Monday, March 18, 2013

Fairy Interesting: OUAT - Welcome to Storybrooke



2.17 "Welcome to Storybrooke"

Tonight we got evil Regina back in all her glory. Snow is crushed and hiding and the rest of her family is doing everything they can to protect her. Henry finally gets clued into all that is going on and is the first to come up with a plan to solve everything (hey, I didn't say it was a good plan).

And our flashback is not to fairy world, but to the beginning of Storybrooke where we get more proof that Regina has been in this spiral for pretty much ever.

We also finally return to Greg (or whatever his name is) as the intrigue builds and he runs around like some sort of Grimm paparazzi gathering incriminating footage which he continues to share with "Her." And I'm really hoping that the reveal of who "Her" is isn't lame. I have no guesses on who it could be at this point, but if I develop a theory I'll keep you all in the loop (please, contain your excitement).

I loved loved loved the flashbacks in this episode. First they really helped flesh out a lot of things about the town for me. Also, I adored getting back a few of my favorite characters. GRAHAM *fangirls* (though seeing him with Regina again and all blind and controlled was so sad) and Gus! You were taken from us far too soon!

I would love it if they did more of these kinds of flashbacks. So we know now that Storybrooke has been in Maine for about thirty years (I mean, we know Snow and August were here for about that long, but time can be weird so I wasn’t entirely sure if the town appeared at about the same time or not). And that Gold didn’t originally know who he was?! Was I the only person who did NOT see that coming?! I kept thinking (every time Regina walked past him) that he didn’t know who he was and then I just laughed at myself. But he really didn’t? I am SO curious to see how that plays out and how he ended up discovering the truth.

I love how much progress Red has made from the rebellious slut to someone who has come to grips with her life and who she is and is able to move past her own problems and be a real help and friend to others around her.

One of the most heartbreaking lines for me was when Regina asked Gepetto if Owen was his son and he said he’d never had the pleasure. I wanted to cry for him.

The second that boy and his father showed up I said “That’s Greg.” But then the dad called him “Owen” and I got confused, but I was still pretty sure it was him. I mean, what other reason would there be to have a random father/son trapped inside when Storybrooke first appeared? The name Kurt Flynn sounds oddly familiar to me, though I have no idea why.

Love that Rumple is randomly giving Regina good advice. Of course, the fact that he just killed her mother sort of damages his credibility, but you know.

I know I’ve said this before, but I just love David Charming. He’s such a great character now that the curse is over.

Side note: The perfect pastel rustic-ness of Snow’s kitchen is a little ridiculous. And looks like it came right out of a magazine.

As for Regina I was cracking up at the Groundhog Day-esque trap she inadvertently caught herself in. And I just don’t understand why she has this pathological need to believe that Snow is evil. Even when Snow is Mary Margaret and Regina pushes her, she can’t understand that Snow isn’t going to lash out.

ALSO, Regina had a daughter. A step-daughter, yes, but if she wasn’t a psychotic revenge machine, she could have had everything she wanted so long ago.

Which of course leads us to the end of the episode o_0 But let’s come back to that in a minute.

Regina’s deep-seated need for Henry is a little bit more clear now, but the whole situation with Owen/Greg (Growen?) was just crazy. The thing that I really didn’t understand was why, at the end, when she gives up and lets Owen go – why didn’t she just let Kurt go too? There was no reason to keep him if she was letting Owen go. And, of course, the question now is where in this town is Kurt and what is Growen willing to do to find his father?

And, btw, another parent/child relationship based on “I will do anything” and which is fractured by space and time. So yeah.

I know some people find him annoying at times, but I was totally with Henry this episode. Magic is causing a lot of the problems. Not all of them, because Regina wasn’t exactly a sweetheart without it, but that kind of power is not being healthy to anyone. And I was glad that he fought his way into the conversation. All of these things are affecting him, and up until right before the curse was broken, he was the only one who knew the whole truth, so, even though I understand the parental need to protect him, he needs to be in the loop or he’s just going to keep trying to fix things on his own.

Loved the moment when Emma says to Neal, “You fell for that? He’s your son!” and Neal just got this look on his face.

All right. The ending. Wow.
 
So when Henry tries to blow up the magic and then Regina capitulates (again) I was rolling my eyes. Because how many times can she do this? I was all blah blah about it and just hoping that Henry leaving with Emma would rile Regina up more.

But I was SO not expecting what happened next. When Snow shows up and asks Regina to kill her, okay, that I saw coming. But I did NOT see it coming for Regina to rip out her heart. This was pretty much my response to that:

WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????

The black spot thing was kind of lame, and I had to think – shouldn’t Cora’s heart, which we saw fairly clearly last episode, have been dark instead of glowy? If one murder, which was really in self-defense, does that kind of damage to Snow’s heart, shouldn’t Cora’s have been like a black hole? And once the heart was out why was Snow still weeping and begging. Without a heart, shouldn’t she have stopped caring?

 But I loved that Regina stuck the heart back in. Yes. Evil Regina. Mwahaha.

This should be really really really interesting. I’m curious as to where this Snow thread goes. I just hope they do Snow’s character justice and don’t just have her be evil to try to show this dark side to every person or something. She is good, and Cora’s death was necessary to a lot of extents. Maybe not handled in the best way, but it had to happen and that was really the only viable option they had. So …

Next week?! Gah!?! Is a certain someone really coming back!? And will we find out who HER is? I can’t wait!

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