Episode 206
Last week’s episode about Regina and Doctor Whale/Frankenstein was kind of meh. Hopefully this will be better.
Two-line description of tonight’s episode from Wikipedia:
Emma ventures up a beanstalk with an untrustworthy Captain Hook to steal a compass from a deadly giant. Meanwhile, Emma’s past is brought to light.
I believe the guest star will be
Jorge Garcia (LOST’s Hurley) as the giant.
Hopefully it will be a fun one.
I know I’m supposed to fall for this Hook guy, but I care too much about Gold’s character. Know what I mean?
Just out of curiosity, what’s the Tallahassee connection?
It’s the second-worst place with no magic after Storybook.
Seriously, it’s where Emma and her boyfriend wanted to move from Portland, Oregon.
Am I missing something in the timeline, or was Emma supposed to be just 17 years old when the real-world flashback took place (11 years ago in Portland)? That just seems wrong.
What the hell did August show Emma’s loser boyfriend to convince him so quickly?
Trust your instincts about Hook, Emma.
Yeah, Jennifer Morrison doesn’t pass for 28 that well, let alone 17.
Good to see August again, if only in flashback. I, too, wonder how he convinced Emma’s boyfriend about Storybrooke and the curse and all that. Unless, as some have speculated, he is actually Rumplestiltskin’s son.
I would have liked a little more time and character development done with the giant.
Henry’s nightmare is probably somehow prescient, don’t you think? Maybe pertaining to Cora? He spoke of a red room, which makes me think of the Queen of Hearts…
August is Pinnochio - this does, however, put to bed the idea that Henry’s father (Mystery Man) is Balefire (Rumplestiltskin’s son)
Henry’s nitemare is the mirror image (literally) of Sleeping Beauty’s - and possibly something that anyone that has been put to ‘sleep’ from a spell has in common as there was atleast a hint that Snow also had similar nitemares. (SB asked her if they ever went away)
I like how they are tying things together and moving the story along - nice threads being woven and answers given with continued mystery.
No, I know August is Pinocchio. I meant that Mystery Man could indeed be Rumple’s son, and that is how he came to believe August’s story about Emma and Storybrooke so easily. Without seeing that conversation between August and Mystery Man, I say it’s still possible (though admittedly the writers are playing very coy if that’s the case).
Thanks. It’s not a show I watch, but I live in Tally so I was curious.
JM sure didn’t look 17 (I think 28 is in the realm of reason) - though I do like the glasses and ponytail.
Kinda like how she handled the giant.
Add me to the list of “what is in the box?” people (and don’t say Marsellus Wallace’s soul)
Brian
Really good show. Man, when Snow is in “Mama” mode, don’t mess with her! She totally took on Mulan.
Why did August think going to jail and being betrayed by her “true love” would be best for Emma? Not really understanding how that improved her life considering how cynical and bitter she ended up.
So Hook is supposed to be all empathetic and insightful? Totally not buying it. He did seem to be on quite good terms with Cora.
OH, and did everyone notice that Emma stole Apollo candy bars?
(Apollo candy bars show up in many JJ Abrams productions)
Brian
It sets into motion the entire story with Henry - other than that, no idea.
Hook is insightful and empathetic to “lost boys” (orphans) - He’s on good terms with Cora becuase both of them (him and Cora) see the other as a means to an end - its a partnership of eeevillll.
So if we’ve met Captain Hook, are we going to meet Peter Pan soon?
Yes, I did. Especially with Jorge Garcia on screen. And “mystery man” is Renee from True Blood, right? I was scratching my head for most of the show trying to figure out where I had seen him before.
I think we’ve seen Apollo bars on this show before, in season 1. There have been other LOST references, like the clock being stopped at 8:15.
Mostly a “meh” episode for me–probably because Jennifer Morrison is a poor actress to begin with, and having her play 17 was just too much of a stretch.
I’m also not a big fan of the current HEAL storyline, which is a bit too linear and by-the-numbers for me. Our little party has to find X, Y, and Z and deal with a new guest star/monster every other week, all the while wondering if they can trust Hook (it would be better, IMO, if there was real dissent in the group over Hook). Mulan and Aurora, IMO, have been fairly useless as characters so far, the former pretty much limited to drawing her sword and spouting some Spartan wisdom from her warrior culture, the latter providing nothing at all until this latest bit with the linking dream.
Finally, I suppose the point of the flashback was to justify Emma’s later decision to leave Hook behind, but it seemed a pretty tenuous connection to the action. Yes, I know it gave us information about Emma’s past that will prove useful 4-5 episodes from now (which, probably, was the real reason for including it), but IMO it was exactly this over-emphasis on a greater, overarching mystery that was the downfall of “Lost”. It may still work–nothing could get as convoluted as “Lost” did in its final 3 seasons–but the change of tone away from the character studies in favor of the long-term narrative troubles me.
Well, not only that, but I dunno, maybe I’m being old-fashioned, but I didn’t buy that a 17-year-old Emma was so self-possessed and grown up to be a car thief and to immediately take up with another thief and plan a life together in such a short time. I felt like there should have been much more time for their relationship to develop, but no, everything just happened right away (yeah, yeah, “true love” I suppose). And yes, I get that she’s supposed to have that whole orphan/independent attitude and be self-reliant and all, but it just didn’t ring true for me. Really pulled me out of the story.
Anyway. As to the story, yes, would definitely like to know what it was exactly that August showed Loverboy to convince him. It seemed to me the argument August was using there was that if Emma went off to Tallahassee with him, she would live happily ever after and never go to Storybrooke at all. Which would be good for her, but bad for Storybrooke. So she had to suffer to fulfill her destiny as curse-breaker. After which, of course, she would be free to go her own way. August promises to send a postcard, which was not just a throwaway line - we’ve seen Loverboy getting the postcard from Storybrooke in an earlier episode.
I was given the impression that several months went by on thier spree - I can certainly see her staying with the other thief at the beginning - I just don’t think we were given enough clues to know how long between ‘bug thief’ and ‘watch retriever’.
We do know that august spent 2 years tracking Emma down to that point -