Once upon a Time 3.13
Mar. 17th, 2014 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Jane E. is writing the episode first featuring the new Big Bad at length, because of course she does.
The one point of the episode where I groaned and thought "not again" turned then into "ah, but yes!", i.e. what looked like a rerun of "everyone wrongly suspects Regina who is framed by a third party" from season 2 was instead Emma and Regina teaming up (always good) pretending exactly this in order to smoke out the true culprit. Everything else I embraced from the start, in tht OuaT way.
The actress who used to play Charlotte on Lost is having great fun as the Witch/Selena, andI should have seen the twist that she's someone's family member coming but I didn't or rather, I thought she'd be Maleficent's sister when I should have looked closer. Because everyone is related to Henry on this show. :) Seriously though, the Witch as Regina's hitherto unknown (to Regina) half sister with massive "mother Cora and godfather Rumple liked you better!" issues totally works for me. I'm not sure I'm buying Selena's claim to be the older sister, though; while of course young Cora the Miller's daughter could have had a child she gave away before learning magic, I'm just tantalized by the prospect that maybe Rumplestilskin didn't just teach Selena but somehow got his biological child from Cora after all AFTER Regina was born. I'm also influenced by the fact that in Wicked, the Wizard is Elphaba's biological father, I admit, and by this show's general "in most cases, Rumplestilskin's involved and somehow at fault" principle. Him having a plan be, another child of Cora's as a potential curse caster if Regina doesn't work out would be very him, and it would be the ultimate irony of the fact he didn't use Selena in the end wasn't a sign of preference but the fact he couldn't put her through the same type of manipulations that contributed to making Regina into the person who was able to do that. And if Selena happens to be Rumple's biological daughter as well as Cora's, that blood connection might have been what enabled her to bring him back from the almost dead in the episode's cliffhanger revelation.
Anyway, even if I'm totally wrong about this I have now reason to hope we'll see Cora again in the inevitable flashback of how Selena a) came to be and b) ended up in Oz, which I'm looking forward to.
Loved both the Enchanted Forest and the Storybrooke storylines. Red makes a welcome return (did the actress get some time off on the other show where she's the lead?) and has a conversation with Snow about Regina which works with my Snow story "Made and Unmade", we actually meet the Witch/Selena beyond last week's cameo, and Jane Espenson gives her a gleeful gusto as well as great exchanges with Regina. (The "You're green". "And you're rude." reminded me of BTVS.) Meanwhile, you know, this Robin Hood/Regina thing could work for me if they continue to play it like this, slowly building, with neither of them knowing anyone's destiny. Regina saving Robin's kid from the flying monkey may have been predictable but is entirely ic for Regina, and it gives Robin a reason to go with her to the castle in order to repay that debt. Neither of them is in love at first sight, and they have a nice giving-no-quarters dialogue going.
Regina's next plan to deal with her Henry-less life, after the heart removal was nixed by Snow, being to put herself into an enchanted sleep with the vague hope that Henry might wake her up one day is very Regina like - years and years of wanting magical short cuts won't go away so easily, and what makes her a believable character; ditto for the joyful realisation that having a new archenemy (after she did try to point out to Selena that being raised by Cora and taught by Rumple isn't the world's most enviable fate, exactly) to destroy means a new purpose. Incidentally, this also means Robin gets to know all sides of her before developing feelings. Like I said, if they continue in this vein, I could buy into this.
Meanwhile, in Storybrooke: like I said, dealing with the inevitable "everyone suspects Regina" by making it a cunning ploy by Emma and Regina was well done (and probably the only way to do it - it wouldn't have made story sense if the Storybrokoe folk hadn't first suspect the person who took their memories and cursed them once before. They also didn't drag out the "when will Regina see Henry again?" question while making it clear he's still memory less of her which puts Regina in the position River Song was in the DW library episodes, and you can see it hurts her, but Emma persuades her to try and interact with Henry on a new aquaintance base anyway. The Storybrooke storyline also offers some more information on the Witch/Selena: while her conversation with Snow was clearly a ploy, I don't think she was lying about having been a midwife at some point (because of the accurate observation re: cradle rash); she recruits her flying monkeys the Borg way, i.e. the Flying Monkeys can infect others whose old selves become completely overridden, which is as scary in a fairy tale context as it was in a TNG one (there is also a paralle to the MCU, with Selena starring as Loki, he of the "my sibling got preferred" issues and the brainwashing apparatus which according to Nick Fury changes people into his personal flying monkeys); and she brought dear old Rumplestilskin "back" - back to life? Back to Storybrooke? He's more unhinged than we've seen him since the pilot, and perhaps for a similar cause, since he's in a cage.
Speculation: a bird bringing Hook the message and the memory potion does sound like Snow, which is why I still believe it wasn't, or not Snow alone. I'm also pretty sure that as opposed to Emma's assumption, Neal isn't among the Flying Monkeys, and nor is Belle; however, both of them may habe inadvertently or deliberately worked together with Selena in order to bring back Rumple - Neal's "let's hope I won't have to the entire kingdom" from the previous episode sounded just like the sort of joke which will turn out to not have been. If so, they may also be responsible for the message to Hook.
The one point of the episode where I groaned and thought "not again" turned then into "ah, but yes!", i.e. what looked like a rerun of "everyone wrongly suspects Regina who is framed by a third party" from season 2 was instead Emma and Regina teaming up (always good) pretending exactly this in order to smoke out the true culprit. Everything else I embraced from the start, in tht OuaT way.
The actress who used to play Charlotte on Lost is having great fun as the Witch/Selena, andI should have seen the twist that she's someone's family member coming but I didn't or rather, I thought she'd be Maleficent's sister when I should have looked closer. Because everyone is related to Henry on this show. :) Seriously though, the Witch as Regina's hitherto unknown (to Regina) half sister with massive "mother Cora and godfather Rumple liked you better!" issues totally works for me. I'm not sure I'm buying Selena's claim to be the older sister, though; while of course young Cora the Miller's daughter could have had a child she gave away before learning magic, I'm just tantalized by the prospect that maybe Rumplestilskin didn't just teach Selena but somehow got his biological child from Cora after all AFTER Regina was born. I'm also influenced by the fact that in Wicked, the Wizard is Elphaba's biological father, I admit, and by this show's general "in most cases, Rumplestilskin's involved and somehow at fault" principle. Him having a plan be, another child of Cora's as a potential curse caster if Regina doesn't work out would be very him, and it would be the ultimate irony of the fact he didn't use Selena in the end wasn't a sign of preference but the fact he couldn't put her through the same type of manipulations that contributed to making Regina into the person who was able to do that. And if Selena happens to be Rumple's biological daughter as well as Cora's, that blood connection might have been what enabled her to bring him back from the almost dead in the episode's cliffhanger revelation.
Anyway, even if I'm totally wrong about this I have now reason to hope we'll see Cora again in the inevitable flashback of how Selena a) came to be and b) ended up in Oz, which I'm looking forward to.
Loved both the Enchanted Forest and the Storybrooke storylines. Red makes a welcome return (did the actress get some time off on the other show where she's the lead?) and has a conversation with Snow about Regina which works with my Snow story "Made and Unmade", we actually meet the Witch/Selena beyond last week's cameo, and Jane Espenson gives her a gleeful gusto as well as great exchanges with Regina. (The "You're green". "And you're rude." reminded me of BTVS.) Meanwhile, you know, this Robin Hood/Regina thing could work for me if they continue to play it like this, slowly building, with neither of them knowing anyone's destiny. Regina saving Robin's kid from the flying monkey may have been predictable but is entirely ic for Regina, and it gives Robin a reason to go with her to the castle in order to repay that debt. Neither of them is in love at first sight, and they have a nice giving-no-quarters dialogue going.
Regina's next plan to deal with her Henry-less life, after the heart removal was nixed by Snow, being to put herself into an enchanted sleep with the vague hope that Henry might wake her up one day is very Regina like - years and years of wanting magical short cuts won't go away so easily, and what makes her a believable character; ditto for the joyful realisation that having a new archenemy (after she did try to point out to Selena that being raised by Cora and taught by Rumple isn't the world's most enviable fate, exactly) to destroy means a new purpose. Incidentally, this also means Robin gets to know all sides of her before developing feelings. Like I said, if they continue in this vein, I could buy into this.
Meanwhile, in Storybrooke: like I said, dealing with the inevitable "everyone suspects Regina" by making it a cunning ploy by Emma and Regina was well done (and probably the only way to do it - it wouldn't have made story sense if the Storybrokoe folk hadn't first suspect the person who took their memories and cursed them once before. They also didn't drag out the "when will Regina see Henry again?" question while making it clear he's still memory less of her which puts Regina in the position River Song was in the DW library episodes, and you can see it hurts her, but Emma persuades her to try and interact with Henry on a new aquaintance base anyway. The Storybrooke storyline also offers some more information on the Witch/Selena: while her conversation with Snow was clearly a ploy, I don't think she was lying about having been a midwife at some point (because of the accurate observation re: cradle rash); she recruits her flying monkeys the Borg way, i.e. the Flying Monkeys can infect others whose old selves become completely overridden, which is as scary in a fairy tale context as it was in a TNG one (there is also a paralle to the MCU, with Selena starring as Loki, he of the "my sibling got preferred" issues and the brainwashing apparatus which according to Nick Fury changes people into his personal flying monkeys); and she brought dear old Rumplestilskin "back" - back to life? Back to Storybrooke? He's more unhinged than we've seen him since the pilot, and perhaps for a similar cause, since he's in a cage.
Speculation: a bird bringing Hook the message and the memory potion does sound like Snow, which is why I still believe it wasn't, or not Snow alone. I'm also pretty sure that as opposed to Emma's assumption, Neal isn't among the Flying Monkeys, and nor is Belle; however, both of them may habe inadvertently or deliberately worked together with Selena in order to bring back Rumple - Neal's "let's hope I won't have to the entire kingdom" from the previous episode sounded just like the sort of joke which will turn out to not have been. If so, they may also be responsible for the message to Hook.
