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Once Upon a Time: The Queen is Dead

“All she ever wanted was for you to be good.”

What happens when light turns dark? We’ve known since the word go that Snow was as pure as they come. She always did what’s best for the ones she loved, always placed her friends’ needs ahead of her own, and always saw the good in people. But what makes her do these things? How did she learn to be this paragon of good? That’s what this episode was all about.

‘The Queen is Dead’ allowed us to understand what lessons Snow had to learn to become the woman she is now. It may not have all been learned from one lesson from her mother, it may have taken time to become a part of who she is, but sacrificing her mother’s life to do what’s right was a huge leap for a young girl to make. She’s always had good inside of her, but what happens if she lets that go?

Cora is going out of her way to make sure that happens, just to spite Snow’s mother. What went down between them? It sure seems like a lot if Cora has been working on her plan of revenge for as long as she has. Between her poisoning Snow’s mother, tricking her and killing the innocent Johanna, Cora has never looked more repulsive than she does now. Regina looks like a Teletubby in comparison.

Back in New York, Rumple seems to be losing his grip on his own kindness as he struggles to get Bae’s trust back. It’s a hard thing fighting to reclaim something like that, but it seems to be getting to him; he snapped at Henry quite quickly. Emma seems to be having the same trouble, but something tells me her tactics towards repairing her relationship with her son will be a little different to Rumple's. It also seems like she’s gonna be distracted by something else; looks like Neil may not be as alone as we thought.

So now things are picking back up again. ‘The Queen is Dead’ managed to catapult the show back to a place where I finally find myself excited to see where things will go from here, and I think part of that's down to the questions we left this episode with. Will Emma start to gain Henry’s trust again? What happened between Cora and Eva? Most importantly, will Snow really go down the dark side? Hopefully the trip down Cora lane next week will help answer some of these questions.

4 out of 5 magic candles

Plus

I loved the reveal of Cora's plan to get Regina in power. Long-winded and slightly over the top, but a cool twist regardless.

Young Snow was more than annoying in this one. Someone please revoke her membership to Overactors Anonymous.

Something that looks like Rose McGowan makes a guest appearance as young Cora next week.

He Said, She Said

Johanna: “You’ll always be my dear Snow.”

Snow: “I could have healed you, but I was too afraid.”
Eva: “Snow, that wasn’t fear, that was strength; strength to resist darkness.”

Previously posted at PandaTV.

9 comments:

  1. Will comment in more detail on the rest of the ep later... but what really jumped out to me was:

    Could Neal/Bae possibly be PETER PAN?!?!?!?!

    Oh, and finally someone has addressed the time gone by! Neal saying if he'd come to our world straight after leaving his then he'd be 100+ years old. Something that's been bugging me since we discovered Rumple helped a young Regina and Cora... So "the dark one" is REALLY old!

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  2. First, THANK YOU for finding the little girl who played young Snow White just as annoying as I did. It was so over the top I almost couldn't watch.

    Second, though Bae being Peter Pan would be kinda awesome, there's an 8 year old girl inside me that wants Peter Pan to stay in Never-Neverland forever. I would prefer that Bae be one of the lost boys so that I can continue to believe that Peter Pan is still a little boy having adventures. But I probably won't get my way, and Bae being Peter Pan would still be pretty cool.

    Mandy

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  3. I don't think Gold snapped at Henry like that just because he was stressed. I think it was because of the prophecy that Henry would be his undoing. He figured he got stabbed and poisoned by Hook because Henry made them go back to the apartment, where Hook was lying in wait. He said something to Henry like "this was your doing! You made us come back here." It wasn't just random anger.

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  4. That's not what I was saying at all Eris. I mentioned that last week that he was worried that Henry was the cause of all this because of what the seer said, and he lost his cool towards Henry pretty quickly, something he wouldn't have done if he hadn't been put in such a terrible position with Bae in the first place.

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  5. It certainly sounds like Neil is going to be Peter Pan. I suspected as much back when he was stealing watches in Tallahassee. That being said, I hope he is not! I agree with Mandy- I don't like stories about Peter Pan growing up!

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  6. This show can really be super-cheesy sometimes. And I think they reached an all-time high this time. I could almost see the syrup dripping off my TV screen.

    That aside, a decent and solid episode IMO. Cora has really upped the game a bit. She and Hook has been a great addition to the cast.

    Neal/Bae being Peter Pan seems logical. But, I remember I read somewhere about a year ago when the show was new, that they could probably never introduce Peter Pan, due to complicated copyright issues primarily in the UK. It meant that if they introduce PP, then they can never show those episodes in the UK, which is not an option of course.
    If this is true, or if they have solved the problem - I have no idea.

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  7. TJ's comment about the syrup made me laugh. I felt exactly the same way.

    This show has lost some of its magic (tee hee) from last year, but I really liked this episode. As you say, Panda, I am interested to watch Snow battle her demons. All good is boring, finally.

    I like the idea of Bae being Peter Pan. It would certainly fit in with the Hook/Crocodile theme.

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  8. This outing had its moments, but I kept finding my focus distracted by totally superficial things. If I'm more interested in what's up with Snow's eyebrows than the content of her conversation with Regina, then things aren't working as well as they could be.

    I liked some of the stuff back in Manhattan, and I think Rena Sofer was great casting as Snow's mother, but my favorite part this week was the Blue Fairy's outfit. It probably hasn't changed from the 100 other times we've seen it, but this week I just really loved the way the huge baubles around the neckline perfectly tied in with her amazing cleavage. I know this is totally crass, but I was really impressed with how her breasts functioned as part of the "necklace" beading. I actually started chuckling and had to pause the show to discuss the costume with my husband (one of many such discussions we've been having during the show of late --- I think we may discuss prominently displayed cleavage on this show more than we do with Lost Girl, and that's saying something!)

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  9. Jess -- that is one of my favorite comments of all time. LOL

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