“You get a snowman… and you get a snowman… and you get a snowman. You ALL GET SNOWMEN!”
Another week, another snow-themed Once episode… This show is starting to wreak some major havoc on my Seasonal Affective Disorder…
This week, the residents of Storybrooke find themselves trapped inside their small community which I’m pretty sure The Curse prevents them from actually leaving anyway, not to mention freezing their magically delicious tushies off, when a vengeful Elsa encases them inside a town-wide wall of ice. Elsa is bargaining that this oh-so-clever hostage-taking maneuver will force the fairytale characters to give up the goods on where her perky ginger little sister is hiding…
Clearly, this Frozen princess has been spending her free time in Arendelle watching non-Disney-approved shows on that Other Network of Which We Dare Not Speak Its Name…
For shame, Elsa! For shame!
Meanwhile, over in Fairytale Land, Prince Charming sports a hideous perm…
Thus proving once and for all that, contrary to popular belief, (1) fairytale characters are not immune to having Bad Hair Days and (2) sometimes those Bad Hair Days have the unintended effect of making them look like chorus members from the Broadway Revival of Rock of Ages…
Also, this week on Once, Snow White learned how to change a light bulb…
Emma and Hook got one step closer to their much awaited THIRD DATE…
Henry got one step closer to no longer being able to hide that he’s going through puberty…
“I used to hide a book of fairytales under my mattress. Now, it’s an iPad and internet porn… lots and lots of internet porn.”
And Little Bo Peep showed the world that the darkest of warlords are the ones that wear the poofiest skirts and the biggest bloomers…possibly to protect against Little Bo Poops…
Let’s review, shall we?
When your mom dumps you via blackbird…
Poor Henry. As if it wasn’t bad enough that:
(1) the only friend he ever had that was his own age was actually his great, great grandfather, who occasionally tried to rip out his heart and steal his soul.
(2) he used to look like Harry Potter, but now more closely resembles Neville Longbottom.
(3) his newly changing voice makes his emotional monologues sound like they are being delivered by Kermit the Frog.
“No, mom. I swear, I’m fine. I just have a little frog in my throat… and on my face… and my feet.”
…but now his adoptive mom can’t bear to be in the same room with him.
And guess how she tells him? By blackbird!
Man, that’s harsh! I mean, you’ve changed this kid’s diapers for crying out loud. I think that merits something a bit more personal… like a text message, or a comment on one of his Facebook photos, or a clever Tweet that ends with #puttingyouupforadoptionagain.
But Henry’s always kind of been like that angry red pimple you sometimes get on your chin. You can pop him, put cream on him, try to burn him off with hot water, or cover him up with concealer, but deep down you know he’s just going to keep coming back for more abuse…
And so the not-so-young-anymore Henry finds himself on Regina’s doorstep, begging for the opportunity to love her and support her during her time of need and also to get into his bedroom, where he’s hiding all his porn, because that sh*t just doesn’t fly at straight-edge Snow White’s house.
Regina is touched. Her adopted son loves her. He really loves her, just the way she is… evil curses, stubborn chin pimples, a life likely doomed to celibacy, and all…
All together now… AWWWWWW!
“This probably wouldn’t be the best time to tell him I already converted his bedroom into a personal gym.”
Reason 102 why Emma should finally invest in a weather-appropriate jacket…
Fans are constantly getting on Captain Hook’s back for being too stubborn to invest in some century-applicable clothing. But at least that ridiculous pirate costume is multi-layered and looks semi-warm.
On second thought… that jacket does look a bit nippley for the cold…
Emma, on the other hand, has spent the last three seasons in Storybrooke, Maine, a town that was literally stuck on the same cold and cloudy day for 28 years… and never managed to purchase so much as a pair of gloves, let alone a winter coat, undoubtedly fearing it will mar her Cool Savior Image.
“I’ve been wearing these two outfits pretty much every day for the last three years. Charlie Brown has more wardrobe changes than I do.”
Then again, perhaps this is just Emma’s way of rebelling against her mother… a woman who literally never met a big bulky jacket or funny looking winter beanie she didn’t love…
This week, The Savior’s lady boner for skinny leather jackets with three-quarter sleeves and super thin white v-neck tanks nearly got her killed! Trapped in an ice prison of sorts with Elsa, Emma bonds briefly with her fellow blonde over absentee parents, younger perkier family members that seem to be perpetually in trouble, being kind of dark and broody, and having weird things occasionally shoot out of their fingers that they can’t control, before she unceremoniously passes out from the cold.
Meanwhile, Prince Charming and a much gentler, more moony and sensitive Hook than we are used to seeing, work frantically to free Emma from Ice Jail before she freezes to death. “What are your intentions with my daughter?” Charming asks conversationally, as his daughter wavers on the precipice of death.
“Oh, you know, the usual… a few more snow and ice-related danger dates, followed by some light bondage,” Hook replies. “A few months later, we’ll have a shotgun wedding just in time for The Savior to pop out one of my puppies… a boy, who we will name Tick Tock, because we’re ironic like that.”
“That’s a relief,” responds Charming. “I thought you were going to treat her poorly and leave her with one of those rare STDs that only pirates get… like scurvy.”
Eventually, Elsa gains enough control of her powers to lower the ice prison. Hook rushes in, embraces Emma passionately, and carries her to the warmth and safety of the Charming House, trying desperately not to accidentally shove his Hook up her ass while he does so…
And they all lived happily ever after… except there still remained the issue of the town blackout, and Elsa’s missing sister, and the ice wall that continued to encase the rest of Storybrooke despite Elsa’s best efforts.
Other than that, everything was just peachy!
Let there be flashlights!
Babies are hard! And Snow White is tired!
Fairytale characters don’t really do babies. Mothers tend to give birth to them at the end of the book, before the crying starts or the diapers have to be changed…
Or, they’ll give birth to them at the beginning of the book and promptly die off so daddy can marry someone a bit more adventurous in bed evil.
Not so in Storybrooke. In Storybrooke, Snow White is stuck being the mother to a real, flesh-and-blood, pooping, crying, burping, teething baby… for 20 more episodes. (Because we all know that by Season 5 Baby Neal will conveniently have aged at least 4 years in as many months.)
So, you can imagine this new Mommy Princess’s chagrin when she learns she has to be a baby mama and hit the circuit breaker button that turns the lights in the town back on at the same time!
“You know, when it comes to singing to birds, eating apples, sleeping in glass coffins, and being tongued by handsome princes, you’re awesome… but at the rest of life you kind of suck,” remarks Grumpy, as his gal pal stares dumbfounded at the town generator box.
The rest of the dwarves and Granny agree. (They also think she dresses like the Little Dutch Boy and her haircut is stupid.)
Snow White is super pissed. Since when did it become a rule that, because you passed the town’s latest curse, you automatically become its mayor and chief electrician?
“Now I know why Regina became evil. It was because you guys are such ungrateful ass hats,” Snow White huffs.
“Actually, I thought she became evil because of you,” offers Dopey helpfully.
“Shut up, Stupid!” Snow White retorts.
“Actually, my name is Dopey. D-O-P…”
In a proclamation that would have made Marie Antoinette proud, Snow White offers a solid solution to the whole blackout problem, one that requires her to do as little work as possible. “Let them use flashlights,” she asserts.
Spoken like a true politician…
Eventually though, Snow White figures out how to re-fuel the generator and her town emerges from darkness…
“My breast milk brings all the babies to the yard.”
…which is good, because her baby seriously needs a diaper change and disposing of poopy diapers in the dark can be some seriously messy business… even with flashlights.
Meanwhile, in our fairytale flashback…
Don’t Mess with the Black Sheep Mafia
Step aside Tony Soprano, there’s a new mob boss in town, and she wears a bonnet…
That’s right, boys and girls. Just in case it wasn’t traumatic enough that Once Upon a Time turned Peter Pan into a villain and Little Red Riding Hood into a wolf, now they’ve gone and made Little Bo Peep, of nursery rhyme fame, into an extorting, sheep-butchering, slave-branding, shepherd staff-wielding warlord.
This was back when Prince Charming was still David the Shepherd. His mom was still alive. And their farm was so dirt poor he couldn’t even afford scissors to cut his own hair…
Dirt poor and shaggy haired is exactly how Anna finds the soon-to-be prince, who, apparently, unbeknownst to her, is good buddies with her soon-to-be hubby Kristoff.
“My name is Joan,” Anna fibs, possibly naming herself after the Joan of Arc picture with which she used to engage in conversation during her lonely childhood.
Not-yet-Prince-Charming doesn’t buy the name, but he lets Anna sleep in his barn to jump start her journey to find her parents anyway.
It’s all hearts and roses until Bo Peep comes, brands the entire household—including Anna—demands payment from Not-Yet-Charming, and threatens to take the farm if he can’t deliver the funds in 24 hours.
“I’ll always find you,” Bo Peep explains , which sounds romantic when everyone else on the show says it, but here… not so much.
I guess we are supposed to believe that when “Little Bo Peep lost her sheep and didn’t know where to find them,” she kind of went nuts, and turned her shepherd’s staff into that creepy app on Google that allows you to track people’s locations whether or not those people actually want to be found by you…
Not-Yet-Charming is ready to fold in his tent and give up. But Anna encourages him to take the more heroic route. It is Anna who teaches the shepherd boy, with the dead alcoholic father who let his demons get the best of him, how to sword fight… and Anna whose surprise capture by Bo Peep ultimately prompts Not-Yet-Charming to grow some balls and put those skills to use to defeat The Peep and her army of Black Sheep (which weren’t actual sheep, by the way, although I think it would have been way cooler if they were…)
Before Anna can continue on her journey, Not-Yet-Charming and his mother offer the spunky redhead some parting gifts that include sandwiches…
… Dead Alcoholic Dad’s Bad Luck Horse…
… and Rumpelstiltskin’s digits…
“Call me, maybe?”
…which in modern times would probably be the gift-giving equivalent of giving someone Hepatitis C.
Well… except for the sandwiches. Who doesn’t love sandwiches?
Vanilla Ice, Ice Baby…
Back in present day, Prince Charming conveniently makes the connection that Elsa is his erstwhile friend Anna’s sister… So, rather than lock her up and throw away the key for practically murdering his daughter, Charming vows to help Elsa.
Remembering that Bo Peep once branded Anna, enabling her to be found through the warlord’s shepherd’s staff, Charming rushes to her modern day place of business to retrieve it. And I’ll bet you’ll never guess where the Biggest Sheep Lover in Nursery Rhyme History now works?
…a butcher shop!
Someone should hook this woman up with Cruella Deville. I think they’d get along swimmingly… not to mention have the best collection of coats and sweaters in all of Storybrooke.
Charming retrieves the staff with little difficulty. And though Elsa is unable to see Anna through it, she is able to hear her heartbeat, which means she’s still alive.
Which leaves only one question… where the f*&k is Kristoff?
Did I say one question? I meant two. Because Storybrooke is still frozen over, and Elsa isn’t the one keeping it that way.
So… who is Storybrooke’s newest ice queen?
How about This Lady?
Until next time, Onceians!
Previous episodes:
ONCE UPON A TIME RECAP: Coitus Interruptus (S4:E1)
Want more Once? Here’s the Once Upon a Time Season 1 Retrospective: How Snow White Got Her Groove Back
Then try the Once Upon a Time Season 2 Retrospective: Mommy Issues & Lesser Villains
And of course the Once Upon a Time Season 3 Retrospective: Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife
For more Julie Kushner, check out TV Recappers Anonymous or buy one of her five novels!
The post ONCE UPON A TIME RECAP: Under the Snow Globe (S4:E2) appeared first on Happy Nice Time People.