Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A- | 88 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Live Together. Die Alone.
By Cindy McLennan | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.07.2012
Out in the town, the Storybrookers set to work. Hansel and Gretel's father opens the Marine Garage. A woman opens a shop. A cobbler hangs a "Coming Soon" sign in his shop window. Meanwhile, six of the Dwarfs exit what must be a hardware store, pickaxes at the ready. They run into Sneezy Tom Clark who asks what they're doing. Rumpy: "Don't worry, brother. You've lost something. It's going to take fairy dust to get it back, so we're gonna do what we do best." He looks over his shoulder at his other brothers and says, "Come on, boys. It's off to work we go." Whee!
Diner. Henry and Charming enter. When Henry sees Geppetto at the counter, he whispers something in his ear. Geppetto smiles and nods. We cut to August's room at Granny's. His wooden self is no longer on the bed. Geppetto enters the room and finds Pinocchio's distinctive hat. He lifts it up and strokes it tenderly.
Rumpy has parked his black Cadillac at the edge of town. He stands at the line and stares off in the distance.
Mayoral Manse. It's only once Henry and Charming are gone that we can ask if Regina means that redemption malarky, luckily, we have a scene to help us puzzle it out. (Note to those of you who watched the V.P. debate -- I totally used malarky in the recaplet, days before the debate, but somehow, I don't think V.P. Biden was giving me a shout-out; I just want to note I'm not aping him.) So yeah, does she mean what she says? Kind of. At least part of her wants to mean it. She is a politician after all. Once she is alone, Regina actually contemplates burning the grimoire, but c'mon, if the commoners are amalgams of their original selves and their Storybrooke selves, Regina is an even bigger pile of mushed up personae. In the end, she compromises her one, fetal principle, and locks up the grimoire, just in case.
Back at the diner, Henry stares longingly at his book. Charming calls him out of his daydream and informs him the Enchanted Forest still exists -- it's still out there. Henry: "And so are they." Charming: "Yeah." Henry wants to know how they can be sure the ladies survived the trip there. Charming: "Because I can feel it." He gives his boy a squeeze on the shoulder and a great, crinkly-eyed grandpa smile. There's a lovely visual of the two taking physically identical swigs of their soda that I could just watch over and over. And now, we leave Storybrooke and flash sideways to a...
Specific, annoying little world (and a little more plagiarism). Mulan and Aurora lead the bound Emma and Snow White down a beach littered with old ship timbers, and to their "home" (it's got to be Neverland, right). Once they reach the little village, Snow knees Aurora in the gut (unnecessarily, I think, because Aurora doesn't seem to be holding onto Snow by then), runs, and commands Emma to do the same. Emma does, but Mulan grabs a slingshot and strikes Snow with a rock. She's down for the count. Taking a page out of Ana Lucia's book, Mulan orders her minions to throw our princesses in the pit. Yeah, I already didn't like you Mulan. Now I don't even want to watch you. Down in said pit, as Emma tries to wake her mother, another mother emerges from the shadows and asks Emma if she wants help. It's Cora. Quick, Snow, wake up and save your girl from making a horrible mistake!