Once Upon A Time "Heart of Darkness" Review

Jimminy Cricket tells Charming that Snow White doesn't love him not because she doesn't remember him but because she doesn't remember who she is. Memory is any character's most dangerous weapon. Rumple hands Snow White a powerful bow n' arrow with which to murder the queen. Snow wants the Queen dead for murdering her father and ending her kingdom. But the only weapon any character needs to ruin the queen is their memory. Slowly, the narrative's reaching a place where characters remember bits and pieces, even if those memories are completely misinterpreted. Indeed, one's memory is the main theme tonight. Identity, too, is an important theme; and, as always, the idea of true love is essential.

Kitsis and Horowitz love the chance to subvert the viewer's expectation of fairy tale characters. The writing duo embraced the possibilities of re-inventing stories that've been in the public domain for years and years. I won't exhaustively list each instance of their reinvention of characters, but each significant character had a moment in which the audience is supposed to be shocked by the deviation from the beloved version of a character in a Disney fairy tale movie. However, the writers’ love of subversion is predictable now. Indeed, when I watched Snow White hum a tune, sweep the floor, and extend a hand to a blue bird, I knew she'd try to murder the bird. The previous scene ended on a character stating disbelief that Mary would kill at all; so of course that iconic image of Snow White and the animals would be twisted around in this contemporary adaptation. Beyond the subversion though, the scene established the arc of Snow in "Heart of Darkness"--the dwarfs had an intervention for their friend and beseeched her to find Rumple to get her old memories back because they miss her old self. New Snow White is full of anger, thoughts of revenge and death, and even Happy isn't so happy around the New and Malevolent Snow.

Snow White post-potion is an example of the disastrous and dangerous effects of losing one's true love. The Evil Queen wanted to curse the fairy tale world because of her own loss of true love. Rumple briefly transformed into a man again due to Belle's inexplicable love for him. Snow thinks the queen's death will be the remedy she needs to feel peace again. Grumpy followed her through the forest and urged her to return to Rumple in hopes he could reverse the curse. Of course, Rumple gives her a magical map and murder weapon. It's not until Charming visits Rumple that he assists in the prevention of the queen's murder (in exchange for the Prince's cloak). The depth of the story does not extend beyond the simple idea that Snow is not who she's supposed to be without Charming. The dependency of her identity on her love for Charming is potentially problematic and troublesome, but I'll opt against explaining why, for the sake of the readers. Charming finds her once, she ties him to a tree, Jimminy frees him and delivers the line I mentioned in the first sentence of the review, and Charming finds her a second time, takes an arrow to the chest and then Snow feels love, kisses him and remembers who she is. King George's army takes Charming away to murder him or something. Blah--it's all the same now with these two characters no matter which narrative it is, and it's tedious and boring.

In Storybrooke, Hopper helps David remember what happened during his blackouts. David had a memory of standing in the woods with Snow, telling her not to murder "her." David, of course, is a moron and misinterpreted the memory. The Kathryn murder mystery advances to an obvious place--Regina is the obvious culprit who's framing Mary--but the writers put the viewer through a lot of nonsense getting to such a place, as if the majority actually thought Mary murdered Kathryn. David's memory breaks Mary's heart, and she wonders why he can't believe her word when she defended him with her every breath and thought when he was implicated in Kathryn's disappearance. Again, it's a contrivance to keep the destined lovers apart. This is my hope for Once Upon a Time in season two: no more Snow White-Prince Charming stories. Season 1 is ultimately about Snow, Charming, the Queen, Emma and Henry, which means these episodes have to happen, but they always suck, and I'm tired of them.

August and Henry shared a conversation during the episode about their mutual belief in the reality of the stories and, specifically, how Storybrooke is the place where these people are now and just don't remember. Emma also believes in Mary's innocence and hires Mr. Gold to help her prove Regina's guilt whilst appearing to pursue the case against Mary. "Heart of Darkness" gave the impression of a show actively 'going places' but with its same old snail-like pacing and mind-numbing scenes. Rumple created a love magic using a single strand of hair from Charming and Snow. In both worlds, he told Snow/Mary that he was invested in her future. I think we all know where the story is ultimately heading, in regards to taking down the queen and the introduction of the magic love jawn potion, and if the ultimate statement of the show's first season is the triumph of love over evil attempts to destroy it, then I guess it's par for the course with this show.

Other Thoughts:

-I really expected a break between #116 and #117. Damnit though OUAT is all-new next week as the Mad Hatter comes to town. This show is wearing me down.

-Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg wrote "Heart of Darkness." Dean White directed it.

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