selenak

You know, I was half joking when I speculated in a comment two reviews back that Neal in addition to being Baelfire could also be Peter Pan, if he arrived in Neverland before arriving in our world, which would fit since Baelfire is the original lost boy of the Once Upon A Time verse. But I still had a moment of being impressed with myself when after it turned out Neal knew Hook Neal mentioned he could navigate Hook's ship and that he spent time elsehwere. :) No, he didn't say "I'm Peter Pan" yet, but I assume that's to come the next episode or so. What I'm curious about now is what Hook's beef with Neal-as-Peter is going to be, considering that it can't be the loss of his hand. Also, there is a nice meta ness here because traditionally the actor who playes Hook also playes Mr. Darling in the stage versions of Peter Pan - i.e. he's both the good and the bad father - and Hook is the man Milah left both her husband and son for, and thus Neal's stepfather of sorts. More about the the New York subplot later.

The main meat of the narrative was about mothers and daughters, Snow White in particular. Here the show ran into old problem of child actors growing up, because the girl playing little Snow now looks older than she did in last season's flashbacks, which chronologically are set after these new flashbacks, not before. But she still resembles Ginnifer Godwin to an eerie degree. I continue to love how this show plays Snow White (at any age): someone who is good, but not perfect or effortlessly so. Little Snow can be thoughtlessly arrogant and has to be schooled in not considering herself better, but does have strong enough instincts to know that trading someone else's life for that of a person you love is wrong. (And here we have the difference to Rumpel and Regina before they went dark side.) Adult Snow has her own vengeful instincts - which in the first season we saw when she was under the influence of the love removing potion (note: the potion temporarily took from her the memory of love, it didn't create the anger or urge to avenge herself by trying to kill Regina). I don't think deciding to kill Cora at the end of this episode is about payback mainly (Cora, especially with the dagger, is obviously an incredible menace for everyone), but payback is a part of it. And suddenly we get a new interesting factor into the equation, because "will Team Good defeat Cora?" isn't a very suspenseful question to hang the rest of the season on - this being not a grimdark show where the villains win in the season finale - but if the show actually does a "Snow White going Avenger results in her becoming Morally Ambiguous, Fighting Her Inner Darkness" storyline, now that's something else. Previously my end game (for this season) speculations included, in addition to Cora's death, Rumpelstilskin's depowering (though not physical death) by either Cora or Regina becoming the new Dark One. If somehow Snow White becomes the new Dark One instead, well, that would be nothing s hort of amazing (and could lead to some truly interesting questions, i.e. can you hold that magical power without getting corrupted?). I'm not sure the show will go that way, but before this episode, it never would have occured to me it would, and now it's at least a possibilitiy. It would also provide some neat parallels to the ongoing parent-child combinations: presumably Emma would work as some kind of emotional anchor to keep Snow from going Sith with that power, so to speak.

In other news: Cora being responsible for not-yet-given-a-first-name Snow's mother's death (that she also set up the Snow-Regina encounter is something Regina already suspected last season) fits with the rest of the tale, and now we get heavy hints the two had a backstory, which I presume will be filled in soon. I had been wondering why, given Cora is the miller's daughter from the original Rumpelstilskin tale, she did not end up as a Queen (Regina's father Henry Sr. not being one), because the Miller's daughter in the story did. (That's what her original bargain with Rumpel brought her. To recapitulate for non-Grimm readers: A Miller makes the mistake of boasting his daughter can spin straw to gold even though she can't do any such thing. The king of the country hears this and demands she should do it for him; if she can, he'll take her for his wife, if not, it's chops for her and dear old dad. The girl gets desperate. Rumpel shows up, and offers to spin the straw to gold for her if she gives him her first born child. Straw is spun, gold is delivered, the girl becomes queen, she expects a child. She tries a second bargain - if she manages to find out Rumpel's name (as opposed to this show, he doesn't go around introducing himself in the fairy tale), she's off the hook. Her people search through the land and at last one of them observes Rumpelstilskin changing "today I bake, tomorrow I brew, the next day after I'll take the child of the queen, as true as I am Rumpelstilskin". When the queen names him and thus gets to keep her child, he becomes so angry he tears himself apart. End of story.) So my unspoiled guess is the reason why Cora never become Queen (until ending up in Wonderland, that is) is because Snow's mother did instead, and that's why she was so completely fixated on Regina marrying Leopold (instead of becoming Queen a different way); it had to be this king, and THIS realm, and of course Snow as a step daughter to her daughter.

Snow, because she's a smart woman, reacts to spotting Regina with Cora by having that conversation intended to use Regina's backstory with her mother and turn her again, but she makes the mistake of saying "your mother doesn't love you", and this of course was never the problem. (Rumpelstilskin loves Baelfire. Cora loves Regina. Regina loves Henry. All of those parents still in varying degrees did bad things to their children.) Conversely, Cora when talking to the dead queen (who, with this show, is more likely to be related to her than not) says "my daughter doesn't love me the way Snow loves you", which is and isn't true: Regina spent her early life trying to be free of her mother and ended up becoming more and more like her, Snow started by trying to be like her mother and ended up living a life so very different, but in neither case it was due to stronger or lesser love.

Meanwhile, in New York City: as I said, the Neal/Peter Pan thing amuses and pleases me greatly. (Not least because if you do use Captain Hook, you really need a Peter Pan in your story as well.) The Emma and Rumpel conversations of new relatedness contribute to my resolve to write a couple of missing trip to NYC and back scenes. Henry proves he picked up Regina's talent for verbal stilletos with the"cheesy and they don't lie" quip about NY pizzas. I am not surprised Rumpelstilskin incorporates the "Emma and my son had a thing resulting in Henry" news to mean he now gets Emma as a daughter-in-law because obviously in his eyes she must want Bae-Neal back. (The man got his idea of romantic love from Belle, after all.) I AM surprised (pleasantly) by the show making it clear by giving Neal a fiancee (nice red herring in letting us believe Neal is about to talk about Pinnocchio/August and then delivering the fiancee instead, btw) that it won't do something as easy as that.