I was – and still am – skeptical about Frozen coming to Once Upon a Time. In the past, OUAT has drawn characters from classic Disney films like Peter Pan and Beauty and the Beast; Frozen, by comparison, is still fresh in everyone’s mind, and I definitely think that ABC started seeing dollar signs when “Let It Go” won an Oscar, and they told Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz to work Frozen into the narrative or find new jobs. Don’t get me wrong, I like the film as much as anyone, but it just seemed a little fast.
That being said, OUAT did an admirably good job with the material. Georgina Haig and Elizabeth Lail acquit themselves nicely as Elsa and Anna; Lail in particular nails Kristen Bell’s ditzy-yet-intelligent portrayal of Anna, and Haig plays Elsa as scared, confused, and more than a little sad. OUAT does itself a favor by having “A Tale of Two Sisters” take place after the events of Frozen, and it’s a little heartbreaking to see Elsa still so scared of her own power.
So, if you’ve seen the end of season three, you know that in addition to Elsa, Emma brought another newcomer to Storybrooke: Marian, Robin Hood’s wife. Obviously this displeases Regina, because everything displeases Regina. I kid (a little) – Lana Parilla is the best she’s ever been tonight. She has three seasons of character development backing her up, and successfully steers Regina from sadness to vengefulness to vowing to be something better.
“Two Sisters,” in fact, is full of formerly bad guys wanting to be better. Rumpelstiltskin has a wonderful scene at Baelfire’s grave where he swears to become a good man; he starts by swapping out the fake dagger he gave Belle for the real one. Robert Carlyle doesn’t get a lot of scenes tonight, but he makes the most of all of them.
This episode has one goal, though, and if you’ve watched TV, read Twitter, or gone to any convention in the last six months, I’m sure you know what it is: bring Frozen to Storybrooke, damn it. And while “Two Sisters” is more than a little anticlimactic, it does a serviceable job of introducing Elsa. She’s scared and lost, and therefore has less control over her powers; everywhere she walks becomes frozen over (think Iceman from the X-Men), and when cornered she creates a snow monster not unlike the one from the movie (still no Olaf, though).
Regina ultimately dispatches of the snow monster, saving Marian’s life in the process. Earlier in the episode, when she was planning on killing Marian, Sydney showed Regina “footage” of herself sentencing Marian to death and generally just acting like the evil queen she was for most of season one. The image really shakes Regina, and it’s more believable than ever before, especially because we saw how happy she was with Robin.
It looks like Once Upon a Time’s fourth season is off to a good start: a solid character introduction; Regina acting like a real person; Emma using magic; minimal Henry; and not once instance of Snow talking about the power of true love or wanting to give someone a second or third or billionth chance. Also, it looks like Rumpelstiltskin found the Fantasia hat! At least that’s what it looked like, but if Storybrooke gets overrun by tiny brooms, we all win. Whatever that means.
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