Curses Broken, Not Grudges

Once Upon A Time, S02E07

Ruby was worried that her wolf side was harming people again.  In the past, Red found her mother and learned to control the wolf inside her, but was made to chose between her new family and those like Snow.  Spencer, remembering who he was as King George, decided to get the people of Storybrooke to see that Charming was an incompetent leader of their town.  Henry struggled with his nightmare and received help from Rumpelstiltskin.

I wasn't that interested in Red's past, although it was worthwhile to know that she would continue to turn into a wolf even in the non-magic world (which I guess isn't surprising when Rump can use his magic almost as normal).  I was more concerned with the battle between King George and Charming that continued on in Storybrooke.  You would think that the old king would have something better to do with his time than hassle Charming, but apparently not.  He even went as far as murdering an innocent person just to make it look like Charming was letting wolves roam the streets killing people.  I mean, he is not playing around.  It's a little funny to see someone go after Charming in the first place because Charming's not at all intimidated by someone threatening to get him.  Charming's lack of fear was his downfall because he ultimately lost the magic hat that could have brought back Emma and Snow.  However, we all know that team Snow back in the other world is working on their own plan to get back, so the loss wasn't so great.

It's also interesting that they were able to find the diamonds? that make the fairy dust in Storybrooke.  I wouldn't have guessed they would be able to find anything in the "real" world.  Wow.  I thought after they were lucky enough to find them that they probably shouldn't be rejoicing their find in a public place because I'm worried that someone might try to use the fairy dust to do something bad.  Although I can't remember whether non-fairies can use the dust for their own purposes or not.  If they can't, I guess that's an unwarranted concern.

Rump wasn't in this episode much, but he was there to sort of solve a bit of the mystery of why Henry and Aurora were having the same dream.  It should have been obvious what their connection was (because I kept wondering why those two would be connected in any way), but I failed to remember that Henry, too, had been a victim of the sleeping curse not too long ago.  Apparently there are side effects to the curse and now Henry is entering some kind of in-between life and death world when he sleeps.  That's pretty freaky.  And what's worse is that this world is real and if he gets burned or anything else in that place, it'll affect him in real-time.  But the nice thing is that Rump helped him out free of charge (I guess he feels like he owes Henry one or something?  Couldn't be because he likes him or something), and Henry is gaining some control of his nightmares.  Plus, he can communicate with Aurora, which means he should be able to communicate with Emma and Snow!  Cool.  But I feel like there's definitely going to be more danger to him being in that in-between world.  His problem couldn't be turned into an advantage that quickly.

Well, I suppose next we'll get back to Team Snow because it's unlikely that Charming is going to find a way any time soon to get back his loved ones.  I suppose if they have communication between the two worlds now, Henry might get the word that Hook and Cora are coming for Rump and Regina, respectively.  I sort of hope not because I would love for them to be surprised as their enemies just pop into town and raise havoc.  Although, if they do know in advance, Rump and Regina might team up like old times (except not with such evil intentions).  I don't know.  I'm just looking forward to them having to work together period because they just hate each other right now.  I think they would be the funniest team together and it needs to happen A.S.A.P.

Killing Two Birds With One Apple

Once Upon A Time, S01E21

A dream of her downfall and a dying an apple tree made the Mayor frightened enough to stop the games with Emma and actively get rid of her before she broke the curse.  She found no help with Mr. Gold, so she got Jefferson to aid her with his magic hat.  Using the last bit of magic she owned, the Mayor was able to procure the same apple that she used to take down Snow in the magic world.  She offered this apple to Emma in a turnover, which Henry ate to prove to Emma that magic still existed.  We also got to see when Snow tried to rescue Charming from King George and then later from the Queen.  To save him from the Queen, Snow had to willing eat the poison apple, so she took a bite and fell down to the ground lifeless.

In Storybrooke, Henry thankfully stopped Emma from taking them out of town together.  Later, MM also scolded her for doing something so rash and abandoning the very people she had said were her family not too long ago.  I was really hoping that the talk MM had with Emma (it was nice because she was quite tough on her like she was her real mother) would have convinced Emma that she needed to stay.  However, after Emma spoke with Archie, she decided to wave the white flag and leave by herself.  No matter how much she tries to make it seem like she's doing it to stop interrupting Henry's life, it just looks like she's giving up.  I'm really starting to get frustrated with her.  Probably as much as Henry is.

I was surprised to see Jefferson again because I thought he had fallen into a hat that Emma had made, but I guess not.  I'm still really puzzled as to how he fell from that window and was okay.  Because he seemed perfectly fine when he arrived at the Mayor's house.  I hated that he agreed to work with her again, when he knows that his miserable life right now is all her fault.  But she offered him a chance at a new life together with his daughter, so how could he refuse?  Boo.  Not only that, but he helped her get that apple that killed Snow in the past.  Great.  I was hoping that she would have just wasted her last bit of magic in the ring that Daniel had left her.  But no, she managed to get the apple.

But I don't know why the Queen chose to use that to get rid of Emma because it didn't get rid of her mother.  It's nice that she's recycling, but Snow woke up from that apple bite (otherwise Emma would have never been born).  Unless Emma couldn't be woken from that spell because she lacks a true love (God, I hope that her true love was the former sheriff--he was amazing)?  I hope that was her thinking because if it didn't kill one person, why use the same apple to try again?  The Mayor had few options left, but there had to be something else up her evil sleeve that she could have grabbed.

I expected that Emma would be end up like Snow until the Mayor went to gloat to Gold about how she had strengthened her curse and Gold warned her that all magic comes with a price.  She told him that he could pay that price and left after some more gloating, but since Henry was the one who ate her tainted apple turnover, it looks like the Mayor's paid the price after all.  How the hell will Henry wake up?   Maybe if Emma starts to believe he'll wake up?  Seeing him take the fall instead of Emma was such an exciting ending to a good episode, though.

The last thing I thought was very interesting in this episode was when the Queen offered to let Charming live if Snow ate the apple.  The concept of Snow sacrificing herself to save her prince was much different than the Snow White story that I've usually seen.  I liked that the Queen's apple couldn't just be forced down anyone's throat, but had to be eaten willingly for it to work.  I guess that in the tale I know, Snow does take the apple from a strange, old lady willingly, but I always think of it as some kind of big trick.  I mean, Queen Regina told her straight up what would happen to her if she ate the apple, which is refreshing for a villain.  Maybe the honesty is the part that makes it worse, though?  But it also makes her "death" a little more noble and sad.  I can't wait to see what Charming will do once he finds Snow again.

Sunday can't come soon enough again!  I'm so anxious to see if Henry's sacrifice will do the trick of getting Emma to believe.  If nothing else, Emma will have some evidence that the Mayor is an unsuitable mother because she poisoned her own kid.  There's no way Mayor Bitch can scheme her way out of that.  The proof is in the turnover! 

Emma Meets The Mad Hatter

Once Upon A Time, S01E17

This week we were taken into Wonderland and learned about the back story of Jefferson, aka the Mad Hatter.  In Storybrooke, Emma tried to get MM back to her cell before the arraignment next morning, but got abducted by Jefferson instead who wouldn't let her go until she mads him a magic hat that would let him get back to his old world.

It probably took me longer than most people to figure out who Jefferson was supposed to be because I was only thinking of fairly tales that mostly came from the Grimm variety rather than other stories of magic and fantasy.  The last thing I thought he would be from was somewhere like Alice and Wonderland.  I've never heard of the Mad Hatter having a daughter (actually, I've never heard of his background story period), so the scenes of him and his daughter threw me for a loop.  Not even when Jefferson pulled out his magic hat to transport himself and the Queen (whom he called "Regina," something I thought was odd until later) into the passageway into different worlds.  I just simply thought he was a magician until they went through a mirror-like door, and they were walking through tall grass and mushrooms.  Yes, it took me until then to realize "This must be Wonderland" and the smoking caterpillar confirmed my theory.

I liked that through Jefferson and the Queen's recovery mission in the Queen of Hearts' garden we learned that the two queens were sort of rivals.  I thought perhaps they might have been sort of friends (both being unreasonably cruel rulers), but after the Queen revealed that the box she retrieved actually held her a shrunken version of her father (whom she returned to full-size with a piece of mushroom), it looked like they were considerably enemies.  It's unclear to me, however, why the Queen chose to get her father at that time (I assume it's around the time Snow was going to save Charming?) or how long the Queen of Hearts had kept him prisoner there.

Even though we don't have much time to understand the relationship between Jefferson and Grace, I felt for him when he was trapped in Wonderland and wouldn't be able to keep his promise to return to her in time for their tea party.  Queen Bitch had to rub it in that she was double-crossing him by throwing his own words back at him about family being important and said that if he really cared about Grace, he should have never left her in the first place.  She has a lot of nerve.  Worse than her basically sticking her tongue out at him as she left him there, Jefferson was taken to the Queen of Hearts who had his head cut off when he didn't answer her question.  She's about as sympathetic to Jefferson's desire to go home as the other queen was and told him if he wanted to go home to make another magical hat.  It was nice how they explained why he was a "mad hatter" by the fact that after being stuck in Wonderland he became obsessed with making another hat that would send him home (he looked damned crazy with the thousands of hats surrounding him in that one scene).  It was no wonder that in Storybrooke he was just as nutty (although I'm not sure why he has awareness of his former self unlike everyone else except Mr. Gold).

Storybrooke Jefferson is just as miserable, trapped in a beautiful house by himself while he can only look into other lives through telescopes (glad he's not using it for creepier reasons).  He was suspicious from the beginning, wandering around in the woods at night, but he seemed like just a lonely guy until he drugged Emma's tea.  His offer of a hot beverage was fishy to me anyhow, but Emma didn't seem to think so and drank with little hesitation.  When she woke up later tied and gagged (and also did he remove some of her clothes??), I'm sure she won't be making that mistake again.

I was pretty impressed by the way Emma smashed her cup with a pillow and used the shard to free herself.  Guess she wasn't a private detective for nothing.  She was at least skillful enough to not immediately get caught by a weirdo who was not only sharpening scissors (I don't care if he makes hats--was there a need to do that right then??) but had also tied up MM in another room.  When I saw that, I was hoping that Emma would throw a chair out a window and they would just hope for the best and jump out of there as soon as possible.  This has to be the creepiest situation that Emma and MM have been in thus far.

Things looked worse when Jefferson had them at gunpoint before the two could escape, and he seemed to only have plans for Emma (MM was tied up again, but he claimed it was for her own good).  I thought he was simply working for Mayor Bitch at first (based on their previous connection in the other world), but then it just turned out he wanted her to make him a working hat.  At this point, I was wondering if the line between Storybrooke and the magic world would be broken if Emma started to believe in what Jefferson was saying. I started thinking that this might be the moment when Emma truly believed what Henry was talking about, especially when she said that she would love to think that MM was her mother.  Instead, Emma was just playing around with Jefferson and whacked him over the head while his guard was down.

I wasn't too worried that Emma and MM would make it out all right, even when Jefferson was rolling around with Emma and almost looked like he was going to shoot her.  I didn't expect MM to knock him over with a chair and then kick him out of the window, though.  That was pretty cool.  However, they were less freaked out that Jefferson was gone when they looked below.  If it was me and a seemingly maniac like him was holding me against my will, I would have been a lot more cautious as to whether he was still around.  Of course, I'm pretty sure that Emma's hat had "worked" and he had been sent to another world, but MM and Emma didn't know that.  They were way too relieved at his disappearance.  Also, why did Emma keep the hat and throw it into her car?  Evidence?  She need a reminder of the horrible night she and MM shared?

I was unexpectedly touched when Emma was telling MM how important she was to her and asking for her to have faith in her (once again).  Since Emma gave her the car keys and let MM choose whether to flee or stay, I knew that MM would definitely stay.  It was a great moment when MM was in her cell right where she was supposed to be, and Mayor Bitch couldn't believe it.

I'm not sure what the deal is that Mayor Bitch and Mr. Gold have.  Is he just pretending he will help MM in court or is he leading the Mayor on about whether he is on her side?  I might just have missed something in another episode (possibly when Mr. Gold was in jail himself).  Either way, I'm worried about whether Mr. Gold will really help Emma out like he promised or if he's playing for Mayor Bitch's side (at least for now, anyway).

Emma held onto Henry's book at the end, so I'm starting to think she is little by little believing in the other world. Either that or she was really captivated by Jefferson's story and just had to see if what he told her matched up to anything in  the book.  I dunno.  Hopefully it does mean she will soon be a "believer."   She may be even sooner if Jefferson pops out of that hat sometime.

So MM should be going to court in the next episode, I guess.  If Mr. Gold isn't going to actually defend her, then she is going to be in deep shit.  I suspect that no matter what happens Emma will do whatever she can to make sure her "family" doesn't end up on death row.  I wonder if next time we will see Snow go to save Charming or if it will be about another lesser character.  Either way, as usual, I'm eagerly waiting to see this story unfold.