Once upon a Time 4.16
Mar. 24th, 2015 07:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Ursula gets a backstory.
And exits? That's...unexpected. Also slightly disappointing, considering how much fun she was in the episode immediately after the hiatus. However, considering Ursula has no enemy investment in anyone in Storybrooke safe Hook (which is settled now), I can see the storytelling point, especially since the same is true for Cruella (though the "Cruella meets Archie and Pongo" scene is yet to happen *g*). Maleficent has her feud with Snow (and David) and her relationship with Regina. Rumplestilskin has the most connections of them all. So clearing the stage of anyone who doesn't haven actual beef has a screentime logic, and thus I assume Cruella will be next (not literally, a few eps hence, maybe once Emma is in actual corrupting danger).
Anyway, since I was a bit sad last season that the show, having established there was an Ursula the sea goddess in the first Ariel episode, went back to a more Disney-esque Ursula (before we met her in more detail), I am tickled and approving of the fact this episode reconciles the two by declaring Ursula the tentacled one was named after the sea goddess (who is still a sea goddess). I also am amused Ursula (tentacle version) starts out as a mermaid with a backstory very close to Disney's Ariel. (Note: not Andersen's Little Mermaid. Andersen's Mermaid and Sea Witch are as different from the Disney versions as Andersen's Snow Queen is from Elsa.) Complete with beautiful singing voice and domineering father who has issues with humans due to loss of wife. When I twigged somewhat before it was revealed that what Hook took from Ursula had to be her singing voice I also thought that this was a neat way to explain Disney's Ursula wanting one, only Once Upon A Time's Ursula doesn't take Ariel's, she wants her own back. And in an amazing twist on this show, actually leaves once she has what she wants instead of being tricked to stick around and be villainous, or something like that. The reconciliation with repentant!Dad was a bit much but also straight out of Disney and because of the metaness of this whole hunt the author/how to get a happy ending arc, this whole Ursula = Ariel from another pov thing works for me.
Undercover!Regina continues to be fun and play it smart. I was expecting to have mixed feelings about August's return, since on the one hand I wasn't a fan of his, to put it mildly, but on the other regressing him to Pinnoccio the child complete with memory wipe hasn't sat right with me as a solution for the character, either. Oddly enough, so I haven't mixed feelings but like what we get. Makes sense that August at this point after a full lifetime has become a good enough liar to find a way around the canonical nose growing by using a literal truth which is also a lie of omission when Gold questions him. (And very satisfying he does it to Rumplestilskin, king of the literal truths which are actual lies.) The door being actually the drawn door on the page, and the author being trapped in the book also has a cleverness to it that reminds me of the Neverending Story (the book, not the dreadful movie) and Michael Ende. Okay, let's see where this goes.
What I do have mixed feelings about: the reveal of Rumple's plan. Not that it doesn't work with the show's internal logic, plus if he's good at one thing, it's corrupting people. But it furthers my fear Emma's in for the Dark Phoenix arc, starring Rumplestilskin as Sebastian Shaw. I really have Phoenix issues, don't I?
And exits? That's...unexpected. Also slightly disappointing, considering how much fun she was in the episode immediately after the hiatus. However, considering Ursula has no enemy investment in anyone in Storybrooke safe Hook (which is settled now), I can see the storytelling point, especially since the same is true for Cruella (though the "Cruella meets Archie and Pongo" scene is yet to happen *g*). Maleficent has her feud with Snow (and David) and her relationship with Regina. Rumplestilskin has the most connections of them all. So clearing the stage of anyone who doesn't haven actual beef has a screentime logic, and thus I assume Cruella will be next (not literally, a few eps hence, maybe once Emma is in actual corrupting danger).
Anyway, since I was a bit sad last season that the show, having established there was an Ursula the sea goddess in the first Ariel episode, went back to a more Disney-esque Ursula (before we met her in more detail), I am tickled and approving of the fact this episode reconciles the two by declaring Ursula the tentacled one was named after the sea goddess (who is still a sea goddess). I also am amused Ursula (tentacle version) starts out as a mermaid with a backstory very close to Disney's Ariel. (Note: not Andersen's Little Mermaid. Andersen's Mermaid and Sea Witch are as different from the Disney versions as Andersen's Snow Queen is from Elsa.) Complete with beautiful singing voice and domineering father who has issues with humans due to loss of wife. When I twigged somewhat before it was revealed that what Hook took from Ursula had to be her singing voice I also thought that this was a neat way to explain Disney's Ursula wanting one, only Once Upon A Time's Ursula doesn't take Ariel's, she wants her own back. And in an amazing twist on this show, actually leaves once she has what she wants instead of being tricked to stick around and be villainous, or something like that. The reconciliation with repentant!Dad was a bit much but also straight out of Disney and because of the metaness of this whole hunt the author/how to get a happy ending arc, this whole Ursula = Ariel from another pov thing works for me.
Undercover!Regina continues to be fun and play it smart. I was expecting to have mixed feelings about August's return, since on the one hand I wasn't a fan of his, to put it mildly, but on the other regressing him to Pinnoccio the child complete with memory wipe hasn't sat right with me as a solution for the character, either. Oddly enough, so I haven't mixed feelings but like what we get. Makes sense that August at this point after a full lifetime has become a good enough liar to find a way around the canonical nose growing by using a literal truth which is also a lie of omission when Gold questions him. (And very satisfying he does it to Rumplestilskin, king of the literal truths which are actual lies.) The door being actually the drawn door on the page, and the author being trapped in the book also has a cleverness to it that reminds me of the Neverending Story (the book, not the dreadful movie) and Michael Ende. Okay, let's see where this goes.
What I do have mixed feelings about: the reveal of Rumple's plan. Not that it doesn't work with the show's internal logic, plus if he's good at one thing, it's corrupting people. But it furthers my fear Emma's in for the Dark Phoenix arc, starring Rumplestilskin as Sebastian Shaw. I really have Phoenix issues, don't I?
