Once Upon a Time-Episode 4 Recap

Monday, 14 November 2011

Episode 4 of Once Upon a Time finally leaves the Snow White story to dabble with Cinderella. Except in this version, Cinderella is busy sweeping the ground when her fairy godmother shows up and is going to beautify her when....Rumplestiltskin in all his Gollum-ness shows up and explodes the fairy godmother and steals her 'pure magic'. He turns Cinderella into a princess anyway telling her that in exchange for being a princess she will have to give him something very valuable, but he doesn't tell her what. She's all 'sure, whatever, I'm tired of sweeping this ground'. Meanwhile in Storybrooke the mayor 'threatens" Emma Swan, telling her that she doesn't care if she stays because, she is basically a vagabond and will soon be gone anyway. Emma is sooo threatened, or not. When she accidentally spills hot cocoa (because the people in this town drink hot cocoa like it is going out of style. I swear, in on episode they are all going to turn into cups of hot cocoa) on herself she has to go into the conveniently placed laundry room where she finds Cinderella, all pregnant and crying about how people are telling her what to do. Only it's not so much 'telling her what to do' as 'stealing her baby' as we soon find out. Back in fairytale land we see the wedding of Cinderella and, er, her prince. They are all very happy but then Gollum Rumplestiltskin shows up and tells her he wants her firstborn. What he is going to do with a baby, we can only imagine.  Cinderella and the Prince seem like they are characters from Teen Mom trapped in hilarious costumes. In the Storybrooke reality, the Prince, is really the spoiled brat of a rich dad who has been banned from seeing her. Emma Swan gets hired by Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin to find pregnant Cinderella after she (Cinderella) has broken in to Mr. Gold's extremely creepy shop and run away. Then, Henry informs us that she can't really leave because all the characters are trapped there. Except for Emma. And Henry could leave but only because it was inevitable that he would return. This. Logic.Is. Hurting. My. Brain. The gist is that she has the baby and Emma makes a deal with Mr. Gold who is wearing waay to much make up so that Cinderella will get to keep her baby. Ugh. Everyone is so stupid here. The intended "WHAT?" moment of this show is that we see the mayor getting dressed near to some crumpled bed sheets and all that implied sex-having. Except that, really, what is so scandalous about this? She is a grown and single woman, presumably she can have the sex with someone else who is also single without any scandal? Right? Anyway, she leaves and we don't get to see who it is. Emma calls up the strange Irish Sheriff (who is he supposed to be??) who offered her a job  at the beginning of this episode and says she will take said job. She asks him if the mayor won't mind and he says it's his force not the mayors....okay, we all know where this is going right?? The mayor is sleeping with the Irish Sheriff. He sits down on his crumply bed looking bewildered. Uh-Oh. Is this supposed to be a love triangle?? Is the Sheriff sleeping with the mayor out of duty?? What is she going to do about this? Chop down someone's apricot tree?? I'm so scared.  My big beef with this episode, besides all the things I mentioned previously, was the speech by Emma about how you should give your child the best chance but if you want to keep the baby, by all means do. First of all, this message was so confusing and secondly, I don't know, but I would like some show to portray mother hood as something scary and something that not all women want. It's all so rosy. Cinderella has her baby and her boyfriend comes back to her and they all live happily ever after, besides being trapped in the dullest town in the world. Emma, has to spend the series making up for giving up her son for adoption, which seems like it was actually the right choice! I'm kind of with the mayor here, if I adopted and raised a child and suddenly their biological mother came along and wanted to be involved I might tell them to screw off too. Anyway, I digress. I have to say, I think this show is improving, and look forward to next weeks episode.  Maybe a smoke monster will appear? Please?