Once Upon a Time: "What Happened to Frederick"

When we last left Prince Charming, he was leaving the castle on the morn of his wedding, determined to find Snow White and convince her that he’s the one for her. What he doesn’t know is that she already believes that, but the king had threatened to hurt Charming if she didn’t tell him to buzz off and convince him that she didn’t love him. And so, with Abigail on her way to marry a prince, we begin this week’s story.

I’m not sure if it was always the writers’ intention to make Katherine/Abigail a really good person, or if the fan reaction to her was so positive they had to turn Abigail around, but I’m thinking the former. Katherine was always likeable from the start, but Abigail came off as cold and distant. Now we know why: she was in love with Frederick, who died saving her father’s life and was turned into a gold statue. I was a little worried that she was actually tricking Charming somehow, asking him to complete an impossible task knowing he would die doing it, but it was good to see that she wasn’t tricking him at all.

The Guardian of the Lake was a cross between the Lady of the Lake of King Arthur legend (a woman that would rise up out of the lake, although she was a good entity in that story, if I recall correctly, and was usually just an arm holding a sword aloft), and a Siren, which is what Charming eventually surmises she is. But he defeats her by knowing that her fake love isn’t the real thing, and only a man who has experienced true love can spot the phony one.

Over in Storybrooke, the same thing is happening. Katherine is at first upset that David has been with Mary behind her back, until she looks hard at the photo of the two of them together. Like Charming, she can spot true love, and knows that hers was the fake one. She wants the real thing, and is willing to let him go. Just as Abigail wished Charming the best, she wishes David the best… but the mayor won’t have THAT, and steals the letter that she leaves behind. But when Regina burns the letter, what exactly does that do? Did it actually erase Katherine somehow? When Storybrooke Frederick reaches the car (which, expectedly, had ended up in a ditch just short of the town sign), she’s gone. What happened?

Meanwhile, we see the new stranger in town a little more. He manages to put Henry’s book back together and get it back over to him, and he has a name: August W. Booth. (The W = Wayne.) I checked the Brothers Grimm page on Wikipedia and did a quick search for August, thinking that was a secret name for one of them, and while it wasn’t, there was indeed an August connection: The Brothers Grimm had collected up the various stories for their legendary collection from local oral histories and stories, and were helped along by their friend, August von Hauxthausen, with whom Jacob Grimm had gone to law school. Fans speculated when he first showed up that perhaps he was actually one of the Grimm brothers, but perhaps he’s someone who simply helps the process along by collecting the stories and seeing that it stays in one piece, without actually being the author of the tales. I know I’m intrigued. In his scene with Emma at the wishing well he expounded on the magical properties of water, and how the water will always lead you back to what you’d lost. Interestingly, we saw him washing the pages of Henry’s book… was he dousing each page in the water of the well that appears to be drawn from the fairytale world itself?

And then there’s poor David and Mary Margaret. That particular storyline was heartbreaking (my 7-year-old daughter, new to such things, gasped audibly when Mary said, “We can’t be together” and said, “I’m gonna die, Mummy, I’m gonna die…” as she clutched her chest dramatically). I was so sad to see it happen that way, but we know they will find their way back to one another. (But honestly, GRANNY telling her she should be ashamed of herself? Harsh… and so sad…)

Another great episode. What I love most about Once Upon a Time is that it’s slowly putting the fairytale world story together, but trusts that we’re willing to be patient and wait it out (hence the Belle story being introduced and then left, as they do every week). We know where the Snow White/Charming story ends up – they get married and live happily ever after… for a year – so we know he won’t be killed by the king. Knowing that, we can simply sit back and enjoy the story as it unfolds.

But as for Storybrooke, that’s not a story that’s been told in the pages of a book; it’s still unfolding. OUAT continues to be a show that gives us stories of the week, but ones that are inextricably linked to one another.