shallowness

The DVD-watching continues.

‘True North’

In Storybrooke, Eva/Gretel and Nicholas/Hansel weren’t particularly convincing twins. She was clearly the older sibling, the more sensible and assertive (maybe there wasn’t such a height difference when they cast the child actors). Emma overidentified with them thanks to their situation, which became her latest fight with Regina. Morrison did sterling work making me care because Emma cared. Henry started asking questions about his birth father. Luckily he hadn’t inherited Emma’s lie detector superpower, as she lied. (Enter The Stranger in Leathers, but he has less of an impact the second time around.)

The Fairy Tale was that Regina manipulated H&G into going on a mission with no regard for their lives. I didn’t rate the CGI. The most interesting thing was how this was part of Regina’s revenge plan and that she failed to understand the importance of family.

‘7.15 A.M.’

A Snow/Charming and thus Mary Margaret/David heavy-episode, the time being when the latter couple ‘bump into each other’ and make each other happy/miserable daily. This intercut brilliantly with the fairy tale at a point when Snow and ‘James’ couldn’t get over each other, even though he was days away from his wedding. We got her first meeting with Rumpelstiltskin and the dwarves, plus hints about her friendship with Red. In Storybrooke, Mary Margaret rescued and overidentified with a bird. We left the fairy tale on a cliffhanger, with Snow having magically forgotten Charming.

Despite what they’ve gone through in both timelines, I found it hard to get swept up in their big kiss. (Goodwin argues that it’s not really adultery in the commentary, and I see her point, though I don’t feel it.) Though my ‘Ha!’ as Regina saw their clinch was 100% pure.

‘Fruit of the Poisoned Apple’

This was the weakest episode on the disc for me – the Storybrooke stuff was much weaker.

In the fairy tale, we found out the Mirror was first a genie, rescued by Richard Schiff’s King, who seemed droll, wise and kind, but turned out to be more complicated, extolling his lovely innocent daughter and undermining his lovely sad second wife. (Snow and Regina respectively.) The genie fell for the latter and we had a nice echo of Snow’s untruthful speech to Charming in the previous ep as he got played.

In Storybrooke, I couldn’t quite believe that Regina destroying Henry’s castle would be enough to push Emma as far as trusting Sidney and ceding the moral high ground.

My question about the book is how did Mary Margaret get it to give to Henry in the first place? (It’ll be embarrassing if this is answered in season 1 and I forgot.)

‘Skin Deep’

My favourite, favourite OuaT episode and it stood up to the rewatch. I found it significantly better than the other three. In part, this may be because Beauty and the Beast (the animated version) is My Disney Movie, so I got all those references. But it’s also how it fits into the later story – True Love’s Kiss is firmly established and Ashley and her love reappear.

Di Ravin makes an immediate impression as good-hearted, restless Belle who reminds Rumpelstiltskin what it is to have a heart. Carlyle is brilliant, especially as Gold, searching for the missing chipped cup in Storybrooke where it’s (nearly) Valentine’s day and Mary Margaret and David are sneaking around until they face up to the fact that’s what they’re doing.

The reveals at the end – the encounter where Gold admits he remembers everything to Regina and of the imprisoned (again) Belle - are great, as is the script. The commentary is a slight love-in, but offers some insights, especially about how the episode was found in rewrites and the edit.

Even though I see all the more clearly how problematic it is, I can’t but ship Rumpelstiltskin/Belle – to the point where I don’t mind the portmanteau.