Once Upon a Time: Season Four, Episode Five

First aired October 26th, 2014.

What is the Snow Queen (played by Elizabeth Mitchell) after? How does she know Emma (played by Jennifer Morrison)? Will Emma and Regina (played by Lana Parilla) finally mend fences? These questions will be answered in tonight’s episode.

Regina has her magic mirror, Sydney (played by Giancarlo Esposito), try and track down the Snow Queen, but he isn’t pleased to be trapped inside the mirror again. Sydney eventually finds her lair and leads Regina there with a hand mirror acting as a compass. Meanwhile, Elsa (played by Georgina Haig) is lured into the woods when she hears Anna (played by Elizabeth Lail) calling from a field of mist (cause that’s not suspicious). The Snow Queen traps Elsa and goes off to “make a snowman” although it looks more like a steel giant carrying weapons. Regina bumps into Emma who had entered the woods looking for Elsa, but Regina is not happy with the company. The ladies are attacked by the “snowman” and use their combined powers to defeat it. The Snow Queen comes and incapacitates them before taking Regina’s hand mirror, claiming she needs it. She flees when Elsa comes to the rescue. In her lair, the Snow Queen releases Sydney who asks what she wants and she says that she wants a family. She takes a piece of the hand mirror and uses it to fix a large ornate mirror and states that she will soon have her own family that will love her.

The Snow Queens is going through all of this trouble because she wants a family? Are you serious? This has to be one of the biggest letdowns for a villain’s motive that I have ever seen. Why didn’t she just find herself a husband and start her own family the traditional way? Hell, she didn’t even have to do that. She could have adopted children or even some puppies if she was feeling lonely. But for some reason the Snow Queen has to go through all of this trouble to get herself a family. However this mirror fits into the plan, the Snow Queen thinks it will get that loving family she wants. Considering Elsa and Anna are her nieces, you would think she would try to bond with them instead of terrorizing them. If that’s how the Snow Queen treats family, it’s best that she be one of those family members you rarely see sending cards for special occasions.

Sydney was a doormat since season one. It’s about time he grew a backbone, the second he did he gained his freedom.

After four seasons, the constant squabbling between Emma and Regina has gotten stale. They need to talk about their issues or fight it out.

Their rocky relationship is addressed head on in this episode, first when Emma goes to Regina for answers about a picture of her and then Snow Queen arguing. It was taken when Emma first arrived in Storybrooke and Regina had her followed, but Regina claims to have no idea what it was about. She tells Emma that, regardless of it being accidental, she ruined her relationship with Robin Hood (played by Sean Maguire) and doesn’t want to give Emma forgiveness. The situation makes Emma reminiscence about a friend she made as a teenage runaway named Lily (played by Nicolle Munoz). Emma bonds with Lily because they are both unclaimed foster children and they do so while shacking up in an empty house. However, when Lily is revealed to have run away from a foster family, Emma is crushed that she lied and breaks off all contact. In the present, Emma goes to Regina and says that losing Lily as a friend is something she still regrets and she considers Regina a friend and doesn’t want to lose her too. The situation makes Emma feel nostalgic so she watches a home video of her and Lily during their brief time together. Emma is shocked when the video changes to her living in a foster home with other children and her foster mother is none other than the Snow Queen.

Regina made it clear she liked Emma more than she let on after admitting she didn’t want to kill Emma despite her supposed hatred of her. She also mentioned her plan about going to the past to kill Marian (played by Christie Laing), which means she must have abandoned it. I’m glad they are finally making progress because, although their banter is great, the constant fighting really was getting old.

The twist with the Snow Queen being Emma’s foster mother was really a shock and it put a slightly new angle on the trend of the villains being related to the main characters. Emma may have been raised by the Snow Queen for whatever amount of time but they aren’t blood related which technically deviates from that trend. In the photograph, Emma and the Snow Queen appeared to be having a heated argument, so that could indicate that the Snow Queen wasn’t the best foster mother. I’m interested in knowing why the Snow Queen waited so long to make her move and what she’s been up to in Storybrooke while all the other villains did their thing.

Meanwhile, Prince Charming/David (played by Josh Dallas) and Snow White/Mary Margaret (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) are preparing for a romantic outing minus their newborn. Mary Margaret is reluctant to leave their son alone for such a long period of time but is persuaded into going. They stop by the prison and notice that Will Scarlet (played by Michael Socha) has escaped and David decided tracking him would be a great romantic adventure. They split up when Mary Margaret decides to go home to the baby but notices Will digging a hole nearby. Later at their apartment, Mary Margaret tells David that she pardoned Will after he told her that David let him escape to help her learn not to be afraid of letting go of the reins with their baby. David informs Mary Margaret that Will lied to her but he decides to let him go anyway since he managed to inadvertently help them through their problem.

At this point, the writers are straining to find a way to include Mary Margaret and David in each episode. It’s okay to let characters miss a few episodes rather than stick them in boring subplots. I sympathize with Mary Margaret’s fears since the baby was almost sacrificed last season but I didn’t find the actual story interesting. Snow White might be a wide-eyed ingénue but how could she believe her husband would let a criminal escape to prove something? What’s even more crazy is that actually is something I could see David doing. Will might seem harmless but so did your last babysitter and she was a green skinned evil witch. They will regret the decision to let Will go if/when he gets into more trouble. When that happens and people find out their sheriff and mayor allowed him to get away, there’ll be hell to pay.

Quotes & Thoughts

“Our best shot at finding Elsa is to go in the direction of the Snow Queen. You don’t mind the company, do you?” “Does it matter if I mind? If I say, you’ll just come anyway.”

The Snow Queens warning to Sydney to “wear a heavy coat” suggests there will be an endless winter coming to Storybrooke. You know what that means: snow angels and snowball fights!

“You two need to mend your differences otherwise Storybrooke doesn’t stand a chance.” “We never will for one simple reason: I don’t want to.”

I think Will is digging that hole looking for a way back to Wonderland. He might have better luck if he goes looking for rabbit holes.

If you enjoyed Manny’s review, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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