Once Upon a Time finally slows down, but loses momentum

The second episode of Once Upon a Time’s sixth season, A Bitter Draught, brings us the first of many promised “untold stories” from the new arrivals in Storybrooke. Unfortunately, it leaves behind most of the tantalizing new ideas planted in the season premiere: Rumple and Belle’s son Morpheus; Hyde’s agenda in Storybrooke; and the existence of other Saviours, to name but a few. Indeed, Jekyll and Hyde are nowhere to be seen this episode, which focusses instead primarily on the “untold” story of the Count of Monte Cristo.

The good news is, it’s a compelling story. Craig Horner does an excellent job of being both irredeemable and sympathetic (at least until the plot, disappointingly, makes him discard his lifelong quest for revenge over a pretty, innocent face), and the writers are canny enough to intersect this new storywith the very familiar tale of the Evil Queen and her vendetta against Snow White and Prince Charming. These parallel quests for vengeance are used to re-open questions about forgiveness and redemption, and set the stage for the return of the Evil Queen in present-day Storybrooke, where the Count has recently arrived by crashed dirigible.

Unfortunately, the Count’s story is ultimately overshadowed by the Queen’s, to its detriment. Regina’s dark history and newfound redemption are old ground, and a new vehicle is far from enough to make this tale untold. Without a doubt, the strongest scenes this episode are those between Rumple and the Evil Queen; not for novelty, but sheer enjoyment, with both actors clearly trying to out-ham each other. But while these scenes give GoldenQueen fans plenty to screencap, Regina’s flirtation with Rumple comes across strangely out-of-context. Certainly, we’ve seen moments of chemistry between these two before (not in the least: “we’re back where we belong. Together,” and some poignant hand-holding in the front of Regina’s car a few seasons back) but these have generally played out between their modern counterparts. We’re more used to seeing the Evil Queen frustrated with Rumple, and Rumple playful only in the sense of a cat with a mouse. While fun, these scenes don’t tell us anything new about the characters or their histories — they simply muddy the waters of a relationship we thought we understood, by ignoring existing context.

The same can be said for the budding friendship between Zelena and the Evil Queen, which bookends the episode. As always, both actors do the best with what they’ve been given, but as with the Regina/Zelena dispute last episode, it’s a struggle to stay interested. By using Regina’s choice to expel her evil half as the point of contention between the sisters, the writers seem to have forgotten that Zelena and Regina have a long history of enmity predating Regina’s redemption. The Evil Queen is no more similar to Zelena than her redeemed doppelganger, except perhaps in her self-pity, lack of compassion, and total indifference to anything but her desire for revenge — none of which bode well for a healthy sisterly relationship. If anything, one might credibly expect the Evil Queen to hold Zelena responsible for Robin’s death, and exact punishment; instead, she coos over Zelena and Robin’s baby as though she’s forgotten the fate of her father. Moreover, unlike Regina, who’s spent several seasons repenting her misdeeds, Zelena’s heel-face turn has been as fickle as the plot demanded, and never particularly hard-won. Even with Rebecca Mader’s intensely likeable performance, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Zelena’s never earned our forgiveness, let alone our patience with her moral shilly-shallying.

The episode also lingers, unsurprisingly, on Emma’s visions. We’re invited to speculate, alongside the characters of Storybrooke, about what, exactly, Emma’s visions depict. Rather than give us answers, the writers up the ante by suggesting an unlikely culprit: Regina (and/or the Evil Queen). This technique — establishing an unbelievable outcome from the outset, and working backwards to understand how it came to be — worked beautifully for OUAT in season five, with the season arc revolving around Emma’s apparent embrace of darkness. But this time, it’s less compelling. After five seasons of OUAT’s inventive character deaths and resurrections, Emma’s vision, and the threat of Emma’s death, simply doesn’t hold enough pull. We all know Emma can’t die, and after several seasons of hard-won redemption, it seems similarly unlikely that Regina will falter. The only possible explanation seems to be narrative misdirection, and it’s hard not to feel pre-emptively disappointed.

Ironically, for all the bluster of its premiere, Once still can’t commit to telling us a story it hasn’t already told. There’s still hope on the horizon for something truly new around the corner: scattered mentions of “better halves” seem to suggest the theme of duality, as embodied by Jekyll and Hyde, will still be a major focus for the season; and Regina’s unwilling murder of the Count at the docks enticingly echoes Belle’s similar “murder” of Gaston last season, which seems to have occurred in a void in terms of meaningful narrative consequences. For now, however, the stories Once Upon a Time has promised to tell us this season seem still out of reach.