OUAT Liveblogging and Criticism

Our episode opens with Snow waking up to Neal’s cries, one of the few times we actually get on-screen recognition of the fact that Neal’s a living thing with consistent needs. This turns out to be an anxiety dream, however, as the trio of arbitrary female villains pops up and threatens Snow’s family because of what she and David did to Maleficent, yet to be disclosed to the audience at this time (though, as all of us know who have watched past this episode, it’s quite a doozy). When Snow wakes up and slinks off to the kitchen, she finds David engaging in Storybrooke’s favorite past-time: drinking heavily and mumbling about how they just need to kill/do away with so-and-so so they don’t have to answer for whatever awful thing they’ve done in the past (not, you know, in the interest of Neal’s safety). David also expresses his gratitude that Maleficent is dead so she can’t hold either of them accountable for what they did.

Just so we’re clear, folks, Prince “Charming” and Snow didn’t exactly just knock over Mal's trashcan or forget to water her plants while she was on vacation. This isn’t an act of simple inconvenience that they’re beating themselves up over. We have to remember the show’s new theme of playing with what’s REALLY bad and what’s REALLY good, flipping it on its head and all- which would be fine and a natural progression of things if it wasn’t all in the name of haphazardly redeeming Regina. Of course, it makes sense.

But, as always, OUAT is especially gifted at making characters repulsive. When we learn exactly what it is that Snow and David did to Mal, when we go back and we think about David kicking back his whiskey and muttering to himself about how grateful he is that the Dragon bitch is dead so they don’t have to be held accountable for what they did...well, it kinda makes you throw up in your mouth a bit. Honestly though, this was foreshadowed from the moment we saw David beating up a woman for making him pay for his farm back in Mistenchantedforesthaven, even after she had tried to work out reasonable payment plans with him.

Where “Charming” will be by the end of this season. Let’s be honest, he’s basically just turning into Stanley Kowalski. 

Don’t be mistaken, folks. When Snow and David inevitably get found out for what they’ve done they’re only going to be sorry they got caught. Still, we’ll be expected to still like and sympathize for them after this ‘bad is good/good is bad’ bullshit gets forgotten about.

We then open to Granny’s Diner at about 11 am, so, naturally, everyone’s buying shots. With Cruella that makes reasonable sense, though Granny refuses to serve (or even acknowledge) her or Ursula because she is business owner of the year. Restaurant owners have a lot to learn from the way she just bails on her diner now and then to go wandering around, verbally abusing her friends, the way she just refuses service to paying customers due to personal bias. She’s an inspiration.

Little by little, every character on this show becomes disgusting and unlikable, even the peripheral ones that A&E long stopped caring about but still have to acknowledge thanks to contracts. It’s all part of some master plan, I’m sure.

Regina saunters in and gets angry at Cruella and Ursula when they list off some of the more heinous things she did in her time of being evil (that the show now treats like they were her rebellious teen/college years or something) while Henry’s in ear shot. Because god forbid Henry’s allowed to know the full extent of his mother’s depravity before he dedicates his remaining teenage years to playing cheerleader for her.

This causes Cruella and Ursula to blow the joint and head over to Gold’s pawnshop, prompting some more hand-wringing from the Charmings and a brush past Hook and Emma, the former of whom acknowledges that he once knew Ursula. To be sure, Emma asks about it and his reply is a vague, “I encountered many a vile creature on my voyages”. I’m guessing this means they had a fling and naughty, unspeakable acts were committed with Ursula’s tentacles and Hook’s orifices. I’m basically saying Ursula is the Amber Rose to Hook’s Kanye West.

#StorybrookeClapback

David pops up and insists to Emma that Cruella and Ursula are “up to something” and they need to go “pick up the trail” while they can. You could probably still see them making their way over to the Pawnshop at the time David is saying this, yet he still feels they need to “pick up the trail” (the trail of cocaine and fish food, I guess? YES, I MADE A FISH JOKE, A&E ARE BAD INFLUENCES). Also he has no reason to believe they’re up to anything specific other than getting drunk in the middle of the day, but Emma no longer needs actual explanations for things so she’s keen to just stalk these two women and ignore any other issue the town might be having at the moment (keeping in mind that Emma and David are still the only two cops this town has).

At Gold’s Pawnshop Cruella and Ursula have strolled in to congratulate Belle on fucking up Rumple, shoot the breeze a bit, buy a cool hood ornament and then leave. Or rather, that’s what Belle’s keen to believe because she’s extremely stupid and naive in the name of making one of the many unhealthy pairings work (even as it is temporarily broken up). Cruella and Ursula obviously have bigger aspirations than chatting with Belle; they manage to steal a box of something or other thanks to the Stretch Armstrong-like quality of Ursula’s tentacles.

Meanwhile in the Mayor’s office, Regina and Henry are once again sussing through Operation: Redeem Queen Shit Monster Without Making a Real Effort. As per usual for these moments, Regina whines about how undeserving she is of a happy ending for the mere purpose of nudging Henry into assuring her that she is. He, like many other characters in this show, has fully adapted to his new role as emotional crutch for the undeserving villain. This is totally the kind of healthy relationship a 16 year old should be having with their 40 year old parent, by the way; instead of the parent being there to support the child emotionally, given the vast amount of life experience the parent has in comparison, the TEENAGER should be the one to reassure the middle-aged PARENT anytime they start to “doubt” themselves. Really, anytime. All the time.

Let me ask you a thing, reader. How often do we see Regina offering Henry emotional support to the extent that he does for her? Because details are easy to forget on a show this convoluted, I’ll allow for some 10 sec moment this season or any others when Regina offered Henry some halfassed platitudes in the wake of an upsetting event she did nothing to protect him from (because lord knows there’ll be someone wanting to split hairs into atom-sized fragments about it). Sure, that might have happened. Much more often though, we see Regina dodging her opportunities to be there for Henry to go fuck married men instead and maybe playing damage control afterwards, if she doesn’t have anything better to do. Henry, as he always has been, is her tool, her crutch, her prop, the kind of kid that’s never going to be allowed to grow up, get married or have a life of his own without her dominating every aspect of it. The only difference now is that he’s been given a character lobotomy and is more than willing to enthusiastically play along, at the very time in a young man’s life when he should start really craving independence. The show wants us to believe this is a happy, well-adjusted family situation and it’s probably one of their best goofs so far.

Henry defending his mother. In real life, this would definitely be a Bates Motel situation.

Anyway, the purpose of this scene is to establish that August may or may not know more about the book than they do. As you may recall though, back in season 3 (I think?) August was turned back into a child because he was once sort of teased as a love interest for Emma while simultaneously having a really important connection to her and A&E wanted absolutely no obstacles for their fap material/Captain Swan. Neal was killed, August was aged down and forgotten about (like all children on this show) until now. Which one got the worst treatment, I wonder? Kind of a toss up.

Meanwhile, Emma and David are on a Cruella and Ursula stalking campaign. In a rare display of character consistency (which means pretty much nothing anymore) Emma finally asks David why they’re pursuing two people with no cause for immediate suspicion and, predictably, he gives her a vague answer. They finally catch up with the two villainesses, David insists to search their car after Belle reveals that a box is missing from the back room of the Pawn Shop. He finds something but keeps it to himself. Hang on to your hats, because this isn’t as low as Charming’s about to go.

When he gets back to the loft he shows Snow the dragon baby rattle he stole from Cruella’s car, that was stolen from the Pawn Shop. They put their lack of wits together to deduce that there must be a plan in the works to resurrect Mal with this totem. Living up to their name, the two of them (or, rather, David, because violence against women is his new schtick) decide they need to go get what’s left of Maleficent's corpse and throw it into the harbor, all in the name of circumventing responsibility for the atrocity they inflicted on her. OUR STALWART HEROES.

Back in Regina’s storyline someone decides it’s a good idea to expose her to more children in the name of this self-centered happy ending effort. For the first time since his transformation, we get some actual insight into what it’s like for August/Pinocchio to be a child again; he’s been mentally and physically restored to some random point in his youth and doesn’t remember anything he did as an adult (given that one of those things was sleeping with prostitutes in Thailand that’s probably for the best). Emma does her best to appeal to his memory (uncomfortably dodging some of the romantic implications of their friendship when he was August) but he doesn’t remember. Predictably, Regina loses her shit and verbally assaults him to the point of upset. It’s pretty satisfying when Marco reams her out and says she doesn’t deserve some freebie happy ending after ruining everyone else’s lives. Enjoy it while it lasts because you can bet Marco is gonna back peddle on that SO FAST by the end of this episode.

It wouldn’t be OUAT without a confusing parallel flashback to Enchanted Fuckme Haven of the past, so let’s get that one out of the way. Snow, David and the Villainess Trio decide to work together to stop Regina from casting the curse. They travel to the Wisdom (a.k.a Plot Device) Tree to get some answers. In keeping with arbitrary magic laws, this Tree will give answers to the most Valiant of Valiant Heroes or something, but it ends up rejecting Snow and David because Snow is pregnant and her child has the capacity for darkness in them. Given that she’s not even showing yet I’m not sure her zygote has the capacity for a brain let alone a capacity for ‘darkness’, but we’ve got to push this plot, dammit. 

Later on, Mal visits Snow and suggests they work together for the sake of their children (Mal’s got a dragon egg stewing, herself). Even though Snow was more than willing to work with her to find the Wisdom Tree, suddenly the idea of being in cahoots with Maleficent to save the kingdom is unthinkable. She’s got it in her head that working with a villain will ensure that her child is evil, even though what Mal is proposing would give a better chance of saving the lives of the Kingdom’s people. Doesn’t seem very dark or evil to me, but what do I know, I’m not a corrupt, selfish Queen (and I ain’t talkin’ about Regina this time). No wonder Emma had the capacity for darkness even then. Her parents are hardly the Charming/Heroic duo the show wants us to believe they are.

I like to imagine the angry apple tree from Wizard of Oz was the Plot Device Tree. 

Meanwhile in Storybrooke of the present, Snow and David sneak off to dispose of any incriminating evidence- which, to be fair, makes them just like any other corrupt leader. This was apparently all a ruse orchestrated by Maleficent, Cruella and Rumple; they didn’t need a personal totem to resurrect Mal, they needed the blood of the people who wronged her most, which is...kind of a weak plan that relies a lot on assumption and chance. Maybe they had some Plan As or Plan Bs lying around in the event that Snow and David didn’t make the exact choices necessary to pull this contrived, oddly specific plan off. When Mal is resurrected she makes some vague threats about destroying Snow and David’s world (whatever that means, if indeed it’ll mean anything) and the two of them decide they need to go ahead and come clean about what they did- but only upon coercion, you understand.

Regina’s storyline wraps up in a pretty predictable fashion; she shows up at Marco’s house, offers a halfhearted apology for yelling at his child, and he not only forgives her but hands over the exact reason she even bothered expressing false remorse in the first place- August’s bags full of happy ending cheat codes.

There’s also been a completely pointless Captain Swan side plot wherein Emma has gotten mad at Hook for withholding information about his past history with Ursula. She even goes so far as to accuse him of lying to her about it, though I think there’s a pretty big difference between sending clear signals of “I’m not comfortable talking about this” and outright lying. Also, given the things Hook has kept from Emma in this season alone that she still doesn’t know about, offering a “I don’t remember what happened” instead of a full report is kind of small potatoes. Of course, Emma doesn’t know that and I’d be surprised if she ever does. Anyway, the minor misunderstanding that the show is trying to pass as sincere conflict for this couple is quickly resolved when Emma tells him to keep his secrets, it’s fine (why she was so perplexed and curious about what might have happened between her philandering boyfriend and a woman in his past is a little beyond me, like, take a wild guess) and gives him more gold stickers for his ‘Hero’ column in case any of us forgot that was a thing for him now. 

Also David and Snow show up, hear her singing their praises for being the most honest parents in the world, feel guilty and back out of telling the truth. When Emma asks why the Villainess Trio is trying to fight them Snow explains that it’s because “they’re villains and we’re heroes” and that’s good enough for the butchered remains of Emma’s character.