Friday, June 26, 2015

Once Upon A Time- Episode Analysis (Heart of Darkness)


The Enchanted Forest subplot for this episode takes place after the events of ‘7:15 AM’ and ‘What Happened to Fredrick.’  Prince Charming continues to search for Snow White, with Red’s assistance.  But because Snow took Rumpelstiltskin’s Forgetfulness Potion, she not only doesn’t remember loving Charming, but she’s also forgotten who she really is, as she tries to kill a random bird and is downright cruel to the dwarfs.  To find Snow, Charming goes to Rumpelstiltskin for help and ends up trading his cloak in exchange for the information on Snow White’s whereabouts.  His first attempt at getting through to her, through the power of True Love’s Kiss, ends in a failure because, as Jiminy points out when he pops up to help Charming out,  ‘how can she remember who you are when she’s lost sight of who she is?’  This inspires Charming to allow himself to get hit by the arrow Snow tries to kill Evil Queen Regina with.  The whole sequence that follows is a very well-written one, and quite reminiscent of the scene in the fourth Shrek movie.  Unfortunately, even though Snow regains her memories, their reunion is short-lived, as King George’s soldiers capture Charming immediately afterward.  Snow White vows to rescue Charming, with the seven dwarfs, who promptly forgive her for her actions while under the Forgetfulness Potion’s effects, agreeing to help her.

In Storybrooke, Emma is trying to search for proof that Mary Margret was set up for the murder of Kathryn, particularly after a hunting knife, the instrument believed to have cut out the heart Ruby found, is discovered hidden in the apartment Emma and Mary Margret share.  She ends up getting nowhere because there are no signs that anyone had broken in.  Henry, thanks to the help of the mysterious August (who tells Henry that he shares his goal in getting Emma to believe in the fairy tales within Henry’s book), finds Regina’s skeleton keys and brings them to Emma, who finds out that one of the skeleton keys can open the door to her and Mary Margret’s apartment.  However, Emma knows the discovery of these skeleton keys won’t be enough to help Mary Margret when the DNA tests performed on the heart Ruby found state that the heart was indeed Kathryn’s, so she turns to Mr. Gold in desperation.  Unfortunately, before anything can be done to help build up a strong defense for Mary Margret, she discovers a key beneath her jail cell cot which she discovers can open the cell door and uses it to break out of prison.

David really does a number in this episode.  Possibly because he’d spent so long in a coma, the curse’s memory-altering effects clearly don’t affect him as strongly as the others, as his true memories are seemingly trying to resurface.  This results in him having hazy memories of Snow attempting to kill Evil Queen Regina.  Of course, since the memory is only hazy, he’s understandably confused, and the fact that evidence suggesting that Mary Margret may have killed Kathryn is continuing to mount only makes it worse.  For that reason, I don’t blame him for being confused and at a loss trying to figure out what his faint memories mean.  That said, it was a pretty dumb move for him to practically accuse Mary Margret, particularly after, as she states herself, she stood by him when it looked as if he might have had something to do with Kathryn’s disappearance.  So, I also can’t blame Mary Margret for angrily dismissing David.  This really was a no-win situation on David’s part.


The episode ends with us finally seeing the reason why Rumpelstiltskin wanted one of Snow White’s hairs in exchange for the Forgetfulness Potion.  After obtaining Charming’s cloak, he manages to extract one of Charming’s hairs from the cloak and places it into a vial along with Snow’s hair.  The moment both hairs are encased inside the vial, they react to each other, forming a glowing double helix.  So, apparently, all you need to bottle up love is to obtain two hairs from people who share True Love?  Okay, makes sense to me.  And we see in the final episode of this season exactly why he wanted to obtain a vial of Essence of True Love.  (That doesn’t explain why Mr. Gold is so keen to help them now, however.  Come on, guy.  What’s your game?)

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