Once Upon A Time - Season 2 Premiere - Recap Video and Review - Broken

The success of last season's Once Upon A Time was hardly a surprise. The series, from Lost writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, premiered big, with 13 million viewers providing ABC with its highest-rated new series debut in five years. The audience stayed strong throughout the season as well, guaranteeing the show this second season. Even critics, who were initially leery about the show due to its inconsistent CG effects and occasionally cheesy elements (overacting, trite fairy tale stories, etc.) grew to enjoy it, citing the show's thematically-rich storytelling and the presence of a strong female lead in Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), a proactive woman who's searching for her "happy ending" not in the validation of a man, but in the meaningful connection she shares with her son, Henry (Jared S. Gilmore). The second season premiere contains all of the elements that made Once Upon A Time so alluring in its first season, with the added bonus that the show's success has seemingly given Kitsis and Horowitz the mettle to tell an even more ambitious story than last year's arc.

ABC network is owned by Disney, and so, though the series follows all manner of fairy tales, borrowing both from the Brothers Grimm and from Hans Christian Andersen, the show has often employed the use of Disney iconography, from Belle's gold evening dress and blue-and-white town dress from Beauty and the Beast (and the name "Belle" itself), down to smaller details like Dopey's purple cap from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, among countless other examples you could add up through the series' first season.

There's usually a soft touch involved in the use of such imagery, more subtle than overt. With this season premiere, all pretext of this not being a straight-up adaptation of Disney works goes soaring out the window with the introduction of Mulan (Jamie Chung). More an ancient Chinese legend than an actual fairy tale, Mulan isn't exactly a straightforward Disney adaptation in how she's presented here, but the show is trading on the viewer's familiarity with the Disney version to identify with the character, as presented. There isn't anything wrong with that, really, since it's a new enough twist on a story we know to seem fresh. And really, the scenes taking place in the Fairy Tale land are remarkably staged, from the lush forest scenery to the more elaborate costuming and set decoration. Even the camera seems to employ a different filter, giving the scenery a slight sepia tone, creating a slightly fogged, nostalgic quality.

But that's only window-dressing for the meat-and-potatoes of the premiere: Magic is back, and the repercussions are already being felt in Storybrooke. Though the initial aftermath sees the former denizens of Fairy Tale Land (for lack of an official name) having a quick reunion of sorts, the others are already forming up a mob to kill Regina (Lana Parilla). Henry makes Emma promise that he won't let the mob kill Regina, saying "She's still my mother!" (Oh, so NOW she's your mother. I swear, this kid...) Emma agrees that they can't allow themselves to stoop to Regina's level, and so they're off to stop the mob.

Credit: ABC

Overconfident as ever, Regina bathes in their hatred, preparing to blow everyone away with a burst of magic. But it doesn't work. As Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) explains to the jailed Regina, "Magic works different here." Gold is firmly in control, holding all the knowledge on how magic works and, it would appear, the means by which to use it. As part of her punishment for locking up Belle (Emilie De Ravin) in a mental ward and letting him believe she was dead, Gold marks her with a symbol that makes her a target of a wraith known as a Soulsucker. Much of the episode is spent telling us the origin of this wraith through flashbacks to Fairy Tale Land.

Prince Phillip (Pretty Little Liars' Julian Morris) and Princess Aurora (Sarah Bolger) are finally reunited after a years-long search with the magic of True Love's Kiss (the penicillin of fairy tales). The reunion is interrupted, however, by the sudden appearance of the soul-sucking wraith, who attacks Phillip and leaves him marked. As we later learn, once a person is marked, the Soulsucker doesn't stop until it's claimed its victim. And so Phillip goes off into the woods to draw the wraith away from Aurora and Mulan (whom we learn is also in love with Phillip), and meet his fate. However, once the women realize what's happened, neither is any mood for a heroic sacrifice. Unfortunately, they're too late to prevent the inevitable.

The premiere seems intent on hitting grandiose dramatic beats without answering any of the primary questions presented in the wake of last season's finale. And I'm totally okay with that. The show has found its footing into a more patient style of storytelling, which privileges a slow burn over instant gratification. For instance, we don't really get much in the way of resolution between Emma and her parents, Snow White/Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming/David (Josh Dallas). On the one hand, Emma is happy to be reunited with them. On the other hand, she's reticent to simply get over the fact that they sent her away, arguing that if they'd kept her, yes, she would have been cursed too. But they would have been together. (I seem to remember it differently, as soldiers were searching for baby Emma to stab her full of holes before they sent her away) Nothing is resolved just yet, but it's a developing storyline that will have the opportunity to potentially flower into something special, given the twist at the end of the episode. But more on that in a minute...

In many ways, last season felt like a redemptive arc for Rumpelstiltskin/Gold, showing that he had the capacity for goodness all while piling on the villainy. That story continues here through his interactions with Belle, to whom he makes a promise not to kill Regina. When she finds out he essentially lied via loophole (the Soulsucker isn't technically going to kill her), she flees in disgust. However, Belle returns after the climactic confrontation with the Soulsucker, and Gold apologizes for his lie and insists she must leave, as he's still a monster. This only strengthens Belle's resolve to stay and serve as his moral compass.

About that climax, though...

Apparently the Fairy Tale Land no longer exists, a byproduct of the Curse that brought them all here. And so Regina comes up with the idea to use Jefferson's/The Mad Hatter's magic hat to transport the wraith to the Fairy Tale Land, which is almost certainly nothing but a bottomless void now. The plan actually goes pretty well, all things considered...at least until Emma gets sucked in too, and Snow White jumps in after her. The portal closes before Charming can follow, and now it's going to take a lot more than a promise to a child to keep Charming from killing Regina. Turns out, magic is that something, as Regina wraps him in vines (so she can use magic now? Whatever, I'm just going to roll with it) before Henry drops in and renounces his mother...again.

And so the twist...the Fairy Tale Land flashback isn't a flashback at all, but a story happening concurrently with the present day. Mulan and Aurora are inhabiting a pocket of land in the realm that somehow avoided the effects of the Curse. This is where Emma and Snow are transported, with Mulan seeking to put an end to the intruders under the assumption that they're responsible for bringing the wraith to their land.

The premiere gives us just enough information to get us fully-involved for next week, but keeps us at arm's length, parsing out the details piecemeal. We could have been told more, but it's a longer game Kitsis and Horowitz are playing here, and I'm up for the ride. A lot of the things that seemed inherently ridiculous about the first season now feel like natural extensions of the show's world, although Henry continues to drive me up a wall. But that's just a personal opinion. It's not like he really hurts the show at all. That said, I hope the rest of the ensemble gets woven into the overall arc of the season in a more substantial way. Many of the promotional materials for this season are hyping the introduction of an entire host of new Fairy Tale characters. A lot of shows are overwhelmed by the explosion of new characters in its second season, particularly successful shows, as a profundity of new characters serves as a mechanism for keeping the show from avoiding a sophomore slump. Often, the number of characters become unwieldy, and the show suffers - or the characters consume all the screentime, pushing well-liked characters to the periphery. Of course, there's always the third option: that the series successfully integrates these new characters into the established world, enriching its mythology and providing a slew of interesting story possibilities. It remains to be seen which path Once Upon A Time will take, but season two is promising in the early going.