Is there a more convenient plot device than magic? When it comes to creating instant obstacles or advantages for characters, nothing is better than the malleable rules of a spell to make a writer’s job a lot easier. This entire season, I’ve wanted to see the fairy tale and Storybrooke worlds bleed together more, but now that it’s happening, I find myself regretting those words. An over-reliance on ambiguous magic has derailed shows like Buffy and the current season of Vampire Diaries, but in the former case, it was in the name of (however ill-advised) character development, and in the latter, it’s done to move the roller coaster plot along. Once Upon A Time lacks both the character and plot strengths of either of those series, and this week’s dependence on magic just feels like lazy storytelling.
When I write these recaps, I tend to put on the Into The Woods Original Broadway Cast Recording because I’m a nerd like that. The title of this week’s episode immediately put me in mind of Stephen Sondheim’s musical and the list of magical items the Baker and his Wife have to procure to break a witch’s curse of infertility: the cow as white as milk, the hair as yellow as corn, the slipper as pure as gold, and the cape as red as blood. If only the entertainment value of Regina’s apple could equal that of Little Red Riding Hood’s cape in Into The Woods. Few works of art have been able to balance the moral optimism of fairy tales with the harsh truths of reality (Fables is the other big one in my mind), and what OUAT has been trying to achieve over the course of a 22-episode season, Sondheim does with intense emotion and exceptional wit in just over two hours.
This episode is OUAT at its most serious, revealing the events that led to Snow White biting into that fateful apple as Regina’s makes her final plans to rid Storybrooke of Emma Swan. With a story from Whedonverse alum Jane Espenson and David H. Goodman, I’d expect more humor in the dialogue, but this episode plays it straight. When the plot is Snow White’s evil queen teaming up with the Mad Hatter to retrieve a poisonous apple that she’s going to use so she can get custody of Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter’s son, that’s a problem. And that’s not even including the big dwarf/fairy action sequence. There are so many times I find myself saying “that’s silly” to myself during this show; do the people behind the scenes just not see the goof factor?
This episode has similar qualities to a Disney Channel Original Movie: dumpy special effects, a far-fetched story, and intense child overacting. It’s been a long time since Henry’s had to do any heavy lifting on this show, and this episode reminds us why. There’s a whole lot of acting going on in his big scenes with Emma as they sob about spells and psychological delusions and stuff, and the harder they try, the less believable it becomes. Henry’s scene with August is just painful, and Eion Bailey overcompensates to really capture the stakes of the situation, which are that he’s turning into a wooden puppet.