by Tracy Ladd:
Once Upon a Time Recap: “What Happened to Frederick”
Original Air Date (ABC): Sunday February 19, 2012
Season 1 Episode 13
I’m beginning to get a tad frustrated with this show. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it, but c’mon. What happened to how Emma is starting to change things for the better? All I see is Regina winning every single time. Can she have a minor set back at least? It’s just getting silly at this point. The last few episodes, Emma has been nothing more than white noise. Anyhoo….I’m just venting. The latest episode is all about just how destructive relationships can be.
The episode kicks off in FTL with Abigail arriving in King George’s realm to marry James/David/Charming. There’s a flurry of activity and King George blows it off saying it all a safety precaution, but in reality, it’s because his guards are trying to find James, who ran off to find Snow after she told him she never loved him.
We see James on the run, but he’s soon captured by guards. Who’s guards? Abigail’s guards. She tells him that she doesn’t want to marry him either and that she is going to help him escape. She tells him about her one true love and how he sacrificed himself to save her and King Midas. Unfortunately he touched Midas and is now a fetching statue of gold.
When James asks, Abigail tells him about how true love’s kiss won’t work because it won’t get past the gold but there is a lake whose waters will heal him. However the lake is guarded by a beast and no man has made it back alive. James is incredibly confident and offers to help. Of course he does.
They arrive at the lake and James proceeds to summon the beast. The beast shows itself and it actually a beautiful platinum blonde….a siren. She takes the form of Snow and tries to tempt James, but he’s a manly man and resists. He tries to get away but is trapped by vines and held underwater. Thanks to the poor bastards who died before him, he’s able to get his hands on a dagger. He dispatches the siren, and cuts himself free.
James gives Abigail the water from the lake and she proceeds to pour it over him. Voilà! It works!! Frederick is a man again and he and Abigail can finally be together. Abigail asks James what he going to do and he tells her that he’s going to find Snow and fight for her. Abigail tells him to be careful, because some people won’t stop when it comes to destroying someone else’s happiness.
James heads to where he looked for Snow before and finds Red. Red tells him that she’s gone and that Snow does love him, that’s why she went to break up his wedding. He swears to find her and fight for her. Guards arrive and he’s on the run again, this time he has to take Red with him.
In Storybrooke David has dinner with Kathryn and it’s filled with an uncomfortable silence. He tells her the dinner is delicious, but it’s forced. Kathryn tells him that they have to talk, and tells him that she applied for law school and has been accepted. He seems genuinely happy for her until she tells him the school is in Boston. She says how they should make new memories and not try to recapture the old ones.
David and Mary Margaret go for a walk and he tells her about Kathryn. MM is tired of the lies and tells him that he need to come clean with Kathryn and that he has to make a choice. She asks him if he plans on leaving and he says no. He says that he chooses her and he’ll tell Kathryn.
Later on at the diner, Emma runs into the stranger, who wants to claim that drink. She says how she has a rule that she doesn’t go out with anyone unless she knows their name. He tells her his name is August W. Booth. Now that we know his name, Emma agrees to meet him at the diner after her shift.
Inside she sits with Mary Margaret who tells her that she hasn’t been staying away from David. This is old news to Emma, who tells MM that she has seen the signs and knows that they’ve been seeing each other. MM tells Emma that David is going to tell Kathryn the truth.
David arrives home and Kathryn is going on and on about apartments in Boston. He breaks the news that he can’t go with her and that since he’s come out of his coma, he hasn’t been able to connect and it’s not fair to hold her back. She asks him directly if anything is going on, but he says no. Tsk tsk.
As if things with August weren’t strange enough, we see him assembling Henry’s book. Now, I’m not sure if August created a second copy of it, or if it’s the original but he’s seen soaking the pages in some sort of liquid and putting the book back together.
August shows up at the diner for his drink with Emma, but instead of going inside, he tells her he knows of a really great watering hole. Emma hops on his motorcycle and he takes her to….a well. He tells her how the water from the well is magical and has the ability to return things that have been lost. She’s suspicious and asks how he knows this. He tells her that he read the plaque that’s on the well.
Later on, Emma finds the box that Henry had the book in and looks inside. Low and behold the book is in it. She takes it to Henry who is relieved and says that Operation Cobra is back on.
David tells MM that things with Kathryn are bad but doesn’t tell her that he didn’t tell Kathryn the truth. Kathryn meanwhile heads to Regina’s in tears. She tells Regina about what happened and Regina calls MM a home wrecker. Kathryn wants to know what she’s talking about so Regina shows her the pictures that Sidney took of MM and David together.
Kathryn heads to the school and after almost running over another teacher (who happens to be Frederick) she confronts MM. So the secret is out. MM is upset that David didn’t come right out and tell Kathryn and now the whole town thinks that MM is a tramp. Someone even goes so far and to paint the word on her car. David frantically tries to clean it off before she sees it, but it’s too late. MM tells him that what they have isn’t love, it’s destructive and they shouldn’t be together. It seems to be a bit of a knee jerk reaction if you ask me.
After some self-reflection, Kathryn heads back to Regina’s and apologizes for being so angry with her. She tells Regina that what she sees in the pictures isn’t something she ever had with David. She also tells Regina that she wrote a letter to David and MM and that she’s leaving to start fresh in Boston. Hmmmmmm……
Regina, being the evil bitch that she is, uses her big ass ring of keys to gain entrance to David’s house. She finds the letter and steals it, taking it back to her place to burn it. Kathryn packs up her car and heads to Boston. Frederick (or whatever his name is in Storybrooke) finds her car just inside the city limits with the air bag deployed, but she’s nowhere to be found. Seems like no one can leave Storybrooke after all.
Seriously, I was a tad angry at the end of this episode because Regina is full of win with everything. She needs to have a setback. I don’t care if it’s big or small. Just something to take her down a notch. I’ve said it before, Emma is supposed to embody hope so why isn’t she making a bigger difference? Ugh…so frustrating! Anyhoo….the show is back in two weeks and the fact that Kathryn is missing will put an even bigger damper on the whole MM/David storyline. Hopefully we’ll start to get some answers soon.
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DarkMedia contributor Tracy Ladd has been writing about film since her days on the her high school newspaper. Even though she took a decade or two off to explore other things, she’s back to doing what she loves. She also bakes, can knit a pretty nifty scarf and makes lightsaber sounds with her knitting needles. Or chopsticks. Especially with the lightsaber chopsticks.
You can find her on Facebook, on Twitter @ReelGoddess, and on her website The Reel Goddess.
[Posted with permission from ReelGoddess.com]
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[Photo Credit: ABC]
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