selenak

Aw, show, you're back.

You know, I just wish the accoustics were better because in the scenes where the storm was at its height and everyone was yelling, I hardly understood what anyone was saying. But that aside, let's see, from the minor and not so good to the major.

Firstly, I find it somewhat disappointing Greg/Owen and Tamara get killed off (though there is a question mark about Greg, depending on whether or not that shadow-ripping out is reversible, I suppose), because that means Tamara will never acquire more dimensionality. That being said, I appreciate that the episode proves her a true believer as opposed to someone who was planning on double crossing Greg as well, as some speculated last season, and both Greg and Tamara are shown not to be gratitious killers before their ending since once they twigged their Home Office wasn't what they had thought it would be they wanted Henry to get out at least. Mind you, Henry is entirely right: it was dumb of both Greg and Tamara not to question orders before or wonder how on earth (or elsewhere) they were supposed to return to Our World once magic was supposedly destroyed. Also, even if you handwave turning people into rats (since Smee survives in that form) and his contribution to Cora's death (since he provided means but not not carry it out, that was Snow, plus in his case it was self defense of sorts): Tamara is the first post-Curse unquestionable murder we see Rumpelstilkin commit. And naturally he does it by ripping out her heart and squeezing it to dust, killing his son's fiancee the way he killed his son's mother. And note the show is careful to let Tamara at this point not be a threat, helpless, and sincerely repentant about her actions. Rumpelstilskin: definitely several steps back on the road to redemption (though of course between his Lacey related actions and the almost grandson murder, he was treading back by the end of last season already). I wouldn't be surprised if, as in the case of murdering Milah, murdering Tamara came with a whole case of his own guilt projection as well.

On a lighter note, it cracks me up that he changed his outfit (and Hook's line about that was good) once they were in Neverland back to his Fairy Tale get up as the Dark One - but his skin remained that of Mr. Gold. I guess Robert Carlyle didn't care for having to do the make up thing every day for an entire season.

Secondly, along with continuing to dig that OuaT goes for the dark vibe which is there in Barrie by giving us a villainous Pan, I also loved what they did in this episode with Henry. The one moment that in any decent adaption of Peter Pan, book or play, really has to sweep the audience away is the first time the children fly. It has to be magical, no pun intended. So building up to that moment and letting Henry, who of course is well versed in stories and, yes, is the most fervent believer in the cast, figure out how to use the fairy dust and fly was a wonderful twist on the them. And then it turned out to be thematically relevant in another sense, too. I mean, I figured that Henry's newfound friend wasn't actually a helpful fellow escape but I thought he'd be a spy rather than Peter Pan himself (though I did see it once they landed). World-building wise, making Neverland run on belief and Henry's kidnapping related to his capacity to have faith in the seemingly impossible makes this entire trip suddenly related to the initial set up of the show. I still doubt it was planned from the start, but wow, is that ever well woven.

Meanwhile, among the part of the cast where I only understood half of the dialogue for acoustic reasons: this is very different from Emma's last trip into the land of make believe in the first half of season 2, where she was out of her depth and followed Snow's lead. And that also makes thematic sense: Neverland is new to everyone, and as Emma says they're of an age. (Not to mention that there's no way Regina would go along with Snow-as-leader, but she might with Emma-as-leader.) I was impressed that the show chose to play the mermaids as dangerous (which Barrie would have approved of), and upped the degree of dysfunctionality for this particular family outing by letting Emma, psychologically understandable, blame her parents for the disaster of the Henry abduction.

Thirdly, back iin the actual Enchanted Forest, Neal/Baelfire meets last year's guest stars and gets to display his son-of-Rumpelstilkin smarts after the show in a good continuity nod let Aurora try last year's communication methods before the audience can wonder "but why doesn't she...", in vain. At a guess, we've left Aurora and Philipp behind for good now and will continue that plot thread with Baelfire/Neal, Mulan and the newly introduced Robin Hood. Again, good psychological twist with Baelfire having to do the thing most abhorrent to him for Dad-related reasons: use magic, in order to track down Emma & Co. At a guess, it won't stay at that conjuring glass, and he'll have to do more, especially now he knows the rest of the family is hanging out in Neverland (plus we'll get flashbacks so what happened to young Bae there and how he ended up in Our World afterwards).

More speculation: maybe the reason why "The Home Office" wanted Greg & Tamara destroy magic elsewhere (but not in Neverland) was to take out the competition, but then again, why not go to a realm instead which actually has lots of magic, i.e. the Enchanted Forest?

Now that Rumpel has had his lethal outing, can we let him get back to the rest of the party? I want my interaction of dysfunctional glory between him and just about everyone else. And if it's not too much, I want a non-shouting-during-a-storm conversation between Regina and Snow.