Once Upon A Time 3.04 Review: Escape Is Key

Anyone that has yet to watch tonight’s episode of Once Upon A Time, entitled ‘Nasty Habits’, then I suggest you go and do so immediately. This is not a spoiler free blog. THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS! Proceed at your own discretion.

Up until about the last ten minutes of this episode I was thinking, for a Rumplestiltskin centric episode, this wasn’t all that bad. But then the writers go and throw the obvious, the cliché, Henry gets recaptured and hears the flute’s music. Why would he be so stupid as to think there’s no possible way Peter Pan could be evil? I just can’t comprehend someone that was basically kidnapped to the island, somehow seeing their kidnapper as a friend. Is Henry getting Stockholm syndrome?

Elsewhere, I’m beginning to get a little sick of Rumplestiltskin’s character, especially all of his interactions with young Baelfire. He just constantly plays into this cliché character, where his cards have already been dealt and he’s stuck playing the one game. Over, and over again. It’s growing tedious. And the need to throw Belle into his scenes, it’s stupid; she doesn’t even seem like the same character. I much prefer his character in the first season, when he was this sinister, clearly evil character. But this series is turning everything upside down, next thing you know Peter Pan’s going to good at heart.

Seeing Neal in Neverland for the first three-quarters of the episode was pretty decent. The actor is much better at playing the character angry, intense, or in scenes with Emma. I’m not much for the Rumple scenes, so any of Neal’s scenes with him weren’t completely great.

Okay, I’m just going to call it now, Charming is somehow going to be cured; there’s no way they’ll kill off his character. This series has yet to kill off any beloved characters (*cough*Rumple*cough*), and I doubt they’ll kill him off now. This show is just too typical, they need to bring Joss Whedon in here to throw a few wrenches in the happily ever after love scenarios. Really, I’ll be completely and utterly shocked if he is killed.

While short, I was happy with Tinkerbell scenes; particularly how difficult Emma found it to say her name. It was good to see that put them all on the trail of an escape plan; don’t ever make a plan of breaking someone out when you have no way out. Unless you plan on making it a suicide mission, but then what would be the point in going in to save someone?

Anyways, while there are interesting points to this season, it isn’t going nearly as well as previous series. As always, the CGI work is terrible and distracting, find a bigger budget for it. Stop focusing on terrible characters, and try making it less cliché.

My rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Best Line:

“I remember plenty, it’s why I didn’t coat the tip.” – Neal tells Pan, after having shot an arrow at him.

Alright, I’m off to watch Revenge. Stay tuned.