What Happened:
NOT the Fairytale Land...
- It's Christmas in a pre-Technicolor land that consists of a mountain, a mansion, a graveyard, and two goats. The local [insert hereditary title here] is toasting his younger son, Gerhard, who's a dashing but bashful dude back from the war. He's got a medal that his Marquis/Duke/State Senator dad can't stop talking about, which makes his big nerdy brother Victor feel sad and ignored.
- Victor's little bro gets a pretty watch from his dad that apparently the family's mother wanted to keep in the family. The dad says this extremely pointedly so that Victor may realize that he is definitely not talking about his eldest son when he says the word "family."
Victor:
Victor and Gerhard's Dad:
("Oh, BTW, have this expensive commission I bought you. It's your ticket into a job that you not only will hate, but also a career field that really should be based on leadership quality and not be something that one can buy their way into." Parenting 101, everybody.)
- Victor's little brother is really supportive and sweet, and offers to give him the watch from their mother, telling him how important he knows Victor's scientific work to find everlasting life is. Meanwhile, Rumpelstiltskin's in the background like,
"Look at all these people who look like they were filmed in the 1920s!"
- Rumpelstiltskin then materializes in the lab of dear Vicky and starts discussing magic, science, and resurrection. He then pulls out Hermione's magical purse and dumps three years' worth of Galleons at Victor's feet, exchanging the money for Victor's knowledge of resurrection.
- Gerhard walks in on Victor digging up bodies! Victor tries to explain that it's the only way to experiment in his very specific line of scientific inquiry, but before Gerhard can tell him just how gross that is, he gets shot by the one other person in this semi-magical land: a soldier!
- Victor tries to resurrect Gerhard, but the body's heart cannot take the copious amounts of electricity required. I get the feeling that Victor hasn't exactly tested this method before, not even with a rat or mythical amphibian.
- Speaking of mythical amphibians, Victor's dad busts in and gives a long angry speech when he learns his youngest son his dead. The conversation culminates in him basically disowning Victor.
- We then segue --
(teehee)
- --into the lead-in to episode 2x05, "The Doctor," with Rumpelstiltskin appearing before Victor and telling him that he can get the Doctor a strong heart that can withstand the electrical shock. One other episode later, Victor has his heart and resurrects his little bro.
- Then Gerhard reveals that he's lost a good deal of humanity and mainly talks in grunts, gives in more easily to his emotional instincts, and kills his dad in a fit of rage when said dad is a jerk to Victor again. Victor is horrified at what he's created, Gerhard is horrified at what he's done, and the two brothers almost agree it's best if Gerhard dies right now. However, Victor, convinced that he can save his brother's humanity, storms off and locks Gerhard in a cell.
That just happened, I guess...?
Storybrooke
- In the wake of the car accident at the end of the last episode, Belle screams at Mr. Gold to get away from her, and reasonably so (she's shot, he's creepy, let's move on). Mr. Gold uses magic to heal the bullet wound, then goes to beat up Hook. It takes David to wrestle him off of the plowed-down pirate. He and Emma then go to investigate the crashed car, which they realize has a "stranger" inside of it (I use quotes because Storybrooke has nearly all the population of the Fairytale Land, I highly doubt that Emma knows the face of every single citizen.)
- The unconscious man is brought to the hospital, where Dr. Whale is drinking. I'm not a doctor, but I learned from Grey's Anatomy that that is SO not allowed.
The Audience:
- After two uncomfortable scenes in which Rumpelstiltskin kisses an unconscious Belle who doesn't remember him (hint: she wakes up. It's awkward, but she tells him to keep it in his medieval lederhosen. What does he think this is, a Disney movie from the Fifties?) and Hook hits on Emma and makes a bondage joke while handcuffed to his hospital bed. According to Hook, he has now gained his revenge on Rumpelstiltskin, since he hurt Belle-- the one thing Rumpel truly loves.
- Meanwhile, Ruby, Grumpy, Snow, and David (most of whom are wearing black and/or leather jackets) are in the hallway of the hospital trying to guess the password of "The Stranger"'s phone. Ruby tells the group that since there are exactly ten thousand possibilities to what the password could be, they'll probably never guess it.
- Somehow, we learn his name is Greg Mendel. The group freaks out about outsiders a little. Doctor Whale comes out and lets the group know that Greg has internal bleeding. Everyone looks extremely pointedly at Gold, but he refuses to heal Greg on the basis that he saw Gold do magic, and therefore knows far too much to live.
- LeRoy/Grumpy agrees: he wants to outright kill Greg.
Snow, Emma, Maybe David, Ruby, and Hopefully The Audience:
LeRoy/Aptly-Named Grumpy:
- Everyone shoots this idea down as fast as we would hope anyone labeled "protagonists" would. Snow uses her motherly instincts to quickly realize that Dr. Whale is drunk, but he goes to do surgery anyway. As he does, Greg's phone rings with the Star Wars theme, which is totally legal since Disney owns ABC and Lucasarts now. Someone is looking for Greg.
- In Rumpelstiltskin's shop, he holds the chipped cup. He turns around and finds Cora is there! She asks to be allowed to win back Regina in exchange for a way to find Baelfire, which is in a box. Cora then reveals to the audience that she was taught by Rumpelstiltskin. The two mages agree to a truce, and then seal the pact with a kiss, implying they were once in a relationship.
- While David asks Whale if he's drunk (Whale denies it), someone keeps calling Greg. He has the caller ID for this number labeled as "Her." Emma and the gang find Whale's pager in the trash and realize that he is not in the Operating Room.
- Across town, Cora sneaks into Regina's secret lair, magically disguised as Henry. She apologizes for the deception, then tries to convince Regina that she is sorry for her actions and forgives Regina for trying to kill her. She only framed Regina to show her what the townspeople really thought of the former Queen. Regina decides to bring Cora to town so that she can confess to everyone that she framed her daughter with Archie's "murder." Cora "agrees."
Because that'll actually happen.
- Cora marvels at modern technology while Regina drives her to, I dunno, the town square? (I would legitimately watch an episode where Regina teaches Cora to drive. If you agree, comment,we'll start a petition.) On the way there, Cora implies that Regina will always be an outcast...Henry will never really love her again. It's super sad. Cora says she wants her daughter back, leading to Regina hugging her (after pulling the car over, of course) and the two women allying to get Henry back.
I bet Lana Parilla could rock this song in "Once Upon a Time: The Musical."
- Ruby uses her wolf-tracking to find Dr. Whale. He tries to jump off the docks after throwing the watch from Gerhard into the water, but Ruby saves him and gives him a pep talk. They rush back to the hospital, where the suddenly-sober Whale saves Greg in surgery. Emma interviews him and learns that Greg was TEXTING WHILE DRIVING.
- This is not okay, Greg!!!! This is dangerous! This is how people like Hook wind up in the hospital!!! Unfortunately, Emma only cares about getting Greg out of town ASAP, so she lets him off with NO CHARGES, since he can't remember anything about the magic usage. Yeah, he'll never suspect that something's up in this town.
- Rumpelstiltskin goes to talk to Belle, to whom he gives the chipped cup. As she sees it, he's a creeper who won't leave her alone and she doesn't know why. Therefore, it's not really surprising that she throws the cup against the wall. It's still rather sad, though (and if you read my review last week, you'll know that I don't even like Rumbelle).
- The next day, Rumpelstiltskin takes out a magical globe from the box that Cora gave him. He pricks his finger and uses the plot to make a map on the globe that pinpoints Baelfire's location.
- At the Royal Family's apartment, Henry demands to know what happened the night before, since he slept through it all. Nobody tells him, it's delightful. They do mention that it involved Dr. Whale/Frankenstein, which freaks Henry out; according to Henry, the story of Frankenstein is definitely not in his book-- it's not even a fairytale. He theorizes that this means there could be people from many different worlds in Storybrooke, not just The Fairytale Land.
- Rumpelstiltskin arrives and cashes in Emma's favor that she promised to him a very long time ago, back in Season 1 (I honestly forget what it was for. If you comment and let me know, you get a virtual ice cream cone). He demands that Emma comes with him to go outside of Storybrooke and find Baelfire.
Roadtriiiiiiiiiiip!!!!
- Back in the hospital, Greg wakes up, calls his wife, and tells her that something is odd about this little town he's found himself within...
What I Thought
Does anyone like Stir Fries?
I do. The chicken, the rice, the veggies, be they bok choi or broccoli or celery, sometimes noodles...all of it. There's not one favorite part, because every little part of the stir fry is already so mouth-watering. When put together, it's just this big, delicious, amazing experience for my taste buds.
That's kind of how this episode was for me. There were a lot of wonderful little moments all chained together to make an excellent show. "Once Upon a Time" has an ensemble cast, and it really knew that this episode. We got to see Regina go through some progression that, while heart-wrenching, made sense for her character. Fans of Emma and Hook as a couple got some interaction between the two, while Rumpelstiltskin finally took a step closer to reaching his ultimate goal. In the flashback scenes, the writers gave us an episode that resembled some of the quality ones from Season 1, especially given that the black and white scenes paralleled the emotional chaos Whale was going through in Storybrooke. There were some fun group scenes in the hospital, like when Grumpy, Ruby, Snow and David were trying to guess the phone password. Everyone got a moment, and I felt that the writers balanced it all really well.
Other than Victor's dad's terrible acting, there really wasn't that much I didn't like. Ruby got a lot of fun moments this episode. I love that she knew the number of possible passwords, and I adore that she got to save the day by finding Whale and saving him from suicide. It was good to hear that the writers weren't forgetting about past continuity: Ruby talks about the fact that she ate her boyfriend, and that she's had to deal with it. She sort of laughs off the explanation, but you can tell she's trying to play it cool. Ruby definitely strikes me as one of the most down-to-earth characters to me. She's able to see that The Curse had some benefits (I have a feeling Snow or LeRoy would have shot down this line of thinking immediately), which demonstrates that she can think objectively. At the same time, Ruby acknowledges that dwelling on the past does nothing, and that everyone in Storybrooke should make the best of the new beginnings fate has given them. This was a really cool example of how a character can shine in an episode without being the focus of the flashbacks. Indeed, one could make the argument that Whale is not the main character, and instead serves as a means to tie together the wonderful moments that all of the other characters get. Whether he is the chicken binding the veggies and carbs together, or just the teriyaki sauce, I think it's safe to say that this was a delicious stir fry, and I eagerly await the next serving.
(Speaking of vegetables, Greg's last name is Mendel. Greg Mendel is the name of a scientist known for his experiments involving genetics and peas. I guess the science vs. magic theme got itself an Easter Egg this week.)
My Score:
8/10.
The flashbacks weren't intriguing, but there was a lot of fun to be had in Storybrooke this week.
My Questions:
- Were you as excited as I was by Henry's theory regarding other worlds? What other characters are likely to show up now that the "fairytales-only" restriction has been lifted?
- How strict will Gold hold Emma to the favor? Does the roadtrip only end once they find Bael?
- Is Henry going to resent Emma for leaving him so soon after coming home?
Next Week:
The giant returns, and he's lost weight! Rumpelstiltskin and Emma argue over what to watch in cheap motels while on their roadtrip!
(Disclaimer: As always, I've used a lot of gifs, cultural references, memes, and photos. If you or someone you know owns/made one of the gifs/photos/etc., comment below and let me know- I'll take it down, if that's what you wish. I don't claim ownership of any of them, I just browse Tumblr and other sites for ones that fit my blog. Also, I own none of the media I reference. "Once Upon a Time" belongs to ABC, the Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Rowling and whoever made the movies, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" to Disney, "New Girl" belongs to Fox, "Les Miserables" to , um...I dunno... etc., etc...I own nothing. This blog is for entertainment purposes only!)
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