Once Upon A Time Changes The Game Forever When Rose McGowan Shows Up

Once Upon A Time has been walking a fine line with me this season. The show insists no one is wholly good or wholly evil but has worked quite hard to put all the good characters on one side, the evil on the other. So it gets confusing when suddenly Rumpelstiltskin, a guy so evil he murdered his own wife because she left him, seems to get a pass from the good guys, and even reluctantly embraced by them as family while Regina, his twin in every way but the physical one, gets dump after dump taken on her emotions and reputation and her legitimate relationship with her son delegitimized at every turn.

It seems like the show, just like the characters themselves, is tacitly approving of Rumpel as they reject Regina. It has smacked of sexism, this disparity in treatment of evil, and it’s muddied the line they’ve tried to draw between good and evil. A line which in season one they made clear only Emma could safely straddle. But then last night happened. Last night where everything shifted. Where Rumpel’s heart was exposed for the first time in a realistic fashion since, well, ever. Where Regina learned who cared and who didn’t. Where Snow learned that as good as she and the show have presented her to be she can be really frickin’ evil when she feels justified.

pissed.

That last big discovery is the most vital. It single-handedly rectifies the major issue of the season, which is Regina’s redemption and every single other character’s rejection of it and her. The exclusion of Regina has felt positively Mean Girl-ish since Snow and Emma made it back from Fairy Tale Land, but there was always some simple way to explain away the exclusion. Talk of her being psychotic and evil and incapable of change. The good guys have happily justified their actions despite those actions not necessarily being in line with what we, as a society, view as good (forgiveness y’all–it’s a big deal).

And then Snow cursed Cora’s heart to save Rumpel and, in the process, manipulated Regina in what might be the cruelest way possible without murdering someone. It is hard to pinpoint exactly which part of what Snow did was the most evil. Was it using her knowledge of Regina’s desperate need for love that she uses to convince her to shove a heart into Cora’s chest? Or was it murdering Cora out of a desire for vengeance when she could have easily given Regina a loving mother and ridded the world of “the Dark One” in a single stroke? The latter is the kind of thing the show has told us is evil. Vengeance, we’ve been told time and again, is never the purview of the good. Snow’s previous rejection of exacting vengeance is what has made her so lauded as pure by the show (and made Regina so reviled). But the former, the manipulation of Regina. That’s something more than vengeance. That’s fiendish. It seems almost designed to be the most callous action Snow could possibly take, and it’s one so dark and indefensible in light of whom Snow is that it will be curious to see the reaction of the other “good guys.”

In the voice of GOB, Snow’s made a huge mistake.

We know how Regina feels. Her pure wrath was the last thing we saw before the cut to credits and for the first time in perhaps ever she is entirely justified in it. Previously it was always just a little crazy that she hated Snow so much for her part in Daniel’s death. It made sense, but it was…off–suggesting that poor Regina was ill-equipped to deal with the rigors of the real world. Now she has a reason that even a saint could acknowledge, and, vitally important to the longevity of Once Upon A Time, it’s a reason to renew her reign of evil without serving as a major step back for the character.

Too bad they didn’t do this back when Cora first showed up. Regina’s sudden shift to her mother’s side will always be one of the weakest arcs the show has attempted. The intent behind the shift was there and both actresses played it, but the meat of it was never displayed for the audience. I’m all for making leaps when a show I enjoy as much as OUAT asks. You tell me Regina goes to her mother because she’s that desperate for love then I’ll make the leap, but I need just a little more cajoling than that one tiny moment in the car.

Nevertheless I still found myself staring at my computer screen in the middle of a very busy convention center and watching in muted horror as Barbara Hershey’s lips curled into the most joyful and breathtaking of smiles. How extraordinary was the acting and screenplay of this episode that it managed to take the evilest of characters, Cora Mill, and turn her into a tragic figure condemned by a desire for power and autonomy from all men? That’s what was at play by the way. Cora became someone painfully real in the “Miller’s Daughter.” She’s an adult child of alcoholism additionally beat down by society. That’s a situation a lot of people, particularly those disenfranchised in our current society, can relate to. All she wants is to be free from the degradation heaped on her day by day and she’s willing to go to extreme measures to accomplish her goal.

But after everything, after heeding the words of those she despises (and who keep her under their thumbs), after sacrificing familial and romantic love, after acquiring a kingdom and wealth beyond measure, after it all she finally finds joy, not in the wealth and power acquired, but in the arms of her daughter.

It’s the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiiiife.

It’s patently unfair that Rumpelstiltskin undergoes much of the exact same arc only to survive. Yet it isn’t unexpected. Rumpelstiltskin is a man, Cora is the miller’s daughter who dressed up for the ball so she could eat.

At least we know he’ll have one regret he can’t curse his way out of. He genuinely loved Cora. Cared for her as an equal where he seems to care for Belle as a “thing.” And he helped craft her into what she became and there is nothing he can do to ever regain the lover he lost. Everyone made poor choices in “The Miller’s Daughter” and the fallout will be fascinating.

Notes

• Rose McGowan was wonderful and uncanny as young Cora. I could watch a whole show about her…or many many flashbacks.
• Sexy gold spinning is the new sexy ghost pottery.
• The path they’ve put Snow has me completely reinvested in this show. Especially if Henry and Emma show up for Cora’s funeral and Snow and Rumpel watch from trees (but different trees) and look pained.
• Poor Regina. Will a dead mother finally be what she needs to have some agency?
• Emma was a hoot this episode all surly and then doing magic and grinning and then getting puffed into the woods with a confused Nealfire.

• Speaking of Neal. I was worried he might be a regular, but the way they glossed over his arrival to focus on the ladies and Rumpel has me feeling less concerned. He just stood around being adorable. Raise your hands if you suspect he’s dead by the finale.
• Cora and the phone tap. She is my mother…my mother would not approve of that comparison.
• Regina was full on wooby this week. Except for the synchronized fireball. When is that going to be announced as an Olympic sport?
• Gold was COLD with his manipulation of Snow. We expect and know him to be evil so it wasn’t a big deal, but the bit about him being Henry’s grandfather and pointedly avoiding mentioning Cora as his grandmother was heartless.
• Baby Regina and Cora will forever make me weepy.
• Regina as Rumpel’s daughter is a dodged bullet FOR NOW. Only Cora and a DNA test can actually confirm her paternity though.
• Young Old Henry was a fox. So was his evil and influential dad.
• Snow’s mother was a massive inappropriate and non-feminist word.
• Next Week: Regina goes on the warpath and the preview shows NO ONE COMING TO SNOW’S DEFENSE. Also a worried Snow. Also some possible heart ripping. Also a pragmatic and paternal Gold. Also Graham and the 80s will appear and we’ll learn how she adopted Henry. Bets on Henry talking his ragey mom down?