A Charming Meet

Once Upon a Time

Season 1 episode 3 – “Snow Falls”

Somewhere over the rainbow Emma Swan moved to a town in Maine and started up time again. If you had never seen this show before that opening sentence must be pretty weird. Don’t fret; it all revolves around fairy tale characters so it’s cool.

We open this episode in Fairy Tale world,  galloping full steam ahead through the Enchanted Forest. They don’t call it that but it totally is. The Prince is travelling by carriage, enjoying the view with his lovely bride to be who is TOTALLY NOT SNOW WHITE!!! Excuse me I have to make some calls. Ok, I’ve been assured that it gets better so we can move on. On this peaceful yet bumpy journey, the Prince and Not-Snow-White or Feathers (Anastasia Griffith) as I shall now call her due to her attire (it must be seen to be believed) are suddenly stopped by a giant fighting tree who has decided to take a nap in the middle of the road. Something seems fishy though. As the Prince catches on, Feathers screams as a hooded assailant breaks into the carriage. The valiant Prince is off, like a mightily handsome man on a horse. Now who could this masked figure be? That’s the prince’s question as well, but instead of typing it the dude jumps straight on top of them. Now if you guessed Snow White you are correct, one thousand points. You know who else gets a thousand points, Snow White, because she takes the Prince out like a Boss. Because isn’t this how all good fairy tales start. Prince is travelling with fiancée, Princess sets up ambush, Princess robs Prince, Prince tackles Princess off horse, and Princess takes out Prince with rock. Ah love.

In “reality” Mary Margaret has nowhere near the confidence or taste in men as Snow White. Instead of meeting her soul mate, she is suffering through an awful first date with Dr Whale (David Anders.) Checking out the little ruby waitress while on a date, way to keep it classy Stark. If the Queen wanted Snow White to suffer becoming half the person you were, while separating you from your true love is a pretty sure fire way to do it. Who else is suffering at that moment, Snow’s grow up daughter Emma (really if you have never seen this show you must be so confused and you should also watch the show.) After the Evil Mayor-Queens attempts to get her out of town last episode, she has been reduced to living in her very small, very yellow, VW Bug (who I am hoping is not a fairytale character.) Being the caring mother, whether she knows it or not Mary Margaret offers Emma an extra room at her place.

The next day at the Hospital, Miss M&M is showing her primary schooled aged students around the Hospital wards where they keep comatose patients, because you know, we all do that excursion. Henry, the young keeper of books and knower of secret identities, while exploring the ward happens to comes across his sleeping grandfather, a sleeping Prince Charming or a Mr John Doe, as he is known around those parts.

The brilliant minds of Emma and M&M, following Henry’s discovery come up with an epic plan, to do exactly what Henry wants them to do. Parenting 101: Letting your kids hopes get raised up and then standing back and letting it all fail on them is much less traumatic than calling them crazy. What the mother and daughter tag team didn’t count on is, that when Mary Margaret reads to John Doe (who why wouldn’t you believe is Prince Charming even if he is unconscious, look at him) the story of how they met, he wakes up. Mary Margaret now a believer works with Henry to find the missing Prince as he, under the watchful eye of this world’s version of Grumpy and Sleepy, has walked into the woods. This all take place, much to the disgust of the caring do-gooder who found him by the side of the road, the Mayor/Queen Regina herself. Evil curses not as easy to control as you thought, huh?

In Fairy Tale land Snow White and the Prince’s quest to get back his mother’s ring is beautiful and amazing and just downright charming. He traps her; she tries to get a way, he saves her, she saves him, he knows she’s a wanted fugitive, she gives him a nickname and he’ll always find her. Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas have incredible chemistry on screen and it plays so well whenever they are together.

By the time Mary Margaret finds John Doe drowning near the Toll Bridge (Troll bridge, get it) your heart if it could scream, would be screaming “He can’t die, you just found him, don’t let him die” Despite the fact that it’s only episode 3 and he is one of the main character. The two twists they have in this scene works really well, due to what we know from the original fairy tale and the back story developed here for the two characters. Mary Margaret is the one who finds the Prince, like his was always finding her and then is the one who has to give him the kiss of life.

And he’s married, of course. With amnesia. Sure, why not. We discover that David (formally John Doe) is married to Feathers aka Kathryn in the Storybrooke realm. A fact that Regina only just “discovered” once he came around. So evil.

At least a few positives came out of it. David/Prince Charming is awake so they have all that tension to explore in future episodes and Mary Margaret and Emma are now roommates. All Henry has to do now is put them on one of those talk shows with the segment “What if my mother and grandmother don’t know there’re fairy tale characters?” and they’ll all be good to go.

I love the pairing of Snow White and the Prince, and while they are apart in Storybrooke currently hopefully we will get to flashback to their other meetings in Fairytale, as they try to find each again. A lot has to happen between here and waking her up in a glass coffin surrounded by specifically named dwarves right.

Extra Fables: 

-Could Dr Whale actually be the whale from Pinocchio? It may be too obvious, but he was big and annoying and looked like he could eat Ruby the waitress up. Sorry, I even creeped myself out there a bit.

-Did your little sister also scream out “of course” when Charming revealed that his name was actually James?  

-I love that so far the animation at the bottom of the title card changes to reflect the episode. This week it’s a hooded Snow White in her battle stance. 

Thank you for reading again. On other royal occasions you like Prince Charming can find me here on Twitter at Hanniebee852. Just keep Dr Whale away, I don’t need that drama.