Oh,
Regina. You were such a fruit loop in
Pre-Curse Enchanted Forest! Oh, woe is
me! Why don’t people love me? I don’t understand it! Why is everyone calling me evil? I’m not evil; I only just ordered the
full-scale massacre of an entire village just because Snow White happened to
make a pit stop there; no biggie. Lady,
do you even hear the words coming out your mouth? Same goes for the present day, when she plans
to kill everyone in Storybrooke with her curse-reset-button, just so she can
have Henry all to herself. The fact that
you even considered this is only proving David/Charming and Mary Margret/Snow
made the right decision in wanting to leave you out of their plans of returning
to Storybrooke with Anton’s new magic bean crop. Have you really so soon forgotten the fact
that you had been helping your nutjob of a mother try to take control of the
Dark One AND then plotted to kill Mary Margret?
Ever stop to think that THAT’S the reason why they’ve been keeping Henry
away from you? It wasn’t that long ago, was it? Also, what is this crap about how Henry loved
you once? Was I watching a different
show up until this point? The impression
I got during all of season one was that Henry was miserable with you, which was why he sought out Emma. Was this just Regina’s warped logic kicking
in again? It’s a really chilling thing
to process when Rumpelstiltskin, the posterchild for twisted, warped maniacs,
is filling the role of the voice of reason.
Interesting twist however, to see how Regina clearly was seeing the
error of her ways during her time under the glamor spell, particularly during her
time with Snow White and hearing how Snow would be willing to give her another
chance. But when Snow sees the remains
of the village that Evil Queen Regina had ordered to be destroyed, it all comes
crashing down. This is such a vicious
cycle.
Poor Emma
just wasn’t getting any support at all in this episode. She figures out that Tamara can’t be trusted
after their run-in at Granny’s Diner, but no one really takes her
seriously. First we get Mary
Margret/Snow talking about how her lie-detecting superpower is unreliable. (Since when?
Unless I’m mistaken, every time Emma mentions her superpower is kicking
in, she always seems to guess right. The
only time it seemed to be iffy was when she was interviewing Greg Mendel after
the accident at the town line, and that might not even count, as he might not
have necessarily been lying.) And then
when Neal hears of Emma’s suspicion, he just gets all condescending. While I can totally get why he’s reluctant to
think poorly of the person he’s dating (I was guilty of the same exact thing
during my high school years), was it really necessary to virtually accuse Emma
of just being a jealous ex-girlfriend?
Yeah, Neal, that’s it. You’re
such a stud that Emma decided to accuse your fiancée of underhanded workings just
to split you two up. Okay, I’m
sorry. I can’t hold it back
anymore. I really do not like Neal. At all.
Don’t get me wrong; I did like
Boy Baelfire. He was a good
character. One I rooted for and sympathized
with. But Adult Neal is a blithering idiot. First it was him not even cottoning on to how
Henry gave him the slip in ‘Welcome to
Storybrooke’ until Emma came up and was all ‘HELLO!’ and then him not seeing anything wrong with inviting his
girlfriend into Storybrooke without checking with anyone first. (I’m guessing Emma was the brains of the
operation during their Bonnie and Clyde years.)
Now we get this nonsense! He even
tries to tell Emma he never believed in her superpower. You know, the thing that she virtually
stated was the ONE THING she actually liked about herself in the pilot
episode? You’re trying to make her think
that she didn’t even have that,
Neal? What is wrong with you? It really makes you wonder why Henry seems so
eager to see them get back together.
Granted he’s an idealistic little boy, and he’s displaying the same sort
of attitude you’d expect to see from any child whose parents have
split-up/divorced. But surely he can
see how unsupportive Neal is being to Emma, right? After all, it’s been established he’s a smart,
observant boy. That said, he deserves
merit for being the one person who actually believes Emma’s suspicions about
Tamara.
Really great
character development for Hook in this episode. We actually see him questioning the point of
revenge. For someone who has spent 300
years seeking revenge himself? That
revelation is just HUGE. I think it’s
important to note that, up until Greg and Tamara showed him that
Gold/Rumpelstiltskin was still alive, he’d spent all that time since ‘The Queen is Dead’ believing that he’d
succeeded in killing his enemy. Thus,
he’s spent an amount of time thinking he’d finally gotten his revenge and
coming to terms with how he felt now that it was all over. The fact that he’s now questioning the point
of revenge seems to indicate he wasn’t as satisfied as he thought he’d be. And then he sees Gold survived after
all. Not only that, he sees him
accompanied by ‘Lacey.’ An actual line
from him in this episode is ‘I'll have
nothing to look forward to. My life will be empty.’ It might just be me, but I think I hear a
subtle undertone to that statement, and he’s actually contemplating the fact
that, even if he does manage to kill Rumpelstiltskin for good, there might not
be anyone there for him after his quest is complete, unlike Gold/Rumple.
Hook also
proves he’s cleverer than people might think.
Like with how he managed to cut Belle off on the Jolly Roger back in ‘The Outsider,’ he manages to find his
way out of the underground cavern and beats Regina back into the library. Both times, he never really reveals how he
managed to do so. All we get is a basic
‘because I’m awesome’ explanation.
In addition,
one might point to this episode as an example of how Hook’s loyalty is never
certain, as he seems to alternate between helping Regina to aligning himself
with Greg and Tamara, only deciding to be fully loyal to Greg and Tamara after
Regina double-crossed him. However, I
think Hook made his choice before Regina’s betrayal. Notice how Hook only casually showed Cora’s
wrist cuff, which is later revealed to have been altered to nullify magic, to
Regina AFTER she revealed her goal was to destroy all of Storybrooke, knowing
she would take it from him. Tamara and
Greg, on the other hand, only claimed to be targeting magical beings. Do you remember how he seemed to be angry
about how Cora massacred the entire village of Enchanted Forest refugees? While Hook still claims to want to see
Rumpelstiltskin dead, he seems to prefer avoiding full-scale slaughter, and
thus goes with the plan that he believes will have the fewest number of people
caught in the crossfire. I think this
speaks volumes about what kind of man he is.
Speaking of
the wrist cuff, this episode confirms that Hook has held on to it, the same way
Emma had held on to the scarf he’d used to bandage her hand. Clearly, their adventure atop the beanstalk
has resonated with the both of them. I
might be biased, but I think we’re getting more than enough reason to think
something is brewing there. Not to
mention the obvious parallel with how they’ve now both battled Maleficent in
the same underground cavern. (Although,
how did Hook know about her?) The only
difference is that Emma fought Maleficent’s dragon form, while Hook was facing
her mummified corpse. There was a part
of me that internally cringed when Regina pushed him into the pit. Have his cracked ribs fully healed from his
run-in with Greg’s car yet? WebMD states
that fractured ribs need at least six weeks to heal. Unless that much time has passed in OUAT’s
timeline, which is very doubtful, he’s in no condition to actually fight anyone, especially when he’s
only armed with his hook. The fact that
he’s clearly limping and even clutches his middle at one point does seem to
indicate he hasn’t completely bounced back yet.
And yes, I am aware that the limp was the result of actor Colin
O’Donoghue’s real-life injury (he apparently broke his leg in a skiing accident
while season 2 was still being filmed), which is also why Hook was absent from
the last few episodes. But the point
still stands.
No comments:
Post a Comment