Title The New Neverland

Two-Sentence Summary In flashbacks, Snow nearly destroys her own happiness when a quest to find Medusa in order to destroy Regina turns her honeymoon with Charming into a potentially fatal mission. Snow’s appreciation for small moments of happiness in the past is contrasted by her daughter’s inability to appreciate or even have such moments in the present, as Emma gets thrown into the center of another crisis when she’s the first to realize that something is wrong with “Henry” upon returning to Storybrooke.

Favorite Lines
Emma: You sure you don’t have other reasons for pushing me towards Neal?
Charming: Like what?
Emma: I don’t know—keeping me away from Hook?
Charming: You think I’m interested in Hook? Emma, I’m a married man!

My Thoughts This episode still has my head spinning. It was an interesting setup to next week’s midseason finale because it asked way more questions than it answered, but that doesn’t always make for easy analyzing/reviewing. Therefore, I’m going to set this week’s episode up as a series of 20 questions I was left with following “The New Neverland.” Some are meant to spark debate and discussion; others are meant to get us speculating for next week’s big midseason finale.

So read on and then share your answers to some (or all!) of my queries. But just try to keep the spoilers out of the comments, if you would be so kind. I’m aware of most of the spoilers floating around now, but I know some people like to be surprised. If you want to talk spoilers, feel free to leave me a Tweet or an email, and I’ll be happy to indulge to your heart’s content!

1. Who else was impressed with Jared Gilmore in this episode?
Gilmore seemed to relish getting to play the villain for once, and he made the most of it. There were more than a few times where I was truly unsettled by his presence in a scene (especially when he was walking around Henry’s room), and I thought his physical performance was better than I could have hoped for.

2. Is Pan the most evil villain this show has ever had?
After all of this, I’m inclined to say yes. Cora was a close second, but she got that way by taking out her own heart because she still had a capability to love (which she saw—until her final moments—as an ultimate weakness). Pan, however, doesn’t need to have his heart removed to feel nothing but enjoyment at ruining (and ending) the lives of others for his own twisted power trips. The thing that stuck with me the most about Pan in this episode was the way he was still able to play his mind games away from his home turf and out of his own body. I’d been waiting to see him play on Regina’s MANY issues from the beginning of the Neverland arc, so it was sad but also perfectly executed to watch Pan prey on her desperation for love, especially love from her son. To be able to play the Evil Queen like a fiddle by using her emotions against her is about as evil as it gets. And to think of it as one parent preying on the love another parent has for their child makes the whole thing even more disturbing.

3. What is the thing Pan loves most?
In order for Pan to enact the Dark Curse, won’t he have to kill the thing he loves most? But what does he love, apart from himself and his youth? At first, I thought the final scene between Pan and Felix was going to end with Pan killing his most trusted Lost Boy to enact the curse. But does Pan love Felix? Does he love Rumplestiltskin? I think it would create an interesting conflict in the midseason finale with Pan trying to kill his son, but I don’t think he loves his son enough (or even at all) for it to work. Is it the Shadow? But how does one kill a Shadow?

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Title Save Henry

Two-Sentence Summary As Operation Henry works to retrieve Henry’s heart from Peter Pan’s body and finally leave Neverland, flashbacks reveal why and how Regina adopted Henry. Although it appears the group will safely leave the torturous island once and for all (and with all the Lost Boys joining them onboard the Jolly Roger), it turns out Pan isn’t quite done with his games.

Favorite Lines
Regina: I need a child, Gold, and I need your help.
Gold: Well, I’m flattered—but uninterested.

My Thoughts Things are moving fast now as the first half of this season of Once Upon a Time draws to a close, but, for a show with such fascinating relationships to explore and such great actors to showcase, I’m not sure it’s a good thing that the pace seems to have accelerated exponentially in the last few weeks. I know there were some out there who were bored by the lack of progress in the earlier episodes of this season, but I loved them. I don’t watch this show for the action; I watch it for the characters. And, while “Save Henry” did provide some strong character moments, it had to fit so much into one episode that I felt some important emotional beats for characters not named Regina were missed.

Don’t get me wrong; I loved seeing Lana Parrilla get to unleash all of her acting powers once again after being more or less stuck as the sassy side commentator for the majority of this Neverland arc. I’m always left awestruck at the way Parrilla makes me feel for a character I should hate. Regina has done so many horrible things, and she’s done many of them to the family I care about most on this show (that would be the Charmings). But I’ll be damned if Parrilla doesn’t manage to tug at my heartstrings more often than I would ever expect. There’s such a fierce vulnerability and desperation for love that runs underneath her performance at all times, and that vulnerability is what keeps me caring about Regina despite everything she’s done. Yes, she’s a monster on many levels, but she’s also still—somewhere under all the menacing malice she uses as her armor—the very broken woman who was abused by her mother and manipulated by Rumplestiltskin into embracing the darkest parts of herself just to become a pawn in his quest to get back to his son.

I’m incredibly conflicted on how to view Regina, and sometimes I wonder if the writers get conflicted, too. In this episode, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to view her as worthy of redemption of irredeemable. I was surprised that she said she didn’t regret any of the evil things she’d done, and I’m not sure it was a good kind of surprised. In the moment, I cheered for her and thought it was such a strong moment of victory for Henry and against Pan, but upon further review, it’s hard for me to sympathize with a character who has caused people—even her own son—so much pain and regrets none of it.

I had the same feelings of conflicted frustration when she told Emma that she only had Henry while Emma had a lot of people who love her. Regina is alone because she pushed away (or killed/attempted to kill) anyone who wanted to let themselves into her heart. Yes, her love for Henry is a huge factor in why I think she is a complex and ultimately redeemable character, but to make it sound like Emma has been basking in love for years while Regina has been kept from any kind of love besides Henry’s through anyone’s fault other than her own is absurd. Regina is the very reason Emma had to endure such a lonely, loveless existence. It was an strong moment to show how much Regina loves her son (and it was acted brilliantly by Parrilla), but it did nothing other than make me love Emma even more for her respect for Regina and Henry’s relationship (while still asserting that Henry is indeed their son—not just Regina’s). Both of those scenes took Regina back to that delusional place she resided in for a lot of Season Two, which made me sad because I really liked the “Regina becoming self-aware” storyline that had been building this season.

Despite my reservations about Regina, I will never be able to deny that she is brought to life by an actress who is a force to be reckoned with. Parrilla was able to use every tool in her well-stocked arsenal in “Save Henry.” She was sharp-tongued (calling Neal “that person” was a perfect way to show her indifference towards him). She was gleefully evil. She was panicked. She was determined. She was awkward. She was lost. She was paranoid. She was warm. And she was loving. To play such a range of emotions within one episode is a tall order, but to play them all perfectly is just another day at the office for Parrilla. In the flashbacks, watching her grow from a lonely woman to a struggling new parent to a mother who loves her child fiercely was a joy for anyone who is a fan of strong acting.

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Title Think Lovely Thoughts

Two-Sentence Summary Rumplestiltskin and Regina rejoin Operation Henry just in time for them to attempt to rescue the boy before Peter Pan takes his heart and uses it to become immortal, but Henry’s desire to be a hero proves to be his own undoing. In flashbacks to Rumplestiltskin’s childhood, we discover just how well he and Pan know one another.

Favorite Line “You said no magic; I agreed. But I’m not walking in there with nothing but my good looks.” (Rumplestiltskin)

My Thoughts That was definitely the most intense episode of Once Upon a Time so far this season, but I’m not sure it was the best episode. In fact, for as many cool twists and strong scenes as this episode featured, it also reminded me the most of some of the things I disliked about last season—too much plot and too little emotional investment and characters behaving more as plot devices than as people. This episode was probably a big hit with people who felt this Neverland arc was moving too slowly, but I thought this episode didn’t move slow enough. There were some truly great moments in “Think Lovely Thoughts,” but overall, for an episode that featured a huge twist and a shocking “death,” I found myself less emotionally invested than I’ve been all season.

My favorite part of this episode was the way the big reveal of Peter Pan’s identity began to dawn on me more and more as the episode went on. It built from the immaturity shown by Rumplestiltskin’s father to his dreams of Neverland and, finally, to that exquisite moment of perfect plotting when he told Rumplestiltskin that a child can’t have children. When he said that line, I was floored with the knowledge of what was about to happen, and I loved every second of it. For the longest time, I had guessed that Rumplestiltskin and Pan were going to turn out to be brothers, but this twist was even better. It made so much sense for the plot, but, more importantly, it made sense for the characters.

Can I just take a moment here to congratulate the casting department on doing an excellent job once again? Because the casting for young Rumplestiltskin was absolutely perfect. Wyatt Oleff looked like he could be a baby version of Robert Carlyle, and he had just the right line delivery and accent, too. Also, Stephen Lord was a great casting choice for Rumplestiltskin’s father and the man who would become Pan. His laugh was exactly the same as Rumplestiltskin’s, and something about his eyes and posture connected very strongly with Robbie Kay’s work so far this season as Pan.

For a show that I often praise for the way it handles its female characters—especially its mothers—I have to give credit to the Once Upon a Time writers for the incredibly painful, broken, and believable “sins of the father” narrative they’ve created with Pan, Rumplestiltskin, Neal, and Henry. This episode built upon everything we know about these men and their weaknesses in a way that gets even more interesting the more you think about it.

It seems that each generation improved from Pan’s grievous abandoning of Rumplestiltskin, but they all could only get so far in terms of breaking the cycle of abandonment. Before becoming Pan, Rumplestiltskin’s father didn’t want the responsibility of fatherhood, so it made sense for him to choose the power of eternal youth—the power of Neverland—over his son. But just because it made sense, it didn’t make his betrayal any less painful. Watching young Rumplestiltskin get taken by the Shadow (voiced with perfect creepiness by Marilyn Manson) absolutely broke my heart. And it both helped me understand why Rumplestiltskin was so afraid to use the portal with Bae and made me even angrier with him for not taking the chance for a fresh start that he was denied with his own father. As an adult, Rumplestiltskin has always appeared a tragic character, and never more so than now that we know he let go of Bae the same way he was let go of by his own father.

Rumplestiltskin did feel remorse and regret instantaneously; something that couldn’t be said for his own father. But he chose the power of magic over his son in the same way his father chose the power of youth and Neverland. Hundreds of years later, Bae also faced a choice between power and love. He found power in his distance from his father, in his new life as Neal. By leaving Emma (and unknowingly, his unborn son) and then choosing not to go back for her after the curse was broken, he chose to hold on to the power he had in being free of his father and his past instead of fighting for the person he loved. But unlike the men who came before him, once Neal knew he’d abandoned his son, he worked to do the right thing for the little boy he left behind without even knowing. Neal’s role as Henry’s father played a very prominent role in this episode, and I liked seeing him fight for his son in an episode that highlighted fathers who didn’t fight for their sons when they had the chance.

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