SPOILER ALERT! AREN’T THESE SPOILERS ALERTS GETTING ANNOYING!? SPOILER ALERT!
Well, kiddies, here we go again for a third season…
I’d say this episode was mostly exposition, if the word “exposition” meant explaining things in the vaguest way possible, presumably, so that they can stretch out the revelation of important plot points over as many episodes as possible. The ole soap opera style long con, is what we’ve got on our hands here.
A the beginning of the show, we get a flashback to Emma giving birth to Henry and then giving him up. During the birth, her magic cause an electrical disturbance and makes the lights flash, and nobody notices or cares. Don’t ever send me to that hospital. They don’t care if a power surge knock the life-sustaining equipment out.
Emma finally calls attention to the fact that her mother, Mary Margaret, is the same age as her and doesn’t really have that much wisdom to impart. Also, that her whole “Happily Ever After” shtick is useless and annoying.
Rumpelstiltskin changes into his old Enchanted Forest clothes. Where did Rumpelstiltskin get his old clothes from? Were they on the boat? Why did Captain Hook have Rumpelstiltskin’s clothing on his boat? I bet Captain Hook kept the Rumpelstiltskin’s clothes in his bunk and sniffed them during his alone time. Or… Rumpelstiltskin just magiced the clothing to the boat… Whatever.
Anyway, everybody on the boat is bickering and not working well together already and it’s a bit annoying how quickly the alliance of good and evil has started breaking down.
Soooo… Captain Hook was Baelfire surrogate father for awhile and now he’s crushing on Emma, Baelfire’s girlfriend. This is going to get awkward fast.
Greg and Tamara take Henry on a sweet camping trip, the kind his mom and dad never had the time for.
It turns out that Greg and Tamara don’t know who they’re working for and they don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing what they’re doing. They just know that they needed to kidnap Henry and bring him to Neverland and then, like, magic, which they HATE, will… er… stop or something. They know this because of FAITH. WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY ELSE HAVE FAITH LIKE THEY DO?
Greg and Tamara are big fat dummies.
Hey, it’s Felix and the Lost Boys, here to ruin everybody’s good time. They want Henry.
Felix calls the scary Neverland shadow creature to pull Greg’s soul out of his body. Greg looks like he’s dead. I hope he is. He was annoying.
I’m not sure anymore whether or not the scary flying shadow is Peter Pan. It may be a completely separate character. Remember, in the original Peter Pan, Peter’s shadow kept running off, until Wendy sewed the shadow to Peter Pan. I think something like that may be happening here. Peter not being in control of his malevolent, soul-stealing shadow is a little scary.
And, Tamara get’s shot in the back with and arrow and there is much rejoicing. She doesn’t die though. Rumpelstiltskin comes by later and crushes her heart into dust, so that was good.
Free of Greg and Tamara, Henry runs into the woods to escape The Lost Boys.
So, Jojen Reed finally meets Bran Stark in the forest and explains how their fathers were great allies during Robert’s Rebellion. Er… I mean… Some blond kid saves Henry from the mean upperclassmen that were chasing him.
Mulan, Aura and Prince Philip treat Neal’s wounds and, for some strange reason, put him on Aurora’s sleeping curse bed. Why would they do that? It’s just weird. Put the poor guy on a proper bed, jeez.
Hey, Prince Philip’s soul is back in his body! They never showed us how Prince Philip’s soul was returned to his body. I SMELL A FLASHBACK EPISODE COMING UP!
They keep asking Neal about Earth and technology and stuff, and being all like “Your world frightens and confuses me”. Weird that they didn’t really do that when they were hanging out with Emma.
Anyhoo, I predict many, many episodes of wandering around the forest and not really doing much for these brave adventurers.
So, back to the boat, which is taking forever to reach the shores of Neverland, and evil mermaids start hitting the boat with their tails. Apparently, they’re really strong, because they actually start causing damage.
David straight-up starts firing a canon at the mermaids and it is ridiculous. He’s trying to murder sentient creatures without talking to them first. Maybe attacking the boat was all a big misunderstanding! We’ll never know, because attempting to explode them was his first choice of action.
They capture one of the mermaids for some reason and she is pissed. She uses a magic conch shell to conjure a typhoon. I think Link from The Legend of Zelda had one of those.
Regina tells David to “Flay the bitch!”
FLAY THE BITCH? Holy Hell! I thought this was a family program!
Anyway, it turns out that the typhoon is fuelled by interpersonal discord and it just gets worse and worse as the people on the boat keep bickering and punching eachother in the face. Emma figures out that they need to start working together to stop the typhoon. She trows herself of the boat, so that they have to work together to save her. Emma is an idiot.
I think that the mermaid was really a magical angel, sent to our heroes to teach them the value of friendship and teamwork.
*SPOILERS* I already know from previews that Ariel is going to show up this season and this isn’t here. I wonder if this is actually Ursula? She can use a bit of magic like Ursula at least.
Back to the Enchanted Forest. Remember all the junk last season about nothing being left of the Enchanted Forest after the curse but a void? Complete bunk! Even Rumpelstiltskin’s castle is still there! So, Neal goes to his father’s castle to try and find a magic trinket or dealy that would open up a portal to return to Emma.
Robin Hood, played by a new actor, is there, because he likes touching other people’s stuff. Maid Marion is nowhere to be found.
I hope we have a situation where it’s The Merry Men VS The Lost Boys. I hope there isn’t anything, like, through weird time travel shenanigans, that The Lost Boys become The Merry Men. That would be silly.
So, blondy has some magic fairy dust, but it only works if you truly believe it will work. Henry will believe anything that you tell hi, so of course Henry can use the dust to fly.
It turns out that the blond kid is Peter Pan and he was being all tricksy and stuff with Henry to test his belief. It turn out that Henry has “The Heart of the Truest Believer”. What does The Heart of the Truest Believer do? I bet that we’ll have to wait many, many episodes to find out. Also, how did Peter Pan find out about Henry and the he may have The Heart of the Truest Believer? There better not be a prophecy involved here. (There probably is.)
Also, it turns out that Peter Pan was the one giving Greg and Tamara their orders this whole time, in order to trick them into bringing Henry to him. But how? Neither he or his lost boys could contact them directly because they hate magic. Also, Peter Pan would have had to have a way to contact people on other worlds. If he could do that, why didn’t he just contact Henry directly, trick him into coming to Neverland and cut out the middleman? Greg and Tamara are so fanatical about their hate for magic, what if they just decided to deviate from Pan’s plan and kill all the magical creatures, Henry included? How did Peter Pan know that the citizen of Storybrooke were growing magic beans and that Greg and Tamara would be able to obtain one of the beans to get to Neverland? We see that he can send his shadow to Earth to steal child. Why didn’t he just have the shadow steal Henry? None of it makes any sense.
Bah. Whatever. See you next week.