. The non-law schooler knew what you meant though, Emma, so don't feel too bad. Plus, we get what the showrunners were getting at (what with Regina being the Evil Queen and all).
Be it fruit or tree, Emma can’t use it against Regina in
court, but she CAN go to a town meeting and brandish it about so that Regina
will be discredited in the residents’ eyes. Emma ends up looking like an idiot
when Regina admits that she used the money to buy land from Mr. Gold to build a
new playground for the town’s children. Regina threatens to get a restraining
order in light of the break-in, so Emma needs to stay away from Henry for a
while. She can still contact Henry on the walkie-talkies though. We like that
Emma got slammed for breaking into Regina’s office. We like that she knows she
acted like a bad guy there, because she did. We didn’t like seeing it. Emma and
Sidney meet in the diner and talk about their new alliance. Then the show cuts
to Sidney meeting Regina and discussing their alliance. They’ve been tricking
Emma together THE WHOLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh, we know,
show.
Dear Once Upon a Time: You are so much better than this.
As a family-friendly, fantasy show, you have been cleverer and we are going to
hold you to that standard. We are supremely irritated at the Sidney set-up. We
knew he was lying the whole time, and yet Emma had no idea. This is the same Emma
who keeps talking about how she has a superpower where she knows when people
are lying to her. Was this just a bluff that she uses on little kids? Because
we thought that was factual information. If so, that's fine, but we need that made obvious to the audience. We really hope that Emma is wise to
Sidney’s intentions and just playing along, because that would actually make
sense and fit the rest of the episodes where Emma is street smart and cynical. This
episode, Emma was not only dishonest, she was confusing. Consistency, people.
In the fairytale world, King Leopold, Snow’s father and
Evil Queen’s husband, finds a magic lamp. He rubs it and a Genie comes out. The
Genie of Agrabah is Sidney/the Magic Mirror and he’s wearing the most ridiculous
outfit. Ladies and Gentleman, Gus of Breaking Bad is no longer scary. All it took was one crazy genie outfit. The king
says that he has no wishes, because he has everything he wants. This makes us
like him and simultaneously roll our eyes. There are no people like that!
Especially rich people with power! The king wishes the genie free and uses his
second wish to give Genie his third wish. Genie says he will never use that
wish, because he has granted 1,001 wishes and has seen them all go badly, in
the end.
The King lets Genie chill in his pad and holds a party
where he tells Snow she’s everything to him or something. He also waxes on
about his dead wife, who was just as beautiful as Snow. We instantly stop
liking the king, because anything that happens to him is what he deserves after
such stupidity. Evil Queen was IN THE ROOM. You don’t keep talking about your
gorgeous dead wife, who you still love, right in front of your new one. It’s
just not smart. Genie takes one look at Evil Queen and decides she’s the love
of his life. He gives her a mirror and says that she is the fairest in the
land. The queen writes in her diary about her new gift and how a new flame has
renewed her hope in love. Girl, come on. Neither of these men are hot.
The King reads the Queen’s diary. Well, that’s a
violation. He’s the worst. We don’t get how the king could be so content and
Buddha-like and yet be such an ass in his personal life. He doesn’t seem to
love the queen at all, but he’s upset that someone might steal her from him. The
King shows Genie the diary and asks for Genie’s help in finding the queen’s new
paramour. He also locks Evil Queen in her rooms so that she can’t see this guy
anymore. Controlling creeper. We really did not enjoy the writing for King Leopold.
The Evil Queen’s father brings Genie a locked box and
tells him to bring it to the queen. Genie does and the Evil Queen unlocks the
box. It contains the snake of Agrabah. Or snakes. We don’t know. There were two
heads, but it could have been two-headed. It was super fake looking, in any case.
These snakes can kill with a single bite, like lots of poisonous snakes, so we’re
not impressed. The Queen pretends that she is going to let the snakes bite her,
but Genie stops and her says they should kill the king with the snake(s?)
instead.
Genie brings the snake to the King’s room at night and
puts them in his bed. The king is bitten and wakes up. The Genie confesses to
the dying king that he is the queen’s new man. The king looks pretty shocked,
and even though we don’t particularly like Snow’s father by now, we are
scandalized at this betrayal. You don’t KILL the man who freed you. You may
steal his wife, for true love’s sake, but kill him? That’s cold. The king says, “You
were right. I never should have made a wish.” Way to hammer it home, show. We
got that when it was foreshadowed in the first five minutes.
Too late, Genie figures out that the queen only needed
him to pin the king’s murder on, and she does not love him. The genie doesn’t
care that she doesn’t love him and uses his wish to be with her forever and
always look upon her face. Wish granted. He is now trapped in the queen’s
mirror. Dude, 1,0001 wishes later, and you still don’t know that you have to
make wishes specific?
Also, the stranger has Henry’s Once Upon a Time book and
when he held it up in the show’s final minutes, his face held a mixture of awe
and…nausea? We don’t know, but the expression made us think that he has some
clue of the book’s significance. Did he write the book? What is the stranger
doing here? He’s not killing an Arab, so what? In other news, David and Mary Margaret are still canoodling, unmolested by the queen.
We didn’t like this episode. We did think it was cool how the
show had a new twist on the Genie plotline and how everything fit together, but
it hardly makes any sense at all that Sidney would still be in love with the
queen in the fairytale world after what she did. In previous episodes, it looked like Genie and the queen still had a good
relationship, or at least a working relationship. You would think there would
at least be some awkwardness between them after all that drama. The double-cross thing is lame and Snow's father evoked no sympathy.
Episode grade: C
Very true. You know, coming from the Lost people, I expected at least some cohesion or make-sense-ness. Seems we're to be disappointed.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I approved of her breaking in. Fight fire with fire, babe. Should've left her in that fire to begin with. Good can win, but good doesn't have to be a wuss.
Haha.
DeleteMissed this comment by accident weeks ago, but caught it now