Once Upon a Time S04E03: "Rocky Road" Oh what a truly wacky show we watch every week! With Once Upon a Time, much like with Disneyland itself, we know that just below the sparkle and smiles and princesses up top, a sinister control station lurks below, meticulously engineering our every response, quietly orchestrating the seemingly impromptu spectacle around us... and yet we surrender our families and ourselves to the hyper-controlled experience for just that reason: whatever Matterhorns we scale or Tomorrowlands we explore or haunted houses we escape, we feel confident that we're safe. Controlled, shepherded, manipulated, but safe. And then someone gets their head lopped off on Thunder Mountain and we're all like, "Whaaaaa?" What I'm trying to say is, "Rocky Road" gets points for being glossy. It made as little sense and had as little respect for its audience as the rest of Season 4 so far, but it presented its nonsense with a certain flair, a flashy panache. There were snappy one-liners. There were callbacks to when OUAT's characters had personalities. There was unsolicited parenting advice. But let's start at the top! So it's cold enough to wear quilted parkas, and you and your family live outdoors, but don't let that stop you from getting some ice cream, Robin Hood and Marion! Marion had never had ice cream before, so the Super Attentive Ice Cream Shoppe lady made a real production out of serving up her first cone of vanilla, then it was off to Mayor Snow White's first "fireside chat" in the office she'd jacked from Regina without so much as a single scene smoothing that transition of power. Like, how has OUAT not aired a moment where Regina and Snow agreed it was Snow's turn to run shit? Regina's complicated relationship with Snow, which is the motor behind the premise of this entire series, was reduced to a sneery remark about a comically oversized bird painting on the wall, and we all laughed because Snow = birds + corny and Regina = funny + sassy. I would've loved to see Regina acceding the reins of power to Snow in like a three-episode arc, but I might as well hold my breath waiting for "Existentialist Land" to pop up at Disney World. All five Storybrooke citizens who gave a shit/like to complain enough to turn up only wanted to talk about the giant ice wall around town. Granted, they've literally never been able to leave town since this series began, but the fact that it's an ice wall now bugs them. Obviously they need to find a powerful woman to blame for their current predicament, but before they can parse out who seems both unrepentantly authorative and female, Marion grows a gray streak and passes out. Meanwhile, at the pawn shop, Rumple is hosting his very own Dr. Phil episode about his recent struggles losing Neal, his change of heart, and the fact he's now in a marriage and therefore is definitely a good person. Emma is like "But how did this lady end up in a vase in your basement" and Rumple is like "IDK" and to prove he's not lying he's like "Belle compel me to tell the truth about how Elsa got in that urn with the dagger" and Belle is like "OMG NO that's unnecessary honey please no" but then she whips out that dagger and gets REALLY into with this big Command to the Dark One that seems vaguely Wiccan? Basically we all got the sense that Belle maybe finds the occult a little spicy and Rumple being the Dark One kind of hot and mmmmaybe once in a while Belle asks Rumple to leave his crushed velvet cape on when he goes to bed wink wink. But yeah, he doesn't know how Elsa got in the dagger, so he says, cool, got it. Across town at Granny's Regina strides in dressed like a 90's sitcom barista in a droopy vest over a t-shirt and casual pony. This a new, relaxed Regina, no longer swamped with administrational duties and Mayoral obligations, and she's got an arm full of Disney subsidiary Marvel comic books for Henry. Obviously this scene was adorable, because Regina was dead honest about her very meta plan to force the hand of the Storybook Author and Henry was completely encouraging, and then they decided to come up with their own secret mission, Operation Mongoose. Hahaha, remember how Operation Cobra was like, Henry basically getting Emma to agree to destroy his unloving Type-A mother? We've come a long way in terms of portraying adoptive parent-child relationships, thank God. Regina's lazy Sunday morning comes to a halt now that the dunderheads up in City Hall have a dropped body in their midst. Obviously Snow is no help, so Regina has to appear on the scene to fix everybody else's messes as usual. Regina sees Marian is dying of like, Creeping Frost, and suggests True Love's Kiss. Everyone looks away as Robin smooches Marion, and then I cackle wildly when nothing happens. Emma comes in with Elsa, who is still marching through wood, field and office in her sequin evening gown complete with flow-y nylon cape, which she must wear constantly on the off-chance some kid is flipping through channels at 8 PM and that FROZEN brand recognition will kick in and compel them to keep watching. Emma is bound and determined that Elsa, Ice Magician, will not be blamed for Marian dying of ice magic, and Regina is basically like "You're looking stressed is someone watching out for Emma she's not all powerful you know guys (unless she and I are combining forces)" and Emma is like "YOU'RE JUST BITTER AND TAKING IT OUT ON THE WRONG PERSON!!!" out of no where, which...Emma, stop projecting. We all know you're super bitter about Marian suddenly being out of the picture and Robin Hood being single again but take a deep breath. Hook is all "I will tag along and watch Emma's back" but Emma is like "WTF are you TALKING ABOUT you WORTHLESS LIABILITY OF A PIRATE enthusiasm is NOT the same thing as ABILITY so go HIDE in a HOLE until I tell you it's OKAY!!!" Obviously Hook is going to do nothing of the sort because he believes part of dating Emma is being Emma's bodyguard and, fair enough, lady gets into a lot of trouble. In his typical rapscallion fashion Hook confides in Elsa that, rather than listen to Emma's instructions and chill out in the Sheriff's station (which honestly I'm starting to think they broke down that set a long time ago) they're going to go in search of DANGER! Danger meaning Gold's shop, and personal danger, insofar as Captain Hook blackmails Rumple: if he doesn't help them identify the magic being used on Marian, Hook will tell Belle her copy of the dagger is a fake. Rumple grits his teeth and leans into a whole lot of retconning exposition about how magic bears a unique signature much like a fingerprint and will always go back to it's owner or something. This would have come in handy when they were trying to figure out who killed Archie but that was about 8 plot re-sets ago so I'm going to let it go. Basically Marion's gray streak becomes a patch of snow flakes and Elsa and Hook chase after the snowflakes! Their efforts are being made rapidly redundant by Emma and David, who in their ham-fisted fashion are succeeding at investigating a crime for the first time in the series' history, entirely by accident: they literally stumble upon Michael Socha, an actor who was frankly amazing in OUAT Wonderland, and he leads them to the Snow Queen's Ice Cream shop, where he noticed the ice cream was staying frozen without any help from like, electricity or freezers. Once inside the Ice Cream Shoppe, Emma is like "Interesting, I don't hear the distinct base of al compressor an industrial generator would require to keep the ice cream cold independent of public utilities." HAHAHAHA. I love when the writers decide to make Emma smart out of nowhere to speed things along. Helpfully,the Snow Queen has turned her backroom into a virtual Narnia of 3-foot icicles, so that clinches it: Ice Magic, it's being practiced by more than one person than Elsa. Out in the woods, Elsa and Hook have stumbled upon this person: the Snow Queen, who is wearing a dress right out of a Vegas stage show and making like a Mike Kelley-esque tiny glowing plastic city out in the forest for some reason. Hook makes some very hilarious jokes about his cell phone "I just press the Emma button and she answers" that makes me think about how much I wish this show slowed down and took these kind of moments more often. Like, I would love to see a whole scene of fairy tale characters having to go get their licenses at the DMV, but, you know, that's a different show for a different world. Did I mention that in the fairy tale flashback, Elsa and Kristoff go to fight Hans, who has a magical urn in which he wants to trap Elsa? Ugh, it's so tedious. Basically Elsa has no idea what strategy and war is about, so instead of sending soldiers to recover the urn she goes herself, with no back up, and then she gets cornered in a cave with Kristoff at knifepoint, and she's like "Fine, trap me in the urn! Trap me in the urn and I will trust that Kristoff, who is right now at knifepoint and outnumbered 8-1 in this cave right now, will escape you somehow, raise an army before you gain power, and free me from this magical prison I know nothing about!" And then Hans opens the vase and is like "Here it comes! You are an awful magic person about to be imprisoned by this white milky stuff flowing across the floor! Get ready. It's on it's way. It's trickling towards you now. This feels pretty sweet, I'll be honest, watching you really get yours...any minute now." My point is that Elsa is full of all-powerful magic, but she stands still as a statue for what felt like a solid five minutes without defending herself as pearly molasses slowly inches towards her, and I was like, girl, where are your ice gollums?! Your avalanches?! Your super sharp icicles?! And then this happened, and I didn't care about anything else: YOOOOOO. That was fun. A busty T-1000 a la Terminator 2 was something I didn't realize I needed so badly! Anyway, the Snow Queen had oozed out of the urn, and she quickly froze Hans and any other confederate soldier in that cave who needed freezing, and then was like "Elsa I am like you: magical and bad ass and neither of us is ever going to end up in that urn ever again." Back to current day: Elsa and Hook are like, this bitch in the Vegas wedding gown is the culprit, cool, let's get going, but the Snow Queen spins around and freezes Hook's boots to the forest floor. Oh noooo not ( yaaaaawn) Hook! And now he's got big sharp icicles over him that are probably going to fall at some point. And Elsa and the Snow Queen are throwing a lot of nonsensical accusations at each other that make literally no sense, it went like this: Elsa: You are trying to make everyone think I am evil! Snow Queen: No, they just straight up think you're evil. In fact I'll prove how unreasonably prejudiced they are against you by framing you for Hook's murder! Luckily before the writers could dig themselves any deeper into this dialogue hole Emma and her jeggings showed up out of no where and saved Hook and her father and blasted the Snow Queen and everybody ran out of the woods. I'd like to think this experience made Hook and Elsa consider buying some more appropriate attire such as hiking boots and pants, but I wouldn't count on it. The point is back in Fairy Tale land, what Elsa apparently doesn't remember, is that the Snow Queen said she was Elsa's Aunt, her mom's sister. Elsa in the here and now of Maine doesn't remember any of this, but Rumple apparently does. Back at City Hall, Robin Hood pulls maybe the skeeziest move in all of history by telling Regina the reason he can't give Marian True Love's Kiss is because he loves Regina...over his wife's frozen solid body. Like, shudder. Regina has found a way to save Marion's life: removing her heart from her freezing body before the ice magic can reach her heart. Considering she and Robin Hood basically played Hide & Seek with her heart for most of last season he's not even slightly fazed by this idea, even though it also involves her punching her fist through Marion's chest, splintering Marion's ice ribs and ice muscles and ice body. Until a cure can be found Maid Marion will have to remain frozen just like Walt himself. So Hook tries to put the moves on Emma, and she's all "I'M NOT IN THE MOOD FOR A DRINK OR A MAN" and Hook is like "Let's get into that. What is that about?" because he's spent long enough in this world to become casually acquainted with therapy speak, and Emma's like "Everyone I'm with dies. Neal. Graham. That monkey guy." I have to say, even moreso than the flying monkey, I was shocked she included Graham in that roll call. Graham kissed her and then died in the same episode, I don't remember them like, dating per se? Whatever. Hook is like "I'll take me chances, Banshee!"and then they had a giant kiss in the middle of a hosed-down street complete with a damn CRANE SHOT! Their romance is truly like no other, until Michael Socha develops such a fan base that they kill off Hook and milk Scarlet Swan for ratings, I guess. So what is Snow Queen's relation to Emma? Was she a former Foster's mom? A Foster's Freeze mom if you will? (Sorry.) What is her relationship to Elsa? Did she put her in that trophy thing? Will Lana Parrilla get more time next week? Sorry, that's my only real question. QUESTIONS... ...will Lana Parrilla get more time next week?



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