Once Upon a Time can be a truly maddening show. To wit, in “Rocky Road,” Emma wouldn’t shut up about her “superpower,” meaning her preternatural ability to tell when someone is lying. It was kinda cute when she told Henry about it in the pilot, but it’s significantly less cute when she’s telling full-grown men and women. How old are you, Emma?
But for all that, “Rocky Road” is still mostly an enjoyable episode, due in no small part to the performances. Georgina Haig, in particular, excels as Elsa, which is a pretty thankless role considering the scrutiny she’ll be under. (“Elsa wouldn’t cross her arms like that! Fire this idiot! #NotMyElsa!!!!” – Tumblr, probably.) But Haig has great chemistry with everyone she shares scenes with, especially Scott Michael Foster’s Kristof, who gets much more to do here than he did in “A Tale of Two Sisters.”
“Rocky Road” was all about Elizabeth Mitchell’s Snow Queen, who infuriatingly doesn’t have a name yet. Is OUAT building to a big reveal? I doubt it; I can only think of one Snow Queen, and she’s currently being played by Georgina Haig. Still, Mitchell plays her part as cagey and more than a little deadly; she comes close to killing Hook just to prove a point to Elsa: that the town will turn on her at any moment, because they’re afraid of her.
To be fair, those stupid fuckin townies (led by Grumpy and Granny, naturally) are already pissed at Elsa, because Marian has been afflicted with a fatal freezing curse. Apparently Marian is really important to everybody now! Either that or Grumpy just likes being wrong all the time.
For some reason, instead of calling in Rumpelstiltskin to cure Marian, Regina is the one that people turn to. I don’t think Regina has ever used magic for curative purposes in her life, so I don’t know how much experience she can be expected to have. She ends up removing Marian’s heart to keep her alive – kind of a magically-induced coma – but not before Robin Hood tells Regina that he’s in love with her. Get to work on that portmanteau, Tumblr – Robgina? Rebin? (I know I’m being hard on Tumblr here, but in my defense, 90% of the people who use it are morons.)
I pretty firmly believe that Regina and Robin will end up together, not to sound like too much of a ‘shipper. But Lana Parilla and Sean Maguire have built up such a rapport that it would be a shame to see it go to waste. Plus, Marian, while beautiful, hasn’t made much of an impact beyond being pretty. That leads to Regina’s other plot, where she and Henry – who still delivers all his lines in the same breathless community theater manner – are going to try to find the author of Henry’s book and ask him to write a happy ending for Regina. This excites me, because knowing the identity of the book’s author is something I didn’t know I was interested in, but now I can’t stop guessing (although let’s face it, it will probably end up being Rumpelstiltskin).
Also, some stuff happens in Arendelle that pretty much reads like Frozen fan fiction. “Then Elsa and Kristof snuck into the cave, and Hans was there, and Elsa shot ice at him and his brothers, and they were all BLARRH! And Hans was all, Gimme that urn or I’ll kill Kristof! And then the Snow Queen came out of the urn and froze Hans! And his brothers ran away like BLARRH!” *
*actually pretty accurate
So overall, “Rocky Road” was pretty, well, rocky. The performances saved it for me, though – Haig, as mentioned, was great, as was Colin O’Donoghue as Hook (even though he really needs to get some new clothes). In fact, this was a pretty good example of a typical Once Upon a Time episode – a little bit of fan service, a little bit of brand synergy, and a little bit of story.
A Few Thoughts
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Scott Nimerfro, a producer and director of Hannibal, has joined OUAT as a producer. This can only mean good things
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Having a villain as over-powered as the Snow Queen could potentially be very boring. Remember Cora? Exactly
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Did you guys get a load of Dr. Hopper when Snow was struggling with that stroller? He was absolutely no help
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“I push the Emma button and she picks up, sometimes”
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