Once Upon A Time, Season 2

[quarter_to_five]

I admit I completely lost the plot for long bits there (admittedly, because I was mostly less watching and more half listening while sorting through some tedious spreadsheet stuff and ocassionally just reading) and I have to confess I don't feel anything much for any of the characters. (Maybe Pinnochio, who is like this interesting comment on privelege, I (over)think. He has to be super-special-extra-plus-plus good, all the time, just to claw his way to basic humanity and stay there, which everyone else can have for free just because they accidentally happened to be born human, no matter how badly they behave.) However, I have a soft spot for total and utter crack and nonsense, so, you know, all aboard.

I did however love the end of the season, in a cheap giggly way, simply because Peter Pan was the first thing I ever got meta about. Seriously, I must have been like 12 or 13 and I read it somewhere or someone explained it to me and OMG. Peter Pan is kind of dark. Even though it's a happy children's story, I didn't have to take it simply as told. It was a revelation. I literally went around for weeks starting conversation with increasingly random people with "Listen, he never wants to grow up. And Hook is being chased by a ticking clock. Do you see it? Do you? Do you? A clock!!!"

Which is to say: one, I was an obnoxious kid, and two, deconstructed villain Peter Pan shall forever have a place in my heart and I'm really looking forward to catching up seasons 3.

Comments

[franzi1981]

I love the twist on Peter Pan! It's gonna be a while until S3 is going to be aired over here, but I already can't wait!

[quarter_to_five]

Well, uh, I mean, I have the cable channel that is showing this, so I figure it's irrelevant if i'm actually watching it via somewhat other means, right?

[frayadjacent]

Heh, I love your take on Pinocchio.

And now I'm picturing a little kid running up to strangers to tell them about Peter Pan and the significance of the clock. Ha! Love it.

I can really enjoy the cracktastic as well, though my favorite part of the series was the first half of S2, because I was shipping Mulan/Aurora and Ruby/Belle. Funnily enough, I only seem to get shippy about femslash pairings, and then only in shows that also feature heavy doses of "utter crack and nonsense." (See my devotion to Xena/Gabrielle.)

The second half bored/annoyed me, but I've often wondered how I'd like it if I watched it all together instead of as it aired. They'd only show one or two episodes with 2-4 week breaks in between, and I just couldn't really sustain my interest. I've enjoyed the first half of S3 more, generally, and much of that is the writing but some of it could be that they pretty much aired one episode per week September-November.

[quarter_to_five]

I'm the world's worst shipper - I only ever root for established canon couples and have ridiculously weak slash goggles (also, there's an element of political discomfort there) but I was totally seeing Mulan/Aurora. I'm just going to go ahead and say that's not really slash over there, it's flat out deliberate subtext and not buried particularly deep either. It is simply so obvious that their most important relationship is one another, and they have oodles of UST and are just channeling it via seemingly bickering over a man who's conveniently out of the picture. (Then again, i'm also convinced Dolly Parton's Jolene is a lesbian love song with an extremely unreliable narrator.)

The end of seasons 2 kind of lost my attention, but it might just have been getting to be too much marathoning by then. There's still that wonderful thrill of recognition and subversion a few times though, like when the Frankenstein story plays out or Snow White kisses the prince awake or the Darlington's show up and it's immediately "Oh noez this is when shit gets real for Hook!" That's a great sort of vibe, that irony (in the actual, proper sense of the world) that we the audience often know ahead of the characters what's going to be of impact to them, even if we don't know quite how.

[frayadjacent]

I'm just going to go ahead and say that's not really slash over there, it's flat out deliberate subtext and not buried particularly deep either.

Very true, which is part of why I responded to it. Partly because I don't have very good slash goggles either, and also partly because it gave me hope that we'd end up with a canonical relationship.

[quarter_to_five]

That scene in 3.4 before Mulan runs off with Robin Hood, come on, that's freaking canon at this point! No way she was coming to tell whats-his-face it's *him* she's in love with.

[frayadjacent]

Yeah, but a canonical unrequited lesbian love story is not very exciting to me. And I really don't see them changing it since Aurora is pregnant. A small part of me is holding out hope that Mulan will find some other lady who loves her back.

[quarter_to_five]

Or whatshisname drops dead and they raise the kid together? It's just that we're told all about how much they both love whatshisname, but the two of them together and that arc are what actually makes it on screen.

I think I just like double readings, but you're right that "...but you could also see this as the unrequited lesbian love story of the two princesses. Aha!" is not terribly satisfying in any way, except for the "also".

[frayadjacent]

Or whatshisname drops dead and they raise the kid together?

OMG. YES. !!! This. THIS.

(Sorry Phillip, you seem OK, you're just IN THE WAY.)

[shati]

Sometimes I think about what a golden opportunity Ruby/Belle was and just end up mournfully singing WE COULD HAVE HAD IT AAALL in my head. Beauty and the werewolf!sigh.

[quarter_to_five]

I have to admit I never really picked that up, (I did like her and Mulan as tetchy brains-and-brawn buddy cops though.) Belle is just more interesting when she's interacting with virtually anyone other than Rumple.