'Once Upon A Time' 208 Review 'Sleeping Curses For All!'

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Well that certainly made up for the ill-advised Red-centric episode two weeks ago didn’t it? We had a reunion, we had betrayal, and we had Aurora is actually going to get to do something that doesn't involve nearly getting killed all the time. Two of those things are related, but let me begin this review by talking up the awesomely badass duo of Cora and Killian.

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Here we have one of the best relationships on the show right now and it’s because their personalities make for such an appealing match-up. They’re both duplicitous characters and they each have their own goal for getting to Storybrooke. Each uses what advantage they have to make this goal a reality; for Cora that means using her magical prowess, and for Killian it’s all about using his charming ‘misunderstood bad guy’ act. Oh, and now he can add possibly something else to his arsenal: magic. There’s no way he could have taken Aurora’s heart for Cora without being able to wield some and that makes me think perhaps Cora gave him a lesson here and there. A magical Hook is one that’s going to be far more evenly matched against Rumple when they have their eventual big showdown. I must say, I’ve been feeling more and more this season that Mr. Gold is being positioned as the one to take down and not only that, but that the show is actually going to do so.

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But what else can I say other than that I’m basically shipping Cora and Killian pretty hard right now so I’m biased when I talk about them. Barbara Hershey’s Cora is holding onto the evil HBIC title while Regina is off being maternal and boring as hell. Colin O’Donoghue has chemistry with anything that can walk and his flirty little ‘aw you don’t really want to kill me Cora’ bit was fantastic. It’s also a nice little parallel between Cora /Killian and Regina /Rumple with the magic apprenticeship if she truly is giving him what he needs to defeat Rumple when he arrives to town.

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As for the scene in question with Killian gifting Aurora’s heart over to Cora it begs the question of why on earth did they leave that for some somewhat confusing reveal scene? This show always benefits from its darker imagery and seeing Hook double-cross Aurora and steal her heart would have been the scene everyone talked about at the water-cooler the next day instead of people wondering if they missed something at some point during the episode if they looked away for a moment. I really hope it’s not going to become a trend on TV because Boardwalk Empire did the same kind of shenanigan last week—another show that can only gain from some life-threatening action on the screen every once in a while.

It almost feels like they had Hook yanking her heart out in the first draft then realized they simply had to have a cliff-hanger of some sort so they removed that and saved the reveal for the end. It just felt like a missed opportunity to do something really cool, but you also have to wonder if they thought showing their charming new series regular harming another new character so openly would affect how the fan base thought of him. As someone who keeps tabs on many a fandom with many a character way worse than Killian Jones in them I can assure the writers of this show it’s almost impossible to sour the fandom’s favor of an attractive charismatic villain.

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As for Aurora herself, it’ll be nice to see Sarah Bolger finally get to do something more significant to the story than sleep all the time. It’s one of those things where you can picture the writer’s room for Once Upon A Time and as soon as they started talking about sleeping curses being part of the means with which both sides can communicate then it became a necessity to pull Aurora into it. In the episode, the sleeping curse work gets shifted over to Snow instead but that gave plenty of opportunity for Aurora to find herself face to face with a very irksome practice in these epic stories,’ fridging’. The women in refrigerators trope is one that’s reared its ugly head in many forms of media outside of the comic book world from which the term originates. By the end of the episode it would be difficult to argue that Aurora as a character isn't being negated in favor of Aurora as a plot device specifically for Hook to regain favor with Cora before she could decide that she would be better off to be rid of him. Essentially, 'fridging has to do with what are very often female characters getting maimed, killed or put into peril in order for a male character to be spurred forth into action or for the story to gain from it (read more about the history of the trope here) No one is going to think twice that Killian is the one who took her heart since that’s kind of Cora’s whole thing in the first place, thus he’s in the perfect position for plausible deniability when Emma and co. realize there's something wrong with Sleeping Beauty.

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But a show that has way more female lead and recurring characters than other genre entertainment received the privilege tonight of the rare instance where a male character was ‘fridged, in a manner of speaking, so that a female character would be called into action. David willingly took a sleeping curse prepared by Regina (and how stupid was that to take a form of poison concocted by the very person who wants her son back from your care?) He met up with Snow briefly but realized that he couldn’t gain the kiss he needed to break the curse while he was there in their flaming netherworld. So David remains in the burning room until Snow can save him. He’ll be harmed by having been put under the curse to begin with and now his actions have further motivated the heroine in this instance as well as cemented her hatred against Cora who they must stop before they can return to Storybrooke. It is a Disney-owned show after all and that’s about the extent of fridging we’re going to get on Once Upon A Time but the effect in both cases is the basically the same.

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Next week it looks like Regina and our man Killian knew each other before and holy Hell I cannot wait to have the real Regina back. I miss the evil Queen and every time we get a flashback to her it becomes that much clearer that someone needs to fix what she’s turned into this season. You can’t have her be an amazing HBIC through s1 and then have her on a half-assed road to redemption for season two because it’s diminishing her value as a character. All we can hope is that she has something up her sleeve and she reveals it soon or else her quest for Henry and forgiveness is going to continue to ruin an incredible character.