Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) whisks his new housekeeper Belle (Emile de Ravin) away from her father.

My viewing experience of “Once Upon A Time” is tainted, by expectation. I want it to be LOST. It’s creators want it to be LOST, and it never will be.

Last week I gladly declared that OUAT had found its identity and had squandered many of its pretensions and simply tried to be a damn good time. But this week, Kitsis/Horowitz seemed like a needy child tugging at its mother’s pant leg. I thought they were beyond seeking approval. All the Easter eggs and insider jokes like the Apollo Bars and the McCutcheon whiskey were just tributes to the landmark series they took part in. However with Emile de Ravin’s appearance as Belle (yes, of Beauty and the Beast fame) I wonder if Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, harbor a repressed need to catch lightning in a bottle again.

Surely, De Ravin’s guest appearance is simply an isolated homage, and lofty aspirations haven’t bogged down this creative team. Except, LOST is not the only acclaimed drama to catch OUAT’s wandering eye. They’ve snatched talent like Jennifer Morrison from “House,” Giancarlo Esposito from “Breaking Bad,” and tonight they made a “Game of Thrones” pun by naming a flower shop, “Game of Thorns.” I can’t decide whether it is endearing or desperate.

Much like some classic LOST episodes, tonight’s OUAT was a reveal episode. There was still a fairyback, one brought to life thanks to all those Disney rights! Ah, ABC, you treat them well. And there was “progress” in Storybrooke. But the real meat of the plot came during a two minute interaction between Mr. Gold and Regina where it was finally acknowledged that they both know of their former lives and evil power struggle. She goes all Destiny’s Child, “Say your name!” And he admits to awareness of “other worlds.” This wasn’t presented as a huge deal, it wasn’t even the final reveal of the episode, but it is a revelation with implications for the series at large. It is out in the open now, and if he knows the questions become, will he be a roadblock for Emma and Henry’s plans to enlighten the townsfolk (for my Losties, “Desmond-style”) or could he prove a formidable ally?

I was predisposed to be enthralled with tonight’s fairyback. Beauty and the Beast is almost certainly in my top three Disney flicks of all time (excluding Pixar) and Claire was one of my many beloved Oceanic 815ers so Emile de Ravin had me hooked with little effort. We’re introduced to the heroine as she stews by her father’s side, worried their village will be sacked as the Ogre Wars rage on (Am I the only one who would be fascinated by a detailed history of the events leading up to these wars?). I was mildly disappointed her dad was a rich, lordly fellow instead of an eccentric inventor. Anyway, Rumpelstiltskin appears as the solution to their suffering, promising to save their town in exchange for Belle’s services as his permanent housekeeper. Her betrothed, Gaston, insists she stay, but Belle is intent on breaking away from the social constraints of womanhood, seizing the opportunity to be heroic. She elects to go with Rumpy, much to his delight.

In the real world, there was much less interesting fare. Mr. Gold is robbed by a florist, Mr. French, after Gold nabs his van as collateral. Gold seems awfully upset over one particular item that Sheriff Swan hadn’t yet recovered and threatens that if she doesn’t detain Mr. French, he will get to him first. When he does, he beats the florist with his cane for information on the whereabouts of this item. He starts screaming about “her” and how it’s his fault that, “she is gone.” When he refuses to divulge the entire truth to Emma, he is cuffed.

In a Storybrooke subplot, Ashley returns. Who? Oh, that pregnant girl who is Cinderella in Fairy Tale Land (FTL). She’s overtired from taking care of the baby because her baby daddy Shawn is always at work being the breadwinner. Ruby (FTL identity: Red Riding Hood) suggest that she and Mary Margaret join her for a ladies night on the town. Both agree, especially Mary Margaret who’s once again unsatisfied by only being a part-time lover to David, who is still carrying on with his wife, Kathryn. I normally care about those two lovebirds, but the developments felt so wedged in, that I became detached. Next week their affair will come to a head when Kathryn finds out.

At Rumpy’s castle, Belles settles in after feeling initially weary about handing over her life to a “monster.” But as the “tale as old as time” foretold, Rumpy begins to treat her nicely, even pardoning her when she chips a cup. This is of course an allusion to “Chip” from Disney’s incarnation of the tale. You might say this reference made me groan, but I shall not complain as I promised last week. Rumpy begins to fall for her first, turning Gaston into a rose for his sweetheart when he comes to her rescue. Then, Belle’s opinion of her master (kinky) shifts when she falls from a ladder into his arms (the editing and VFX in this scene are ATROCIOUS). She begins to probe him for information about his past, when he was a man. She yearns to know the man she will serve forever better. In a move to test her affection for him, Rumpy asks Belle to go into town for more straw. If she comes back, he will tell her the story of the son he lost. He expressed that he expects her to never come back.

On her journey she runs into the Evil Queen. EQ informs her that her master’s curse will be broken, and his humanity restored if he receives true love’s kiss. Knowing that his beastly features and evil within can be eroded she returns to him. But when she shares true love’s kiss with Rumpy, he resists the change. He suspects her to be an agent of the EQ, trying to remove his powers, to weaken him. For her treason, Belle is thrown in the dungeon. After a tantrum in which the only glassware spared is the chipped cup, he releases her, never wanting to see her again. She calls him a coward as his son had when he killed to protect him, a genuine callback and reference that felt the most organic and essential of any they’ve attempted.

Shakeups in Storybrooke abound when Ashley accepts Shawn’s marriage proposal and Mary Margaret bumps into David. He hands her a V-day card, but accidentally hands her one addressed to Kathryn. This tips the scales for MM and she observes that they will find a way to be together, but this isn’t it. Back at SBPD, Regina bribes Emma with a half hour visit with Henry (this wouldn’t strike her as odd…awful sheriff….and where’s mystery writer/biker dude?) in order to converse with Mr. Gold. She confesses to encouraging Mr. French to rob him, asking that he bring her back…his chipped cup. She held this as leverage so that Gold would speak his FTL name. It’s a fun scene that recalls the legend that surrounds his name. As I mentioned before, this revelation that they both know could add a layer of mixed allegiances or simply heighten the risks involved in Emma and Henry’s pursuit of the truth.

While Rumpy slumps at his spindle over his reluctance to allow love in his heart, for fear of rejection, EQ visits hoping they can strike another deal. When he is not in the mood he accuses her outright of ruining their relationship. She cryptically answers that she had nothing to do with “that tragedy.” Puzzled, Rumps asks of what she speaks. EQ shares that upon returning home, her father had shunned her. He learned of her love for “The Beast” and has banished to a tower where clerics will cleanse her soul. Distraught, she threw herself out of the tower, falling to her death. This explains the sentimental value surrounding the cup in the real world, it’s all he had left of her. Or so he thinks. The very last scene of the episode shows Regina entering a secret wing of the hospital where “Belle” is locked up. What repercussions could this have for their eternal power struggle? I’m unsure, but again it opens up the dimensions for the real world adding a darker tinge to the episodes to follow. Gold, like EQ may not want to go back to FTL, but they want to vanquish each other. The more moral ambiguity that can be infused in these classics, the better. And with the sporadic investment in real world proceedings before this, another reason to care wouldn’t hurt.

Nearly all the real world happenings felt inconsequential. This irrelevant quality took a sharp 180 toward the end, but I can’t discount my utter boredom beforehand. Ashley had been gone for so long, her engagement felt like a formality. And when I start feeling blase about any plot point that involves Mary Margaret you know it hasn’t been well rendered. Despite these clear narrative shortcomings, it was pleasant to step into the world of “Beauty and the Beast” again, and it’s always a pleasure to watch Emile de Ravin smile sheepishly at me (ok, in my general direction). For it’s sheer entertainment value, and for effectively (and finally) incorporating the gritty, tragic elements of the FTL futility into the thrust of the Storybrooke setting, OUAT regresses but swings its pendulum in a positive direction with a B-.

King Leopold (Richard Schiff of "The West Wing") dotes on his daughter, Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin).

Is there anything freer than knowing exactly who you are? You have nothing to prove, because your expectations are much more reasonable and whenever you create, or work, or do what it is you do, you do it with a exactness that no one else could ever conceive of.

Well, “OUAT,” I believe, has found that sweet spot. They have embraced an identity, and it falls short of many great shows on television. I can provide you with 10 better written shows, and I can find you ten shows that I certainly look up to more for their innovation and artistry. Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz worked on one of those before, “LOST.” If you have read my reviews you know how much I adored, and still carry great affection for, that show. Despite it being the one show my dad and I will never watch together, and while my opinions contrasts with those who loathed the final five minutes of the series finale so severely that it ruined the entire journey before it, it is undoubtedly, one for the history books. OUAT, will never be LOST. OUAT wishes they had the privilege of “LOST’s” club of flaws. However, OUAT has a lightness to it now, as if they have dropped the burden of expectations and have decided to care less about being great, and want to a force of its own will. “Once Upon A Time” will make me groan weekly with its insisting witticisms connecting their dual realms, but beyond today I will note them no longer (but seriously, referring to a plan to expose Regina as reaching for the fruit of the poisonous tree, COME ON!) because it’s charming just how little they wish to please me. And now that they have stopped catering to some false sense of importance, it has become more enjoyable, more effortlessly engaging, and more goddamed fun.

Although tonight, my patience was tried within mere minutes of the still lame title sequence (this isn’t a haunted house show, let’s be real). Lana Parilla is a clearly attractive woman in her own right, and I’m sure come Emmy season I will be scraping my jaw off the floor after she has walked onto the red carpet, but any chemistry we had has been killed by her shrewish attitude on the show. I’m sure that is how she has been directed to be, but why couldn’t she be more seductive. Isn’t the purest evil the kind that sneaks up behind you because you trusted it would never harm you? Well, it seems the show may be in the business of granting wishes. I say this not just because “The Genie” from Aladdin lore is the subject of tonight’s fairyback, but because in said fairyback, the Queen effectively seduced me.

But not before she made my balls shrink up inside me with condescensions like, “He’ll have a cracked cranium if you aren’t careful,” or “It’s time to be responsible Ms. Swan.” These gems and more are a part of a barrage of berating remarks by Regina, aimed at Emma, after she finds her and Henry playing at a now dilapidated playground (Henry’s castle) after the storm hit it. Emma, initially, is willing to let her usual overreaching roll off. Then she hits up Granny’s. Here we find Gus (damn, still not Breaking Bad, huh), I mean Sidney Glass, editor of the Storybrooke Mirror throwing back whiskeys for breakfast. Turns out he has a grudge with Regina too. After he was humiliated at the sheriff elections he decided to expose her for the corrupt mayor she is, to no avail. She found him out and fired him. Now, Sidney’s looking to partner up with Emma to take her down through some good old dirt-digging. Emma declines, claiming she wants to take her down without getting her hands dirty, but when she sees Henry’s playground is demolished and his book (THE BOOK) missing from its hiding place, she decides all bets are off.

As mentioned, we meet Genie this week who is Sidney’s alter ego (played by the supremely talented Giancarlo Esposito, who found his career-defining role as Gus in AMC’s “Breaking Bad”). As we know from prior installments (so don’t be shocked) Sidney is the magic mirror to Regina’s Evil Queen. This sets up easily the show’s most effective twist on conventional fairy tales, The Genie becomes the mirror. And despite this nugget not being concealed, I was still enthralled by the how of it all. The genie is summoned from the lamp and appears before King Leopold, father of Snow White. Esposito’s take on Genie is refreshing, he too wishes to be broken from the shackles of his gig, but this Genie isn’t masking his longing with cheer and improvisational humor. This guy is unenthused and apathetic. He recites his spiel about his magic’s limitations sans gusto. Being a kind royal, who wants for nothing (though it’s much easier to be humble when you’re royalty though) Leopold wishes for Genie’s freedom, a gesture that delights our not-so-blue friend. With his second wish he grants that his third wish be given to the Genie to use. Genie is again grateful, but asserts he will never use it. He’s granted 1001 wishes, and all of them have had grave consequences. Without much purpose to pair with his newfound liberty, Leopold offers to make him a member of his court where he’s certain he’ll find the one wish Genie cannot grant for himself, true love.

Making a brief appearance in the real world is Mary Margaret who meets up with David for a surprise picnic at the place where they first met, the ever-romantic toll bridge. Mary Margaret, amidst a flurry of kisses, wonders if they should face the reality that he is married, but David just wants to love her guilt-free so they push worry off to tomorrow. Mary Margaret also delivers possibly the funniest line of the night, when she see Sidney and Emma sifting through public records to discover any seeds of wrongdoing: “Yeah, maybe you’re doing something wrong, but if it’s right and it’s meant to be, does that make you a bad person?” Ha! Oh, Mary Margaret, even when you’re a mistress tortured by guilt and shame, you’re cute as a button. Meanwhile, Sidney seems convinced that this $50,000 of unappropriated funds will be the Mayor’s undoing, the “crack in the mirror” (ughhhhh…but I’m letting go…). When Emma questions why Sidney ever got in her pocket in the first place he more organically alludes to the parallel story, “I used to think she was a different person.”

Here we start to feel for Evil Queen (EQ). At some festivity, we see the King waxing philosophic about his daughter’s unmatched beauty, but then he strikes at EQ’s self-esteem saying Snow is a constant reminder of his “fairest of them all” first wife, and her mother. EQ has no place in his court, or in his heart. She is trapped in an essentially loveless marriage, or at least one where she will always play second fiddle. Genie runs after her into her courtyard where the soon-to-be poisonous apple tree grows. He lifts her spirits by gifting her a mirror, so that she may see what he sees, the true “fairest of them all.”

In Storybrooke, Emma confronts Regina directly about the missing funds. Regina is quick with an alibi, saying the record of the transaction was burned in the fire that got her elected. While leaning against her desk, Emma plants a bug so she can intercept some clue of where she allocated the money. When she overhears a phone call about a roadside meeting, she and Sidney spring into action. While heading to the location, the brakes fail on Emma’s car and Sidney immediately notices they were tampered with and that Regina must have discovered the bug. Coincidentally, Mr. Gold is out by the roadside. He informs them that the mayor met with him to buy his land. He also warns about emotional entanglements, and how they can distort the truth and people will get hurt. Unconvinced, Emma heads for Regina’s office and breaks in. She gathers any files related to the land grab off her computer, but not before running into Regina herself. Emma, quick-witted, conjures up a tale about a teenage prank that Sidney had witnessed. Across town, we also get a short glimpse of Mysterious Writer/ Biker Dude who bumps into Henry who is trying to record the details of THE BOOK, in case it isn’t found. When “Oh Precocious One” grills the man with the box about why he is here, he mocks the child, “Stuff.”

The Evil Queen’s father makes a surprise visit, dropping in on Genie when he expected a rendezvous with the Queen. The King has pilfered his wife’s diary and has knowledge about a man who has stolen her heart. He recognizes that he can never love EQ like she deserves, but he’s still aghast at her betrayal. He charges Genie, whom he trusts, to sniff out this mystery man. In response, EQ’s father has come to deliver his daughter a package, a way out of this prison of a life, an escape from her own form of servitude. When she opens the box we find two Agrabah vipers. For those with a working knowledge of Disney, Agrabah is the homeland of the Genie. EQ’s plan is to kill herself with one venomous bite, but Genie stops her. Clearly enamored with her, he offers to kill the king himself by setting the vipers loose on him. In this scene in particular we see another side of Regina/EQ, one who is stricken with sadness, but oozes sensuality as she brushes against Genie’s cheek and embraces him for his selflessness: a deep contrast to the shrill, unabashedly evil Regina that has inhabited every other episode. The added dimension is well executed and goes a long way to establishing a character we can invest in instead of just emphatically opposing.

Then the entanglements Mr. Gold forewarned of begin to unravel. At a city council meeting, Emma and Syndey speak up, exposing Regina’s plans to build a second home in the woods with taxpayer money. Unphased, Regina retorts she is indeed building a house. A PLAYHOUSE. OH SNAP! She circumvented the city governance so she could get the project underway quicker, so that the town’s children would have a safe place to play. Disgraced and defeated, Emma loses not just her plot for revenge, but Henry as well. Regina blackmails Emma with evidence that she did truly break-in to her office and bans her from seeing Henry for an undetermined period of time. The one ray of hope she clings to is that Sidney is her ally now, and no longer Regina’s spy. Earlier, he had pulled out a shoebox of photos he had taken of Emma while under Regina’s employ, tracking Emma’s every move so she could prevent her from getting close to Henry.

With a powerful ally, Emma has the strength she needs to stand up to Regina when the time is right. Except, the last scene of the episode suggest differently. Sidney is seated before a mirror in Regina’s office and he reports that “she bought it,” he has earned Emma’s trust and holds a tape recordings of all their meetings. Regina is as unstoppable as ever, now she can track the sheriff’s every move and will always be one step ahead. What seemed like a foregone conclusion, Emma’s penetration of Regina’s facade, now seems improbable. With a well-established network of watchful eyes, Regina seems to have an unrelinquishing grasp on her power, and Emma. Although, mysterious writer/biker dude may be the thorn in her side. We get a quick glimpse of the all-important box, the one that last week held a typewriter. Now it holds… THE BOOK! WHAAAAATTTTT? Stay tuned, as they say.

The twist with the most payoff though, was in the fairyback. Genie sicks the vipers on his dear friend and they both dig their fangs into his neck causing an almost instant death. In his last moments though, Genie expresses his regret. He acknowledges that he’s forever indebted for the freedom the king granted him, but that he had to do the same for his queen, and break her chains as well. And as the king’s life is sucked out, he reminds Genie of another way he could have freed her. His last wish from the map. Damn. Either Genie was too gosh darn stubborn or too caught up to use it, but that would have been a more civil route to go. When he rushes to his love’s side to tell her the good news, she appears in more despair than before. The guards know the vipers are of Genie’s homeland, and that he will be executed. She offers him safe passage, but Genie is connecting the dots. Of all the snakes she could have picked, she picked those from Agrabah. She set him up. She never loved him at all, and used him to kill the king. EQ acknowledges this, and erases any possibility he could ever be in her life. But Genie has his one last trick up his lamp. He uses his last wish to grant that he will be by her side always, and that every day he will look upon her. And the magic of FTL does grant him this. He is to be stuck inside her mirror for the rest of his life. The show has introduced a litany of grim ways that magic has haunted these characters that have relied on it for solutions to their ills, but never has it been more tragic than when this man, recently freed, is once again enslaved. But this time, it was of his own will. He could not live without her, now he certainly cannot.

“7:15 A.M” delivered for me last week, but with this episode coming in consecutive weeks, I’m sure that it was no fluke. Appealing to pathos once again, the show struck a chord by sticking with the cliched but proven conceit that love can be the grandest magic in the world, but it can also inflict the greatest of pains. The fate of unrequited love has never been pretty, and I’m glad OUAT was bold enough to confront it. For the second week in a row I have reason to celebrate the achievements of a series that has labored through much of its first few months for my approval, and frankly the approval of many critics. But I’m confident that this week many others will be singing it’s praises. Surely, Regina cannot become a totally different character and will continue to thwart any of my attempts to like her or root for her success, but I can’t imagine this show is striving for that sort of moral ambiguity. At any rate, for this week I was again delighted to delve into both worlds (more so with the FTL because of the world-building and tragedy), and I’m excited for where the series can go from here in defying expectation now that they are ironically freed from its constraints. For allowing the captivating Giancarlo Esposito the space to play, for expanding our conception of the Queen’s capabilities, and for feeling like the gust of fresh air the show set out to be at its inception, OUAT repeats its success with a second straight triumph over my preconceived notions. I mean, the dialogue is still wooden; and much of my interest in the real world activity is riding on potential plot threads, my parallel investment in the FTL, and my admiration for a few performances. No buts about it though, the “fruits” of their labor have earned them a B+.

Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) looking so darling it hurts, as a dove delivers her a message from her true love.

Readers, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I feel like we have a good thing going. I can share with you all the kinds of things one doesn’t divulge at dinner parties. I can open up to you with no fear of reprisal. Therefore, it is without hesitation that I confess to you…I’m a sucker for love stories. Yes, it’s true. I come off like a cynic, someone without a soft spot, someone who shuns things like cuddling and soul mates (because only those who believe in fate find pleasure in holding loved ones in their arms…icky). When you break down my grisly exterior, however, you will find a man who always cries at the end of The Notebook. A man who just last night screamed at his television while watching “Lost in Translation,” “What did Bill Murray whisper to Scarlett Johansson goddamit!” I am also the type of man who would dig tonight’s episode. One filled with the pain of unrequited affections, as well as the kind of forbidden romance you only find in fairy—son of a gun.

Needless to say, if they were looking for some good pub they came to the right…well, let’s pretend I have clout…critic. I was additionally surprised I enjoyed this episode so much because after last week’s turd in a punchbowl I was dreading this week. Perhaps if I watched previews I would have known we’d return to the only thing I’m invested in, Mary & David/Snow & Charming. Exacerbating my bias was the fact that Championship Sunday was as thrilling as its been in years. Both games decided by a field goal, one missed and one made. The second game was even in overtime. I found religion today and my Lord is the NFL. So how could this shaky family drama possibly hold my attention? First, by featuring the show’s best (never mind cutest) actors and by providing us with reasons to care about a relationship we already know is destined.

We resume with whom last week left us, scratching our heads, The Stranger. Or as I call him, Mysterious Biker Dude. Dude is fixing his chopper outside Regina and Henry’s residence when Oh Precocious One inquires as to what he is doing here? Dude smugly answers, “Fixing my bike,” and divulges no more information. Regina seems legitimately concerned that she doesn’t know who this guy is. Maybe he’s not connected with FTL (Fairy Tale Land) in any way? Also, there’s the whole stranger talking to my kid angle, so she may be onto something. From there, we enter the abode of the strong, sure-assured females (in all seriousness I suppose we should commend OUAT for portraying women with such agency in a show centered around stories that reenforce the most basic gender expectations) that save the show from vacuous oblivion, Mary Margaret and Emma. Mary Margaret wakes up in a tizzy because she is late. She claims she promised some of her students she’d help them with their science fair project (isn’t that cheating!) before school at 7:15. Emma scoffs that they can wait, and with one of the better lines, Mary replies, “Uh, we’re building a volcano.” Ha, because that’s a big deal, but not really. Get it? Okay, so I find Ginnifer Goodwin to be adorable. Sue me!

Turns out she isn’t meeting up with her students. Shocker, right? She sits down with a book at the coffee shop and pretends to read. Lo and behold, David walks through the door.She’s stalking him! How adorable! He says good morning, she asks how his job at the animal shelter is, he says the apes haven’t taken over yet. HA! Oh what a charming fellow. Well I’ll be they did it again! In FTL, he IS Charming. Oh dear. Anyway, she plays it off like it’s no thang and Emma walks in wondering where that volcano is. Mary fesses up that she comes at 7:15 A.M so that she can run into him. Aw…honey, he’s gonna file a restraining order! No, but Emma is much more supportive. She commiserates that love is indeed, the worst, and Mary sends us into the other realm with a you-can’t-miss-it cue: “I wish there was a magic cure.” Bet you can guess what the fairyback is about!

Thankfully, it isn’t quite that simplistic. We meet up with Snow as she is delivered her food run by Little Red Riding Hood. She also sneaks her intel about the upcoming royal wedding, in which “the love of her life whom she met but once” is the bridegroom. Snow agonizes like Mary about trying to forget that sexy-ass man. Red alludes that there might be a way, but chickens out. Snow then reminds her that she helped her when no one else would. This intrigued me because obviously the way to avoid becoming stale is to reinvent the familiar tales within an original mythology. The idea that there is an interconnectedness seems to be coming into focus so I don’t mind the vague references, for now. Not so surprisingly, good ole Rumpelstiltskin is the man with the drugs she needs to forget that one night stand with the rugged woodsman. When she finds Rumpy in a not at all shady dock covered in fog he provides her with a potion that will not only mend her broken heart, but she will forget who he is entirely. All he asks for is a strand of her hair. Either Rumpy has become a pedophile or maybe we should keep that in the back of our minds. Before she scurries off though, the impish dealmaker leaves her with parting words of wisdom, “Love is the most powerful magic there is. Love has killed more than any disease.”

Next, we pop in on the man of the hour, Prince James, who is peering out on his balcony broodingly. King George (Alan Dale, who played the wealthy and powerful Charles Widmore on “Lost”) presents him with a peace offering, a crown crafted by King Midas, his soon to be father-in-law. As fans of the show may remember, four episodes ago Prince James agreed to marry Kind Midas’ daughter Abigail as a show of good faith that they would enter an allegiance that benefits the prosperity of both kingdoms. James is sprung on Snow though, and resents his adoptive father for forcing him into forsaking her. He mocks the Midas crown rebuking that, “You could feed the kingdom for an entire winter with that crown.” Ugh, so he’s one of those annoying 99 percenters, huh? In all seriousness, I was mildly enthralled by the politics of it all, and how the King talked about the responsibility that comes with all that wealth. On another show, it might have carried more weight, but here it establishes the futility of Snow and Charming ever resuming their tryst. Ever persistent, James sends a dove with a letter for Snow. Like carrier pigeons, but more regal. The note reaches Snow just before she is about to down her potion. What she reads gives her renewed faith that they can be together, despite the odds. He asks her to come to his room that night so he knows she feels as strongly as he does.

While Mary is shopping for Apollo chocolate bars (a nod to the made-up brand featured in “Lost”) she bumps into Kathryn, David’s wife. As they sort through their stuff she stumbles upon a pregnancy test. She leaves and goes to clear her by walking though the woods (aw, the parallels) and hears a dove trapped in some wiring. It’s the same goddamn dove isn’t it. Yup, and even cheesier, when she brings the injured bird to the animal shelter (wait David works th—I know!) the doctor tells her that physically the bird will heal, but this particular dove is of a breed that develops highly monogamous relationships. If not reunited with her flock, she will be forever alone. Oh my god! The bird is just like MARY! Yeah, that hammer in your head isn’t a headache, it’s OUAT writers cramming in a metaphor.

Mary runs off, feeling akin to the bird’s struggle (I don’t know why their paths don’t intersect, like, at all) wanting to give the dove a chance at finding its loved ones. Mary slips and falls, barely hanging on to a cliff’s edge when DAVID ARRIVES! Convenient, yes. But he apparently followed her out of concern from the shelter. The cliff being a metaphor for her hanging onto feelings for David though? Kind of a stretch, don’t you think? Then like clockwork the rain comes down and they take shelter in an abandoned cabin. At this point, I grew worried this might be the beginning of a tremendously high-budget porno. Instead, Mary admits why she’s been so distant. It’s too painful to see him when they can’t be together. And yet she tortures herself by going to the coffee shop ay 7:15 every morning to see him. He laughs. “I go to the coffee shop at 7:15 every morning to see you.” My eyes rolled and I recited the line as he said it. Clearly telegraphed. And yet, it worked.

I can’t explain it, I just care about these darn kids, and I want them to be happy. The chemistry between the actors is palpable, Ginnifer is ridiculously cute as mentioned, and honestly they didn’t have to try so hard. As the kiss we all needed to relive our sexual tension was upon us, Mary thwarted it. She can’t break up Kathryn and David especially when they might be having a baby. David was unaware, but it changes things. They have to forget each other. Despite the new stakes, he resists. He explains the duality inside him in obvious terms that allude to the curse, but it nails the sentiment for me as it evokes the central question of the series thus far, “Who’s to say which one is real?” I won’t detail this theory again, but I still hope the show is moving toward this question about whether happily ever afters are not all they are cracked up to be, and that maybe it is only in the “real world” that we can find something genuinely worthwhile.

As Snow attempts to sneak into King George’s castle, Snow is locked up. Her cellmate? GRUMPY (Lee Arenberg, as seen in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies)! Grumpy tells Snow a hell of a tale about how he ended up there, blinded by love, and due to their instantaneous camaraderie, he breaks her out when his pal, Stealthy (the awesomest eight dwarf) springs him. As luck would have it, the eight dwarf doesn’t last long (gee, wonder what the point was cutting them to seven) and is killed by an arrow. Snow leverages Grumpy’s freedom for her own capture and King George presents her with an impossible choice. Either she tells the Prince that she does not love him, or Charming gets the ax. He reasons that if an assassin kills the Prince he will be viewed as a martyr and Midas will keep the alliance in his sacrifice. Because she doesn’t want to harm the one she loves, Snow lets him down easy. Not at all actually. “Fill your heart with love for someone else, someone who can love you the way I never have. The way I never will.” BOOM. He cries, she cries when she walks away, but she gains friends in the now seven dwarves. Grumpy also offers up some pretty sound advice for the grieving beauty, “I don’t want want my pain erased. It’s what makes me who I am. It makes me…Grumpy.” Yeah, it’s hokey. And when it’s supposed to be heartfelt you are focused on the pun, but it is an apt lesson about heartbreak.

While all the heartbreaking and mending is happening we do learn a bit about The Stranger too. Played by Eion Bailey,  he’s a charismatic fellow, but he’s also a sarcastic bastard. Perfect for Emma, who has a witty repartee with him. He agrees to tell her what is in his case if she shows him hers. Nah, but he does want to buy her a drink sometime. So she agrees and he reveals a typewriter. He’s a pretentious douchebag writer who stills uses a typewriter. He finds inspiration in the whimsy of Storybrooke, I guess. But when Emma asks if he has been there before, he evades the question.

The episode that jerked my heart around then ends with two last rips at my sensitivity and further emasculates me by making me care. Kathryn and David attempt to reconcile in a touching scene where both put their cards on the table and agree to do marriage counseling with Dr. Hopper/Jiminy Cricket. He also makes the conscious choice to avoid the coffee shop at 7:15. Mary, reluctantly does the same, Emma holding her hand through it. When they both decided enough time has passed it is 7:45, and they both run into each other anyway. Again, OBVIOUS metaphor for fate, but it was exactly the sort of chance resolution we all wanted deep down. They realize it is useless, they can’t avoid each other. What follows is both exactly what I might have dreamed of and not what I wanted at all. David blurts out, “Kathryn isn’t pregnant,” and with that particular barrier gone they kiss like it’s Smooch City, spinning around like nobody is watching, except someone totally is! Regina! How could they be so careless! Clearly, both of them aren’t concerned about Kathryn at all. It sort of invalidated the whole struggle before that with such an easy payoff, that didn’t involve any real shifts in circumstance from where we started. Except Regina’s got blackmail to spare. What a witch.

But then they did this. Prince Charming atop his trusty steed speeds through the forest and happens upon Snow’s cottage. Red Riding Hood is there instead and he professes that it matters not what Snow said, he won’t give up. If it wasn’t meant to be, he would seem mad clingy. The wedding is off! Cut to the dwarves hovel, where Grumpy rushes in to Snow’s bedroom to give her the great news that the and that her love awaits. Snow appears groggy. She turns to him. “Who?” She tried to find solace at the bottom of the vial. Completely ignoring Grumpy’s whole spiel about using the pain to make you stronger, she gave in and downed the whole love vaccine. NOW WHAT?

This was my favorite episode so far. No doubt. Here’s why. In ten episodes, I’ve come to terms with a few things. One, for whatever reason, the effects on this show make “Lost”  look like a feature film. This week, when they were walking through the caverns under the castle, and when the Prince rode his horse through the woods, the edges around the actors was ablaze with digital blur. Second, the dialogue is corny as hell. And not subtle. The juxtapostion of the worlds will be pointed out brutally, as if I forgot what show I was watching. And subtext will likely be zero to none. Actually, I hope it will be from hereon. The metaphors they tried in this episode were laughably inelegant. The bird, the storm, the cliff. I practically wrote those in fourth grade. But regardless of all these shortcomings I enjoyed the time spent. There were sudden reversals of fortune, there was an ending in the FTL that felt a tad Shakespearean in how it seemed tragically unavoidable, and above all it made me care about Mary/David & Snow/Charming to an embarrassing degree that I wouldn’t acknowledge outside this column. If OUAT can keep me invested in what becomes of these people, as their journey towards salvation or simple happiness becomes murky on the horizon, I will stay the course. This show will probably never be great, or win a prestigious award, but if it accomplishes this level of legitimate   feeling regularly it will be fun, and a hit, among a wide range of audiences. If this were a show with higher expectations this would be marked down more severely for its inattention to detail, but for its most appealing episode to date and for making me break down as if Taylor Swift were my gospel, I begrudgingly admit this was a B+.

The Blind Witch (Emma Caulfield) senses the presence of yummy children.

*Exasperated sigh*

So, for those of you who read my review of last week’s episode…remember all that goodwill that OUAT built up? They caught me fresh off some new year’s resolutions, a fun trip to Disney World, and legitimately entertained me with Rumpelstiltskin’s backstory, while also establishing a potential arc when Emma defied Mr. Gold and he proclaimed himself a worse enemy to have than Regina. Well, all that goodwill has been wasted, and in many ways I am officially mad at this show. The only bright spots for me were the usual: great rapport between Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin, who this show needs to highlight more or perish), and the subversion of happily-ever-after in the FTL (Fairy Tale Land). And the only other consistent silver lining, the Mary/David relationship was on hiatus.

Equally disappointing was the lost potential. Not only was the source material the eepy-cray “Hansel and Gretel” story, but comedic talent Emma Caulfield (know for her work on “Buffy”) was playing the Blind Witch. I was geared up for the best fairyback yet, and for the show to finally embrace the dark side of the Force. Alas, this was the biggest letdown since “Terriers” got cancelled (anybody catch that show on FX last year? Awesome detective show. Really great writing, intense drama. Would have been a great, classic series). As mentioned there was subversion of the expected, but it was as slight as that sliver of cake your grandma takes at every birthday.

Hansel and Gretel are not kicked out of their parent’s home. They lose their father in the woods after searching for kindling. When they wander onto the main road for their search they are almost hit by the Evil Queen’s carriage (dressed in some S&M meets horse riding garb that screams someone wants to fool around in the stables). She scolds the children for impeding her path and even tries to capture them, but they scrap their way out from her guards’ grasps and instead uses magic (which is unclear because we have no idea the limitations of her power so nothing surprises us) to tie them up in tree roots. She first commends them for their ingenuity, but then offers a deal. If they go retrieve something for her, she will help them find their father. Gretel in particular does not want to help the villainess, but she knows no other way to find her father now that the compass he bestowed upon her has been broken in the scrum. EQ then outlines the task at hand: steal something from the Blind Witch for her, bring it back to her, and she will use her infinite evil resources to find Dad.

Here’s where obvious, parallel real-world scenario comes into play. Henry is perusing the local comic book joint (comics shown include recent Hulk issues written by fellow LOST alum, Damon Lindeloff) when he runs into a boy and a girl (wow, those kids look like Hansel and Gret—oh, yeah) about his age. The girl befriends him and asks if he wishes to come to their house to play. Henry, who with his fairy tale obsession must be a loner, is thrilled. But when leaving the store, the clerk makes him empty his backpack. Turns out the stranger’s kindness was a con to help steal food and supplies. Eva and Nicholas fib to Sheriff Emma that they were stealing to help their parents who are financially burdened. Apparently, Emma, who has been duped often by Storybrooke’s seedier characters, professes her bullshit-detecting powers  and follows through when she pulls off after dropping the kids at their “house” and then sneaks into the house to get the real story. Obviously, they’re orphans. Their mother is gone and they squat in their former home. Emma, who was an orphan herself, is sympathetic and decides to let them stay with Mary Margaret/Snow White Mom and her. Many might be put off by her extremely harsh opinions of the foster care system that follow. I grant you, I have a close friend who has a foster kid and is not grabbing for cash, but it is understandable how someone within could develop such a beef with that system. Because of this staunch opposition she refuses to abide by Mayor Regina’s proposition which is to put them in separate homes (the closest are in Boston).

EQ, back in FTL, warns the kids about the “special properties” of The Blind Witch’s house. “No matter how tempted you may be, you must not eat anything.” Of course, once inside they find the black satchel the Queen s desires, but as Gretel fingers it, Nicholas eats a blue-frosted cupcake and wakes the Blind Witch who immediately sniffs them out. When she locks them in a cupboard as she prepares dinner she offers up the strangely hysterical question, “Gravy or butter?” As in, would you rather be lathered in gravy or butter. Gretel then sacrifices herself and steals the key from the witch, tossing it to her brother who then breaks out. After a struggle that never seemed to have any real stakes despite the witch having weird powers to move things and throw projectiles, the kids push the witch into the oven. Then through the mirror the EQ herself hurls a fireball (apparently the mirror, like in Blue’s Clues, has the ability to transcend time and space) and burns her alive inside the oven. I suppose this would seem more ironic if it weren’t so telegraphed. Then EQ delivers her groaner of the week: “I would have gone with gravy.” The much funnier line is delivered after when she stalks Snow White via the mirror and quips, “She’s cavorting with dwarfs now, when did that happen?” I actually laughed out loud.

In her efforts to spite foster care everywhere, Sheriff Emma searches for Eva and Nicholas’ pops. Along the way, Helper Henry (who was surprisingly interesting this week, but this could have been that the other child characters this week were so stale) asks Emma about his dad. Emma, not having the heart to disappoint him makes up a story about how he was a fireman trying to save a family from a burning building. “He is the true hero, not me.” After vomiting in my mouth from all the manufactured cuteness, I wished so hard that she was BSing the kid, and it turns out she was. She reveals as much when she talks to gal pal/Mom (weird, huh?) about her own trials in the foster care system, and reveals that Henry theorizes Emma may be Mary daughter in FTL. Ginnifer Goodwin does a beautiful job subtly conveying in her eyes and gestures that she is curious and maybe even a little excited about the prospect. Of course, what the show needs to realize is that this feeling is done by showing, not telling. With models like Horowitz and Kitsis, who know the power of a striking look from LOST, David Goodman and Liz Tigelaar, should have employed this technique more, but alas we only get the real character development and emotional ploy when Mary Margaret is around. *Deeper sigh*

Also derived from the conversation was Emma’s strategy to find their dad. Apparently every orphan has some memento that was given to them by their birthparents. This seems highly unlikely, but I rolled with it. Fortunately, Eva has a compass (JUST LIKE GRETEL…oh, yeah) that she has carried with her since she was little. When Emma brings it to Mr. Gold, he is able to pinpoint the person who bought that exact compass from him. His price? Simply forgiveness for last week’s political shenanigans. Emma offers up tolerance, and he accepts. There is, a twist though. When they show the card he pulled that supposedly had the name on it, it appears blank. WHERE DOES HE GET HIS INFORMATION?! THIS WAS THE ONLY THING THAT EXCITED ME ALL EPISODE! The name she was given leads her to a mechanic in town. Oh, yeah. Henry knew he would be in town because part of the curse is no one can leave or come in. Thanks Exposition Helper Henry! When Emma reveals the existence of his two kids to the grease monkey he is predictably reluctant. Defeated, and unwilling to break the hearts of the children she says she never found him and prepares to drive them to Boston. However, she has a trick up her sleeve. As they are about to cross the Storybrooke border, Emma pretends the engine has stalled and calls for a tow. Guess who comes? No. No. No, not Rumpel—yes, the father! Finally. Anyway, he has a sudden change of heart when he looks at their downtrodden and pouty faces and decides he can raise them! What an unexpected surpr—oh who am I kidding.

As for our FTL alter egos, Hansel and Gretel, when they hand over the satchel, anticipates the Queen who pulls a fast one. After opening the satchel to reveal an apple (clearly the poison apple, or as she calls it, “a weapon,” she claims she has a “better idea” that they can stay with her! Nicholas seems intrigued by the riches by always the rebellious and boisterous type, Gretel resists her evil temptations just like at the Witch’s house. In her anger she casts them off in a poorly CGI-ed tornado and releases their father from her custody. NO WAY! No, but yeah I knew that too. I mean, she was right there when they couldn’t find him…*breathes deeply*…I’m calm now. Anyway, she casts him off too when he answers her question, “Why wouldn’t they stay with me” with “Family always finds each other.” Then in anti-climactic fashion she plops him in the expansive forest so that they can search for each other FOREVER. Or you know, until they find each other, whichever.

Then there’s the matter of the enigmatic biker dude that arrives at the very end. Clealrly, the episode itself held no intrigue or suspense on its own so they leave us with he cliffhanger of who is this dude who has come into town. BUT WAIT! How did he do that? Emma was the first stranger to come into town…ever. How did this man get there? Could this mean legitimate mystery has found its way into the show. Ehh, maybe.

My main gripe with this episode is the lack of recognition for what they could have done. They phoned this one in. I found my self singing “If only, if only” the whole hour. If only they had utilized Emma Caulfield better, and hadn’t given her corn-fest lines. If only Hansel and Gretel, an inherently dark fairy tale was actually scary. I never felt imminent danger. If only they had stopped trying to pull a fast one in the real-world plot with the lazy, predictable reversals. Oh she mad up a story about his father. Duh. The dad is gonna take them after all? Well, to create an hour-long conflict. And either of those things might not have felt so cheap if they felt less like plot points and more like actual emotions and struggles for these characters. But neither the mechanic nor Emma (Morrison’s ability to stretch the material can only go so far) made feel as though their reversals were earned or even really a consequence of anything. I was satisfied when  Emma had another opportunity to tell Henry the truth, and didn’t, but besides the obvious the why (?) still escapes me and not in a ambiguous sense, but in an unaddressed sense.

Thankfully, next week, we will be back to basics. Previews suggest another Snow White/Charming and Mary/David episode and most of the show’s energy lies with Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas’ chemistry so hopefully that will help bridge the gap. For this week, though, the fairyback was anti-climactic. The real-world plot revealed nothing plot or character wise, and what little joy I had came mostly from one loud guffaw (the cavorting with dwarfs line) and when we got to see of that budding Gilmore Girls-lite relationship between Emma and Mary Margaret. Even when this show is technically frustrating there is fun to be had, but very little kept this episode from slipping into D (as in damn that sucked) territory. But for making it out in one piece, with a couple mysterious threads hanging loose (Gold’s blank card, Henry’s father’s REAL story, and who this foreign biker dude is) My extra credit will allow OUAT to cling a second chance at life, with the promise of a better tomorrow (next week’s return to Mary/David adorability).

Emma (Jennifer Morrison) looking shocked after Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan) almost hits her with a dart trying to get her attention.

I’m starting to wonder if this is how Kitsis and Horowotz pitched “OUAT” to ABC execs:

“Hey millionaires! So remember LOST? Yeah, that sci-fi mystery show that got you awards and viewers all at the same time? Well, picture this in those money-grubbing noggins of yours…we take the most infuriating elements of that show, the endless barrage of questions with no answers in sight, and instead of a magical island we have a world where fairy tales are real!”

The execs respond: “It’s gold! With Disney as our parent company we will have no problem gathering the licenses for a treasure trove of characters people already know and love. They will be falling over themselves to watch the old, familiar stories while sticking around hoping that there will be some sort of new development, but there will be practically none!” (Maniacal laugh)

No, but seriously, would you be surprised if that was true? Several times we get vague references to what Snow White did to the Queen to elicit her vengeful spirit, but we still don’t know what that is. The show has been dangling this mystery for 5 weeks now, and every time it’s referenced I thank that spot in the ceiling I stare at and call God that I won’t have to agonize anymore, and then those strumpets at the OUAT writing team tease me yet again! Wicked temptresses, for God’s sake just tell me what Snow White did to her! Twice this week you awkwardly addressed that hideous elephant and nothing! The huntsman asks the Evil Queen directly, “Why do you want her killed so badly, what could she have done to deserve your revenge?” I practically shoved my ear into the TV so I wouldn’t miss a word, but all that witch could say is, “I told her a secret, and she couldn’t keep it.” UGH. Yeah, because that’s something. Oh wait, except it’s not! What kind of answer is that? Did she spread a rumor that you have an STD?

Seriously, that just multiplies the possibilities. Before last night, Snow White had owned up to her crimes and the Evil Queen divulged that her life was ruined thanks to Snow, and that is why she deserves to be cursed, and honestly I would have been okay of they just said how right then and there. Let’s pretend for a second that I would watch this show if I wasn’t obligated. Well, I’m not tuning in to figure out if Snow White really deserves to be cursed. Sure, I would be intrigued if cute-as-a-button Ginnifer Goodwin had a dark streak to her, but that would only be a small facet of my overall intrigue. What I’m dying to know, is will these people ever go back to Fairy-Tale Land, or will the real world become their Happily-Ever-After. Their constant cloudiness over this motivation to enact the curse is a pretty insignificant lynchpin, and clearly a ploy to make us care about the show’s season-long arc. For me it is accomplishing the opposite. If the thing that sticks out most about an episode of television is what I didn’t get out, that’s an ominous sign: a foreshadowing that the show has no goddamn clue where it’s headed.

Thankfully, it wasn’t all stalling tactics and we had both our first major character death and the first recognition of their previous life. Once again stealing from the pages of LOST lore, Sheriff Graham (a.k.a The Huntsman in FTL, Fairy-Tale Land) gets his first flashes of his bow and arrow slinging past when he kisses Emma because he “needs to feel something.” This theme of the vulnerability of feelings would be shoved in to as much dialogue as humanly possible, but all the same it worked for me, primarily because of how the actors were allowed to play with the “walls” we put up to avoid pain. Jennifer Morrison and Ginnifer Goodwin steal the show as always with their dynamic, as Mary Margaret starts to reveal her maternal tendencies (her alter ego Snow White is mother to Morrison’s Emma) as she cautions Emma about the pitfalls of emotional barriers: “Those walls may not let in pain, but they also don’t let in love.” It’s simplistic, and something we all encounter when we figure out too late we’ve fallen to hard for someone, but it felt sincere and Morrison played it with the same sharp-tongued skepticism, with just a dash of optimism. Maybe she is willing to share her heart with the Sheriff, but just needs a little insurance so that she won’t get crushed.

For this week’s fairyback we meet said Sheriff’s FTL persona, The Huntsman. I was captivated by this tortured killing machine who was raised by wolves, but was slightly confused as to why a man who cries after his kills (which evokes for me the ritualistic respect Native Americans would give their prey) would make a perfect assassin for the Evil Queen. Regardless, he takes the job and leads Snow into the woods disguised as a knight. She calls his bluff though, pointing out his lack of condolences given for the death of her father. He chases her through the woods for a bit, and predictably corners her. He’s puzzled that she has stopped to write a letter, and Snow asks him to deliver it to the Queen along with her heart. Oh, yeah, one badass detail I totally dug was that the Queen collects the hearts of her victims. Sweeeeeet.

When the Huntsman reads the letter of forgiveness and remorse he’s understandably touched, and he spares her. He tries to dodge the consequences initially by giving his boss the heart of a stag, but she is not easily fooled. In her rage she rips his heart out with her bare hands (also pretty badass) and stores it in a chest on her wall of fame for hearts, I guess. From then on, he is without feeling and is bound to her as a sex slave. Gotta say the kinkiness and gore was a pleasant surprise as the fairybacks continue, IMO, to be the freshest and most thrilling part of the show. The continued subversion of the typical happy endings indicates to me that the show could delve deeper and become an honest examination of how fairy tales aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Here’s hoping.

Back in the less intriguing real world, Sheriff Graham has a vivid dream about a wolf while in bed with Regina (Evil Queen), still “trying to feel something.” And felt something he did indeed. Haha, oh sex humor. Anyways, the same wolf of his dreams appears to him in the streets and he starts to question what in the hell is happening? In his flash with Emma he saw himself lifting a knife up to stab someone who looked like Mary Margaret. He visits her, and we learn that no one seems to remember how they met each other in Storybrooke (more evidence of the curse), but otherwise she has no answers, but when he brings up past lives she directs him to Henry. Goddammit. Just when I thought it was going to be a Henry-free week. Much to the show’s credit though, we have been seeing less of him. Henry then shares The Huntsman’s story since that aligns with his flashes, and the Sheriff decides to follow the wolf as it must be his guide to the truth.

Along the way he runs into Emma, and together they inspect the forest the wolf leads them into, where they eventually end up at a large tomb. Inside, the Sheriff frantically looks for the heart that he’s convinced he doesn’t have. What else would explain the meaningless sex he’s having with Regina? I think it may have more to do with his penis than his heart, but that’s just me. Suddenly, Regina appears and is all like, “Why you snooping around my dad’s casket?” Then a sorta awesome, and much needed fistfight ensues between Emma and Regina, where Emma totally makes her bleed and Sheriff Graham tells her off claiming that it isn’t his heartlessness that’s the problem…the problem is her! GASP! When Regina tries to deflect the blame on Emma, she reminds Madame Mayor that Henry too ran away, and that maybe she needs to take a look in the mirror (HA!) and ask herself why everyone is leaving her. So what does Regina do? Oh….you know, what anyone would typically do in that scenario…climb down into the secret passageway under her dad’s casket, pull out the Sheriff’s heart and squish it into dust in her menacing grip. You know, the usual.

Though the act is cartoonish, but epic, the episode ends on a heartbreaking note as Emma finally does let love in. They share a romantic kiss and the electricity of it restores all of his past memories (again, just like the flash-sideways in LOST, where love and relationships triggered everyone’s memories), but immediately after telling Emma that he remembers he falls to his knees, dying instantly. The Regina death grip knows no mercy.

Yes, there is the emotional payoff and Morrison gets to show off her “heaving sobs while holding a dead body” chops, but it completely nullifies any advancement the episode made. The one guy who could prove that Henry was right dies as soon as he could provide that evidence. Again, if it wasn’t for the performances surrounding it all, the viewing experience would have been for nothing as we as well as the people of Storybrooke are none the wiser. Although, Emma certainly learned to not mix work and pleasure ever again, huh?

“OUAT” can both pride itself, and be ashamed for its consistency. All of the things I appreciate or even genuinely like are in full effect, but the gimmicky annoyances are always in rare form. So, for pulling my heartstrings in the Sheriff’s death (props to Jamie Dornan for going out with a bang despite little airtime to build up sympathy) and not compromising the darker sides of FTL, I tip my cap. But “Heart Is A Lonely Hunter” also dragged out needless mysteries, butchered a could-have-been thoughtful venture into vulnerability with repetitive, unsubtle dialogue, and shot the series in the foot by offing the guy who could have swung the momentum. This week’s OUAT is stag-nant (hehe, horse humor) and spurned by love again with a C+.

Josh Dallas as Prince Charming, filming his fight sequence in front of a green screen

So, in reviewing my review (cue Twilight Zone theme), I realized that in some ways maybe I was going to easy on the show. Granted a commenter (shoutout to Ablenight) felt the opposite, but I still think that I was grading this episode based on potential, on what I hoped it would become, both as a “Lost” fan rooting for Kitsis/Horowitz and as a TV fan who would love to see a quality fantasy drama on network television. I’m not ready to declare “Once Upon A Time” D.O.A yet. Truthfully, I liked a lot of what I saw last week, but because I was grading based on effort, this week’s installment takes a slight dip.

Not going to lie to you OUAT fans, most of the goodwill garnered by The Shepherd is based on a limited supply of Henry. He served his purpose, to explain to us his theory (or let’s be honest, he’s a mouthpiece for the show, so this is “the truth” as we know it) that David does not remember he is Prince Charming nor his life prior to the coma because he is has some sort of curse/amnesia hybrid plaguing him. Okay, little dude, now run along.

Once that was taken care of and we were transported into Fairy-Tale Land we were treated to a battle royal between Charming and….some Orc looking fella. Treated may be too nice of a word though. I might use subjected, because the special effects were God awful here especially. Cuts were taken too sharply and I struggled to follow the movements of both fighters, and the foggy cliff  green screen made everyone look like they were figurines up against a moving poster board made for a 5th grade science fair. Mind you, that’s me being kind.

However, when Charming got stabbed through the heart thinking his opponent was down and out, I got quite cheerful. Sure, death by sword is always awesome, but this particular reaffirmed to me the show’s commitment to subverting Disney lore with a bit of existential cloudiness. These magical beings, the ones we were so mesmerized by as children, can be made pawns of a cruel universe. Call me dead inside (I mean, that would be factually correct), but that is a great route for this show to go. The commonly held belief by Henry the Great…Pain in my Ass and OUAT-ers (?) is that Fairy-Tale Land will be their salvation. I personally would love to see the more complicated real world be a source of comfort and, heck, just as enchanted with potentials for happily-ever-after.

Due to Charming’s unexpected demise, King George (played by LOST vet, Alan Dale, who brings the same grab-life-by-the nuts attitude Charles Widmore had, to the role) consults Rumpelstiltskin. Initially, I was annoyed that Rumpelstiltskin and his fineprint-type deals would again be integral, but Carlyle’s silver-tongued demon is the best thing the show has going for it, so why not? I just wish they could diversify the baddies, or simply make the “good guys” morally gray through their own choices, as most trailblazing dramas of the last decade have. Then again, I suppose you could argue Rumpy is a conduit for evil, not a harbinger of doom himself.

King George’s predicament is this: he’s without a son to slay the dragon that threatens King Midas’ kingdom. This is personally taxing because his own kingdom is in need of gold. And well, Midas has a lot of it considering every thing he touches literally turns into gold. White people problems, huh? Rumpy doesn’t sympathize because he was the one that bequeathed Charming to him in the first place. Of course, he is always willing to make a deal so in exchange for whatever he wants, he will give King George the up-until-now secret twin brother. At first, I wondered whether the twins were Cinderella’s, but that wouldn’t work given the timeline established two episodes ago. Alas, it’s just another long lost sibling deus ex machina, which is expected, but still disappointing.

In the real world, David (Charming’s “real life” name) is having an identity crisis too. He understands that he was married to Kathryn, but doesn’t remember falling in love with her, and certainly doesn’t feel the chemistry now. He definitely has the hots for Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) though, and who could blame him? She’s friggin’ adorable, and she saved his life. That must be true love! I’m being facetious, obviously. The duo does set off sparks when they share the screen, but this will they/won’t they is wearing slightly thin. I enjoy their interactions, and Goodwin especially has the natural sweetness to pull off “sweet girl who falls for the wrong guys,” routine with sincerity, but what seems like an unsettling question isn actually destiny.

I have no reason to question that they will get back together even when David steps into Mr. Gold’s (Rumpy as real-world sleaze) pawn shop and eyes a windmill that jogs his memory. For an object that feels like it should be Chekhov’s windmill, something that was planted beforehand and emphasized so that we know it will resurface, I have no idea what it means. It was mentioned once when Kathryn was trying to jog David’s memory of their past life together, but is it somehow enchanted in Mr Gold’s shop? What memories does it conjure up? Much like the “twist” at the end of last week’s episode, I’m intrigued, but it feels like contrived, like I’m being manipulated to care.

And there is a lot I actually care about. For one, I care about Emma finding her place in Storybrooke. Her story gets a similar “men will disappoint you” treatment when she sees Sheriff Graham climbing out of Regina’s window during her midnight rounds. It was funny to see him shimmy down (shimmying is, after all, ridiculous), yes, but when we see Emma shake her head, we sigh, knowing her pain and wishing she didn’t have to be so jaded. Earlier, when trying to ease Mary Margaret’s mind, she laments her bad decisions with men and says that whenever she has had a hunch she was doing the wrong thing, it was wrong. This futility is relatable, and I’m invested in her and Mary’s happiness. But with Mary, there’s no indication that Fairy-Tale Land’s prophecy will not come true.

You know, that may be a huge problem with the show as a whole. A lack of surprise. I am continuously surprised by the grim truths our Fairy-Tale inhabitants must face. The realization that Prince Charming 2.0 could never see his mom again or the entire kingdom would fall apart is an impossibly huge, but nonetheless horrible, burden for a small farm boy to handle. I couldn’t help but think of Luke Skywalker, hopping on a speeder to Mos Eisley Cantina with a Jedi Knight only to come back to his farm and find his adoptive parrots charred to bits by the Empire. This Momma’s boy commiserated with Charming 2.0, because mothers can be amazing supports that you always want to have in your arsenal, and to lose that security is to not only lose love, but lose a bit of yourself. Those same kinds of stakes don’t exist in this show’s “real world.” Yes, at episode’s end David is trying to make things work with Kathryn and Mary Margaret is double-fisting drinks with a douchey doctor, but does anybody doubt at all that Henry is right and Emma will somehow break the curse and bring happiness for all Storybrooke’s townsfolk again? I’m more invested in the dark underpinnings of how Fairy-Tale Land came to be a breeding ground for widespread joy, the idea that Happily-Ever-After comes at a price that MUST be paid. If Happily-Ever-After has already been achieved, then it won’t be long before the magical reset button is hit.

Unless the show can convince me soon that Fairy-Tale Land was flawed from the beginning, that this curse is actually a road to redemption for these characters, and that they can only truly achieve happiness beyond the magical bounds of their homeland, then I might return to my faith of weeks prior. Right now, I just can’t see the magical forest through the singing trees, or whatever tress do in fairy tales. I’m seeing a formula at play, a formula that indicates a fairyback (a fairy-tale flashback, a term coined at The AV Club http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-shepherd,65911/) for each major character that provides insight into how each of them has been effectively pushed away from their paths to true happiness (whatever they think that is) by the curse. But through Emma-induced miracles, happiness starts to become reality and the Queen’s curse is rendered powerless. Storybrooke is no longer appears as a backwoods town in Maine, and is restored to it’s storyBOOK sheen. To me, that end as telegraphed is not exciting or rewarding. This would only reinforce that magic, an unattainable, intangible force (like fate) is what we need to be happy. Wouldn’t it be an even greater Happily Ever After, if it we could find it within ourselves?

I’m not ruling out the possibility that OUAT could rise to the heights of inspirational, emotionally resonant and fulfilling entertainment. “Lost” did it on ABC, why couldn’t this show? But I can only consider what I’ve been presented with thus far, and what I’ve seen is a lack of improvement week-to-week, or rather a complacency to stick with what works instead of expanding upon those strengths. “The Shepherd,” was especially frustrating, too, for its sloppy use of special effects during the Prince’s battle sequences. In spite of a host of consistently compelling performances (of which I would now include Josh Dallas as Charming/David and vehemently exclude Lana Parilla as Regina/Evil Queen and Jared Gilmore as Henry), I have my made my choice, C+.

Terry Gilliam’s films have always had the feel and look of a child’s dream. From his hilarious and terrifying view of the future in "Brazil" to the dark corners of imagination in "The Brothers Grimm," Gilliam’s lush stories are essentially fairy tales gone terribly, terribly wrong.

So perhaps it’s fitting that 10-year-old Quinn Lord was the one to speak to Blast about his role in Gilliam’s newest film, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus." The feisty young actor, who previously played the terrifying pumpkin head in "Trick ‘r Treat," discussed working with Gilliam, hanging out with Vern Troyer, and the simple joys of blood, guts, and gore.

Blast: What was it like working on this movie with your director Terry Gilliam?

Quinn Lord: Terry Gilliam is amazing to work with. He’s a fabulous director, he always has these great movies. I’ve watched "Doctor Parnassus" like three times, and I notice something different each time I watch it.

BLAST: So there’s always something going on that you don’t catch the first time.

QL: It’s so special, about that. It’s eye-catching or something. Some magic that he has in his movies.

BLAST: So you’ve got quite a few films and television shows under your belt — which was your favorite film to do?

QL: I would say "Trick ‘r Treat." It’s a good movie. I got to work with Michael Doherty; he wanted me to watch "The Shining." I wasn’t even scared of that movie, I wasn’t scared of anything.

BLAST: It didn’t frighten you, really?

QL: Yeah, really! I didn’t get frightened at all. “Heeeere’s Johnny!”

BLAST: That’s impressive. I’ve seen that movie several times and it still scares me. So what did you like about that experience?

QL: The best part was backstage, I was looking at all the meaty, gut things. It was very impressive!

BLAST: So you liked the gross stuff.

QL: Yeah, I was about to say, gory.

BLAST: You’re still very young, but what have you learned as an actor from when you first started? When you go into act, do you do anything to prepare yourself?

QL: Yes, yes, it’s very easy to get into the horrifying characters. It’s why I like the creepy, creepy, creepy roles. The most fun I’ve ever had with like the gory stuff was when I was on "Smallville."

BLAST: This is going to be a big movie — are you nervous about being famous?

QL: I’m not nervous of anything. I’m like the tough guy who can go through the scariest movies, like "The Shining" and other scary movies. I can work through the blood and gore — even if it like rains blood from the sky, it’s no problem. And being famous — I’d like it.

BLAST: Are you going to be doing any more horror films, because it seems that’s where your interest lies.

QL: I’m going to be in another scary-ish movie (“Second Chances”), but I’m the good guy in that one. It’s with Melissa George I think.

BLAST: Do you want to play the villain again?

QL: Yes, I am up for villains. Villains are the explosion! The gore explosion. I get a kick out of the bad guys, they’re so fun to play.

BLAST: So what’s next for you — what are you up to right now?

QL: Right now? Right now, I think I want to watch a movie. Like "Army of Darkness," "Back to the Future," that kind of thing. I like the time warps and time paradoxes, stuff like that.

BLAST: Well that must have been interesting to do in "Doctor Parnassus," that thing about time and space.

QL: Yeah, there’s a lot of story in there. And I really want one of those mirrors — when you see the movie, you’ll want one too. Everyone would pretty much want one. Everyone would come out of the theater and say, “Wow I really want one of those mirrors!”

BLAST: Just one last question for you. What are you up to next in terms of your work, in terms of acting?

QL: I have auditioned for some stuff, and I’m coming very close to a film. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

BLAST: Is there anything else you’d like to say? I know a lot of our readers are very excited about this movie.

QL: Yes. "Doctor Parnassus" is mind-blowing. Well, not mind-blowing literally, but metaphorically it will blow lots of people’s minds.

Boston Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty danced its way into the hearts of a packed house Friday night.‚ 

The opening curtain revealed vibrant costumes of red and orange.‚  Women of the Court and their men dressed in their best were present at the christening of the Princess Aurora. Young Fairy Godmothers contrasted the Women of the Court in cool colored costumes of blues and purples. The Godmothers each honored the infant princess with a solo dance. Some more traditional, others with flare that caused pleasant laughter throughout the theater. Their graceful flutters across the stage melted with the musical score to tell the story of a happier time.

While out of synch in places, the use of lines and beautiful choreography made this act a favorite among the audience. At the end of the prologue Fairy Carabosse, arrives and is angered that she has not been invited to the celebration. Riding on stage with the help of her four evil hobbit-like attendants in a chariot made of twisted branches, she casts a dark spell upon the young royal,‚  distressing everyone on stage until the beautiful Lilac Fairy comes to the rescue.

In act one the audience meets the young, graceful, and high-energy princess Aurora. Celebrating her twentieth birthday, four suitors come to court her but she dances with and dismisses them all.‚  When presented with a sparkling spindle from an ominously trudging hooded stranger, she leaps and twirls around the stage with excitement until she pricks her finger. At that moment the hooded stranger reveals herself as the evil Fairy Carabosse and the princess and all her guests fall into a deep sleep that will last for a hundred years until the spell is broken with a kiss from a prince. Layers of curtains fall to build a dense forest around the sleeping princess as act one ends.

The love story between Prince Florimud and princess Aurora comes to life in act two. While hunting in the forest, the prince sees the ethereal dancing princess in visions created by good Lilac Fairy. The Prince tries to dance with the beautiful vision but to his frustration cannot touch her and is soon led by the Lilac Fairy to his sleeping love. Mounting a boat and floating across the stage through fog and woods they finally enter the great gates where the princess lays. The prince enters the room and kisses his love to break the spell.

In the final act the wedding takes place. Everyone from mythical lands attends, from the Puss in Boots and the White Cat to Belle and the Beast. Each performs a duet to honor the soon to be newlyweds.

While some partners danced several times and seemed to take away from the love story, others added comic relief and refreshment. The audience cheered while the White Cat swatted away the advances of Puss and laughed as the two danced in circles chasing each others tails. This act felt very long and didn’t seem to focus on the lovebirds, Florimud and Aurora, who had a few duets with beautiful choreography in which the prince lifted his love into the air in stunning formations.

In the end, the audience gave a standing ovation. The prologue definitely stole the show as well as the Puss in Boots and the White Cat.‚ 

The Boston Ballet’s performance of The Sleeping Beauty swept up its audience in a timeless love story while still not taking itself too seriously — incorporating silly anecdotes throughout the performance. The show is a hit for all ages with something for everyone and the vibrant costumes and beautiful backdrops are sure to have you sitting on the edge of your seat for the whole Theatre through May 3.

The story of Sleeping Beauty is widely known by every generation.‚  Most forget however that the popular Disney movie with all of its singing squirrels and flying fairies was preceded by the popular ballet of the same name that has captivated audiences for over a century.

Charles Perrault first published the traditional fairytale of Sleeping Beauty in 1697.‚  In 1890 Sleeping Beauty was preformed as a ballet in St. Petersburg to a score by Pytor Tchaikovsky with choreography by Marius Petipa. It would come to be known as Tchaikovsky’s first major success in ballet composition and the choreography was held as a standard for composers to come.

A cross between exquisite solos and elaborate party scenes Sleeping Beauty has every element of a fairytale ballet.‚  There is the evil witch with her menacing accomplices, good fairies, prince charming, and a blonde princess. Over the 100-year span it covers birth, death, marriage and everything in-between.‚  The ballet becomes more than just a story of love and spinning wheels, but a narrative carefully told through movement, expression and music.‚  With the single flick of a finger a ballerina may express what had taken a song in any cartoon version.

With updated scores by Jonathan McPhee, Boston Ballet Musical Director, and choreography by Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen The Sleeping Beauty never gets old at the Boston Ballet.‚  Running at the Wang Theater from April 23, 2009 to May 3, 2009, The Sleeping Beauty promises to revisit old memories and create new ones.

Pakistani author Danyal Mueenuddin begins his inaugural book simply, with a dedication to his mother and an epigraph: “Three things for which we kill — Land, women and gold.”

The Punjabi proverb, written in English and the highly stylized lettering of Urdu calligraphy, anticipates with startling accuracy the source of conflict in Mueenuddin’s brilliant debut collection of fiction, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.

In the title story, the wealthy patriarch of a feudal landowning family, KK Harouni, falls for Husna, a shrewd, young social climber looking to integrate herself into the glitzy, jet-setting life of Lahore’s wealthy elite. Much to the chagrin of Harouni’s europhile daughters and estranged wife, Harouni takes Husna, with her simple clothes and unrefined manners — imagine a Pakistani Eliza Doolittle, if you will — under his roof, at first only as a servant of sorts, but eventually as a mistress.

Husna shows up at Harouni’s door, a distantly related young girl of a family that “had not so much fallen into poverty as failed to rise”. Harouni, a disinterested old man who seems bored to tears with almost everything, finds in Husna a relief from the redundancies of upper crust Lahore. As he explains to his daughter, “She keeps me company. She’s no genius, if you like, but she can play cards and so on.” Mueenuddin’s characters seldom try to sugarcoat the facts of life.

As many of the women in the Mueenuddin’s grim fairy tales, Husna assumes she can use feminine wiles to climb the social ladder, and avoid marriage to “a compromise, a salary man.” And at first, she succeeds, until, also like many of Mueenuddin’s stories, the fairytale ending is pulled right out from beneath her.

Mueenuddin builds up his reader’s hope for his characters, only to vindictively strip all hope away in the end. In ‘Saleema’, a young woman and her drugged-up husband move to the cramped servant quarters of the Harouni estate. The woman, Saleema, is the daughter of a prostitute mother and a heroin addicted father seeking for herself a better life. As a maid for the Harouni’s, she meets Rafik, a gentle and reserved valet. Saleema hopes that their affair can somehow make of her an honest woman. Before Rafik, “her love affairs had been so plainly mercantile transactions that she hadn’t learned to be coquettish. But that little hopeful girl in her awoke now.”

The reader can’t help but root for the honest and wide-eyed (though admittedly shrewd) Saleema, but it’s not long before she winds up drug-addled and dead herself, her child with Rafik begging “in the streets, one of the sparrows of Lahore”.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is partly an exploration into the harsh realities of a modern-day society still bound by class. If this had been Cinderella, most of Mueenuddin’s stories would have ended halfway through, but instead, in his Pakistan, happiness is usually short-lived. Like Husna and Saleema, his characters end up learning a harsh lesson: you can move up or down the ladder, but in the end, motion in Pakistan is only horizontal.

The collection is, in the tradition of Balzac’s original Comƒ©die humaine, eight stories bound together by the common thread of the moneyed KK Harouni’s household and extended family. Characters reappear throughout the book — sometimes on the main stage, and sometimes as a side note. Set in the Pakistani district of Punjab, Mueenuddin’s stories follow the lives of the rich and powerful Harouni family and its employees — from the managers, drivers, gardeners, cooks, and servants to the patriarch’s young, traveled nephew in Paris.

The collection sheds light on contemporary Pakistan’s many faces, from the inhabitants of impoverished rural Pakistan to the young, bored nouveau- rich gracing Mueenuddin’s pages feasting on lavish picnics of champagne and cheese or as coke-snorting snobs at Halloween parties in Islamabad.

Reading In Other Rooms, In Other Wonders, you often get the sense that writing the collection was in some ways Mueenuddin’s method for working out his own problems of identity and feelings towards Pakistan. He spent the first years of his childhood in Pakistan, then was shipped off to an East Coast boarding school at 13 and went on to attend Dartmouth College. A decade after first moving to America, he returned to Pakistan to help his aging father uphold family property that was in danger of being taken over by crafty managers. He spent seven years alone on this farm – an isolated 10 hours from Lahore by a bumpy road – before he moved back to the US to study law at Yale and practice corporate law in New York. Eventually, Mueenuddin, tired of the corporate sector, received a Master of Fine Arts and returned to manage the Pakistan farm, in his spare time writing what would become the stories of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, which were first picked up by literary rags like The New Yorker and Granta.

In Mueenuddin’s work, you easily see the characters and colors of his own life. The crafty managers and wily servants of his father’s farm are the same characters who occupy KK Harouni’s farm and Lahore estate, and color the pages in tales like ‘Provide, Provide’ (writes Mueenuddin, Jaglani “would receive a brief telegram, NEED FIFTY THOUSAND IMMEDIATELY” and he would “sell the land at half price, the choice pieces to himself, putting it in the names of his servants and relatives.”). In ‘Lily’, the title character’s eventual betrothed manages his father’s old farm, 10 hours from Lahore by a rough road, where he is beginning to grow vegetables in greenhouses, just as Mueenuddin himself does now. And in the tale ‘Our Lady of Paris’, the character, Sohail, perhaps bears resemblance to Mueenuddin’s own identity struggle: the wealthy Yale law school-educated son of KK Harouni’s brother, Sohail struggles with what to do next in his life – move back to Pakistan and take over his father’s business dealings or live in America with his American girlfriend Helen.

This is the first post in Blast’s new Literary section — aiming to insert a little more culture into our Gen Y world.

Many years ago there lived an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of grand new clothes that he spent all his money upon them, that he might be very fine. He did not care about his soldiers, nor about the theatre, and only liked to drive out and show his new clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day; and just as they say of a king, “He is in council,” so they always said of him, “The Emperor is in the wardrobe.”

In the great city in which he lived it was always very merry; every day came many strangers; one day two rogues came: they gave themselves out as weavers, and declared they could weave the finest stuff any one could imagine. Not only were their colors and patterns, they said, uncommonly beautiful, but the clothes made of the stuff possessed the wonderful quality that they became invisible to any one who was unfit for the office he held, or was incorrigibly stupid.

“Those would be capital clothes!” thought the Emperor. “If I wore those, I should be able to find out what men in my empire are not fit for the places they have; I could tell the clever from the dunces. Yes, the stuff must be woven for me directly!”

And he gave the two rogues a great deal of cash in hand, that they might begin their work at once.

As for them, they put up two looms, and pretended to be working; but they had nothing at all on their looms. They at once demanded the finest silk and the costliest gold; this they put into their own pockets, and worked at the empty looms till late into the night.

“I should like to know how far they have got on with the stuff,” thought the Emperor. But he felt quite uncomfortable when he thought that those who were not fit for their offices could not see it. He believed, indeed, that he had nothing to fear for himself, but yet he preferred first to send some one
else to see how matters stood. All the people in the city knew what peculiar power the stuff possessed, and all were anxious to see how bad or how stupid their neighbors were.

“I will send my honest old Minister to the weavers,” thought the Emperor. “He can judge best how the stuff looks, for he has sense, and no one understands his office better than he.”

Now the good old Minister went out into the hall where the two rogues sat working at the empty looms.

“Mercy on us!” thought the old Minister, and he opened his eyes wide. “I cannot see anything at all!” But he did not say this.

Both the rogues begged him to be so good as to come nearer, and asked if he did not approve of the colors and the pattern. Then they pointed to the empty loom, and the poor old Minister went on opening his eyes; but he could see nothing, for there was nothing to see.

“Mercy!” thought he, “can I indeed be so stupid? I never thought that, and not a soul must know it. Am I not fit for my office? No, it will never do for me to tell that I could not see the stuff.”

“Don’t you say anything to it?” asked one, as he went on weaving.

“O, it is charming – quite enchanting!” answered the old Minister, as he peered through his spectacles. “What a fine pattern, and what colors! Yes, I shall tell the Emperor that I am very much pleased with it.”

“Well, we are glad of that,” said both the weavers; and then they named the colors, and explained the strange pattern. The old Minister listened attentively, that he might be able to repeat it when the Emperor came. And he did so.

Now the rogues asked for more money, and silk and gold, which they declared they wanted for weaving. They put all into their own pockets, and not a thread was put upon the loom; they continued to work at the empty frames as before.

The Emperor soon sent again, dispatching another honest officer of the court, to see how the weaving was going on, and if the stuff would soon be ready. He fared just like the first: he looked and looked, but, as there was nothing to be seen but the empty looms, he could see nothing.

“Is not that a pretty piece of stuff?” asked the two rogues; and they displayed and explained the handsome pattern which was not there at all.

“I am not stupid!” thought the man: “it must be my good office, for which I am not fit. It is funny enough, but I must not let it be noticed.” And so he praised the stuff which he did not see, and expressed his pleasure at the beautiful colors and charming pattern. “Yes, it is enchanting,” he told the
Emperor.

All the people in the town were talking of the gorgeous stuff. The Emperor wished to see it himself while it was still upon the loom. With a whole crowd of chosen men, among whom were also the two honest statesmen who had already been there, he went to the two cunning rogues, who were now
weaving with might and main without fibre or thread.

“Is not that splendid?” said the two statesmen, who had already been there once. “Does not your Majesty remark the pattern and the colors?” And they pointed to the empty loom, for they thought that the others could see the stuff.

“What’s this?” thought the Emperor. “I can see nothing at all! That is terrible. Am I stupid? Am I not fit to be Emperor? That would be the most dreadful thing that could happen to me. O, it is very pretty!” he said aloud. “It has our highest approbation.” And he nodded in a contented way, and gazed at the empty loom, for he would not say that he saw nothing. The whole suite whom he had with him looked and looked, and saw nothing, any more than the rest; but, like the Emperor, they said, “That is pretty!” and counseled him to wear the splendid new clothes for the first time at the great procession that was presently to take place. “It is splendid, excellent!” went from mouth to mouth. On all sides there seemed to be general rejoicing, and the Emperor gave the rogues the title of Imperial Court Weavers.

The whole night before the morning on which the procession was to take place, the rogues were up, and kept more than sixteen candles burning. The people could see that they were hard at work, completing the Emperor’s new clothes. They pretended to take the stuff down from the loom; they made cuts in the air with great scissors; they sewed with needles without thread; and at last they said, “Now the clothes are ready!”

The Emperor came himself with his noblest cavaliers; and the two rogues lifted up one arm as if they were holding something, and said, “See, here are the trousers! here is the coat! here is the cloak!” and so on. “It is as light as a spider’s web: one would thin one had nothing on; but that is just the
beauty of it.”

“Yes,” said all the cavaliers; but they could not see anything, for nothing was there.

“Will your Imperial Majesty please to condescend to take off your clothes?” said the rogues; “then we will put on you the new clothes here in front of the great mirror.”

The Emperor took off his clothes, and the rogues pretended to put on him each new garment as it was ready; and the Emperor turned round and round before the mirror.

“O, how well they look! how capitally they fit!” said all. “What a pattern! what colors! That is a splendid dress!”

“They are standing outside with the canopy, which is to be borne above your Majesty in the procession!” announced the head Master of the Ceremonies.

“Well, I am ready,” replied the Emperor. “Does it not suit me well?” And then he turned again to the mirror, for he wanted it to appear as if he contemplated his adornment with great interest.

The two chamberlains, who were to carry the train, stooped down with their hands toward the floor, just as if they were picking up the mantle; then they pretended to be holding something in the air. They did not dare to let it be noticed that they saw nothing.

So the Emperor went in procession under the rich canopy, and every one in the streets said, “How incomparable are the Emperor’s new clothes! what a train he has to his mantle! how it fits him!” No one would let it be perceived that he could see nothing, for that would have shown that he was not fit for his office, or was very stupid. No clothes of the Emperor’s had ever had such a success as these.

“But he has nothing on!” a little child cried out at last.

“Just hear what that innocent says!” said the father: and one whispered to another what the child had said.

“But he has nothing on!” said the whole people at length. That touched the Emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but the thought within himself, “I must go through with the procession.” And so he held himself a little higher, and the chamberlains held on tighter than ever, and carried the train which did not exist at all.