Once Upon a Time - S4E2 - White Out
Previously, on Once Upon a Time: “A Tale of Two Sisters”
In the Enchanted Forrest:
Anna finds herself at Grunge-Rock Charming’s door. Anna is a horrible liar and tells him her name is Joan, and she is on a secret mission. She was sent to him by Kristoff. He quickly sees past her rouse and determines that she is Kristoff’s fiancé. She asks if she can stay in his barn; he agrees and tries to shoo her away, as a horse and carriage appear on the horizon.
It’s Bo Peep, and she is not someone to be messed with… she is kinda horrible.
Bo Peep is the equivalent of the mob in the Enchanted Forest. You pay her for protection, and she doesn’t kill you and take your property. She is armed with a magical shepherds hook, which binds her “flock”; her flock being throngs indentured servants. David has one day to give her what is owed, and she won’t kill him and his mother.
Anna, the feisty idealist, tells him he must FIGHT! He doesn’t know how; Anna offers to teach him what she learned from the knights in Arendelle.
Anna’s Swashbuckling School is in full force. Charming and Anna have a heart-to-heart about his fighting skills. He goes into a story about how his father was a raging alcoholic who perished in a horse and cart accident… Anna gives him a pep talk; that may or may not work, but it is worth a try.
David goes to the barn to send Anna away before Bo Peep arrives. Bo Peep appears with her horrific cockney accent; she has branded and taken Anna hostage.
Charming meets with Bo Peep and proceeds to make light work of her and her men. He uses the hook to find Anna and return her necklace.
David’s mom gives Anna the name of someone extremely magical that can help her. But she won’t speak the name aloud.
You know what that means kids. She is off to see old Rumpy.
Present Day Storybrooke
Elsa gazes at her sister’s snowflake necklace and vows to find Anna. How delightful until she decides to build an ice fence surrounding Storybrooke.
Emma, Snow, David, Mary Margaret, and Henry are back at their tiny flat. Henry is looking up recipes to help someone get over a break-up. A crow flies to the window with a note attached to its foot. Regina doesn’t want to see him right now. Henry is surprised and saddened by the news.
The power goes out in the town, Emma and her Paw hop into their police cruiser and discover Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly discussing how to.. Oh wait, this isn’t Game of Thrones. They make their way to the city limits, only to find Hook and the ice wall that surrounds the town. Emma goes to investigate.
David is one strong, way-too-long handshake and glaring stare away from telling Killian to stay away from his daughter. Hook, being the man he is, gives him a BIG FAT NOPE! Emma finds a passage into the wall and meets Elsa, who is acting a wee bit feral, and demands to know where she can find her sister.
David and Killian find Elsa and Emma; Elsa freaks out, the wall collapses around them, and David and Killian stuck on the outside.
Emma calling David “dad” is weird as hell. Moving on, Elsa is still making demands. Give me my sister and I will go away. Emma radios David and tells him to find Anna. Emma is turning blue, and Elsa says she is not bothered by the cold. (I see what you did there.) Emma and Elsa share a bit about their powers and how neither of them have their powers under control. Emma is shivering and turning into a Swan-cicle.
David and Killian stomp their way into Gold’s Shop. Mr. Gold has this look of: Not this nonsense again. I don’t blame him; he just wants to be boo’d up with Belle and they are messing up his newlywed flow. David inquires about the necklace and recognizes it from a photo shown to him by Belle.
David finds Bo Peep, she is the town butcher and we catch her in the middle of… butchering lamb chops. AND she is still a bitch. David asks for her hook; she wields the butcher’s cleaver and tries to kill him. Killian thwarts her attempt and nabs the hook.
David and Killian return to the wall with the magical hook. Elsa receives a pep talk from David. It’s like a big old cheerleading circle on OUAT tonight. Else find the power and control to melt a hole the ice, saving Emma, and freeing them from the ice cave.
The gang, and by gang I mean Killian is helping warm up Emma and Elsa is grousing in the corner. David hands her the magical and says they will find her. The hook doesn’t show them where Anna may be but they can hear her heartbeat. So there is hope.
In other parts of Storybrooke:
Grumpy, Happy and Granny come to Mary Margaret and demand she restore power. Regina has forfeited her mayor ship and Mary Margaret is the next logical person in charge.
Mary Margaret and baby Neal are in the basement of the power plant. She just finished laying into Grumpy, Happy and Granny and told them to go take their complaints elsewhere.
Through some hungry baby inspiration, she gets the generator on and the power is restored.
Emma and Elsa go to the ice wall in the hopes to bring it down. HOPE being the operative word. Elsa tries with no success. They keep reminding us that she is the only one with such power. And how could it not work? And there is no reason the wall should still be standing. Dun dun dun…
Grumpy visits the ice cream shop where we encounter a Lost castaway (Elizabeth Mitchell). He asks if she lost any product during the blackout. She smiles coyly and says she didn’t have a problem. Grumpy happy with his chocolate cone leaves the store. She waves her hand over a vat of cream, which freezes into a delicious treat. As she rests against the cooler behind the counter, ice crystals form and we cut away to credits.
I’m still not completely onboard with the Frozen direction in this season but I am being open-minded. I watched the Blu-ray again last night as a refresher for the Frozen storyline. As part of my viewing I took a peek at the bonus features, one provided some history on the Hans Christian Andersen The Snow Queen connection. At one time The Snow Queen’s palace was to be the inspiration for a ride at the Disney theme parks, the design and idea fell to the wayside as these things do and never came to fruition. The extra felt like a very heavy handed way of telling the viewer that winter is coming in the form of a Frozen attraction.
What did you think of tonight’s episode? Are you interested to see who this other Mistress of the Snow may be?
