I wasn’t planning to blog about Once Upon A Time every week, mainly because it’s a serialized TV show and sometime it’s been hard for me to remember some of the things that have happened in the previous episodes, but I absolutely loved this episode, so I decided to write a thoughts post on the episode. I also really liked this week’s episode, episode 1x10 7:15 A.M., so I’m going to write a post on that episode as well, but I figured that I’d write my post on this episode first since it aired first. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the episode.
As a whole, I was completely impressed by this episode. At the moment, this episode is definitely my favorite episode out of all the episodes that have aired so far. The storyline in the real world dealt with Emma trying to track down the father of a twin brother and sister named Nicholas and Ava who tried to steal some things from a store by having Ava distract Henry by talking to him while Nicholas put the items they were trying to steal in Henry’s backpack. Of course, the owner of the store figured out that they were trying to shoplift, but he initially accused Henry of trying to steal them since they were in his backpack, but once Regina came to the store and found out about the incident she convinced owner that Henry wasn’t the one trying to steal the items that were in his backpack, claiming that he didn’t eat candy. Now that Emma’s the sheriff of Storybrooke she came to the store to investigate the situation, which quickly led to Emma and Regina disagreeing with how to handle the situation with Nicholas and Ava.
The shop owner told Emma that the phone number that Nicholas and Ava gave them was disconnected when he tried to call their parents. They told Emma that it was disconnected because their parents couldn’t pay their phone bill, which led Emma to believe that the reason they shoplifted was only because they were trying to help out their parents. It looks like Emma ended up buying them some groceries because they had some grocery bags with them when she dropped them off at the house that they had told her that they lived in. However, it turns out that the house that they were living in was abandoned and Emma ended up following them into the house and demanded that they tell what’s really going on with them. They admitted to her that their mother had died several years ago and that they had never known their father. I have to say that I can’t believe Emma actually told them that they could go into their house without insisting that she talk to their parents first. That just seemed like something that would be against police regulations, but since this is TV I’m just going to let that go.
Apparently Mary Margaret had seen them around town, but didn’t know them. Regina told Emma that they would have to report them to social services, but Emma tried to stall in doing that since she knew what the foster care system was like having grown up living foster care herself and she wouldn’t be able to help them. Regina also found group homes for them to live in outside of Storybrooke since the town doesn’t have a foster care system. Unfortunately, they would be separated into boys and girls homes, so Emma became determined to find their father, which proved to be a bit of a challenged since there wasn’t any record of their father. However, after Henry asked Emma for details about his father she got an idea for a way that she could track down Nicholas and Ava’s father when Henry asked her if she had anything that belonged to his father.
Emma asked Nicholas and Ava if they had anything that had belonged to their father and they showed her an old compass that had belonged to him. With the help of Mr. Gold, she found out that their father’s name was Michael Tillman. When she confronted him and told him about Nicholas and Ava he didn’t believe that he could be the father of twins, who were the product of a one-night stand, especially since he had only slept with their mother once while he was on a camping trip. Emma told him that’s sometimes all it takes for a woman to get pregnant. I can’t believe that Michael thought it wasn’t possible for him to have gotten a woman pregnant even though he only slept with Nicholas and Ava’s mother one time. Assuming that they used a condom when they had sex, Michael should know that they aren’t always 100% effective. I’m guessing he either he didn’t pay attention in health class when they covered Sex Ed and using birth control, or he was simply in denial. I don’t know.
Also, I personally didn’t think that it was totally outside the realm of possibility for him to have twins from a one-night stand since I actually had a fraternal twin that my mom miscarried and she got pregnant with us without the use of fertility treatments, but I digress.
Emma told Michael that unless he stepped up and took Nicholas and Ava in, they would be placed into the foster care system and would be separated. In an attempt to try and persuade him to take in Nicholas and Ava, she told him about how she gave Henry up for adoption when he was born, but she ended moving to Storybrooke after he showed up at her doorstep asking her to help him with as she put it, “something”. I’m glad she didn’t tell him about how Henry thinks Nicholas and Ava are Hansel and Gretel, because he definitely would have thought she was insane and it definitely wouldn’t have helped her argument. Despite her attempt to talk him into taking in Nicholas and Ava, he told her he couldn’t because he can barely manage to run his auto repair garage as it is.
Despite Emma’s attempts to stall in taking Nicholas and Ava to Boston where the foster homes that Regina had found for them, Regina insisted that Emma take them there that night. On the drive to Boston, Emma pretended to have car trouble and called Michael to come tow her car. Of course Michael immediately figured out that her calling to have him tow her car was all a ruse to get him there so he could see his kids as soon as he got there. She once again pleaded with him to take Nicholas and Ava and told him to look at them and see if he could still bare to not taking them. Her plan worked, as soon as he looked at them he told Emma that she didn’t have to take them to Boston, he would take them.
I for one am hoping that they show Nicholas, Ava and Michael again in a future episode just so the viewers can see how they are doing after this episode. If they don’t, I’m just going to assume that everything works out for them.
Meanwhile, in the fairytale world Nicholas and Ava’s fairytale counterparts were Hansel and Gretel, with Michael Tillman being Hansel and Gretel’s dad. Hansel and Gretel’s dad sent them to get some wood and gave them a compass just like the one that Nicholas and Ava had so they would be able to find each other. However, when they returned to where their father had been, they couldn’t find him and they soon ran into The Evil Queen who captured them, but not before they tried to get away. She told them that running from her was foolish, but it was also brave of them. Impressed by Hansel and Gretel’s bravery she told them that if they snuck into the house of The Blind Witch at night when she was asleep and got a satchel back from The Blind Witch, she would find their father for them. She couldn’t get the satchel herself due the fact that the house was protected by magic, but the magic that The Blind Witch used to protect her house didn’t work on children. She also warned them that they shouldn’t eat anything in the house.
Once The Blind Witch was asleep, they successfully snuck into the house and quickly found The Evil Queen’s satchel, but of course Hansel had to be an idiot and took a bite out of one of The Blind Witch’s cupcakes and woke her up. The doors and windows of the house were quickly locked by magic, and The Blind Witch locked them in a cage with the intention of cooking them for dinner. She began to ask them repeatedly how they wanted her to baste them: gravy or butter. Hansel and Gretel managed to escape from The Blind Witch’s house after she unlocked the cage in order to put them in the oven by shoving her into the oven and locking her inside of it before they ran out of her house with the satchel. It turns out that The Evil Queen was watching the whole thing in her magic mirror and sent a ball of fire through her magic mirror and into the oven in order to burn The Blind Witch alive before she said what’s probably my favorite out of the whole episode: “I would’ve gone gravy.” I thought that line was hilarious. :)
I have to admit that I was disappointed to see The Evil Queen destroy The Blind Witch, at least as far as we know she did, because we didn’t get to see very much of The Blind Witch and I thought that Emma Caulfield did a great job of playing the role. Since it’s clear that the writers aren’t telling the storylines in the fairytale world in a linear manner, I suppose they could always bring The Blind Witch back for a story that takes place before the incident with Hansel and Gretel took place or simply bring her back and have her say that she managed to get out of the oven by using magic.
Hansel and Gretel returned the satchel to The Evil Queen, which they discovered contained an apple. They couldn’t believe that they had gone through a lot of trouble just to get an apple, but she told them that it wasn’t just any apple; it was weapon to defeat a very wicked and powerful enemy. She told them that they had impressed her since they weren’t the first children that she had sent to the home of The Blind Witch in order to try and get her satchel, but they were the first to return with the satchel. As a reward, she invited them to live with her in her castle, promising to give them anything they wanted, but they told her that they would never want to live with someone as wicked as she is. She tried to persuade them into changing their minds by basically telling them that their father had abandoned them, but they still said no, and told her that their father is all they have for a family. The Evil Queen let Hansel and Gretel go, and in a rather predictable twist it was revealed that she had been holding their father captive the whole time and told him that they had chosen to live with him even though she had promised them everything. The Evil Queen let their father go as well after he told her that they are family and family always sticks together. She let him go as well, but she told him that she wasn’t going to make it easy for them to find each other, but they did indeed find each other toward the end of the episode.
One thing that I’ve noticed about both Regina and The Evil Queen both seem to have a bit of an obsession with children. I’m wondering if part of the reason why The Evil Queen hates Snow White is that she did something that made impossible for her have children and if the curse that she cast on everybody in Storybrooke also made it so that Regina is infertile since the curse was supposed to take away everybody’s happy endings, which perhaps for her/Regina is to have children and be a mother. That might explain part of the reason why Regina has such an icy cold demeanor and is very possessive of Henry. As cold as Regina is at times, she does seem to care about Henry on some level. I feel like that gives Regina/The Evil Queen a certain level of humanity, and I personally think that Lana Parrilla plays the roles of Regina and The Evil Queen perfectly.
Before I move on to discussing the end of the episode, I just want to say that I thought that the hat The Evil Queen was wearing when she first ran into Hansel and Gretel when they were lost in the forest was beyond hideous. I also hated the way her hair was styled during that scene. I’m so glad that Lana Parrilla’s hair wasn’t styled like that for all of her scenes in the fairytale world in this episode. I have to say that I’ve developed a major crush on Lana Parrilla, and I for one think she’s smoking hot, but I digress.
One of the things that I think the writers have done a really good job of so far is the way that they’ve revealed Emma’s backstory through the other characters so far and have been tying them into storylines in the fairytale world since she doesn’t have a fairytale counterpart given the fact that she was born in the fairytale world and sent into the real world by Prince Charming right after she was born. I really liked getting to learn more about Emma’s experiences with growing up in the foster care system.
During Emma’s search for Nicholas and Ava’s father, Henry asked her to tell him about his father. She basically told him that she met him while she was working night shifts at twenty-four hour diner and that he had been training to be a fireman and had always complained about the diner not serving pumpkin pie, which apparently is also her favorite kind of pie. They ended up having a fling and right before she went away to prison she found out that she was pregnant with Henry and had tried to get in touch with him, but found out that he had died trying to save a family from a burning building and that he was basically a hero.
However, later Emma told Mary Margaret that everything that she had told Henry about his father was a lie and that his father wasn’t a hero. I have a feeling that Henry’s father will show up at some point, and that would definitely cause some major problems between Emma and Henry, because then Henry will know that she had lied to him. Plus, I’m sure Henry’s father showing up would also cause problems for Regina.
When Mary Margaret asked Emma if she’s ever thought about looking for her parents, Emma told her about how Henry believes that she (Snow White) is her mother and that she was sent from the fairytale world to the real world to save everyone from The Evil Queen’s curse. Mary Margaret didn’t seem to have any problems believing that she (Snow White) was Emma’s mother since she had been the one who gave Henry the book of fairytales and he had already told her that he thinks she’s Snow White. Also, I love how Mary Margaret told Emma that she did kind of have her chin. I thought that was a touching little moment. One thing that I would love to see more of on the show is for Mary Margaret to have more scenes with Henry, especially at Henry’s school since she’s supposed to be his teacher.
After Emma left to go get something to eat, she sniffed Emma’s baby blanket, so I’m thinking that Mary Margaret might on some level be beginning to remember her life as Snow White.
Every character that I’ve ever seen Ginnifer Goodwin and the way that she’s played those roles has always reminded me a lot of my favorite teacher from high school who I had for ninth grade English and AP English my senior year in certain ways, and that’s definitely case with Mary Margaret and the way Ginnifer Goodwin plays the role. Mary Margaret giving Henry the book of fairytales because she thought that he deserved some happiness in his life after seeing how cold Regina typically is and being so willing to believe Henry and Emma’s theory about her being Snow White instead of automatically thinking that Henry is beyond insane definitely seems like something my favorite teacher from high school would do if I were in a situation similar to Henry’s and confided in her about it.
At the end of the episode, Henry brought Emma some pumpkin pie, and she continued to lie to him, saying that she was glad that she had told him about his father. Henry told her that she really is changing things for the better, especially considering what she did to help reunite Ava and Nicholas with their father. Just at that moment, a mysterious man rode up on a motorcycle asking where he could find a place to stay, and she gave him directions to Granny’s Bed and Breakfast. When she asked him what his name was, he was evasive and didn’t tell what it was before he rode off on his motorcycle. This prompted Emma to ask Henry about what he had said earlier in the episode about the citizens of Storybrooke not leaving town or strangers not coming to town. Right at the end of the episode he reminded her that strangers don’t come to Storybrooke.
I have to say that the man who as of right now is simply being referred to as The Stranger in episode descriptions and articles that I’ve read about the show immediately intrigued me. I’m anxious to see if he has a fairytale counterpart and how his arrival will impact things.
All in all, I have to say that I absolutely loved this episode. This is probably my favorite episode of the show at this point, but I also absolutely love episode 1x04 “The Price of Gold”, which is the Cinderella episode. That episode is definitely another one of my top favorites. Watching this episode and the next episode, episode 1x10 “7:15 A.M.” has left me wondering how the writers are organizing the timeline of events in the fairytale world since in this episode they showed The Evil Queen discovering that Snow White had encountered the seven dwarfs, but they didn’t show how Snow White ended up meeting them until episode 1x10 “7:15 A.M.”. I’ll probably speculate about that in more detail when I write my post for that episode.
With all that said, I give this episode a rating of an A+.
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