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"Rocky Road"
Episode Review
In this week's episode "Rocky Road," we concentrate on the urn from Elsa's past and the Snow Queen, as well as a chase through the woods to find the new villain. Did this make for a good episode?
On a positive note, I did like this episode better than "White Out." The backstory wasn't laughable, and Emma getting her sheriff on is always great. I always enjoy Emma and David's chemistry, Snow got some screen time, and I loved Hook bumbling with modern technology. We also got a nice scene between Henry and Regina, something we haven't gotten as much of, since Henry was lost in Neverland in the first part of season 3 and didn't remember Regina in the second half. I also am very excited that the author of Henry's book has been picked up again, a great storyline that I've always wondered about. It's great to see them working together on something. Operations with Henry are always amazing.
Having Marian getting frozen is a good twist, giving Regina a difficult choice between letting her die and getting Robin or doing the right thing, even if it might mean sacrificing her happy ending. I appreciate that although Regina struggles (a quality that makes her more interesting) with darkness, even wanting to kill Marian in the past at first, that her character growth hasn't been destroyed. I prefer her bity and sarcastic, but we definitely don't want to see her backtrack too much.
However, I find myself having to make an effort to get into the Frozen storyline. While I loved the cartoon, I feel like I'm watching a sequel. The characters are exactly like the ones in the original Disney movie, down to the identical costumes and hairstyles. In a recent interview with the creators, they mentioned that they didn't change the characters because they were already up-to-date, since the movie just came out last year. And though I agree that the Frozen story doesn't need modernizing, it does need twisting. The thing that makes OUAT so interesting is the twist on the characters, such as an evil Peter Pan or a trying-to-reform Evil Queen. Because the new characters lack this quality, they seem flat and disconnected from our characters. While I liked exploring what Elsa's parents were doing on their fateful mission (something that was unexplained in the movie), or even trying to find Anna, I'm missing the main characters. I realize that we only have about 45 minutes per episode, but the Frozen storyline seems to be gobbling up most of the episode's time.
Because of this, I feel almost as if not just the side characters but the main characters are being glossed over in some ways. Wasn't it nice to have a town meeting if only to see some of those long lost characters from season one, like Archie and Granny? The Frozen story is taking up so much time that ABC is continually posting deleted scenes, always involving main characters, because they were too important to miss but too much to cram into the episode. Couldn't the new characters have been trimmed down instead? New characters are only of interest to the show in how they affect our main characters. They are the reason we love and watch the show, the reason we've watching it from the beginning. This is why I loved the Peter Pan arc; it took just the main characters away from any distracting storylines and basically put them up against one villain, a great twist to the boyish Peter from the original tale. This gave time to explore Pan but also delve deeper into the layers of our main crew. And though Pan was in a couple of the backstories, most of them focused on our main characters alone. However, so far every backstory, while including a couple of main characters, has been about Anna and Elsa. Rumple, Regina, and Snow have had very small parts, and Emma, Charming, and Hook only have had slightly bigger scenes only because they were chasing down Elsa.
We were also introduced to Will Scarlett, ushered in from Wonderland as an ex-merry man. I make my point again - do we need another main character when our own are not getting enough time? He seems completely unnecessary to me, further taking away from the characters we really want to watch. I'll hold off judgment, but so far, I wish he'd go back to Wonderland.
However, I do like the Snow Queen twist. Unlike Cora or Zelena, she's more of a subtle villain, not screaming "I WILL TAKE EVERYTHING YOU EVER HAD!!!!" like the Wicked Witch. It's an actual twist, referencing the original fairytale. To be honest, I wish she had come without bringing any of the Frozen characters. I'm okay with her being related to Elsa since she's not a main character, and while I find a connection with Emma interesting, I sincerely hope she's not related. The family tree would just seem unnecessary, at least the way I see it now. A backstory with Rumple always is good and at least makes sense, and it raised my hopes that they're about to strike a deal.
That brings me to another point: Rumple's dagger. I'm still very confused as to why he insisted Belle take it, despite her urging that he hold onto it himself. I fully understand that he would want to avenge his son's death, but why must it be at the risk of Belle's trust? Trust is a very hard thing to come by, especially in the Dark One's life. Does he not remember how long he had to work to regain Bae's trust? This seems even worse, as he continually calls upon Belle to prove him "innocent" in both Zelena's death and Elsa's capture, both in front of everyone. Yet last season he seemed to be begging Belle to trust him, even if what she was about to see didn't make sense. What does it all mean? What's the real reasoning behind it all? Hook quickly figured it out, something I wonder why Belle didn't do. Why does she not see that he's more than relaxed with his dagger in a place as dangerous as Belle's purse? Or why he seems fine with her continually pulling it out in front of everyone, a weapon I would think he would like to keep as secret as possible? And furthermore, when Hook threatened him, why would he not just wipe away his memories? Why put himself under a kind of blackmail with a man he has never liked? I'm not saying there couldn't be an explanation, but it better be a darn good one. I realize that old habits die hard, but Rumple has always been driven by something more noble, like trying to find his son. Just lying and being power-hungry seems completely out of character. I hope for some further explanation on that point.
I did like the scene with Snow and Archie, a character I hadn't realized how much I missed. It was an nice character moment to see Mary Margaret desperately holding on to her son so as not to miss a single thing she did with Emma. I'd like to see more of it, even more reason to trim down the Elsa/Anna time.
Next week is a Rumple backstory (thanks goodness!!) but unfortunately, also is directly tied to Frozen. And Hook gets his hand back - WHAT?!!! No way should Captain Hook have two hands! Hopefully this only lasts for the duration of their date. I also hope we explore more of Emma's resistance to Hook, as she's very independent and slow to let people in. Although it's true that so far every person she's ever dated has died, I believe that's only scratching the surface. "The Apprentice" is airing next week, and I hope that Rumple can dominate the episode and give a little more information to the wizard's hat and hopefully into his motivation for lying. More main characters, WAY less Frozen. Stay tuned!