Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot

Ah, yes, we have the classic exposition via small paragraph that eventually fades away. A man in a cape rides a horse along a beach, a pretty beach. It's suddenly snowing as he pulls up beside seven dwarves surrounding a giant glass butter dish- I mean, coffin- in which lies Snow White. He talks them into letting him say goodbye and bends down to kiss her as it really starts pouring down snow and there's some kind of force field. She wakes with a gasp.

"You found me," she breathes.
"Did you ever doubt I would?"
"Truthfully, the glass coffin gave me pause." Yeah, can't blame you there.

Next thing you know, they're getting married. In barges a black-clad party pooper: the evil queen-witch! Who's lost some battle we don't know about and forces upon them a "gift"- their day of happiness before she destroys their lives by ripping away from them everything they love. That's big of her.

Whoa, now they're poorly drawn characters in a book held by this kid in a scarf on an inner-city bus. What's a kid this age doing taking buses and taxis by himself? We'll have to wait to find out, because now we have a blonde lady in an adorable pinkj dress coming out of an elevator. She does the awkward crowd-scanning thing before she catches the eye of her date, Ryan. Oh, her online date. She fields his questions even more awkwardly, but he desribeds her as "the sexiest friendless orphan I've ever met." Tables turned, she flatters him and proceeds to blow his cover as a two-timing escaped convict in the same breath. Ryan makes a scene and then flees it, leaving our unnamed heroine in the middle of the mess. #bailbondspersonprobs

Outside the restauramt, they both somehow manage to make it across a busy street without getting hit. He pleads with her not to turn him in; she knocks him out. End scene. 

Coming home to a dark apartment with takeout cliche. Oh, no, that's her own birhday cupcake. Sad. At the doorbell, she opens her door (which someone mistook for a diary) to reveal Bus Boy. It's an informative 10 seconds: her name's Emma Swan- no relation to Bella, I'm sure- his name's Henry and he's her son. Wait, what?

She gave him up for adoption 10 years ago. Now she's in the bathroom doing the freakout thing. Henry tells her he wants her to come home with him and stops her from calling the cops with cunning, then pleading. She tells him about her secret power: she can tell when anyone is lying. Then she agrees to get him back to Storybrooke.

Back to the kingdom. A very pregnant and bored-looking Snow White leans heavily against a doorframe when Prince Charming shows up to chat about the queen's threats. He's all "she can't hurt us."

"She poinsoned an apple because she thourhgt I was prettier than her," Snow returns with a withering look. Fair point. "Let me talk to him."

Him? Who's him? I mean, he. Whoever he is, he's not a friendly because he's locked up.

Cut to the car. Henry tries to cinvince Emma that the stories in his book all really happened. Even she's in it! WTH. 

Wow, Rumplestiltskin's a creep. Snow and Charming grill him about the threats and strike a deal: he'll tell them what he knows (time will stop and they'll all be trapped someplace "absolutely horrible") in exchange for...the name of their child. Seems a small price to pay. The baby, btw, is supposed to be their savior. [Here's where the Chrisitian allegory comes in, for those who seek it in everything] On its 28th birthday the child will come back and save them.
Her name: Emma. Yep, that Emma. 
The one who just got to Storybrooke, only to find that the town clock is stuck at 8:15 and has been for Henry's whole life. Dang evil queen. Henry gives Emma the rundown on the townspeople: they're all fairy tale characters banished by the queen. If they try to leave "bad things happen." Enter Henry's therapist, randomly walking his Dalmation, to schold Henry for missing his session and reveal that he's the mayor's son. Henry, I mean. He, like everyone, doesn't remember who he really is- Jiminy Cricket.

Time for a round table discussion! Prince Charming wants to fight, but Jiminy Cricket says that giving into one's dark side never accomplishes anything...like Henry's shrink just said. In floats the Blue Fairy, who must be part jellyfish, to reaffirm what Charming just said to skeptical Snow and inform everyone of an enchanted tree. A tree which can be fashioned into a vessel by Geppetto, of course. It can only protect one, so all they have to do is get the thing made before the baby's born.

Back in Storybrooke, a brunette comes running out of the huge white house to which Emma drove Henry, who exclaims "I found my real mom!" before running into the house. Ouch. 
The brunette and Emma chat over apple cider in the kitchen. The unnamed, unexplained guy who was with Madame Mayor at the beginning- oh, the sheriff- comes down to report Henry's clean bill of health. Emma attributes Henry's eccentricity and detestation of his mother to his book, which Madame Mayor knows nothing about.
En route out of town, she's distracted by the book which Henry left on her front seat and swerves to avoid hitting a wolf, right into the Welcome to Storybrooke sign and passes out. Preesumably from a breeze, the book's pages flip by themselves to a picture of Geppetto that becomes live. He and his son are hard at work on the vessel as Snow goes into labor, putting a kink in the works.

Emma wakes up behind bars at the sheriff's office. Word has spread of her dropoff mission as she's interrogated by her cellmate and the random guy with an Italian accent, and then by Madame Mayor (aka Regina) because Henry's run away again. They unlock her so she can help them find him. The first place Emma looks is Henry's computer, but he's deleted his inbox...except for a receipt from whosyourmama.org, which he paid with a credit card. His teacher's credit card.

Cut to his teacher, Mary Margaret Blanchard, who dismisses her students for recess seconds before Regina pays a visit to ask about Henry and accuse her of giving him his credit card to find out about his birth mom. Emma, in the background, sees that she's clueless. She did, however, give him the book. Hmm. Regina knocks over a student's books as she storms out of the classroom. Not cool!

Mary Margaret waxes eloquent to Emma about her reasons for giving Henry the book as they meander through the hallways. Can't see this happening in real life, but at least she knows where Henry is. Not that she let Regina in on it.

Horrifying labor screams. "The wardrobe's almost finished!" Charming says. "Just hold on!" Yeah, that should work. He makes it through the castle to get baby Emma to the wardrobe, but not before a battle with the guards, which is scary to watch with a newborn involved. The guards get him after that, but he at least gets to see the wardrobe empty when the guards break into it.

Back in reality, Emma finds Henry in a different castle, a wooden structure on a beach, to give him the book. He works on her some more. "You're here because it's your destiny. You're gonna bring back the happy endings!"

He might be a little stinker, but he's precocious, because he knows why Emma gave him away. She wanted him to have his best chance- not with her. He pleads with her not to take him back to Regina, and Emma tells him her own story to make him feel better: she was abandoned on the side of a freeway as a baby and put into the foster system, through which she had a family until the age of 3 when they had their own kid and sent her back. According to Henry, she wasn't abandoned; that's just where she "came through." Again, I'm not sure how likely this would be, but it's important bonding, I guess.

Snow stumbles out of her room to find Charming dead on the floor. She tries the kiss thing. Nope. And in comes to the queen again, not pleased that Emma got away.
"You're going to lose," Snow declares.
"We'll see about that." The queen cackles and starts destroying the room for the heck of it as wind swirls to take them someplace- you guessed it- absolutely horrible.

It's funny, but the evil queen looks a lot like Regina. Why is Regina home all day, anyway? She's home when Emma returns Henry for the second time, and thanks her before assuring her aggressively that he's not her son and she'd do well to remember that and leave. Or else she'll be destroyed. 

"Do you love him?" she asks Regina before she slams the door.
"Of course I love him." 
Emma's eyes narrow like her lie-detection powers are kicking in.

Mary Margaret doubles as a volunteer at the hospital at night, payng special attention to one patient who looks just like Charming. Meanwhile, Emma checks into Granny's Bed and Breakfast, the owner of which seems to be at odds with her assistant/granddaughter.
"I'm sorry if my heart attack interferes with your plans to sleep your way down the eastern seaboard!"
Ookay then. Mr. Gold, who supposedly runs the town, comes in out of nowhere for a late-night business transaction.

We close on Henry's delighted smile as he watches the clock finally moves to 8:16 and beyond.

Welcome!

I've recently been introduced to ABC's Once Upon a Time. It first aired in 2011, but I was completely unaware of it until the tail end of this past school year. My roomie introduced me to it, but warned me to wait until after finals to dive in. Now I see why: it's totally addicting.

It takes place in the fictional town of Storybrooke, MN and it tweaks what you think you know about your favorite fairy tale characters.

With Netflix as my enabler, I quickly burned through Season 1. I'm in the market for a fun summer project (apart from my 4 online classes and working, neither of which are exactly fun) and voila! This blog was born.

In the spirit and style of a blog I love detailing the Little House on the Prairie series, I will summarize and give commentary to each episode, starting at the beginning.

Fair warning: if you're anything like me, this show is one you have to pay close attention to because it does a lot of jumping back and forth between the real world and fairy tale world. You have to suspend disbelief, of course, in a show about magic. But some of the real-life shenanigans are just as far-fetched.

If you're ready, let's start at the very beginning.