First and foremost, Bo-Peep was ridiculous. And not in the fun way. She was over the top, wearing a horrible costume, and her entire motivation and plot just felt absurd. She brands people and they are her flock?
Boo Peep’s ridiculousness as big bad of the village was the point IMO. While I found that kind of ridiculousness mostly annoying last season with Zelena, I find it quite nice for a one episode villain. It didn’t work with Zelena, because making your big threat of the half season the joke of the moment for most of the time takes away the tension keeping the story interesting. But for this one episode villain it was okay. Particular because it was Bo Peep as villain. What was risky was to make the second episode of the season already some rather lightweight episode with a few serious moments embedded. The balance of tone was not quite working, but that was not just about Bo Peep. The whole episode was basically a comedy with some serious Emma-Elsa bonding moments in between, and the prevalence of the comical parts took away from the great moment Emma – Elsa stuff. And from David’s great emotional moment.
I mean, probably the fairyback was not meant to be that comical, though with bubbly Anna around things might always have a touch of comical, but be it Bo Peep, Anna training David in sword fighting (guess swords just lay around at every corner in the EF, farmer’s market snatch), even David’s dramatic dialogue about losing his father, it all had something funny. Add Snow’s moments and Hook (sorry, Hook is always good for a joke, and that is nice, but this was too much joky, let’s take the guy a bit more serious please, if you want to get me respect CaptainSwan at any time in the near future). I mean, yeah for getting campy, and not taking things all serious, but there is a right and a wrong time for that.
Jane Espenson has written some great stuff (and some not so great), but usually she knows to do dialogue (better than plot!plot!plot!), but this episode’s dialogue was at times clunky and the comical tone sometimes misplaced. At least I think Emma meeting someone she probably has a lot to connect over with, over important things to work out her emotion and magic power issues, would have deserved more seriousness. I get it, high tension, much comical relief, but sometimes it’s better to keep more the tension.
Perhaps though it was just all the styrofoam ice wall set that took me out of the seriousness of the moments, Georgina Haig and Jennifer Morrison really did a good job trying to sell the freezing and tension to us, can’t blame them, without their skills it would have been a joke as well.
Faves:
– Emma and Elsa moments. Can we keep Elsa around? Going to ship their friendship (would’t be surprised if some will ship more than friendship, wouldn’t mind, but look more for the friendship on the show in this case)
– Loved Robin Weigert as Bo Peep. The costume, lovely, finally a villain in color, dusky pink, not gloomy dark. And later seeing her as butcher in Storybrooke was just hilarious. Great her balance between dead serious character but comical sense, a fine line to walk, and Robin Weigert has played characters in ways I found them seriously intimidating, something not many people do.
– Pretty much no Regina and Rumple.
– The introduction of Elizabeth Mitchell’s character. We all like ice cream, don’t we, the creeper’ss cliche of a child trap: The ice cream truck. In a place like Storybrooke an ice cream shop might be as good. Heard a voice in my head humming: “Wanna have some ice cream? Wanna know what I have in my freezer?”Just great.
least fave:
– Hook. I normally don’t mind him or CaptainSwan, and I never before had a problem with him being a bit of a joke at times, but even I find it had not that much charm in this episode. What’s wrong with him, losing it because with his ship he lost kinda his footing? He starts to get on my nerves (and maybe Emma’s too if he goes on like that). Not a good sign that I am not sure if that is intentional, I hope for the best, that the pirate is brooding, still in this episode it annoyed me.
– The styrofoam ice wall – and I love some shows with “bad” CGI and special effects and probs, Xena was at times hilarious, Dr. Who is a league on it’s own, Star Trek The Originals and Lost in Space are just fun, and I am a big fan of Raumpatrouille Orion. But this ice wall…
Despite that I think there was in imbalance of comical elements and drama, and clunky dialogue, I nevertheless enjoyed most of the episode. Even found Henry’s moments bearable. And there where a few lines in it telling me, the writers do notice some things have been missing.
Question: How did David and Kristoff meet? I mean, I like that they were friends, but was Kristoff doing some world trip as journeyman to become ice master? Did Pabbie sent him on such a trip to learn some things? (Some fan fiction idea for Frozen fans 😉 )
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