Once Upon A Time Recap: And Straight on 'Til Morning

Well dearies, we've made it to the season finale! From the aftermath of the broken Curse and an adventure in the Land that Was, to the threat of a new and powerful evil, to the reuniting of family and a plot to destroy Storybrooke, we've been through a lot! So let's get to it:

The episode begins with a loving Grandpa watching his Grandson play on a swing. Except it's Rumplestiltskin, and he's trying to kill the threat to his existence. As he begins to fray the ropes of Henry's swing, causing him to fly into some pointy-looking rocks (seriously, who designed this playground?), Emma, Charming, and Snow rush to tell him the news about Baelfire. They also tell him about that Greg and Tamara have the trigger, and he must help stop them. Gold refuses, distraught over losing his son again. Meanwhile, Greg and Tamara take Hook down to the mines and, with a dwarf's pick-axe, strike the trigger to the fail-safe and set in motion the end of Storybrooke, literally wiping it off the map. The forest on which it appeared begins to take back the land as trees jut out of the ground and the earth begins to shake.

"Time to run, then? Yep...let's run..."

The Family Charming, including Regina, are at the apartment when Hook shows up to tell them the news. But not everyone will share in Storybrooke's fate. Because Henry was born here, he will remain here....alone. It is decided that they will take a two-pronged approach: Regina will try to stop the trigger, and Hook and Charming will go after Greg and Tamara in order to get some magic beans as a means to escape destruction. The dashing duo manage to succeed in obtaining a bean, but the Muggle Patrol manage to slip away yet again.

Anyone else see a buddy cop spin-off coming out of this? 

Meanwhile, knowing that their doom is imminent, the dwarves raid Gold's shop in order to find a potion to restore Sneezy's memory so that he can at least die as himself. When they finally are able to get a batch, they offer some extra to Mr. Gold, who restores Belle's memory so that, in their last moments, they can be together. Even knowing that Belle would eventually get her memory back, hearing Gold say "I didn't want to wake you up to die..." just tugged at all of my heart strings.

In Neverland, Hook discovers that the boy brought on board his ship is actually Rumplestiltskin's son, and decides to use him to enact his revenge. When the Lost Ones (a very dark take on Peter Pan's band of misfits) board the ship demanding the boy that the Shadow has great need of, Hook will not give Baelfire up (even under threat of having his shadow ripped out...ouch). After they leave, Baelfire tries to kill Hook, having found a picture of his mother on Hook's desk (proving even then that you need to delete your search history and not leave things open on your desk). Hook tries to tell Bae about what really happened, that he and his mother fell in love...and that his father killed her. Hook offer Bae the opportunity to stay with him and his crew, as a way to make it up to Mila, but the Son of Stiltskin refuses. It is then that he is captured by the Lost Ones. I have to say, not calling them "boys" makes them truly seem like lost souls in the service of a dark, great evil. And it definitely makes them more threatening. 

Back in the tunnels, things are not going so well. Regina does not have the power to stop the trigger from detonating. When Emma goes to pull out the bean, hoping to send the failsafe into oblivion (or at least a dimension in which it can do no harm), she discovers that Hook has absconded with their only hope at survival. No bean, assured destruction, and no way to stop it.....well, it looks like it's sayonara, Storybrooke.

"Not one of my better backup plans..."

Emma is hesitant to leave Regina, but her arch-rival pleads with her. She has been known for so long as the Evil Queen, she just wants to die as Regina. Henry realizes that there's good left in his mom and finally (oh, finally!) he goes over and hugs her. It's then that Emma realizes that she might be able to help. Nubile as she is in the magical arts, she has seen for herself that she has the potential to be quite powerful. And so, together, in the best Mother's Day salute ever, Emma and Regina combine their strengths and defuse the bomb. They are blown back a bit, but a few scrapes serve as confirmation that they are, indeed alive. Yes: Prince Charming, Snow White, their daughter, and even the Evil Queen are all okay. And Henry...Henry? Ahhhh, crap.

Greg and Tamara, seizing upon the distraction caused by the trigger, abduct Henry and bring him back to the docks. As all the main cast members rush to save him, the two villains prove "like father, like son" as they drop a magic bean into the water and jump, arm in arm with their captive, into the portal. Since it is pretty much impossible to cross worlds without one, they must come to terms with the fact they they will never see Henry again. But, ahoy mateys! Captain Hook has a change of heart and sails back into port, magic bean in hand! Mr. Gold knows that, indeed, the boy will be his undoing, but he must find him to honor Baelfire. He bids Belle farewell, and together, the most unlikely family sets off for Neverland.

Neverland....as in "never gonna go to that land"

As the waves crash on a distant shore, we come across a man in bad shape. Clinging to life, Baelfire is discovered by none other than Princess Aurora and (ugh) Mulan. But he is worlds apart from where he needs to be in order to protect his son. Because Peter Pan never wanted him....he was after Henry.

Well, then! I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed when I watched it last night, but going over it again really made me appreciate the subtleties of the episode and how it sets up an exciting Season 3. 

Til' then, dearies!

- Joe

Once Upon A Time Recap: Second Star to the Right

Tons of secrets were revealed, and new mysteries surfaced, in last night's episode of Once Upon A Time, "Second Star to the Right." From a boy who knew all too well the price of magic, to the true ambitions of two outsiders, to the unthinkable plot by a too-often slighted queen. The penultimate episode of the season was, as expected, one giant build up to the finale.

Let's start with Baelfire, shall we? We had long suspected him of being Peter Pan (that is, after we learned that Greg Mendell wasn't!), so seeing him dropped from the portal into Victorian London definitely set the Anticipation Alarm off. We see him in a short confrontation with the Darling's dog, Nana (a great nod to the classic Disney movie) before befriending Wendy, who secretly takes care of the poor boy until her parents find out...and welcome him into their home (because if upper class Victorian parents were one thing, historically, it was nice to beggar boys that their daughters have hidden away in a crawlspace).

"Harumphaphurphurphurumph"

One night, Wendy (and brothers Michael and John) tell Bae about a shadow that visits them in the night. It can do all sorts of things like change shape, fly, and take them to a land with magic! Bae, with his One Direction haircut, pleads with Wendy not to let the shadow in, because he knows from experience how magic can destroy a family. I thought this was a particular bit of great acting on the part of young Dylan Schmid, who manages to show some real concern for his newfound family mixed with the pain of his past. You really believe him when he tells Wendy that magic comes with a price. One person who did not believe him, however, was Wendy.

"Woopsie?"

When she returns from Neverland, she is distraught. The shadow, it seems, is not a friendly spirit. At night, she tells Bae, she can hear all the lost boys crying out for their parents. Ultimately, the shadow rejects Wendy....because he's after the boys.

An APB has already been called in by London Metro Police.

I have to say this was a really great twist on the classic tale. To imagine Peter's shadow as a living entity, and a malevolent one at that, was pretty creepy and really brilliant. Neverland isn't some happy place, it's where abducted children are forced to spend eternity by a wraith-like being. In any case, Baelfire does his best to ward off the shadow, but to no avail. When the shadow reaches for Michael, Baelfire boldly takes his place. He is carried off to Neverland, a dark and foreboding island shrouded in mystery.

Now where have I heard that before?

But, the quick thinking Son of Stiltskin uses a match to ward off the shadow and he crashes into the ocean, where he is rescued by none other than Captain Hook. Will Baelfire rise to become the Pan, defeat the good Captain, and rescue the lost boys of Neverland? We'll just have to wait and see!

Back in Storybrooke, Neal is just a liiiittle bit upset with his dad, who has taken up some old bad habits now that he's with "Lacey". I'm not too thrilled with how this is all turning out, honestly. Rumplestiltksin created the Curse to find Baelfire, had to almost die to reunite with his son, and now is basically telling him not to crimp his style with his new lady friend. This, of course, will all get resolved in the finale, but it just seems a little forced.

"Hateth the game, noteth the player, deary!"

Meanwhile, Regina is put into a bit of an uncomfortable situation, as she is strapped down by Greg and hooked up to a machine so that she will finally reveal what happened to his father. I have to say, as much as I cringed at seeing Regina electro-tortured, Mendell really let out his evil, vindictive side and it was a fine piece of acting. It's about this time that we learn that Tamara and Greg are not the only two out there who know how to "take care of" magic and magical beings. Showing their Lost roots, the writers reveal that there is an entire organization dedicated to finding and eliminating magic from this world. Storybrooke is apparently not the first breach that has been made into our land, and the dastardly duo have discovered a way to make sure that the town will go the way of the others.

"Did I leave the oven on? No...Locked the doors? Yep....Hid away the thing that can destroy the whole town? ...ah, crap"

In an effort to locate Regina, the Charmings visit Mr. Gold, who blends Regina's and Mary Margaret's tears so that Mary Margaret can see and feel everything Regina is at the moment...which...of course...is searing pain from electrocution. They then liberate Regina, letting Greg go in the process, as Emma and Neal track down Tamara. A gunshot to the abdomen finally convinces Neal that his finacee hasn't exactly been truthful with him, and when Emma steps in to save him, Tamara uses the magic bean she pilfered from Regina to open up some distance between them...as well as a portal to another world. Emma and Neal hang on for dear life, both having been sucked into another dimension before and not eager to do so again, but this is a drama we're talking about, and someone's got to go!

"It's okay! I'm an expendable secondary character!"

The portal closes and Emma is left in shock. Having just declared their love for each other, they were ripped apart by magic. You can bet that, wherever Neal winds up, Emma will find him. After all, it's in the family genes. Back at Chateau de Charming, David and Mary Margaret are watching over a recuperating Regina. They are again (really, again?) shocked by Regina's malice as they learn that she has created, and then lost, the failsafe trigger for the Curse. Cut to a distraught Greg Mendell as he digs up the remains of his father. Tamara approaches him with a gift, a black diamond that holds the key to the final and absolute destruction of Storybrooke.

And so, we head "Straight on Til' Morning".

Til next time, dearies!

-Joe

Once Upon A Time Recap: The Evil Queen

"Are people born Wicked?" said some witch in another show, "Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?" That was the theme of tonight's episode: The Evil Queen. (Uh, uh, uh! Not so fast dearies. If ye wish not to be spoiled, go no further!)

Let's begin in The Land That Was. Regina is on the hunt for Snow White, and nothing is going to stop her. She massacres an entire village because they will not give up the princess' location. When a disguised Regina returns to the site with Snow, it is deeply unsettling, and a very dark moment for this show, to see the bodies strewn on the ground, lifeless and with Wanted posters arrowed to their backs

What Regina can't wrap her mind around is how the people can be so loyal to Snow White when she is their Queen. She enlists the help of Rumplestiltskin (always a wise choice) so that she can disguise herself and go among the people. Perhaps then she will learn more about her arch-enemy's whereabouts. She is warned, though, that she will not be able to use magic or transform back without his help (which, of course, he doe not provide). When she enters a village that has strewn up an effigy of the Queen, she tries to stop them, only to be mistaken for the culprit by her own guards. She is saved, to the delight of the irony gods, by the woman she has been hunting. Snow dispatches the guards, rescues Regina, and takes her to hide in the woods where she nurses her back to health.

"Oh dear God just kill me now."

Snow tells the injured girl about the time she almost fell off a horse, and a woman saved her. As they walk through the forest, Snow White tells the "peasant girl" that she believes there is still good in Regina. Regina takes this to heart, and wonders aloud if "The Queen" were to repent and ask forgiveness, if Snow would grant it, or kill her. Snow shows the truest kindness and compassion and says that she would. That is, until they find the bodies. In a very un-Luke Skywalker-like speech, Snow realizes and declares that there's no possible hope for Regina's redemption. She is evil through and through. The cloaked Regina accidentally reveals her true self by asking about the horse incident, although in Snow's telling she never said it was Regina. Snow readies her arrow, and a powerless Regina flees. Ever the fairest, Snow lets her go.

Back in Storybrooke, Regina is planning to activate the failsafe for the Curse, one that would destroy Storybrooke and everyone in it. Using the last remaining magic bean (oh, yeah, she burned the rest of the crop), she will escape with her son back to the Land That Was and make him love her once more. Oddly, she tells Henry about her foolproof plot, only to erase his memory moments later.

"I can soooo relate."

Meanwhile, Emma bumps into Tamara at Granny's and notices something strange when she helps to pick up Tamara's spilled items. She has a list (a big list, with big print...not so stealthy, eh?) of all the names of Storybrooke's residents and their true identities. Emma begins to think that Tamara is the "She" that August was trying to warn them about before he re-youthified.

"Hi, I'll have a cup of coffee, milk, two sugars...oh, and the heads of everyone in town."

 And so, Emma and Henry renew their covert partnership, renamed Operation Praying Mantis (...oy), in order to find out exactly what she's up to. A botched reconnaissance mission at Neal's apartment leads them to a dead end. But Emma's lie detection powers are not mistaken. Tamara and Greg are up to something, and they need a helping hand in their scheme. Well...helping hook, that is.

Get it?

Regina, trying to enact her own plot, also teams up with Hook, who seems to earnestly want to renew the partnership he had with Cora. Regina leads hook to the Library and down the elevator where she recovers the failsafe. But, she needs a distraction, because a certain dragon-moprhing witch is not as dead as we thought she was.

I actually loved this idea. It shows a particularly cruel side to Regina that she would keep her most hated frenemy preserved so that she could guard Regina's most sacred treasures. First as a dragon, then as a skeleton-ghost thing. This version of Maleficent was particularly shiver-inducing. But, Hook does manage to escape, with the help of his newfound friends, Tamara and Greg. It appears that they have a bit more experience dealing with magic than we originally thought. Using the power of science, they effectively stunted Regina's powers and put one check on their list of names. They are truly coming into their own as the new villains of Season 2. I predict that they will learn about Regina's failsafe and endeavor to use it to bring about the end of magic....and the destruction of Storybooke.

That would certainly be quite a hook...ah ha..get it? A..hook....Okay I'll stop.

Overall, I think this idea of a misunderstood Regina has been played out. It worked well in the first third of the season, when she was trying to do right by Henry, and a new twist was thrown in when Cora arrived in Storybrooke, but now it's a bit tired. She needs to commit to either being good (although not necessarily accepted by the townspeople), or truly embrace the dark side. Frankly, I would like to see an anti-hero in Regina, especially up against an all-powerful Rumplestiltskin. She doesn't need to be a good guy, but she should stop playing the victim. That said, I really enjoyed seeing Regina and Rumple play off each other in this episode. Each time we see them together she is either the eager student, the defiant former pupil, or the ardent rival. But, as always, the imp seems to always have the upper hand. I also really enjoyed seeing Tamara and Greg's characters develop into a much more sinister duo than we previously thought. I am extremely eager to see how their roles play out as we enter the home stretch to the finale.

Til' next time, dearies!

- Joe

Once Upon A Time Recap: "Selfless, Brave, and True"

Ah, nothing like coming back from a nice relaxing weekend to do a bit of blogging. And nothing says "The Missing Linc" more than a OUAT recap! So let's get into this week's episode: "Selfless, Brave, and True". As always, if you don't want to be spoiled like last month's bananas, you might want to avoid this post for the time being.

It seems that, according to Kitsiss and Horowitz, there's nothing like quite Phuket to run away to whilst having an existential crisis. I'm sure there's a deleted scene where August runs into Jack Shephard.

That's Chinese for "I'm Turning Into Wood"

At 8:15 am (that's 8:15 pm Storybrooke time, when Emma first enters town and time starts to move forward again) August wakes up to discover that his leg has turned back to wood. Still not quite the hero we see him become at the end of Season 1, he tries to find a way to heal himself and is led to a man known as the Dragon. But someone else is waiting for him. It looks like Neal's fiance`, Tamara, has a past that she hasn't shared with her future husband.

"Well if you think THIS is a wild story..."

Tamara, on a mission to find magic in this world, has tracked August and tricked him into getting a vial full of magic from the Dragon. The all-knowing, mysterious healer is fully aware of who Pinocchio is and where he comes from, but Tamara kills the Dragon (with a taser that I'm guessing was set to "Sith Lighting") before we find out more about him.

Is it at all wrong that I immediately thought "Mushu from Mulan"?

After a harrowing chase through the streets of Hong Kong, Tamara absconds with the vial, leaving August to further suffer the affects of being turned back into wood. However, she's not done with him yet. Following August to New York, she discovers that there is a town called Storybrooke, and that yet another man hails from the land of magic. Using the old "oops, clumsy me!" routine, she bumps into Neal and starts a relationship with him, biding her time until she can get her hands on an entire town's worth of magic.

And that brings the Stiltskin Family Love Success Rate to.....0%.

Back in Storybrooke, Snow White needs to clear her head and goes out to shoot some arrows, one of which finds its way directly into Pinocchio's leg. He cannot face the shame of returning to Storybrooke in his wooden state, despite Snow's insistence that there are people there who care about him. A visit from Tamara, who promises him a bit of healing potion in return for his exile, causes August to turn tail and run, until he discovers that she has been lying. Before he can warn his friends, Tamara once again sets her taser to 11 and fries August to a crisp (if you listen carefully, you can hear him whimper "Don't tase me, bro!"). But fear not, August fans! Because his last act was to attempt to warn Emma and Co., he was deemed selfless, brave, and true by the Blue Fairy and turned back into a hunky, dreamy....

....Oh. Never mind.

Unable to remember what he was going to tell them, Pinocchio walks off with Geppetto and the Blue Fairy, ready to give being a good little boy one more try. Meanwhile, Greg Mendell, aka Owen, has just had an encounter with Regina who warns him not to continue his search for his father. At the end of the episode, he receives a knock at the door. And the person on the other side is none other than: HER!

Behold: HER!

So, it aaall comes out! Tamara is in league with Owen, but what are their true intentions? Are they simply out to find his father? To gain access to magic? Or maybe they're just working together to accomplish their respective goals. It looks like the biggest threat to Storybrooke didn't come from Cora, but will instead come from our world. As we enter the home stretch to the finale, we'll find out more about their true plans in just....wait....what?.... THREE WEEKS?!

"Son of a..."

'Til then, dearies!

-Joe