Tuesday, 17 November 2020

Once Upon a Time: Season 1, Episode 3- Snow Falls

 "There's no such thing as love at first sight..."

This episode gives us, in the fairytale flashback scenes, a fascinating deconstruction of the Snow White story. After offending the Evil Queen, Snow White has been framed and outlawed, which is ho he ends up meting ad connectng with Prince Charming (James!) in an exciting adventure involving a bridge ad some trolls. They ens up parting but clearly like each other; there's more of this story to tell. And I like how Snow White is revealed to be a kick-as hero with loads of agency, not a simpering, passive princess who just stands around looking pretty and incubating babies. That matters.

The present day scenes riff nicely on this, as the Prince Charming figure (David?) is in a coma, thus parted from Mary Margaret. And, despite Henry's plan to bring the lover together, Regina rather cleverly improvises and finds an apparent wife, who may well be the girl he was about to marry in the fairytale scenes. All this is done with the collusion of the local doctor, played by Blaine off of iZombie.

This is clever, both at the level of Storybrooke presumable being intended by the Evil Queen as a hell, and as a nicely meta litte deconstruction both of the Snow White myth and of love and first sight. If only the dialogue was as clever as the plotting. But I'm still very much enjoying this.

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