Once Upon A Time - Recap: Lost Boy
Recap and review of Once Upon A Time - Season 2 Episode 21 - Second Star to the Right:
For the penultimate episode of Once Upon A Time's second season, "Second Star to the Right" delivers on the big plot turns and climaxes that viewers expect of a late season episode. The season has been building to an Us vs. Them conflict, and this episode sees the denizens of Storybrooke banding together to save one of their own from the clutches of the anti-magic "Believers", led by Greg Mendel (Ethan Embry) and Tamara (Sonequa Martin-Green). By focusing so intently on this one conflict, along with the overarching theme of family and sacrifice, the episode proves to be tremendously engaging, even without getting into all the huge plot developments that are packed into the hour. Yet, for as much as I enjoyed "Second Star to the Right", it's a bit hard to judge the episode on its own merits, since it's only half the story. Next week's season finale will round out the two-parter, and until then it's hard to really know where the story is going, or what the relevance of the flashbacks will turn out to be, relative to the present storyline. However, the episode was still a lively affair, and that counts for a lot when you're looking to just be entertained on a Sunday night.
Credit: ABC
David/Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) and Mary Margaret/Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) go to Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) for help in finding Regina (Lana Parrilla), who is being held captive by Greg and Tamara. Gold provides them with a vial of Regina's tears, which allows Mary Margaret to briefly see and feel what Regina sees and feels. She discovers Regina's location, after experiencing the excruciating pain to which Regina is being subjected -- she is strapped to a gurney and pumped with high voltage by Greg, who demands to know what happened to his father. Parallel to this, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Neal (Michael Raymond-James) search for Regina on their own, as Emma continues in her suspicions of Tamara. After they come face-to-face with an innocent-seeming Tamara, on her daily run along the beach, Emma and Neal are forced to confront their lingering feelings for one another. Emma insists to Neal that her suspicions of Tamara have nothing to do with how things ended between them, and though Neal accepts this, he can't help apologizing for what happened in the past. He tells Emma that he wanted to love her, to go to jail for her, to be with her. He regrets allowing August to talk him into leaving her behind, but Neal confesses that he was too scared to confront his feelings for her and make the leap. He'll never live it down, and though he's with Tamara now, he felt it was something that needed to be said.
Credit: ABC
Neal has gone through hell in getting to this place in his life, as we learn through flashbacks. After falling through the portal created by the Blue Fairy's magic bean, Baelfire (Dylan Schmid) ends up in England at the turn of the century, where he's taken in by the Darlings. Wendy (Freya Tingley) is fully taken with Bae, and wants to introduce him to the world of magic, as her window has been frequented by a mysterious shadow that whisks her off to a magical place called Neverland, where no one ever ages and adults are nowhere to be found. Bae is justly horrified by this, warning Wendy that magic always comes with a price, and this shadow shouldn't be trusted. However, Wendy ignores Bae's warnings and goes off with the shadow. When she returns the next morning, she's been changed by what she's seen: the boys in Neverland are miserable; they miss their families and want to go home, but the shadow won't let them leave. The shadow allowed Wendy to leave only because she's a girl, and girls are of no use to him. When Bae learns that the shadow is intent on returning for one of Wendy's brothers, he resolves to defend the Darling family. He does this by offering himself in the place of Wendy's brother, Michael, under the terms that the shadow never bother the Darlings again. Wendy and Bae have a panicked, tearful parting as the boy is whisked off to Neverland. However, Bae is able to free himself from the shadow's clutches by lighting a match, forcing the shadow to drop him into the sea below...where he's picked up by Captain Hook (Colin O'Donoghue), aboard the Jolly Roger.
Credit: ABC
Though the storyline might not have immediate relevance, at first look, it becomes more relevant as the episode wears on and we learn Greg and Tamara's true motives. It turns out that they're from a faction of Believers who feel that magic is dangerous and should be obliterated from the universe. They tell Regina that Storybrooke wouldn't be the first magical world they've destroyed, and that there's an entire legion of Believers intent on seeing the mission through. Though the other members of this faction aren't revealed, it's more than likely that there's some connection with the Darlings, even if the time difference between then and now is too substantial for the mastermind to be Wendy herself. That said, while we're denied one revelation, we're gifted another in the form of the truth about Greg's father. As Greg tortures Regina to the brink of what her body can take, the "Evil Queen" reveals that Greg's father is dead -- she killed him as soon as Greg left town all those years ago, burying his body at the father and son's campsite. A devastated Greg is chased off by a gun-wielding David -- he rushes to the campsite and digs feverishly -- discovering the skeletal remains of his father. It's a powerful scene for someone who's ostensibly portrayed as a villain, the way Greg has been. But it's hard not to feel sorry for him.
Credit: ABC
But things are far from done with Tamara, as her cover is blown. She admits to Neal that their entire relationship was a lie, and was organized by whomever is in control of the "Believers". When Neal tries to approach her, she shoots him on the right side of his chest. As she moves in for the kill, Emma comes to Neal's rescue, resulting in a straight-up fist fight that Tamara soundly loses. However, as a last ditch maneuver against Emma, she throws a magic bean at her feet that opens a portal to an unknown world. In trying to save Emma, Neal gets sucked in, in a mirror of his parting with Rumpelstiltskin as a child. As Emma tries to hold onto Neal, she pleads with him not to let go, surmising that falling into the portal amounts to a death sentence, given his bullet wound. Emma tells Neal that she needs him, that she loves him. Neal tells Emma he loves her too, before slipping away into the disappearing portal. Emma is inconsolable in the aftermath, but things are about to get worse, as David and Mary Margaret learn from Regina that Tamara and Greg took a very valuable item off of her: a diamond that serves as a "trigger", a failsafe that Regina had built into The Curse that allows her to obliterate Storybrooke from the map, if necessary. In essence, the key to Storybrooke's destruction is now in the hands of the enemy, and once the trigger is activated, there's no stopping it.
Credit: ABC
"Second Star to the Right" is as forthrightly entertaining as Once Upon A Time has ever been, even if it is only half of the story. Next week's finale has the potential to deliver a climactic, cataclysmic finale that could essentially change the entire makeup of the series, from top to bottom. That's an exhilarating possibility, and a risk that few other shows have proven willing to tease, much less actually take. We'll find out soon enough if the season goes out with a bang or a whimper. As for now, "Second Star to the Right" sets the stage wonderfully.
