Writing Wrongs – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Best Laid Plans”

Fiction writers wield a great power over the characters in the stories they create. These characters’ happiness, their futures, their entire ability to continue existing, rests at their writers’ fingertips. Consequently, the relationship between an author and his or her characters is one built on trust.

The best writers learn to listen to their characters . . . allowing these fictional, but very real-seeming, individuals to dictate their own stories in ways that feel most true to them. And when an author fails to heed the true intentions of one of its characters, that character won’t be shy about letting the author know exactly how she feels about the decisions made on her behalf.

Show me the fiction writer who claims never to have been slapped around a few times by one of her characters, and I’ll show you a liar . . .

Once Upon a Time has always spent a lot of hot air debating the nature of good and evil. The characters who make the “right” choices are considered “good” and are rewarded. The characters who make the “wrong” choices are considered evil and are pooped upon . . .

But what happens when a character wants to make the right choice and her author takes that choice away from her in order to tell a “better” story?

This week, Once was all about the battles characters engage in daily with their unseen authors. It featured good characters being bad, and bad characters trying to be good . . . also unicorns . . .

. . . dragon eggs, and some guy named Walt . . .

Let’s review, shall we?

You can check out the rest of this recap HERE!

The Kids Are Not All Right – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Unforgiven”

“So, Snow White gets to keep two kids and a hot husband, and I get nothing but a funny-looking hat and little blue balls.”

When people say, “Love makes you do crazy things,” they tend to be talking about romantic love . . . the kind of love that gives you butterflies in your tummy, a warm gooey feeling in your heart, and that awkward tingly sensation in your pants.

But what about the love a parent feels for his or her child? The kind of love that only develops when a little tiny human enters your world and, at least for the first two or three years of its life, is totally and completely vulnerable, relying on you for even the simplest of life’s necessities, including pooping.

If romantic love can make you do crazy things, well then that kind of love should have the power to render you damn near psychotic.

This week’s installment of Once was all about the great lengths parents will go to shield their little ones from darkness . . . even if that darkness happens to be coming directly from the parents themselves.

Also this week on Once . . .

. . . everybody gets away with lying to Emma, whose bullsh*t-detecting magical power seems to have been on the fritz ever since she started dating the flying monkey back in Season 2.

Alcoholism… making ugly flying monkeys look like Captain Hook since the beginning of time…

. . . Belle gets a little tongue action from someone whose name most certainly does not rhyme with Bumplebiltskin.

. . . Snow and Charming act shady and start (or continue, depending on how you look at it) sucking at life.

. . . and a plot is hatched for Regina to infiltrate Regina George’s Army of Skanks Maleficent’s Queens of Darkness, thereby indicating that I’ve been genuinely onto something with all my shameless Mean Girls references this season. (Never pegged the Evil Queen as a Cady Heron though . . .)

“You’re like really pretty.”

Let’s review, shall we?

You can check out the rest of this recap HERE!

It’s Always Dawn-est Before the Dark – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Heroes and Villains”

Welcome to the mid-season finale of Once Upon a Time, a.k.a. The Episode Where We Learn How Everything That Was Fixed in the Last Episode Will Turn to Crap Just in Time for Part B of the Season. It was an episode jam packed with ooey gooey goodness, and a heaping helping of angst thrown in for good measure. Let’s see, we got a wedding . . .

. . . well . . . part of a wedding . . .

. . . we got to see a bride look in the mirror before her wedding . . .

Two lovers rekindled their romance . . .

. . . and then . . . un-kindled it.

Rumpel had a very good day . . .

. . . followed by a very bad one . . .

. . . followed by a trip to the aquarium?

Lots of people made out with one another.

And three very fabulous Drag Queens of Darkness finally found their King.

Let’s review, shall we?

You can check out the rest of this recap here.

To Thine Own Self Be True – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Smash the Mirror”

“This above all: to thine own self be true.”

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius said these iconic words to his son Laertes on the eve of the latter’s trip to Paris to warn him not to go slutting it up with the local Parisian lassies while on holiday. He could be a bit uptight sometimes, that Polonius.

Nowadays, these words are commonly evoked to mean something a bit less . . . celibate. They are about self-acceptance, self-love, self-understanding, and all that other mushy gushy “self” stuff. They are about embracing your flaws and weaknesses with as much passion as you do your strengths and gifts. These words are Dr. Phil: Twitter Edition, basically.

Coincidentally, this famous phrase also just so happens to be the theme of this week’s Super-Sized Edition of Once Upon a Time. Love yourself . . .

. . . even if you have a habit of shooting firebolts out of you fingertips, which occasionally turn your son into a human rocket launcher . . .

. . . or you have a really bad snow dandruff problem, and only own one smelly dress . . .

. . .or if you have the worst haircut in the history of bad haircuts . . .

. . . or you are an Evil Queen with a penchant for boning married dudes in mausoleums . . .

. . . or you’re a popsicle . . .

“Hey, anyone got a tissue? Or an ice scraper?”

. . . or you have a delusion that two women who look and are young enough to be your daughters are actually your “sisters” . . .

Love yourself, in spite of all these things, or better yet, because of them.

Because, if you don’t, you can be sure as hell that nobody else will . . .

Let’s review, shall we?

To check out the rest of this jumbo-sized, snarktastic recap, click here.

A Bad Day for Gingers – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Family Business”

Sorry Brunettes, Gingers, Silver Foxes, and Raven-Haired Beauties! This week on Once, if your hair is not the color of sunshine, Tweety Bird or scrambled eggs, this woman wants you dead . . . like yesterday.

“Is it too late to invest in some bleach?”

She’s Snow Hitler, basically . . .

Elsewhere in Fairytale Land, Belle did a pretty crappy thing to Anna for a pebble and an even crappier thing to Rumpelstiltskin for a hat box.

“Oh Rumple! I just had this horrible nightmare in which I acted like a total asshole for an entire episode . . . oh, you mean that wasn’t a dream? Crap!”

And Hook? Well, he didn’t do very much at all, save looking sexy and making some wry comments about how gosh darn incestuous Storybrooke has become . . .

Still so pretty though . . .

So hug your favorite Rock Troll and steer clear of evil mirrors that talk too much, because it’s time for another Once Upon a Time Recap . . .

(You can check out the rest of this recap here.)

Maid Marion Gets a Cold – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Rocky Road”

“Hey, anyone got a tissue?  Or an ice scraper?”

What does it take to gain your trust?  Are you someone who is easily won over?  All it takes is a pretty face, a warm smile or a few moments of bonding over a sweet treat, and you are already convinced you’ve met a friend for life.

Do you tend to give people the “benefit of the doubt,” and view them in the best light possible, until they prove to be otherwise?

Or perhaps you are a bit more discerning in the people with whom you choose to share your secrets?  You often find yourself skeptical of the motives of others.  You play your cards close to your chest.  Those who don’t know you well may even call you aloof, standoffish, or, dare I say . . . frosty .  . .

Though one could argue that the theme of every episode so far of Season 4 of Once has been “how to milk the Frozen franchise for all its worth,” I would argue that this particular episode . . .

  .  . . had that theme too . . .

 . . . but it was also about “Trust.”

For people like Elsa and Emma, who have been hurt and mistreated in their past, it is difficult to open up and trust others .  . .

For people like Regina, Rumpelstiltskin and Will Scarlet, who have been stereotyped and marginalized for their past deeds, it is difficult to regain the trust of the people who may have already written them off.

And for people like the Snow Queen, this general lack of trust amongst the good people of Storybrooke proves to be a fertile playground for manipulation, control, and all sorts of other activities that tend to frequent the To Do Lists of every self-respecting Big Bad.

Let’s review, shall we?

Actually, before we begin . . .

A Little Background on The Snow Queen

What’s fun about Once Upon a Time, is that most of the fairytale characters we meet here are fairly recognizable to pretty much anyone who has ever read a fairytale or  . .  . more likely . . . seen a Disney movie based on a Fairytale.  Most of us grew up knowing at least the basic stories of Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood.

But Once seems to have waded a bit deeper into the Fairytale Pool for The Snow Queen, a story that probably didn’t make a lot of your first grade teachers’ Must Read list . .  . basically because its super dark, and a little gross . . .

You see, The Snow Queen’s modus operandi was basically to shove broken pieces of glass mirrors into people’s eyes (ouch!) and distort their vision of the world.  She’d make them hate everything and mistrust everyone except for . . . wait for it . . . The Snow Queen herself.

“Up top!”

This was a step-by-step process. First she’d make her victims act like total douchebags to all their friends.  Then, when they had no friends left, she’d have them come live with her.  Then she’d make out with them (even if they happened to be little prepubescent boys . . . ewwwww), causing them to not only mistrust and hate their former friends, but to forget their existence entirely.

In short, The Snow Queen was the “If I can’t have you, no one can,” abusive boyfriend / mistress in every Lifetime Movie you ever saw . . .

A burner of bunnies . . . among other things.

So, with that in mind . . .

(You can read the rest of my recap for Once Upon a Time’s Rocky Road here . . .)

Under the Snow Globe – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “White Out”

“You get a snowman . . . and you get a snowman . . . and you get a snowman. You ALL GET SNOWMEN!”

Another week, another snow-themed Once episode . . . this show is starting to wreak some major havoc on my Seasonal Affective Disorder . . .

This week, the residents of Storybrooke find themselves trapped inside their small community which I’m pretty sure The Curse prevents them from actually leaving anyway, not to mention freezing their magically delicious tushies off, when a vengeful Elsa encases them inside a town-wide wall of ice.  Elsa is bargaining that this oh-so-clever hostage-taking maneuver will force the fairytale characters to give up the goods on where her perky ginger little sister is hiding . . .

Clearly, this Frozen princess has been spending her free time in Arendelle watching non-Disney approved shows on that Other Network of Which We Dare Not Speak Its Name . . .

For shame, Elsa! For shame!

Meanwhile, over in Fairytale Land, Prince Charming sports a hideous perm . . .

Thus proving, once and for all that, contrary to popular belief, (1) Fairytale characters are not immune to having Bad Hair Days; and (2) sometimes those Bad Hair Days have the unintended effect of making them look like chorus members from the Broadway Revival of Rock of Ages . . .

Also, this week on Once, Snow White learned how to change a light bulb . . .

Emma and Hook got one step closer to their much awaited THIRD DATE . . .

Henry got one step closer to no longer being able to hide that he’s going through puberty. . .

“I used to hide a book of fairytales under my mattress. Now, it’s an iPad and internet porn . . . lots and lots of internet porn.”

And Little Bo Peep showed the world that the darkest of warlords are the ones that wear the poofiest skirts and the biggest bloomers . . .possibly to protect against Little Bo Poops . . .

 

Let’s review, shall we?

You can read the rest of my recap of Season 4, Episode 2 of OUAT here .  . .