My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E17 “Welcome to Storybrooke”

TRIGGER WARNING! If you are sensitive to spoilers and you haven’t seen the seventeenth episode of the second season of Once Upon a Time,”Welcome to Storybrooke”, then you might not want to view this post without consulting your support team first.

Being a good single  mom, having a fulfilling day job and crushing your enemies beneath your feet, can a woman have it all? Regina seems to think so.

This episode is all about having your cake and eating it too.

Although, through the use of magic, I believe that an “infinity cake” is probably possible…

owen flynn (played by benjamin james stockham) and his father, kurt flynn (played by john pyper-ferguson) bond around a campfire
Here, kid, have a dealie.

Meet Owen Flynn and Kurt Flynn. They’re two “normies” from the real world that are about to feel the full brunt of Regina’s reactive attachment disorder.

the crotch of sheriff graham (played by jamie dornan)
I’d know that crotch anywhere!

Part of this episode takes place in the early days of Storybrooke, just after the curse was cast, so, of course, they break out their secret sexy weapon…

the face of sheriff graham (played by jamie dornan)
Skinny hipster tie…

It’s Sheriff Tight-Pants… Er, Sheriff Hipster… Er, I mean, Sheriff Sexy… Whoops! No, it’s Sheriff Graham!

Methinks that the writers are really regretting killing-off Sheriff Graham. All the ladies love him! I mean, look at him, standing there with his face and junk. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE!?

Look at that skinny tie! It’s amazing!

Mary margaret (played by ginnifer goodwin) can't get out of be because she is too sad

Anyhoo, Mary Margret has to stay in bed for the rest of her life, because she just feels so bad after the whole “killing Cora” thing. She murdered millions of henchmen as Snow White and didn’t care at all! Snow White’s black and white morality apparently only applies to main characters. Actually, in this entire show, it’s only he lives of the main characters that matter.

Later on in this episode, Regina pulls out Mary’s heart and we see that it has a black spot, because apparently that’s what happens to your heart when you trick a person into killing their own mother. Methinks Mary, in upcoming episodes, is going to do as many good deeds as possible, in order to erase the darkness from her heart and finally become a real boy.

She should just seek out Mother Superior and repent to God. That would be faster.

*ASIDE* Why are all the fairies still dressed up as nuns? You’d figure that magic and such would be incompatible with the Catholic belief system.

regina mills (played by lana parrilla) and owen flynn (played by benjamin james stockham) look into an oven
Shove the kid inside! You know you want to.

Regina falls absolutely in love with Owen Flynn. I don’t know why, though. The kid spends the entire episode being an obnoxious butt.

She’s so in love with him that she attempts to steal the damn kid away from his father, but it doesn’t work out so well. Owen Flynn manages to escape Storybrooke, leaving his father behind.

We haven’t seen or heard anything about Kurt Flynn until this episode. Where has Kurt been this whole time? Is he in Regina’s vault? Several characters saw him and his son. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned anything about it? It will probably be handwaved away with “the cursed messed up everyone’s memories”. Magic makes covering up plotholes too easy.

neal cassidy (played by michael raymond james) gives his son henry played by jared s. gilmore) a sundae
Unmoved by the delicious bribe.

Neal Cassidy tries to use ice cream to bribe Henry into leaving Storybrooke. Henry decides that he’d rather stay and try to blow up all the magic instead. Luckily Regina shows up just in time to tell Henry that “You can’t just blow up all your problems, son”. Screw that, explosions always solve everything! Why the dwarves of Storybrooke are just leaving their dynamite unattended,  in a world where everyone is trying to kill eachother, I will never know.

At the end of the episode, we find out that Greg Mendell is really Owen Flynn, because, on this show, everyone has to have at least two identities, even people from the real world. Soon, we’re going to find out that Henry is really one of the sugar plum fairies from Fantasia

Anyway, Greg Mendell/Owen Flynn is back in Storybrooke to find his father, who will now, presumably, be around the same age as him and, oh, how there will be angst and drama because of it. There are only 5 episodes left in this season and I doubt that this plotline will be resolved in that time. I dislike when they shoehorn in 11th hour plotlines so that they will have something to carry over into the next season.