Once Upon a Time 1.2: "The Thing You Love the Most"

I've been looking for a show that's excited me as much as Lost, in a similar way that Lost did. While there have been several shows that I've adored since the end of Lost -- Fringe, Breaking Bad -- they've done so in different ways. But finally, a show in the hands of Kitsis and Horowitz has me once again watching the walls in the backgrounds, looking for clues on signs and in the treetops, and in only its second week, this show somehow feels like home. So, I'm gonna do some old-fashioned Lost-like blogging with it.

In this week's episode, Emma still doesn't believe in the curse, but she believes in Henry, and it's keeping her in Storybrooke. Regina is stepping up her efforts to get this biological mom out of her way so she can keep her son to herself, and when you watch it from her point of view, she doesn't come off as being as soulless as Emma suggests she is. In last week's episode, she told Emma that while she'd dumped her son off at a hospital, Regina had changed every diaper, soothed every fever, and dealt with every tantrum. While she has the Evil Queen inside her, she doesn't actually remember BEING her, so none of her actions have been with any particularly evil motivation behind it. Turns out, by the end of the episode, it's good old Rumpelstiltskin -- he of the name obsession -- who seems to have retained some memory of things and is masterminding Henry coming to their town. After all, if he's the guy who created the curse in the first place, doesn't it make sense that it wouldn't have the same memory-wipe effect on him as it does everyone else?

Speaking of Rumpelstiltskin's obsession with names, let's look at some of the names in both universes:

Rumpelstiltskin = Mr. Gold
As the guy who became famous for spinning straw into gold, this seems very fitting.

Snow White = Mary Blanchard
In French, "white" is "blanc," so that's where we're getting that from. Perhaps Mary comes from the Virgin Mary, and since Snow White was seen as pure in every way, the name seems apt.

Evil queen = Regina
"Regina" means queen; Queen Victoria was often known as "Victoria Regina"

Jiminy Cricket = Archie Hopper
That just cracks me up. ;)

Granny and Little Red Riding Hood = Granny and Ruby
Duh.

Mirror = Gus Fring The editor of The Storybrooke Daily Mirror


Sheriff Graham is presumably also a fairytale character, but I think we've yet to see him in that world. It'll be fun to see who he ultimately turns out to be. We've seen Geppetto in Storybrooke, but I don't know if they said what his name was there.

As with Lost, time and memory become essential pieces. In Lost, characters flashed back to earlier points in their lives to reveal to the audience what their motivations were. But in Once Upon a Time, those flashbacks are presented as dramatic irony, in the sense that WE know what their pasts are, but none of them can remember it. If they could, it would give them a lot more power than they now have. Now, they're powerless pawns trapped in a town without realizing they're actually trapped. The clock hasn't moved in 28 years, and no one seems to have noticed they haven't aged one bit. Mary tells Emma in this episode that Regina has been mayor for as long as she can remember, but it never occurs to her that she herself has been perpetually 25 for the last 30 years; when time stood still, it prevented them from aging, but also prevented them from noticing that. With time COMES power, and now that the clock is moving forward, some of these people will move forward as well. Memories will now be retained, they will age, and they can vanquish the thing that has been keeping them trapped: the timeless curse.

The very nature of fairytales themselves will no doubt take centre stage as this series continues. As Mary tells Emma in the previous episodes, fairytales are a way for people to make sense of the cruel world they live in; a way to compartmentalize their own lack of happy endings and give them hope that those endings may exist somewhere. In Once Upon a Time, the writers explore this idea through Henry's therapy sessions. Just as many fairytales are parables that explore the human psyche, so are therapy sessions a way of getting into a person's mind by asking them to tell stories to the doctor. Only by telling these stories can the patient actually begin to see their troubles in the context of a larger picture, while allowing the doctor to get to the heart of the matter and attempt to help them through a particularly troublesome time.

I love the idea in this show that the world of fairytales could actually be a hell if you were the bad guy; baddies don’t get happy endings, they’re the ones being pushed off cliffs or dying or just slinking off into the dark while the good, pure people “live happily ever after.” What a great idea to turn that on its head and have the bad guys want to live in our world, where “happily ever after” simply doesn’t exist.

Highlights:
• Henry. I love the actor playing this kid. While there are times where he looks a little uncomfortable, glancing off-camera and not really looking at the person he’s acting against, he’s adorable, charming, and you just want to pick him up and hug him every time he’s on screen.
• Malificent on Snow White never being in pain: “It’s her wedding night. I bet she’s suffering right now.” Ack!
• The reason we have lawn gnomes! HAHAHA!!


Did You Notice?
• The episode opened with Cat Stevens’ “Don’t Be Shy”:

Don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by
Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there
Just lift your head, and let your feelings out instead
And don't be shy, just let your feeling roll on by
On by

You know love is better than a song
Love is where all of us belong
So don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by
Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there
You're there

Don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by
Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there
Just lift your head, and let your feelings out instead
And don't be shy, just let your feeling roll on by

• Jane Espenson is a Consulting Producer! How did I not notice that before? Even MORE reason to love this show. ;)
• My mouth was literally watering every time we saw those apple trees. Poison be damned: I don’t think I would have been able to avoid the temptation to bite into each of those apples? Have you ever eaten a Honeycrisp apple? It’s exactly what the name says it is: one of the sweetest things you’ll ever taste. Damn, now I have a major craving for apples. Excuse me for a minute…
• The Mirror is Gus Fring!!!! Oh. My. God. Shivers went down my spine when I saw him.
• Malificent is Pam! I am loving the guest casting this week!
• I was so sad when Archie/Jiminy Cricket tricked Emma, because I really wanted to see these two join forces, so I was much happier at the end when he seemed sincerely sorry for having done that. After all, in the first episode, just before Henry appeared on her doorstep, Emma was blowing out a candle in the shape of a star on a cupcake and wishing that she wouldn’t be alone on her birthday. And it was Jiminy Cricket who sang that if you wished upon a star your dreams would come true.
• The queen throws a horse heart into the cauldron: was anyone else suddenly flashing to Game of Thrones in their heads?
• In Archie’s therapy office, the wallpaper border at the top is a forest at sunset. In Regina’s office, the wallpaper everywhere is covered in black and white trees that are rather frightening. Everything in her office is black and white, just as good and evil is always painted in polar opposition in fairytales.
• Archie’s office also had several toadstools and mushrooms around it.
• Emma and Regina keep saying, “Your move,” as if they’re playing a game of chess, which made me think of Through the Looking Glass (the Alice books also feature a queen who has trees with red objects hanging from them, though where Regina keeps possibly poisoned apples, the Red Queen has white roses that her pages paint red).
• Speaking of which, Regina has white roses in a vase that appear to be sitting in blood, not water (same paint that’s being used on the Red Queen’s roses, perhaps?)

Fairytale Allusions:
• The clock chiming and everyone looking up at it reminded me of the clock striking midnight for Cinderella.
• How wonderful to put two queens together in a room who both concocted a sleeping potion (on Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, respectively) and who both failed when their curse was broken by a curse by Prince Charming. (These “Charming” guys sure do get around!)
• When the Guild of Baddies gets together around the fire, there’s a blind witch whose eyes have been sewn together. I was thinking maybe it was one of the witches from Macbeth? The witch in Hansel and Gretel is blind, but when I did a quick search on “Hansel and Gretel blind witch” I saw a casting note that Emma Caulfield (aka the glorious Anya on Buffy) has been cast as that witch, to appear later in the season!! SO excited. So maybe the blind witch at the fire was just a token blind witch, just as the ogre and gnome were probably standing in for all ogres and gnomes in fairytales.
• The Evil Queen says that Snow White took everything from her. This could create a mystery for us if we didn’t already know the story, and know that what Snow White took from her was her certainty that she was the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. When Snow turned seven, the mirror finally told the queen that she was no longer the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, and that it was Snow White. After that the queen did everything she could to kill Snow White, and finally almost succeeded with the poisoned apple. But when she says it in the episode, she says it with such pathos we believe she’s lost so much more than just her sense of beauty.
• Jiminy Cricket was assigned to stick with Pinocchio and make sure the boy always had good morals; similarly, in Storybrooke, Archie is assigned to be Henry’s therapist, and watch this boy’s mind as closely as he had Pinocchio’s.