My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E19 “Lacey”

SPOILER CITY! SPOILER CITY! SPOILER CITY!

This episode is about -THERE’S GOOD INSIDE OF YOU, I CAN FEEL IT! THERE’S GOOD INSIDE OF EVERYONE! YOU HAVE TO LOOK FOR THE GOOD INSIDE OF EVERYONE!

a screencap of the fairy wands in Mr. Gold's pawn shop
Oh, that’s where those went!

Remember how in the last episode how Mother Superior had her wand back mysteriously? Well, obviously, she took it back from Mr. Gold’s store when he wasn’t looking, so shut up.

Didn’t he have a magical force field that would’ve prevented that kind of thing? No. Shut up.

Seriously, though, why are they letting Mr. Gold sit on this giant arsenal of dangerous, magical trinkets? If I were Emma, I would have confiscated it all by now. Isn’t she still the sheriff? Or, like, David was the sheriff now, or something? I don’t know…

a screencap of mr. gold (played by robert carlyle) destroying a porcelain henry (played by jared s. gilmore)
WHY WASN’T THIS FOR REAL!?

They show us a wonderful sequence where Mr. Gold turns Henry into a porcelain figurine and smashes him into powder, but it turns out that it was just a wonderful, wonderful dream. Dang it! Why won’t the annoying kid die for real?

I also noticed that there is a canoe hanging in Mr. Gold’s shop. Mr. Gold killed Pocahontas and stole her canoe because it is made out of magical wood. This is my theory.

a screencap of robin hood (played by tom ellis) stealing a magic wand from rumpelstiltskin
BECAUSE THIS SHOW NEEDED MORE CHARACTERS!

This episode introduces Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham. The show needed more characters, so they added more characters. There was no way around it.

Anyhoo, in the past Enchanted Forest, Robin Hood steals a wand from Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin needs to kill Robin Hood now, because he has to maintain his evil persona or else people won’t be scared of him anymore. Belle doesn’t think that Rumpelstiltskin will kill Robin Hood, because Rumpelstiltskin still has some goods inside. Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t kill Robin Hood. The End.

Also, Rumpelstiltskin gives Belle a library, you know, just cause.

This episode is supposed to expand on why Belle fell in love with Rumpelstiltskin, but it ends up just making the audience hating them both a little bit, because they are both just so annoying.

Belle: “THERE’S GOOD IN YOU! THERE’S GOOD IN YOU! THERE’S GOOD IN YOU! THERE’S GOOD IN YOU! THERE’S GOOD IN YOU! GRAAAAAAHHHH!”

Rumpelstiltskin: “LOOK HOW EVIL I AM! LOOK HOW EVIL I AM! LOOK HOW EVIL I AM! LOOK HOW EVIL I AM! LOOK HOW EVIL I AM! GRAAAAAAHHHH!”

How does Robin Hood even fit in on this show? I mean, Robin Hood may be a fictional person, but other characters from his story, like Richard the Lionheart or the Sheriff of Nottingham, are real-life historical figures. Also, The Crusades, which are an important part of the Robin Hood story, are not very child-friendly or fairytale-like at all.

a screencap of a field of magic bean plants
Field of Beans; Field of Dreams

Mary Margaret and David take Emma to see the bean patch. The beans might be mature enough to make a portal to the Enchanted Forest soon. Emma has to choose if she wants to go with them. Choices are hard.

Why did they plant an entire field of beans? You only need one bean to make a portal! There  must be thousands of beans in that field. That’s thousands of beans that could fall into the wrong hands.

Aaannnnddd, Regina ends up finding the bean patch and stealing some beans. Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

a screencap of rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) standing next to the rabbit hole sign
Alright, I’ll bite, which one of the rabbit’s holes is it?

Mr. Gold goes looking for Belle, and he finds her in The Rabbit Hole, the world’s tamest sleazy bar.

Seriously, The Rabbit Hole is well-lit and clean. The patrons are well-dressed and nice. There’s even a nice, homey fireplace. There’s nothing about the place that is actually sleazy, but the audience is supposed to believe that it’s a “vile place” anyway.

a screencap of lacey (played by emilie de ravin) playing billiards
Trouble with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for POOL!

But, wait, oh no! Belle isn’t Belle anymore! She’s playing pool, the most evil sport there is, and you can see her bra, the most evil article of clothing there is. She’s evil. EVIL!

Belle is Lacey now and Lacey like two things: getting frisky and getting drunk.

Seriously, Lacey is an alcoholic. Every time we see her, she is drinking. It’s to the audience that she is a bit of a bad person.

Hey, shouldn’t Lacey be traumatized from 28 years in the hospital’s basement? No. Shut up. She doesn’t even remember any of that.

Anyhoo, Mr. Gold needs to get Lacey to fall in love with him, so he can give her True Love’s Kiss™ and have Belle’s memories to her. The only problem is that Mr. Gold is reformed now, so that his son will like him again and Lacey doesn’t like Nice Guys™.

a screencap of mr. clark (played by gabe khouth) with a beer
Hey, remember Sneezy? He doesn’t!

Hey, everyone, chill out! The writers totally remember that Sneezy lost his memory too and they included a shot of Mr. Clark to prove it. I think he’s better and more hygienic as Mr. Clark though. Maybe they shouldn’t give him his memories back.

a screencap of the sheriff of nottingham (played by wil traval) on a horse
This guy has evil hair.

Well, I hope that none of you became too attached to the Sheriff of Nottingham. It looks like he’s among the many characters that are introduced and then killed-off in the same episode.

Mr. Gold goes on a date with Lacey, but he acts too sweet and kind and lame, so she ditches him and goes to the alleyway to make-out with the Sheriff of Nottingham’s Storybrooke alterego, Keith. Mr. Gold catches them and it causes him to have a sadness. Lacey is just too different from Belle.

Later, Keith meets up with Mr. Gold to apologize. Mr. Gold is in a really foul mood though, so he starts to beat the crud out of Keith with his cane. Lacey catches him and tells him not to stop because she like it. Lacey is turned-on by violence. Lacey likes Bad Boys ™.

Keith is probably dead now.

If the fandom doesn’t start calling the Rumpelstiltskin/Lacey pairing “Racey”, I’m going to be very upset.

a screencap of captain hook (played by colin o'donoghue) tied up and gagged
“The Package”

In this episode, Tamara and Greg refer mysteriously to “the package” without revealing what “the package” is. You know, because when people are all alone and they aren’t worried that someone is listening in, they’ll still speak in code because it is fun. Jeeze, can’t people just have some fun once in a while. Gah.

Well, at the end of the episode it’s revealed that “the package” is actually Captain Hook, because the writers needed to find a way to get him from New York to Maine and the answer was inside Greg Mendell’s trailer.

Captain Hook’s new nickname is now “The Package”. (Because “package” is a euphemism for penis and Captain Hook has a penis.)

Once Upon a Time Season 2 Spring Hiatus Catch Up

SPOILER ALERT! Oh, man, you would just not believe how many spoilers that this post has. It’s just so many spoilers.

Oi, did you miss an episode of season 2 of Once Upon a Time? Well, now is a good time for you to catch up, because there are no new episodes until April 21st, and, luckily for you, I’ve compiled this handy-dandy catch up guide with important plot points from each episode.

All episode titles link to posts that I wrote about that episode and character names link to the tag archive for that character.

Table of Contents:

  1. Broken
  2. We Are Both
  3. Lady of the Lake
  4. The Crocodile
  5. The Doctor
  6. Tallahassee
  7. Child of the Moon
  8. Into the Deep
  9. Queen of Hearts
  10. The Cricket Game
  11. The Outsider
  12. In the Name of the Brother
  13. Tiny
  14. Manhattan
  15. The Queen is Dead
  16. The Miller’s Daughter
  17. Welcome to Storybrooke
  18. Selfless, Brave and True

S02E01 Broken

S02E02 We Are Both

  • The people of Storybrooke, having newly regained the memories of their past lives, must come to grips with essentially being two people at once.
  • Grumpy pushes Sneezy across the townline which makes Sneezy lose his fairy tale memories, leaving him with just his memories of being Mr. Clark.
  • David searches for a way to open a portal to the Enchanted Forest to retrieve Emma and Snow White.
  • In the past, Regina uses a magic looking glass that Rumpelstiltskin gave her to trap her mother, Cora, in Wonderland.
  • It is revealed that Rumpelstiltskin is the one that originally taught Regina how to use magic, specifically, dark magic.
  • Regina rediscovers how to use magic in Storybrooke, but changes her mind on using it to make Henry love her, because it would not be a real love.
  • Meanwhile, in the present-day Enchanted Forest, Mulan and Aurora have taken Emma and Snow White prisoner.

S02E03 Lady of the Lake

  • Sir Lancelot is introduced.
  • In the past Enchanted Forest, Snow White is kidnapped by King George who poisons her so that she cannot have a child.
  • King George’s men also shoot Prince Charming’s mother with a poison arrow.
  • Snow White, Lancelot, Prince Charming and his mother all travel Lake Nostos for a cure, but there is only enough water left there to heal one person.
  • Prince Charming’s mother pretends to drink the healing water and Lancelot secretly puts the healing water in Snow White’s goblet.
  • Prince Charming’s mother sacrifices her life to cure Snow White and lives just long enough to see Snow White and Prince Charming get married, which was her dearest wish.
  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Snow White and Emma are trapped in a prison with Cora.
  • Lancelot, having recognized Snow White from their past dealing frees them from the prison and they go off in search of the wardrobe that brought Emma to our world.
  • They find the wardrobe, but it turns out that Lancelot was really Cora in disguise and they have to destroy the wardrobe to keep her from getting her hands on it.
  • In Storybrooke, Jefferson is reunited with his daughter and David has trouble dealing with his new job of taking care of Henry.

S02E04 The Crocodile

  • This is the first appearance of Captain Hook, Smee and Rumpelstiltskin’s wife, Milah.
  • In the past Enchanted Forest, Milah ran off with the pirate, Killian Jones, and Rumpelstiltskin crushed Milah’s heart and cut off Killian’s hand in retaliation, making Killian into Captain Hook and Rumpelstiltskin into the crocodile (metaphorically?).
  • In Storybrooke, Moe attempts to get his daughter, Belle, over the townline to erase her memories of her love for Rumpelstiltskin, but Rumpelstiltskin saves her at the last second.
  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Cora shows a bottle of the ashes from the wardrobe to Captain Hook and they start hatching a plan to get to Storybrooke.

S02E05 The Doctor

S02E06 Tallahassee

  • This is the first appearance of Anton the giant.
  • In the past, Emma is a thief and she falls in love with a fellow thief named “Neal Cassidy“.
  • August Booth meets alone with Neal and convinces him that Emma, in order to fulfill her special destiny, must be rehabilitated from her life of crime and he convinces Neal to rat Emma out for a crime that she didn’t commit so that she will be thrown in jail, because jail will straighten her out or something.
  • Emma finds out that she is pregnant in jail.
  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Emma climbs the the beanstalk, retrieves the magic compass, decides to spare the giant’s life and leaves Captain Hook chained up in the giant’s castle.
  • Aurora has been having nightmares ever since she was woken from the sleeping curse.
  • Henry is also having nightmares after coming out of his sleeping curse

S02E07 Child of the Moon

  • In the past Enchanted Forest, while on the run from the Evil Queen, Red gets split up from Snow White and runs into her mother who Granny said was dead.
  • Red’s mother and her wolf pack teach Red how to control her wolf form.
  • Snow White finds Red, but accidentally leads some of the Evil Queen’s men to the wolves’ lair and they kill one of the pack.
  • Red’s mother believes the death is Snow White’s fault and wants Red to kill her. Red and her mother fight instead and the mother is accidentally killed in the process.
  • In Storybrooke, the dwarves have found fairy dust and they think that it can be used to fix Jefferson’s hat.
  • Albert Spencer frames Ruby for the murder of Billy and uses the the resultant distraction to steal Jefferson’s hat and destroy it.
  • Aurora and Henry meet in their nightmares.

S02E08 Into the Deep

  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Cora raises an undead army of the people that she stole hearts from.
  • Henry meets with Aurora in the nightmare zone.
  • David ends up trapped in the sleeping curse.

S02E09 Queen of Hearts

S02E10 The Cricket Game

S02E11 The Outsider

S02E12 In the Name of the Brother

S02E13 Tiny

S02E14 Manhattan

S02E15 The Queen is Dead

S02E16 The Miller’s Daughter

S02E17 Welcome to Storybrooke

S02E18 Selfless, Brave and True

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E12 “In the Name of the Brother”

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t seen episode 12 of season 2 of Once Upon a Time, In the Name of the Brother, then you might not want to read this.

We learned something important about Dr. Whale/Victor Frankenstein in this episode. We learned that he is much more fun when he is drunk.

Also, he turned his brother into a sexy monster, or something, and it ended up traumatizing him.

Everything is sexy on this show, especially Sexy Igor.

sexy igor (played by yurij kis) in the black and white land
What hump?

Why does everything on this show have to be so sexy? Igor can’t have a hunch on this show? No, everyone must be beautiful!

Victor Frankenstein (played by
Good as new!

Even when Victor Frankenstein brings his brother, Gerhardt, back from the dead, he’s still sexy. He’s hardly rotten or scarred-up or anything. Methinks you shouldn’t be able to look at Frankenstein’s monster and think, “Hey, that guy’s kind of cute!”, but that’s just my opinion.

rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) kisses belle (played by emilie de ravin) while she is unconscious
Dude! Not cool!

Rumpelstiltskin kissed Belle while she was unconscious and she freaked out.

How does consent for unconscious fairytale kissing work? Is it implied consent if your kiss wakes the person up? Well, Rumpelstiltskin is in the real world here and he should obey the law of the land and the law says that molesting unconscious people is uncool.

rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) kiss cora (played by barbara hershey) to seal a deal
Ew.

Rumpelstiltskin also kisses Cora, because that’s apparently what they used to do in the old days.

The People that make this show want us to think that Rumpelstiltskin is Regina’s real father, but my money is on Rumpelstiltskin not being her father and also having been involved in a romantic relationship with Regina. You know, for that extra “ew” factor.

rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) pours a pile of gold on the floor of the black and white laboratory of frankenstein (played by david anders)
IT’S THE WRONG COLOUR!

THAT GOLD IS THE WRONG COLOUR FOR THIS UNIVERSE! GOLD IN THIS UNIVERSE IS GREY! EVERYTHING IS GREY! IF YOU TRY TO SPEND THAT GOLD IN THIS UNIVERSE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO FREAK OUT BECAUSE THEY ARE SEEING COLOURS THAT THEY HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!

I really don’t know why Victor Frankenstein wasn’t freaking out in this scene. And, really, that gold is unspendable in the black & white universe, seriously.

There was also some jazz about an outsider coming to Storybrooke and everyone is afraid that he’s going to tell the outside world about the town. But, hey, wouldn’t outsiders have had to have been to Storybrooke before, when they were checking on Regina to see if she was a suitable parent for Henry, right?

Why do I keep questioning the logic on this show? It’s pointless. I’m so ashamed of myself.

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time Episode S02E10 “The Cricket Game” & Episode S02E11 “The Outsider”

OI! If you haven’t seen episodes 10 and 11 of season 2 of Once Upon a Time, then you might not want to read this.

I don’t really have much to say about these episodes, other than that they seemed to be mostly about time-wasting and stalling the storyline.

The Cricket Game stalls the “Regina’s Redemption” storyline, by making it look like she murdered Archie/Jiminy, but she really didn’t and everyone finds out that she didn’t really commit murder in the very next episode thereby making this episode completely pointless. But, I guess we have to see Regina suffer a bit more because DRAMA.

The Outsider stalls the “Rumpelstiltskin and Baelfire Reunion” storyline, by first taking Rumpel’s magical macguffin that lets him leave town and keep his memory and then having Captain Hook shoot Belle across the town border and having her lose her memory. So, now Rumpelstilskin has to stay in Storybrooke and look after Belle for a couple of episodes, instead of looking for Baelfire, I’m betting.

Some Problems:

  • Hook has never seen a modern gun before. How was he so sure that the bullet would only make Belle stumble over the townline and not, in fact, kill her?
  • How come nobody seems to care anymore that Sneezy the dwarf has lost his memory? They seemed really keen to fix that earlier and now nobody seems to remember it even happening.
  • Why do the characters on this show always leave their enemies alive? They mow through various underlings, henchmen and mooks without a care in the world, but when it comes to taking the big boss down, they always develop morals, all of a sudden. Hey, henchmen have families too, you know?

Anyway, next episode looks like it’s going to be a Victor Frankenstein episode. I hope that they bring back Sexy Igor!

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E01 “Broken”

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t seen Broken, the first episode of  the second season of Once Upon a Time, then you probably shouldn’t read this. I’m too lazy to provide the requisite expository text,  for a person that hasn’t seen this episode, to understand this article, anyway.

I don’t really feel like running through the whole episode, so I’ll just go through my thoughts on a few things about it.

a screencap of a mysterious man
MYSTERIOUS MAN

At the start of the episode, we meet a new character and never learn who he is. Who he is ins’t really important, though, because he doesn’t actually do anything in the episode. Most people are going to say that he is Baelfire, but I think that would be too easy.

Here are some things around his apartment that may be clues to his identity.

a screepcap of a cleaner & hatters sign in the mystery man's apartment
MYSTERIOUS SHOP SIGN

He has a sign for a hatter’s shop. Was it from Jefferson, the mad hatter’s shop? Is our mystery man from Wonderland?

a screencap of a skateboard deck with the letters "NSNO" visible. the rest is obscured
MYSTERIOUS SKATEBOARD DECK

He has a skateboard deck with the letters “NSNO” visible, or, since you can rotate these letters 180°, “ONSN”. So, it’s either a word ending with “NSNO”, or a word starting with “ONSN”. I couldn’t think of any. If you know anyway, please tell me in the comments.

a screencap of a monocle and a pocket watch hanging on the mystery man's wall
MYSTERIOUS MONOCLE & POCKET WATCH

He has a pocket watch and a monocle hanging on his wall. The white rabbit carries a pocket watch, re-enforcing my Wonderland theory. Multiple Disney characters have monocles. I’m not sure which monocle-wearing character would be most likely.

a screencap of ballet slippers in the mystery man's apartment
MYSTERIOUS BALLET SLIPPERS

There are some ballet slippers on his wall. Maybe, he’s one of the dancing hippos or gators from Fantasia.

a screencap of a dreamcatcher hanging on the mystery man's wall
MYSTERIOUS DREAMCATCHER

He also has a dreamcatcher. I don’t really know if he looks Native American, or not. It is possible that he is John Smith, or one of the other colonists.

a screencap of a postcard that reads "broken"
What is broken?

Lot’s of people are going to assume that the “Broken” on this postcard mean that the curse has been broken. Lots of things could be broken. Maybe, the word “broken” here doesn’t even mean “broken”. Maybe, it’s code. You don’t know.

a screencap of the front of a postcard that reads "greetings from storybrooke maine"
Storybrooke is broken?

Was this postcard actually sent from Storybrooke, or, was it sent from a different location with the Storybooke picture as a clue for our mystery gentleman?

a screepcap of princess aurora and prince phillip sharing true love's kiss
Current “True Love’s Kiss” Tally: 1

Here are our new royals: Princess Aurora II Electric Boogaloo and Prince Phillip Neckerchief Hipster. I say Aurora II because this Aurora mentions that her mother had to deal with Maleficent as well.

a screepcap of mulan
Mulan

We also have Mulan as a new character. She doesn’t really do much, except be a warrior and angry.

a screencap of a wraith
It’s a dementor! No… It’s a ringwraith!

So, we have wraiths attacking people, now. I’m willing to bet that the wraiths are connected to my “bigger bad” they, where Regina and Rumpelstiltskin will have to join forces against and even bigger evil. I’m guessing that these wraiths are the minions of the “bigger bad”.

a screencap of a wraith amulet
Spooky Amulet

The wraiths wear these amulets. If you touch one of these amulets, the wraiths will come after you and suck your soul out of your face à la Shang Tsung.

I tried to look up what this character was, but the closest I got was that it could be a stylized version of the Chinese character “wáng, which means “king”.

Heh. Stylized wang.

a screencap of the other side of the wraith amulet
The Other Side of the Spooky Amulet

The other side of the amulet has a different character on it. I couldn’t find any frames where it was clear, though.

a screencap of rumpelstiltskin/mr gold kissing belle
Why isn’t his curse being broken?

This bugged me. Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold kissed Belle, but his curse wasn’t broken. Are they not truly in love anymore?

a screencap of a palace in the fairy tale world
A Palace!

This is the beautiful palace that Aurora and Phillip were to live in, but that didn’t work out so well. We are never told where in the fairy tale world this palace is situated in.

a screencap of Agrabah from the disney movie, aladdin
Agrabah

The domes on the roof make it look a bit like the palace in Agrabah, though.

a screencap of emma swan and snow white laying unconscious after falling through to the fairy tale world
Why aren’t they dead?

So, Emma and Snow White fall through a magic portal to a fairy tale world and they bust a bunch of stuff up, but there’s not a scratch on them. It was a nice touch that they had Snow holding on to Emma’s jacket.

a screencap of belle looking drunk
Funny Freeze-Frame: Belle Looking Drunk

5 Days ‘Til “Once Upon a Time”

Here a some little things, you may or may not have noticed, that I hope they flesh-out in season two of Once Upon a Time.

Gay Dwarfs?

In episode 14, Dreamy, Sneezy’s counterpart, Mr. Clark, and Sleepy’s counterpart, Walter, really want to sit together at the diner. Grumpy’s counterpart, Leroy, tells them they should have dragged their sorry asses out of bed a little earlier, implying that they both get up at the same time and, possibly, that they sleep in the same bed.

There wasn’t any implication that Sneezy and Sleepy had a romantic relationship in the fairy tale world, so how will the react in season two? How would a person feel if in one life they wear gay and in the other one straight, and then, they had those lives slammed together?

Then again, all dwarfs are male, so, maybe, it’s weird for them not to be gay.

walter mr. clark and leroy
They love eachother. You can’t tell me differently.

What’s in Storybrooke’s Library?

storybrooke's library
The Library and Emma’s Butt

In the the season finale of season one, A Land Without Magic, we see that Storybrooke has a closed-up library.

A library in a town full of storybook characters seems like a very dangerous thing. We don’t know how far all of the characters have reached in their own stories. What if some of them haven’t reached the ends of their stories yet? What happens if they go to the library and read their own story and they don’t like the ending?

Is That Dude in the Basement of the Hospital Pocahontas’ Dad?

a native american and regina mills
SWEEP THE LEG!

In episode 12, Skin Deep, Regina Mills, on her way to visit Belle in the basement psyche ward, passes a native american man sweeping in the hallway. This is an obvious play on Chief from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But, maybe, it’s more than that. Pocahontas’ dad is a chief. Maybe Pocahontas’ tribe are enemies of Regina, so she locked their chief up, like she did Belle.

Of course, Pocahontas wasn’t actually a fairy tale character. She was a real person that we actually know a lot about. Disney continuing to treat her life like it was a fairy tale is, perhaps, unwise.

Anyway, until we meet again (tomorrow).