By Melissa

Who else is totally thrilled that Once Upon a Time is back tonight? Don’t raise your hand, I know everyone’s excited. I’m still in mourning over the loss of Sheriff Graham (so hot!) but I’m willing to believe that Prince Charming can sweep me off my feet and take the pain away. Here’s where we left off:

Graham was dead. I know nothing else because I’m still terribly upset about this.

I still miss his facial hair.

This week gave us the history of Rumplestiltskin and Emma’s “race” against Sidney for Sheriff of Storybrooke. One story was really interesting. The other was really boring. I’ll let you guess which is which.

Fairytale Realm:

We start in the fairytale realm as a rather depressed looking Rumplestiltskin is spinning his wheel. An ogre war has decimated the land and so the Duke’s men are rounding up more soldiers. I don’t really understand the point of taking children when there are able-bodied men and women, but whatever.  A girl is taken and Stiltsie is worried about his own son who is 3 days away from being of age. While I was creeped out by the soldier leering at the girl, I did appreciate the continued implication of sexual abuse and rape in these stories just like real fairytales.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sure ya’ll thought there was going to be a fairytale sized hole in your hearts for the next few weeks but that’s not how I roll. The best way to move past Sheriff Graham’s death *moment of silence* is with new shiny things. Now I can’t give you Prince Charming (and if you think I wouldn’t keep him for myself anyway, you clearly aren’t reading these recaps) but I can give you a few fairytale recaps. Some of you may remember that I did a recap of the original Snow White fairytale a few weeks ago. This week I thought I’d cover the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Ruby’s been a fixture in Storybrooke but hasn’t had her own back story shown in the fairytale realms yet. Seeing as I’m adoring all the subtleties of Meghan Ory’s portrayal of our own Little Red Riding Hood, I thought it was high time she got her own story.

There are quite a few versions of Little Red Riding Hood out there but most go along the standard, girl goes to grandma’s with goodies, wolf eats grandma first, tricks the girl and then eats her too. Some versions that prefer a more cheerful ending allow Red to get away. If you’re familiar with Grimm’s fairy tales, you’ll know that she is known as Little Red Cap. The Brothers Grimm did things a bit differently. In their version, a huntsman hears the wolf snoring (I did not know wolves snored but apparently they are really fucking loud) and decides to enter the house and see what’s up. Because snooping around an elderly woman’s home while she’s asleep is totes normal. Anyway, the huntsman sees the wolf taking a nap after his dose of fairytale tryptophan and is like oh hey, maybe if I cut open the wolf, I can pull grandma out. It would seem that the wolf’s belly is like Mary Poppins’ purse. Scissors seem to be sharp enough to cut through fur, skin and muscle and within a few snips, Red pops out of the wolf and then Grandma does as well. To further emphasize the massiveness of this wolf’s magical belly, neither Red nor Granny saw each other while they were in there. The trio fill the wolf’s belly with stones…not sure why killing him wasn’t an immediate option, and then he dies when trying to run away. And then Red is a good little girl who agrees to never stray from the path again. Because obviously paths are magical and you can’t be killed in the middle of the damn road. Red needs to pick up a TV and watch every supernatural show on the planet and learn the truth about that little lie.

Read the rest of this entry »

I'm just gonna go bawl my eyes out until January.

Once Upon a Time never claimed to be a nice show. I should’ve remembered that. They told us from the beginning that the queen was evil, that Regina would do anything to keep her curse and despite all of the families and kids who became fans of the show, no one stepped out and said ‘yeah this is a great family show, just a real feel good story.’ I forgot about that. I thought surely they wouldn’t kill off a character like Graham so soon. Surely there’s redemption, at least in Storybrooke, within Regina. I was a fool. Once captured our hearts and then turned around and ripped them out. How fitting that the same thing was happening onscreen and off screen on the same night. I won’t be so trusting again.

There’s one other thing I forgot. Regina’s curse was that no one would get a happy ending. So what would make us think that Emma and Graham would get to start the journey to one? We’ve been getting so wrapped up in the romantic lives (or at least I have been to a point) that I think it was easy to forget that Storybrooke is a curse, one without any happy endings, and the point of Emma being there is to break the curse.

Anyway, despite the sadness that I’ll get into later, ya’ll need to know that I have been excited about this episode since the moment Sheriff Graham showed up on my TV screen. We had some debate for a while about who he might turn out to be, the Huntsman or the Big Bad Wolf, then learned that he definitely was not the wolf. (The huntsman theory was still unconfirmed until tonight). But ya’ll have joined me in swooning over Jamie Dornan for six weeks now and his day is finally here. So let’s get to it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whiskey: the answer to all of life's problems. When in doubt, drink it out.

I believe in fairytales. I always have, always will. I love the whole sweeping nature of them, the way it’s another world and while many original versions are pretty dark and disturbing, the truths don’t change. Good beats bad in the end, though good may suffer a lot to get their victory. The concept of manners, solid work ethics, loyalty, and compassion are prevalent throughout these stories. I’ll confess to loving the Prince Charmings of the world as well. Granted, I like a princess who can kick some ass (which I learned can be real when I was nine and read about Cimorene) so I’m loving this version of Snow White. But I really do love Prince Charming. I love that the Prince in the fairytales, both old and Disney-fied, have to wait for the princess to agree to ride off with them into the sunset. And I love the idea that there are people in the world who can fall madly and passionately in love with one another and create an epic love story. So when I heard tonight’s story would give us Prince Charming’s background and that the man who portrays him (Josh Dallas) would be live-tweeting through the episode, I was ecstatic.

First let’s talk about the writing. The actors did phenomenally, but could this episode be any more ripped off?! Setting aside the blatant David and Goliath rip-off (which yes, I get has been used in multiple stories and is practically a cliche in stories today but still, doing it that directly is ridiculous), the whole “I Will Always Find You” because he’s a shepherd and always find that lost sheep/always find Snow White is just…well, actually I’m torn. See, to me, there are these stories and parables that I’ve grown up with through church so the comparisons seem endlessly obvious. But now I’m writing it out and I’m realizing that a lot of you probably aren’t familiar with these Bible stories like I am so it maybe it is more clever than I’m giving the writers credit for. Y’all tell me in the comments.*

That said though, I love the way the writers are blending all of the stories together. Each new piece we learn may set up more questions but it also weaves in answers and that I appreciate. Mad props to Andrew Chambliss for writing this episode on that aspect because the little details were brilliant. It was the big stuff that bothered me.

I also love that David/James, Snow/Mary & Emma have good values and motives. They are all trying to do the honorable thing in life. It makes me love them so much more. And damn, Ginnifer Goodwin & Jennifer Morrison are fabulous together. Also, while it sucks that David/James chose Kathryn for now, it honestly makes him more deserving of Mary/Snow in the future. She wouldn’t accept less than an honorable man and he needs her to be the same. It’s so true to fairytales and it makes it so much more delightful to watch.

I’m writing this intro after an initial viewing because I think first impressions matter. I’ll be rewatching in a few minutes to get a thorough recap for y’all but I like to do an intro after the first go-round. My thoughts might change a bit but I feel like this adds a level of honesty. And my initial opinion is that while I do like the episode, I wasn’t blown away by the story itself. The cast is wonderful and I was invested in their emotions, but unlike a lot of people on Twitter tonight, I wasn’t constantly shocked by these reveals. I certainly didn’t see them coming but it just was like oh okay, whatever. Maybe I watch so much television that it’s hard to shock me anymore but that’s how I feel. So with that in mind, let’s get into the episode and learn about Prince John-David-James-Nolan-Doe-Charming. There’s a fucking identity crisis for ya.

Read the rest of this entry »

The end of LOST would’ve been so much better if The Hatch had lead to the Enchanted Forest

Y’all, Canada’s right. Thanksgiving occurs way too late in the year. October still has sunshine and fresh air and is not known for giving people nasty colds just because they got stuck sitting next to a snot-nosed kid on the airplane. The U.S. needs to make an adjustment. In case you couldn’t tell from that, I’m sick. I swear everything is hitting at once over the last couple weeks but never fear, the Once Upon a Time recap is here. :D

Okay so first off, this episode was a little fucked up. Which partially makes me laugh because apparently this episode was hugely popular with the kiddies. Betcha quite a few parents had to soothe away the nightmares. But seriously, Jiminy Cricket’s storyline is full of creepy fuckery. We did get a few heart-stopping moments between Snow & Charming (look, that’s what I’m calling them, regardless of which world they’re in) and Tits showed up again in her fairy outfit. This show really needs to give us a name besides Blue Fairy because I’m just going with Tits from here on out unless told otherwise. I just had to look up the story of Jiminy Cricket after the episode, so naturally I went straight to Wikipedia as the best resource. It seems that in the story of Pinocchio, he’s just “the talking cricket” and that the term “Jiminy Cricket” used to be used as a way for people to exclaim “Jesus Christ” without actually using those words. In fact, the oath is used in Disney’s “Snow White” movie and then Pinocchio actually named the cricket that. Oh Disney, you’re so sneaky.

If y’all are like me, and let’s face it, if you’re reading OCTV recaps and watching Once then you are, you’ll agree that Jiminy Cricket having a tie to Snow White beyond just being a fairytale character is pretty kickass.

Read the rest of this entry »

At least this Snow White isn't still in 2nd grade.

The fucking American Music Awards were on last night, causing Once Upon a Time not to air, something that pisses me off to no end. We could support talented writers, actors, producers, hell costume designers, and hair stylists but instead there was some bullshit starring live commercials and pre-pubescent nymphs. (By the way, what the fuck is a live commercial?) I mean, the idea of it being music was completely laughable though I suppose they were smart enough to not pull a VMAs or Grammy move and end the night with a brilliant performance from Adele or Mumford & Sons or The Avett Brothers so the auto-tuned idiots sounded better. And I know, I probably shouldn’t make fun of the kids who listen to Justin Bieber since I had Hanson, *NSync, and the Spice Girls. Actually, fuck that. Hanson’s held the #1 selling independent album title for like six years now, they’re actually a pretty kickass band, most of the *NSync guys aren’t doing horrible, and Britain keeps proving you can churn out girl bands until the world ends. And on a related note, Pan Am also wasn’t aired which also bums me out because I’m kind of loving that show. I really want someone at OCTV to recap it so I can bitch about Christina Ricci (she used to be able to act right?), gush over Colette, and figure out if I do or don’t like Ted (I think I do). So someone take that on, will ya? Thanks.

But enough of my rant. The major point of this is that I want to talk about fairy tales even if my new favorite cast wasn’t on TV. So that’s what we’re going to do. Fair warning, if you don’t want to know (or be reminded) about original or Disney versions of fairy tales in case it spoils the show for you, stop reading and check out one of the many other recaps. The thing is, Snow White as a fairy tale doesn’t have too many variations, but it is a bit different than the 74-year-old Disney version we’re all familiar with. This won’t be much of a criticism because there’s really no way to critique a fucking fairy tale but I thought it would be fun for those who like to speculate a little more to have a little recap of the original Snow White. And if you aren’t watching Once Upon a Time (or Grimm for that matter) but still like fairy tales, this could be fun, interesting, yet another way to pretend Monday doesn’t exist.

Read the rest of this entry »