Once Upon A Time Season 2 MEGA POST

Welcome to the first Ashitaka's Angels MEGA POST! I mean...(ahem) MEEGAAA POSSST!

You may be asking yourself, 'Self, what is MEEGAA POSSST? Also, do I have to say it like I'm at standing at the summit of K2??' 

The answer to the latter question is always yes.

To answer the former: A MEGA POST is like a normal Ashitaka's Angels post but louder and longer. Instead of going over a show episode by episode, we tackle the whole season (or first half) en masse. This Mega Post entails our overall thoughts on Season 2 of Once Upon A Time from its premiere through episode 9, Queen of Hearts. 

Part 1 is after the jump!

Edit: Seeing as the second half of Season 2 started about a month ago, this post, as astute readers will notice, is a bit behind the times. We figured we wrote so much back in December, it'd be a waste to let it get lost in the "Unposted Annals of the Ashitaka's Angels". Yes, that is a real thing. But you'll never really know, will you? ;)

Zozizzle: Anybody remember the days when NBC used to promote its “Must-See TV Thursdays”? While there's a lot of good TV still on Thursday (Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, The Office, and come February, Community! NBC still has my heart for a night) Sunday night has become my most important night of television because it seems like EVERYTHING IS ON. And a lot of it's good.

You want comedy? You've got Bob's Burgers on Fox. A law procedural with good character development and (usually) interesting case of the week? Watch The Good Wife on CBS. If you're in the mood for a little zombie-killing action, there's AMC's The Walking Dead. If you still need more action, only with more spy drama and an Emmy award winning cast, you can find Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya himself!) tearing it up weekly on Showtime's Homeland. All of these shows are on my DVR list.

So, where does Once Upon a Time fit into all this. OUAT is not a Homeland or a Walking Dead, but it ranks right up there with all of the other shows on my DVR because it is a good show. Not great or perfect, but good with loads of potential.

One of the things I enjoy is how it deals with female characters and simply how many there are. This season, we witnessed the addition of two characters, Aurora and Mulan, to a central roster that was already comprised of: Emma, Regina, Snow, Ruby, Belle, Cora, and maybe Granny. That's 9 female characters, a number almost unheard of in prime time, broadcast network TV-dom. Of those 9, Emma, Regina, and Snow, have been consistently central to the story.

I enjoy that the females get to be the major players. In much of season 2, they drove the story. After the curse broke, Emma and Snow wound up stranded in FTL (Fairy Tale Land), and had to find a way back to Storybrooke. They were thrown together with Aurora and Mulan, who crossed paths because of shared personal loss (Philip, may he R.I.P. for good). Regina, the Evil Queen, had the beginnings of a redemption arc and finally said goodbye to using magic for evil gain (so far). Ruby/Red came to terms with her dual personality. Belle decided to become her own person instead of being under Mr. Gold's or her father's thumb. And Cora, the Queen of Hearts, reemerged as evil as ever, with a dastardly plan to reunite with her daughter in Storybrooke.

Of course, quantity and quality don’t always go hand in hand. Not every female character's plot line (or actor’s portrayal) was perfect, but they were at least all different and viewers got some variety. Due to the sheer number of female characters, we got to witness a spectrum of characterization.

And the fact that their stories were the focus leading up to the winter finale rings of progress. Through them, we saw the notion of what it means to be a fairy tale female turned on its head. In the fairy tales we know, Snow White, kind and gentle as she is, is a bit helpless and needs her prince’s kiss to save her. In OUAT, Snow wields weapons, is highly accurate with a bow and arrow, has a strong maternal instinct, and actually has to save her prince with a kiss after he undergoes a sleeping curse to find her.  In the first half of Season 2, Snow was also the leader of a rag tag team that consisted of her daughter, Emma, the stoic warrior (at least at first), Mulan, and the most princess-y of all of them, (at least at first) Aurora.

Team BAMF(!)

Good Grief:  It seems Zozizzle has covered it all, but there are a few things I want to touch on. First the end of season 1, slightly infuriated me and even with the start of this season--it took some time for me to fall right back head over heels in love with the show. I was very frustrated by magic returning and Regina becoming a threat, yet again by the Storybrookians, and truly irate about her sudden fortunes when both Emma and Snow were ripped to FTL. But now I see the whole picture and without that happening we wouldn’t have been given a glimpse into Cora’s past and how Regina transformed into the Evil Queen. It becomes quite clear that Rumpelstiltskin played a part in making both these hardened and powerful women. Yet, the one thing that this revelation gives us is that not only does Regina fear her mother but so does the Dark One.

Briefly, I have to say that it was truly inspiring for ABC and the writers to let the females lead the story. Often times, these characters are cast as the damsel in distress, and even if they are the stars of the stories as Disney Princesses, they often still have to be taken in by dwarves, awakened by true loves kiss, and held prisoner by their stepmother. This does not translate in reality. There’s not much in the way of fairy tales when it comes to making your own path, except for my favorite Disney film The Little Mermaid. Ariel saves Eric and gives it her all to follow her dreams. That’s why I really appreciated the way the creators handled the main love story; they showed their difficulty but further they shared Snow and Charming’s true passion for one another. Especially I loved the fact that this time around Snow was the heroine in her own love story.

As Zozizzle mentioned, we also are introduced to a few completely new characters, Captain Hook, a complete hottie who is assuredly a foe.

Brooding or admiring his reflection in his hook? The answer is YES.

Mulan, of whose past viewers are completely unaware. At the start of the season, she happens to be Prince Philip's companion on a quest to wake his true love.

The only downside to OUAT's Mulan? Cri-kee and Mushu are nowhere to be found.

And we also get Aurora/Sleeping Beauty, Phillip’s true love:

What she lacks in forest-appropriate attire, she makes up for in loyalty.

As a general rule for me, I am passionately against new characters, and often times my hatred fell upon Mulan and mostly Aurora. Mulan occasionally because there was no softness to her, and this is something we don’t often get from our princesses but further she often came off as a robot to me. Very task oriented and focused. We rarely saw her compassionate side, but her truest attribute her willingness to sacrifice, which is why she often protects Aurora. Ultimately as a viewer we know that she is capable, and I hope that we eventually get to see her softness, her vulnerability--the things that make us human. As for Aurora, I really detested her for the majority of the season because of her helplessness and her inability to move past blaming others for Phillip’s fate. Additionally she is the dictionary definition of a damsel in distress. The girl who is meant to spend her days inside a stone castle surrounded by strong guards. From her extremely useless cape and wide doe eyes, it is apparent that she isn’t much of an asset to her three capable companions. But during the last couple of episodes my hatred has dissipated and as a Leo, I appreciate her eventual enduring loyalty. But in the end, she still is a target until she dons more sensible clothing and attitudes towards nefarious parties.

Lea: Whew. Well, I’m glad Zozizzle and Good Grief covered so much ground because my thoughts on Once Upon A Time are mostly fleeting and kind of shallow. Like Zozizzle stated above, Sundays is where the good stuff is at, and for me, Once Upon A Time this season tended to get lost in the shuffle of the Bob’s Burgers, Walking Deads, and Boardwalk Empires of the world. Still, I want to say that so far this season has felt better than the last, and that the show found interesting ways to take the story further, even though the entire concept of the show was thrown out the window at the end of last season.

Zozizzle already talked about my favorite part of the show in its abundance of female characters, but let me elaborate further. There was a moment in an earlier episode (not sure which one. there was some silliness with a troll) where Snow, Emma, Mulan, and Aurora were all walking through a field together, trying to figure out how to get back home with not a man in sight.

Mess with these ladies, and Snow will shoot you with an arrow while Mulan cuts you, Emma shoots you, and Aurora strangles you with her pretty hair and selflessness.

And it hit me. You very rarely see this on television right now. Not only the fact that pretty much all of the main characters are female, but that the female main characters actually drive the plot. They have agency and import and get things done. Not only that, but so much of this show is about the relationships between female characters. Whether it’s the antagonistic relationship between Emma and Regina or the multitudes of female friendships (Ruby and Snow. Ruby and Belle. Aurora and Mulan. etc.), I’ve never seen a show that focuses on solely female relationships to the extent this one does. In fact, one of the best things this show has done this season is the mother/daughter relationship between Snow and Emma.

It’s often played as more of a friendship, but Emma slowly learning to accept love and protection from someone else was very effective, as well as Snow’s mama-bear instincts of wanting to protect Emma, touched with the sadness of never being able to raise her.

This also paralleled nicely with the mother/daughter relationship of Cora/Regina.

Look, I hate Regina. And not in a ‘oh she’s so evil I hate her’ kind of way. In a ‘wow this is an awful character and I hate everything they’re trying to do with her and I dislike most of the actresses choices’ kind of way. But...even I can admit that everything with her and Cora this season was good. It didn’t make me like Regina more, but understanding a character more is always better, and having Cora be the main villain from now on is so much better for the story. Of course, this is the double-edged sword, since it now means I have to watch the writers give Regina some kind of “redemption” arc. I totally understand what they are trying to do. And it was kind of sad that everyone ignored her in the end, but I didn’t feel bad for her at all. I still can’t really believe the show is trying to push that she cares for Henry. Wasn’t the majority of the first season showing us that Regina was awful to Henry? But no, just kidding! She really loved him all along! Right...

So much talk of the female characters and not a mention of the men, but no worries! The male characters have been good this season as well. The breaking of the curse is the best thing to happen to David/Charming, since David really kind of sucked and Charming has always been kind of awesome. So just getting rid of David and embracing Charming has been great. Everything Charming has been doing in becoming the leader of the town has been interesting and the show has always done well with Snow/Charming. One of my favorite scenes of the season was their reunion in the dream world. So romantic!

Robert Carlyle remains the best thing about this show, and while nothing with Rumpelstiltskin really stands out this season, he has, as always, been doing steady work. And I have to mention Jefferson (more Jefferson!!), Dr. Whale (er, Dr. Frankenstein), Lancelot (RIP? Hopefully not!), and Emma’s baby-daddy (??) all playing interesting parts of the season so far.

Still looking for someone whose good looks rival his. Still coming up empty.

And that brings me to Captain Hook. Le sigh...so dreamy. Yes, the actor who plays Hook is good looking (he almost makes up for the loss of Sheriff Graham. Almost.), but he actually turned out to be an interesting character and the one I’m most interested about going forward. He’s cheeky and charming and kind of a bastard, but as his flashback showed us, not purely a bad guy, with a thirst for revenge that makes sense. Of course, that will present complications going forward in that I don’t want Hook to kill Rumpelstiltskin, but...Rumpel kind of deserves it for killing his wife. Although, what the what with the ship coming to Storybrooke?

That was weird. Is no one...noticing this giant pirate ship riding around in the Atlantic?

All aboard the U.S.S. Conspicuous!

And so wraps up our overall impressions thus far. What do we hope for the rest of this season? Part 2 is coming up soon!