Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: N/A | 268 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT A Sticky Wicket
By Cindy McLennan | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 2013.01.06
There are no "previously scenes" this week. When we open on Once Upon A Time, it is night in Storybrooke. Captain Hook and Cora (the Mother of All Evil) disembark his ship. Hook suggests they part ways, undoubtedly because the Mother of All Evil carries a parasol at night, and there's no way he wants to be associated with that kind of madness -- especially since he's off to skin his "crocodile." As Hook makes his way up the dock, Cora dissolves into purple haze and then appears in front of him to drive home the point that while Storybrooke was billed as a land without magic, there's certainly magic there now, which complicates crocodile hunting.
The owner of the bait and tackle shop greets the new arrivals and offers to open up his shop for them. When he notices Hook's ship, Cora hides it behind a magical cloak of invisibility. Harry Potter should really take more care with that thing. The shopkeeper is impressed at that voodoo that Cora does so well and asks if she's "...some kind of magician back in our land." In answer, she turns him into a fish, and Hook kicks the poor critter into the drink. Although to be fair, as one of my twitter friends pointed out, Hook probably just saved the man-fish's life. Yes, I will fanwank for sexy swashbucklers, and I won't feel guilty about it either.
Cora explains that she cloaked the ship, because to achieve their goals they need the element of surprise. She then proposes that they take a look at Storybrooke. As Hook follows her, we get a wide shot of the harbor, wherein swims a swan. Now, I've lived most of my life five miles from the New England Coast (or closer), and spend a lot of my summers in a coastal Maine town. While swans are not a rare sight for me, I've never noticed them swimming in salt water. I rush to Google, so that I can nitpick with impunity, only to find that swans do sometimes swim in salt water. Thank you for sharing my anticlimax with me. The title card features Pongo running around a tree. Between that and this episode's title ("The Cricket Game") I'm already worried for Archie Hopper/Jiminy Cricket. I'd pour myself a soothing glass of wine but (a) I have work to do; (b) I don't have any wine; (c) it's broad daylight, and the neighbors would talk (between us, it's mostly reason b).
It's morning in Snow's Storybrooke hovel. She and Charming are all snuggly-wuggly in her bed alcove. What? That's a thing. It's not a bedroom. There's no door. Heck, our perfectly perfect princess doesn't even have the area curtained off. She could at least put up some beads or something, but no. As the couple coos that 28 years is too long to wait between -- well, you know (this indicates to me that their canoodling while he was "married" to Kathryn, never progressed to straight up adultery, which makes me happy, so don't shatter my illusions, thank you very much) Henry and Emma enter. I'd say they "bust" in, but they live there and Snow and Charming know that. As I mentioned in the recaplet, previous episodes indicate there might be a loft bedroom in this place, so this scene, while cute, annoys me a little. It's certainly not salacious or anything. It just feels forced, like -- let's have Emma and Henry catch Snow and Charming during an intimate moment.