Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
This week on Once Upon a Time we learn more about the Evil Queen and the events leading up to the death of Snow White's father(played brilliantly by Richard Schiff). The episode though is the back story and origin of the Magic Mirror. In a pretty surprising revelation it turns out that the Mirror was originally the Genie of the Lamp, and fell in love with the Queen. Like every episode featuring part of the Queen's back story I was wondering if we would learn what Snow did to her to make her hate her so much. We did not learn that, and I am happy about that. This is a mystery that they are dragging out, and in a brilliant way it makes the actual reveals in the episodes more enjoyable.
Like most episodes the events of Storybrooke and those in Fairy Tale land are about the same characters, but appear to be in opposition to each other. Last week Mary and David found each other and decided to begin a relationship whereas Snow and Charming split up, and Snow wiped him from her memory. That trend continues, or at least appears to in this episode.
In Storybrooke Emma is approached by Sidney Glass, and he tells her he can help to destroy Regina. After Regina tears down Henry's play castle Emma agrees. They then begin an investigation to uncover dirt. They find that she's stolen funds and appears to have bought a large potion of land from Mr. Gold. They assume it's for a gigantic mansion in the woods and they publicly accuse her during a Town Council Meeting. Sadly for them it turns out that Regina is in fact building a large play area for all the kids of Storybrooke. Because of these actions Regina has the means to force Emma into staying away from Henry. It appears that Emma and Sidney's plan simply failed, until it's revealed that this was all part of the plan. Sidney still is very much in Regina's pocket, and everything was a set up.
I was actually surprised by the outcome of this story. While I often wondered what Sidney's true motives were, I didn't think it was all a plan to set up Emma to take a big fall. A little later I'll get to why I soooo should have seen this coming. They even told us in the episode! One thing I didn't mention about Storybrooke is that the Stranger/Writer continues to be interested in Henry, and at the end of the episode we see him looking very intensely at Henry's missing story book.
He falls in love with the Queen, and with help from her father he murders the King so that they both can be freed from his kingdom. The Genie believes she is held there against her will, and that she loves him. Turns out of course that it all was an evil plan so that he would kill the King. I'm thinking killing the King was the plan, and escape was just the story. We know how much she wants to hurt Snow. It wasn't until near the end of the episode where I decided we were not going to learn what Snow did to the Queen this week. The end of this story gave me chills. The Genie doesn't want to go and wishes that he'll be by her side forever. He gets his wish as he's transported into the mirror becoming the Magic Mirror.
This was a wonderful origin story, and the use of the phrase "The fairest in all the land" gave me chills as well. Since the show began I've been saying that in my mind every single time she looks into the mirror, and we finally got it. The other phrase they say in the show is "fool me once". Which of course is the beginning of the well known cliche, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". Obviously meaning if you are tricked by the same thing twice you should blame yourself for not seeing it, and not the tricker. Well, I was fooled twice in this episode. I'm embarrassed to say it, but I was. So SHAME ON ME!
Were you guys fooled to? Or did you manage to see the Evil Queen's plan from the start?
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