Once Upon a Time "Smash the Mirror" Review: The Queen of Ice-o-lation

Once Upon a Time S04E08 & S04E09: "Smash the Mirror" Part 1 & Part 2

"Smash the Mirror" was supposed to be a big two-part/two-hour episode of Once Upon a Time, but it sort of treaded water for an hour and 30 minutes. Our Big Bad was trapped in a circle of magic bullshit, the happy ending of beloved Disney film Frozen was basically reversed, and Robin Hood acted like every sleazy boyfriend I've ever seen in a movie of the week, sauntering around Regina's crypt wearing a wifebeater and indulging a pair of very busy hands.

Poor Maid Marian. I hope someone is keeping watch over her frozen body, because Robin Hood is clearly so desperate to find an indoor living situation that he might just grind her up with some rum and grenadine and serve everyone wife-aritas next episode.

"Smash the Mirror" existed to create a big parallel between Emma and Elsa struggling to come to terms with their magical powers. It was a parallel specifically created by this episode and last week's, because Emma has definitely never been frightened by her powers before; if anything, she's pursued them. Storybrooke's citizens spent most of their lives being personally victimized by the cupcake-sized Blue Fairy back in Fairy-Tale Land, so no one's really given Emma any shit about being magical. It's VERY MUCH an asset. But because OUAT has been determined to work in the central message of Frozen, suddenly Emma was shooting off heat and light from her hands all panicked about being different. And then she freaked out just because Henry sustained a slight head wound.

LOL.

At no point did any of us think that Emma was going to fundamentally rewrite the premise of the show by cashing out her magic, and it was ridiculous that Emma seriously asked Rumple to do so.

So yeah, we had our protagonist fundamentally tweaked to fall in line with the Frozen themes, but then the fairy-tale flashbacks casually reversed Frozen's happy ending? Because it turns out that Anna sacrificing herself for Elsa at the end of the movie only bought Elsa a couple months of life, because by the end of this episode Ingrid had frozen Anna, Kristoff, and their entire country into solid ice. Like, Anna and Kristoff are dead, right? I mean, Ingrid's sister crumbled like a sno-cone when Ingrid blasted her, and Maid Marian is only still alive because Regina took her heart out before it could freeze, so... yeah. Sorry, kids. That pig-tailed Nordic princess grinning up from your duvet is dead as of Sunday night.

OUAT's new addition to the Frozen mythos, other than the idea that all the main characters died or were sucked into genie bottles, was that the Snow Queen put shards of magic mirror into Anna's eyes to make her see only the worst in Elsa, thus provoking her to suck Elsa into that Magic-Sucking Urn, and now the Snow Queen wants to do the same thing to all of Storybrooke! Diabolical, but she still gets my begrudging respect for having been dropped off on the streets of 1980s New York barefoot in a ball gown and subsequently clawing her way through this unfeeling world until she became the proud owner of an ice cream franchise.

Anyway, while Emma was off suddenly having a thematically convenient mental break, the Charmings were busy slut-shaming Regina for not buttoning her blouse and continuing their run as the Worst Fairy-Tale Parents of All Time.

They decided that maybe Emma losing her powers was maybe not such a bad thing after all. "Let's give her her best chance by not involving ourselves in our daughter's struggles at all," Prince Charming reasoned. I mean, her powerful magic had only saved them and everyone they knew 19 or 20 times. No reason to think they might depend on it again.

Luckily, Regina got wind of the Charmings' latest attempt to neglect Emma and seriously took them to task for it. "You two are not just dumb, you are also extremely stupid; question your instincts at all times, not just as parents, but also as people," she helpfully reminded them.

Realizing that the stepmother who'd once tried to kill her was more on-point with her parenting instincts than Snow could ever hope to be, Snow hurriedly tracked down the Bug and weirdly deduced that Emma had proceeded on foot from the spot where her car had burned out on the road? Am I confused? Because it sounded like Snow said they should continue on foot and Emma couldn't've gotten far, but we SAW Emma drive off? Like, if Snow knew Emma got back in the car, why in hell would they proceed on foot? Did I miss something?! Whatever.

Whether or not it made sense for Regina and Snow to take a walk just then, I'm soooo glad they did, because they proceeded to have a long conversation about on moral fatalism vs. virtue ethics. Things got very weird and meta, which was awesome. Yes, the writers called themselves out for having Snow White push hope harder than crack cocaine, and yes Snow bragged about that time she committed adultery with David, and it was all sorts of amazing, even if the ethics were totally half-baked.

You could see David actually steering Henry away from them during this scene, like, "Nope."

Then Robin Hood called up Regina and was like, "Look I know you're helping with a manhunt for your missing coparent, magical partner, and mother of your child, but I have something you need to see RIGHT NOW." "Oh yeah? Can you just send me a picture of whatever it is with your phone?" is what any reasonable person would have said. But NOPE. Regina was like "Guys, let me know if you find Emma byeeee!" and skipped off to Dick Town. This show and its strong women who forsake all they hold dear in favor of forced, unconvincing relationships with English dudes. What is up? Sigh.

Next: Page 2

(Continued from Page 1)

Hood was in a TIZZY because he'd found a missing page of the Story Book in his rucksack that had just "appeared" ("as if by plot spackle magic!") and which depicted an illustration of them kissing, as if they'd actually met when Tinker Bell tried to introduce them. To Hood, it was a symbol of hope; to the rest of us it was a poor excuse to drag Regina away from the main plotline after many weeks of low-to-no-onscreen Regina.

Meanwhile Emma had dutifully met Rumple at the ol' abandoned manor and he was giving her a speech about how she should definitely go into the room making all the sounds like the Ark makes at the end of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. BTW, Rumple has now described magic in almost every single episode he's been in, and each time he's used a slightly different definition that's surprisingly convenient to the plot. Magic and hope are very elastic concepts, I've learned. Snow:hope::Rumple:magic is basically what's going on.

Back in town, Hook had figured out that Emma had gone to Rumple for help. He went after Emma with a laudable sense of urgency, but as soon as he was in spitting distance of Rumple he was rendered instantly helpless and tied to a gate with what looked like a garden hose and a jump rope. Aw, poor guy, he tries. He always fails, but he still tries.

LUCKILY Elsa had grabbed Regina's locator spell and she jogged up to the manor just in time to give Emma a speech about self-acceptance! Accept yourself, Emma! The only way to live with your differences is to love them! Once this moral thesis had been clearly, emphatically stated, OUAT's writers made all the conflict go away. Yay!

Hook, still tied to the fence outside, was all like, "Yay Emma's okay!" and Rumple was like, "NOT SO FAST because also I need your heart because you are the only person alive who knew me before I became the Dark One!" and Hook was like, "By the way how does that work because I am definitely not a magical being, yet I have existed without aging for 200 to 300 years and true some of that was in Neverland but I had to have spent at least a decade sailing around with Milah and then 28 years not frozen in the curse because Cora and I—" but Rumple swiftly plucked out his heart. Hook is now Rumple's puppet, his plaything, his meat-headed marionette.

So Puppet Hook ran into the house and gave Emma a hug and it was even more sinister than usual but Emma has silenced all of her "red flag instincts" about Hook since the day she met him so she just brushed his searingly vacant stare aside and they all went out to the front porch and bumped into the Charmings, who had just then shown up because Snow's "tracking" skills don't cover Volkswagen wheels across asphalt, I guess. "Ho ho ho, good thing we weren't relying on you guys to save the day!" Elsa laughed, and then Emma was like, "Check it out guys I am suddenly so good at magic I can make the Northern Lights AND fireworks shoot out of my palms!"

David was really feeling it.

And then Emma was like, "Wait I stopped wearing my Livestrong bracelet after the steroids scandal broke, what is this thing?" and we realized that Elizabeth Mitchell had activated her friendship bracelets meaning the plot had finally, FINALLY moved forward, and then Elizabeth Mitchell made her whole big mirror EXPLODE, and then obviously since something had finally happened it was time for the episode to be over.

QUESTIONS:

... Rumple: complicated antihero or just a straight-up D-bag?

... Are Anna and Kristoff dunzo or just frozen in time so Elsa can go back to Arendelle and somehow save them or something?

... Who should get custody of Roland when Maid Marian wakes up and starts the divorce proceedings?

... Why would the Snow Queen believe the broken glass spell will work out all great now, considering it totally backfired the first time she tried it?