Snow And Her Big Mouth

Once Upon A Time, S01E18

We finally got to learn what horrible thing Snow did to the Queen to make her the romance-hating, scheming monster that she has become.  Turns out that before she became the Queen, Regina was just an innocent lady who wanted to marry her stable boy of a boyfriend against her magic-wielding, social-climbing mother's wishes.  This all might have happened if it weren't for little Snow believing that Regina's mother would understand her daughter's wish for happiness and blabbing about their secret love.  Instead, Regina's mother killed him, Regina had to marry Snow's father, and Regina began to hold the longest grudge in history (OK, maybe not, but get over it, lady!).  In Storybrooke, Emma tried to find evidence that would help incriminate the Mayor, but her plan fell flat.  MM tried to show her innocence to the DA, but only dug her hole a little deeper.  We also learned that framing MM was Mr. Gold's idea all along, but we can't be certain that his plan is truly to help the Queen or not.

I loved Regina's back story.  It was a little hard adjusting myself to a kinder, hopeful Regina, especially when they kept cutting back to Storybrooke where she was still being a witch.  But it was nice to have a scene where the biggest witch around wasn't Regina, but her mother, in fact.  No wonder the Queen became who she was.  She didn't think more of her daughter than a device to become royalty.  Regina really never had a chance at a happy life (unless she grew up wanting to be an evil queen).

Regina picked a really stupid love.  I mean, he thought they could escape from her mother??  True love would just conquer all??  His naivety guaranteed me that he would be dead before the episode was done.  I just wasn't sure how, of course, but he seemed to be screaming "I'll be crumpled to the ground lifeless soon!"

When little Snow came into the picture, we had one piece of the puzzle.  At first I didn't see how her being indebted to Regina for her life was going to destroy their love affair, which was good because I didn't want it to be too obvious.  It was clear as soon as the King came and proposed to Regina, though.  You didn't need to be a genius to know that Snow would rat out about Regina being in love with someone else.

I couldn't blame a little girl for believing that the evil mother was worried about Regina (considering Snow thought losing a mother was the worst thing in the world), but I have to admit that little Snow wasn't the most pleasant girl I've seen on TV.  I could  easily see how someone could hate her, the way she was complaining about Regina not wanting to be her mother.  True, she was too young to understand about adult relationships, but I still didn't like her selfish attitude at first.  Then she didn't take too much responsibility for breaking her promise.  As long as she got a mother in the end and Regina wasn't mad (guess Snow wasn't advanced enough to realize anger when it's staring her red-eyed in the face), Snow was happy and didn't have to really apologize. It's not a hatred to justify ruining everyone's happiness that you possibly can, but I think it makes me understand why she wouldn't so simply forgive Snow and let her slide just for being a child.

In Storybrooke, MM was found to be crying in her cell and the Mayor was so confident that she had won that she told MM her true delight in seeing her suffer.  MM, who has no idea what things her she's done in the other world, apologized anyway, but the Mayor told her nothing.  Wow.  At least if you're going to rub in your victory, don't leave MM in the dark.  What a crazy (but funny) thing to do.  I felt bad for MM even more so because she's in the dark, but being punished anyway.

Someone I didn't feel bad for was Emma, who was thinking she was going to get the jump on the Mayor with the whole shovel thing.  I can't believe she thought for even a minute that when she came back to find the shovel that it would be there.  The Mayor ain't playing around--of course, it would be gone!  Granted, her office being bugged was a great factor in the Mayor quickly covering her tracks, but I still think the same thing would have happened anyway somehow.  If Emma really wanted to get her, she should haven't gone through the proper legal courses.  Good job, Emma.  Lucky for you that Kathryn had shown up at the end.  Guess MM might have a chance after all, even with Emma's failure.

More than what's happened to Kathryn (I actually don't even care at this point), I wonder what Gold's angle is.  I would have never guessed that making Kathryn disappear was all his idea so that the Mayor would feel inclined to help his battery charges disappear.  He surely can't be that worried about going to jail (he has to have enough money to buy his way out of those charges)--he's gotta be setting her up. If he's not, I'm gonna be mad at him.  She's his rival.  Unless the whole plan is to make himself trustworthy enough to stab her in the back later.  And maybe even Kathryn coming back is all part of his plan.  I don't know how he would be able to do it, but it would be great if everyone was just a puppet in his play.  Why not?  I'm tired of everything having the Mayor behind it.  I'd like everyone to be playing in Mr. Gold's hand for a change (not that he hasn't done that a few times already).

Great episode.  I gained a little sympathy for Mayor Bitch (she's hardly excused), and one of the mysteries of the show has been answered.  MM's still not out of hot water yet, but it doesn't look like she'll be definitely heading to death row any time soon.  Really hope that Mr. Gold is the mastermind I inspire him to be, and he establishes himself as the Mayor's rival as he's supposed to be.