I was happy to see more of Snow White and Prince Charming’s story even if parts of it broke my heart.  Regardless of what will happen to the kingdom, Charming sends a love letter to Snow via Bluebird/Dove express:  knowing that she’s a wanted person, I wonder why he just doesn’t go looking for her himself but maybe he suspects the King has alerted the guards to such a possibility.  Anyway, she receives the letter and if you watched the episode, you’re aware of what follows.  Knowing that the King doesn’t have any paternal feelings for James and knowing that the King is determined to see James marry Abigail, I’ve often wondered what happened to allow James to marry Snow instead.  Last night I briefly hoped that Snow would slip the King her amnesia potion but it was created just for her so it wouldn’t have worked on him anyway, at least not as intended.  (Incidentally, what did Rumpelstiltskin want with Snow’s hair?  As someone who plays the long-con, did he want it to create a counter-spell?  Or is there some darker purpose?)  As the episode ended with both Snow and Charming heartbroken, it looks like I’ll be wondering how they made it down the aisle for awhile yet . . . .

What about Abigail?  In fairytale land, Abigail is aloof, spoiled and generally easy to dislike; in Storybrooke, Kathryn is a heartbroken woman trying to win her husband back.  Kathryn makes the last scene with Mary Margaret and David difficult to enjoy.  Yes, I want them together but I want him to leave Kathryn first—not tell her he wants to make it work and then make out with Mary Margaret on the street corner in front of the whole town.  Regina sees, of course, because Regina sees practically everything—which leads to my big question of the night.  What is she likely to do?  At the very least, my guess is that Mary Margaret’s job as a teacher will be in jeopardy but given that Mary Margaret tops Regina’s most hated list, I’m guessing there will be much more at stake.

Rest in peace, Stealthy.

“Beatrice Alexander is no ordinary schoolteacher—she can move objects with her mind, an embarrassing skill she hasn’t yet mastered or embraced. After nearly killing her brother by accident, she joins the F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad, the Federal Response to Extra-Sensory and Kindred Supernaturals. This top-secret branch of the FBI combats ghosts, ghouls, and other monsters threatening humanity.” 

The premise of this book is intriguing.  Beatrice’s fellow squad members include a reticent werewolf, an obnoxious vampire, an elegant pyrokinetic, a teleporting teenager, a baby-faced psychometric and a blind medium.  Bea’s first case with the group involves evidence of a necromancer in the small town of Bridge Stone, Colorado:  he or she is raising zombies, but why and can they stop him before anyone else falls victim?

I wanted to like this book.  It’s a first novel and there is definitely potential:  I like the idea of a top-secret team of crime-fighters with unique paranormal and supernatural abilities.  I like the basic cast of characters.

I don’t like Beatrice, at least not yet.  She’s 26 years old but she reads more like a teenager who’s just discovered boys.  Yes, I know her romantic experience has been limited, but I think Harlow overdid the number of “OMG, our hands touched!” moments.  Not only were there too many of those moments, they were too vividly described; when Bea first meets Will, she opens the door and we’re treated to 3 paragraphs of her thoughts before she says anything and another 2 paragraphs before he replies.  The paragraphs may lessen but sadly, this is how most of her interactions with Will and Oliver are portrayed:  too much attention focused on telling us exactly what girlish thoughts are streaming through Bea’s mind and not enough attention on simply sketching a scene and letting the reader feel it.

While I enjoy a vicarious glimpse into the life of a newly-discovered “it girl”, Harlow overdoes this as well.  Rather than draw me further into the story, it distances me from it.  Right off the bat, the girl whom no one noticed before has two hotties vying for her attention and one of those hotties is so traumatized by the death of his wife years before that he’s been completely indifferent to women since—until he first lays eyes upon Bea, that is.  It doesn’t ring true:  a guy like that would need time to let his guard down.

Not only has Bea suddenly become a hottie-magnet, she’s also at the top of the game on the Squad despite being  the newest recruit—and even though she apparently needs 3 1/2 pages of clues before she can figure out she’s talking to a vampire.  Ack—if she’s going to be super-quick with guessing what kind of supernatural is most likely to be involved with a particular crime, she should have pegged the vampire within the first paragraph of their meeting.  Aside of that minor detail,  I like seeing the Ugly Duckling turn into the beautiful swan, the caterpillar turn into a butterfly, but I want to see the transformation happen.  The transformation is what makes the story interesting and so far, Harlow has skipped that step.  She does show promise in her treatment of the relationship between Bea and Oliver—their scenes at the end of the book were excellent and might be enough to persuade me to give the next book in the series a shot.   Untitled as of yet,  it is scheduled to come out this fall.

We can probably credit the curse, but how did Ava and Nicholas manage school registration without parents?  I’m not losing sleep over this minor detail—I mean, if no one notices that the only kid getting older is Henry, how can I expect school registration to be a big deal?  It still bugged me though—having them attend school with Henry was a convenient excuse for Ava to approach Henry but it seems more likely they’d simply be on their own.  Now, they may have recognized him from visiting the library—plucky kids that they are, or at least Ava is, I like to think that they would have tried to keep up their education as best they could.  Depending upon whether there really was a mother in Storybrooke, they may or may not have had library cards, but they still could have read books or attended programs.  Libraries ROCK.

I am confused about the Blind Witch.  Aside of the blindness, she sort of looked like Maleficent but they are supposed to be two different characters, aren’t they?  Particularly since the Queen saw fit to send an extra burst of flames into the oven, once the Blind Witch found herself trapped within?  Going back a few episodes though,  didn’t the Queen demand her curse back from Maleficent because the “sleeping spell” she had exchanged it for was easily broken by a kiss?  Unless there’s another twist to the fairytale I know, the spell which cast Snow White into that deep slumber was caused by taking a bite from a poisoned apple.  Yet, the item in the Blind Witch’s satchel was an apple.   Why am I not recording this show so that I can go back and watch previous episodes when questions like this occur???

Wicked as she is, the Queen has a maternal side (of sorts)—who knew?  She was hurt that Hansel and Gretel didn’t want to stay with her—not simply astonished, but truly hurt.  Previously, I had attributed her adoption of Henry to some attempt to replace her father but now I think there’s something deeper at play.  She’s evil—no doubt of that—but she obviously wants to be a mother.  She has no clue how to be a loving parent but she obviously craves that bond.  I am completely intrigued:  what happened in her past to make her the Evil Queen???

The blanket.  After Emma admits to Mary Margaret what Henry believes their true relationship to be, I swear Mary Margaret muttered “I have a child” under her breath, kind of like an unconscious thought, but since I didn’t record it, I can’t confirm it.  I was hoping that MM would then ask about the father but realized that she already knows whom Henry suspects her soul mate to be.  And then the blanket.  My heart stopped when MM picked up the blanket and smelled it.  She already knows that Emma seems familiar and she feels the connection with David:  could the return of her memory be within reach???

Who’s the motorcycle guy?  My first thought was that Regina had tracked down Henry’s father and lured him into town–which would be a problem because a) Henry’s dad is apparently not a good guy and b) it would expose Emma’s lie to Henry.  As Emma didn’t seem to recognize him, I’m going to guess that he’s just another resident of Fairytale Land—but whom?  I’m guessing a bad boy—I’m just waiting to see if he and Ruby get into a discussion about big eyes or if she catches him wearing Granny’s clothing.

Final thoughts:  Nicholas Lea should totally consider Dancing With the Stars; ditto for Josh Holloway.  If that happened, my good friend Melissa might even tune in—or at least, roll her eyes a little less when I start going on and on about THAT show.

My main question about Rumpelstiltskin goes back a few episodes:  he obviously knows that Cinderella is lying about twins and that the quill she gives him to sign a new contract will trap him.  Why does he allow himself to be trapped?  What does he have to gain?  How far into the future can he see?  Can he see far enough ahead to know that releasing Ella/Ashley from her contract gives him a better deal with Emma?  Or was there some more immediate goal served in the Enchanted Forest?  Whatever happened to Thomas at that point in time, anyway?  Even though they don’t remember who they were, it seems like Ashley/Cinderella and Sean/Thomas have achieved their happy ending:  Rumpelstiltskin separated them in Fairytale Land but they are reunited in Storybrooke and their baby daughter, Alexandra, is safe.

*Okay, two questions about the episode:  was no one in the castle?  Not that I wanted to hear screaming or see anyone on fire but it seemed odd that all we saw and heard was a burning castle.  Did Rumpelstiltskin kill his wife?

“Not only do the good guys regularly lose out to the bad guys, you’re never exactly sure who you should be cheering for in the first place.”  Taken from Amazon.com, that sentence sums up SoS nicely.  Treachery, bloodshed and violence reach horrifying new levels in this installment of the series and my heart continues to break for the Stark family.  As the quote above hints, this book did present some surprises—and for me, some annoyances.  As much as I loved all 924 pages, I must vent.  Spoilers follow.

Surprise 1: I might actually like Jaime Lannister.  Might—what he did in GoT was horrible and the whole thing with Cersei is icky but he does show signs of redemption in SoS.

Annoyance 1:  Sansa.  My least favorite of the Starks, I do feel the girl and the situation she’s in.  Given her situation and her age, I know that I should be more understanding of her reaction to Tyrion, but the scene in which she was too proud to kneel for him really ticked me off.  I know she’s young and if he had been less kind to her, I would have understood, but as things stood between them, it was cruel.

Annoyance 2: We’re 3 books into the series, can we please reunite Arya with Nymeria?  It’s bad enough the poor girl can’t manage to reconnect with a single member of her family but can she at least reunite with her wolf?  Soon???

Annoyance 3:  What’s the harm in Jon knowing that Bran and Rickon are still alive?  I’m sure there will be an excellent story line to explain this but still . . .

Annoyance 4:  I’m glad that Bran and Rickon are still alive and I’m glad that Catelyn is still alive but having all of these fake deaths annoys me.  Like #3 though, I’m sure there will be an excellent story line to explain this.

And now for a guess:  Is Benjen Stark the mysterious wight on the elk?

As much as I hate when a favorite show goes on hiatus, I love when a favorite show offers a Marathon Weekend:  especially a show with as many layers as Once Upon A Time.  As I settled down in front of the television with my hot chocolate sprinkled with cinnamon, I found myself questioning my earlier theory about Dr. Whale:  I still think he fits the character of Pinocchio well; however, the Marathon Weekend reminded me that Pinocchio was still a boy when the Queen’s curse was unleashed.  Since time is supposed to be frozen and no one is supposed to age in Storybrooke, this seems problematic.

As I wondered whom else Dr. Whale might be, I also found myself wondering about the children in Henry’s class.  Henry was born elsewhere so I can understand why the curse doesn’t apply to him but surely even the curse couldn’t hide the fact that Henry’s getting older but his peers aren’t—or could it?  He doesn’t have friends—maybe this is why?  On the other hand, if the kids are able to age, it’s possible that Dr. Whale is Pinocchio—we know that 28 years have passed since the curse went into effect.

728 pages of mayhem and I couldn’t read it fast enough!  CoK introduces us to Melisandre, one of the scariest characters I’ve come across but I have a feeling that Ramsay Snow will prove himself a close second before the series is finished and perhaps Jaquen H’ghar will be third.  Thankfully, we also meet Johen and Meera Reed as well as Brienne of Tarth:  with everything they’ve suffered and continue to suffer, it’s reassuring to know that there are a few characters the Starks can rely upon.

As Arya continues in her struggle to reach her family, Joffrey’s reign of terror over King’s Landing is in full sway.  Joffrey is even more despicable than he was in GoT—thank goodness for Tyrion as he is the only character able and willing to minimize the damage Joffrey would do.  Tyrion is awesome but of course few realize it:  he’s a Lannister, a dwarf, and an all-to-easy scapegoat.  Elsewhere in the Seven Kingdoms, chaos rules as Gregor Clegane and his like terrorize the countryside and the lordship of a land can change in the blink of an eye.  It seems as if things can’t get much worse for Westeros but north of the Wall, the wildings are uniting under Mance Rayder and across the sea, Daenerys is nurturing her dragons:  both mean to claim the Seven Kingdoms for their own.

Dark magic, heart-breaking betrayal, and horrific bloodshed are tempered by unexpected glimpses of nobility.  I love that Martin keeps us on our toes but I do worry that good may not win the day . . . .

Pinocchio lied; Dr. Whale lied to Mary Margaret.  The Nolan’s house has some artwork which seemed Pinocchio-esque to me and Dr. Whale’s collaboration with the Mayor is one reason David is currently with Kathryn instead of Mary Margaret.  Finally, Pinocchio became a real boy after an encounter with a whale.

What do you think?

image courtesy of wikipedia