Going into season two of
Once Upon a Time, I have to admit that I was very skeptical about whether or
not the show was going to be very good due to the addition of several series
regulars and several new recurring guest-star roles, because I’ve always felt
like Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz don’t do the best job of handling the
ensemble nature of the show and balancing out the screen time for all of the
characters at times. To me, they tend to come across as being like children who
are given a new toy to play with; they get excited about the new characters and
the actors who play them, so they feature them a lot when they are first
introduced, and then once they add another new recurring character to the show,
they push that character into the background and feature the new characters a
lot until the next time they add another new character to the show. At this
point, it appears to be an endless cycle with them doing that, and it’s
something that I wish the writers would stop doing on a constant basis.
Personally, I think they should just focus on the characters that they already
have on the show for a while before they add too many more new characters to
the show.
Despite my skepticism about
the introduction of several new characters last season, I ended up thoroughly
enjoying the addition of Colin O’Donoghue and the character Captain Hook to the
show and season two as a whole. I now consider Captain Hook to be one of my
favorite characters on the show, so I’m thrilled that they made Colin a series
regular, which is something I was definitely a little leery about at first.
I’ll admit that season two
ended up being much better than I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t
perfect, but it was still pretty good. That being said, unlike the end of
season one, the two-part season two finale left me feeling very excited for
season three and very optimistic that season three is going to be very good and
full of excitement. As a whole, I thought the season premiere was pretty good,
and while I’m on the subject of Captain Hook, I have to say that the scenes
between Captain Hook and Emma were definitely one of the biggest highlights of
the episode for me. I especially felt like the scenes where they were bonding
over their respective relationships with Baelfire/Neal really allowed both the
writers and Captain Hook as a character to really demonstrate some of Captain
Hook’s good qualities. I think that’s important since Captain Hook has done
some questionable things at times.
Based on the season two
finale, a big part of me thinks that Emma will end up with Neal at the end of
series given how they acted during the scene where Neal fell through the portal
back to the Enchanted Forrest. However, I for one am rooting for Emma to end up
Captain Hook. I feel like Jennifer Morrison and Colin O’Donoghue have amazing
chemistry with each other, and I think that having Emma and Captain Hook become
a couple would give the writers some great material to work with. For starters,
I would love to see how Snow White and Charming would react to them being a
couple since neither of them seems to like Captain Hook all that much. To me,
Emma being romantically involved with Captain Hook would be the equivalent of
parents having to deal with their teenage daughter dating the high school’s bad
boy.
The scenes between Emma and
Captain Hook were definitely not the only thing that I liked about the episode
though. I thought all of the scenes between Emma, Captain Hook, Snow White,
Prince Charming, Regina and Rumplestiltskin aboard Captain Hook’s ship, the
Jolly Roger, as they sailed to Neverland in search of Henry were all very
interesting and exciting, especially given the fact that none of them have ever
really gotten along with each other very well. In just this episode alone the
writers made it clear that their trip is going to be very eventful when hostile
mermaids attacked the Jolly Roger. While Emma, Captain Hook, Snow White, Prince
Charming and Regina all worked together to deal with the mermaids, it was
ultimately Regina who managed to get rid of them by using magic.
Emma got knocked out and
fell off the Jolly Roger into the water at one point, but Prince Charming managed
to save her. Once they arrived at Neverland towards the end of the episode,
Emma came to conclusion that even though they don’t necessarily like each other,
they would ultimately all need to work together if they were going to succeed
in finding Henry. I have to say that I loved it when Captain Hook told Emma
that “fancies” her quite a bit from time to time when she’s not yelling at him.
That was definitely one of my favorite moments from the episode.
At beginning of the episode,
Greg, Tamara and Henry fell out of the portal they had jumped into in the
season two finale and landed in Neverland. It was quickly made clear that they
didn’t really know anything about the people they work for at the Home Office
when they discovered the phone that they had been given was full of what
appeared to be sand. Henry took this opportunity to mock Greg and Tamara for
working for someone that they clearly didn’t know anything about. I have to say
that while I don’t hate Henry, he can be pretty annoying at times, and when he
was talking to Greg and Tamara was definitely one of those times. Considering
the fact that Greg and Tamara had kidnapped Henry and they’ve already shown
that they aren’t afraid to be come violent, I was a little shocked that Henry
was so quick to mock them like that. I know that Henry has frequently
demonstrated a great deal of bravery at times, but I’m still surprised by just
how often Henry is willing to be so quick to play Russian roulette with his own
life, which he did several times throughout the episode.
Anyway, Henry managed to get
away from Greg and Tamara when The Lost Boys showed up and their leader, Felix,
told them that they were the Home Office and that their plan was never to destroy
magic, which Greg and Tamara had told Henry was the Home Office’s mission. They
also told Greg and Tamara aren’t meant to return to their world. The shadow
ended up stealing Greg’s shadow. Henry quickly ran into someone who claimed to
be trying to run from the Lost Boys. They went off together so they could find
the Echo Caves where they couldn’t be tracked. At one point they encountered a
ravine where the only way they could get across to the other side was to use
pixie dust in order to give them the ability to fly to the other side of the
ravine.
Unfortunately, the pixie
dust had one caveat, which was in order for it to work the person using it have
to truly believe in magic. Henry told the boy that he believed in magic enough
for the both of them, and the pixie dust. The boy ended up slipping up and
referred to Henry by his name, which Henry hadn’t told him at that point. This
ultimately led to him revealing to Henry that he is Peter Pan and that he has
been searching for the heart of the truest believer, which resides in Henry. As
the episode ended, Peter Pan summoned the Lost Boys, telling them that it was
time to play as they surrounded Henry.
I have to admit that I’m not
really familiar with the story of Peter Pan, but I’m really excited to see the
writers’ take on the character. I already think their take on the character is
very interesting, and I think that so far Robbie Kay is playing the role very
well.
One thing that I found
confusing about this episode is how Rumpelstiltskin ended up getting off the
Jolly Roger and managed to track down Tamara so quickly. That seemed to happen
out of nowhere. It will definitely be interesting to see if he ends up meeting
up with everyone else on the Jolly Roger at some point, or if he goes and tries
to find Henry on his own. He ended up running into Tamara and promptly killed
her by using the trick that he, Regina and Cora have used numerous times to rip
a person’s heart out of their chest and crushed it. Personally, I’m glad that
Tamara is dead, because she always kind of annoyed me.
Rumpelstiltskin ended up
running into Felix, who welcomed him to Neverland, while also warning him that
if he’s in Neverland for Henry that makes him Peter Pan’s enemy.
Rumpelstiltskin basically shrugged off what Felix said, saying that nothing has
changed and he plans to take down as many Lost Boys as he can while he’s in
Neverland. The exchange ended with Felix leaving Rumpelstiltskin with a doll of
a boy, which left him in tears. Honestly, I found that whole scene rather
weird, especially the part with the doll. I don’t entirely understand the
significance of the doll. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what happens
with Rumpelstiltskin this season, especially now that he believes that Henry
will eventually be responsible for his downfall and seems to want to find Henry
before the others do.
I have to say that I loved
all of Neal’s lines to Mulan about the fact that they made a Disney movie about
her and that she’s essentially viewed by people as being a fairytale character.
Honestly, I’ve never viewed Mulan as a fairytale character, and while I’ve
enjoyed the writers take on Mulan, I still have always thought that it was kind
of weird that they incorporated Mulan into the show when the show is supposed
to be about fairytale characters. I kind of felt the same way when they
revealed that Dr. Whale’s counterpart in the enchanted forest is Dr. Viktor
Frankenstein since he’s not a fairytale character either. Ultimately, I decided
to let it go because I loved the season two episodes “The Doctor” and “In the
Name of the Brother”, and I’m simply a huge fan of David Anders. I honestly
don’t have a lot of complaints about this episode other than that I don’t think
the scenes with Neal, Mulan and Aurora really added all that much to the
episode.
If there’s one thing I’m
skeptical about when it comes to this season and hope that the writers don’t
plan on doing is keeping Henry and Neal separated from Emma, Captain Hook, Snow
White, Prince Charming and Regina for too long, because that would be too
similar to the whole thing with Emma and Snow White being trapped in the
enchanted forest together last season. Personally, I thought that storyline
dragged on a bit too long and I got a little bored with it at times last season.
Unfortunately, it sounds like Emma, Captain Hook, Snow White, Prince Charming
and Regina will be searching for Henry the entire first half of the season
based on the spoilers I’ve read. If that’s indeed the case with the search for
Henry, then I’m guessing Neal will be separated from Emma and the others just
as long, if not longer. If the writers are going to drag out the search for
Henry for the first half of the season, while also finding a way to keep the
storyline interesting, then I might not necessarily mind the writers keeping
Henry separated from the others for a significant amount of time all that much.
I’ll say the same thing when it comes to Neal trying to get back to Emma and
the others, but I’m definitely skeptical about those two storylines.
All things considered, I
thought that this episode was an excellent way to start off Once Upon a Time’s
third season. While I definitely missed seeing characters like Belle and other
characters that are currently supposed to be in Storybrooke, it was definitely
nice to see the writers focus primarily on their original core characters in
this episode. Although, I’m starting to view Captain Hook as one of the show’s
primary characters despite the fact that he wasn’t introduced until season two.
Focusing on just the show’s core characters was definitely the greatest
strengths of this episode. I also feel like the writers did a great job of
handling the introduction of Peter Pan. This episode had the perfect blend of
drama, action and a few nice humorous moments. If it weren’t for the fact that
Emma and Captain Hook were bonding over their respective relationships with
Neal at one point in the episode, I think that the writers could have waited
until the second or third episode of the season to feature the subplot with
Neal, Mulan and Aurora. I also felt like the whole thing with Rumpelstiltskin leaving
the Jolly Roger came out of nowhere, and I’m still not quite sure how that
happened. That aspect of the episode definitely could have been handled better
in my opinion.
That being said, my final
score for this episode is 8 out of 10.
No comments :
Post a Comment