Filed under: Recaps & Reviews
"Magic destroyed my family."
The main plot in "Second Star To The Right," focused on Regina getting tortured by Greg and Tamara, but the episode really belonged to Tamara's fiance, Baelfire. Baelfire is not so much of a driving force in the plot, but a catalyst of multiple plots. This episode's flashback focused on Bae's life, after he was separated from his father.
Left to fend for himself, Bae resorted to stealing food to feed himself. The thievery here showed the start of a future life that is to be heavily involved in theft. But Bae lucked out, as Wendy decided to be of help to Bae when she caught him stealing.. Bae was eventually invited to live in the Darling house, and got the ideal family he wanted. Not surprisingly, this would not last. |
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When magic came to the Darling house in the form of the shadow and the lure of Neverland, Bae knew better than to have anything to do with it. At the end, he had to sacrifice himself, in order to protect the Darling family, and to thank them for having taken him in. Once again, magic had come into Bae's life, and separated him from the people he cared about. |
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Quite possibly, the only worse outcome than getting taken by the shadow to Neverland, was getting pulled out of the water, and getting personally greeted by the ship's captain, Hook. This scene here explained how Bae and Hook were acquainted, and how Bae got the knowledge to command a ship, just as he had to a number of episodes back, when he had to take the ship to Storybrooke to save his father. |
On the topic of Bae's father, in the present day, Mr. Gold was happy to be with Lacey. There is a distinct parallel in Lacey and her old self, but with one main difference. Belle brought the good out of the Beast, while Lacey is clearly bringing the beast back out of Mr. Gold. In other words, Belle is the angel over the Beast's shoulder, while Lacey is the devil over Mr. Gold's shoulder. |
Belle, unknowingly got the short end of the stick here. Of all the characters on the series, she is not just the most harmless one, but also the one that can bring out the good that is buried deep inside a villain. This meant nothing to Regina, which makes her that evil. She had no quarrel with Belle, but in order to hurt Mr. Gold, she took it out on Belle.
This is why it is just so hard to feel bad for Regina. The series had on a number of times, attempted to show the more human and tragic side of Regina, either with the problems with her own mother, her kingdom hating her, or most recently, Regina being strapped in for torture. It was really her fault anyways. Regina's distorted sense of love is nothing more than a selfish pursue of ownership over another person. When she did not get that with a young Greg (Owen), she took it out on another innocent -- Greg's father.
So it was only a matter of time, before Greg found his way back to Storybrooke for revenge against Regina, for killing his father. It also turned out that there were people in the outside world that believed Greg's story about the fairy tale town, and provided him and Tamara with all the back-up they needed, and a reason and method to destroy the magic. |
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As Greg had to go a separate route from Tamara, he was nowhere to be found when Bae and Emma ran into Tamara. At this moment, Bae came across the same unfortunate pattern he had in his life -- losing the people he cares about. In this case, he discovered the relationship he had with Tamara to be fake, and then he got sucked into the portal, separating him from Emma and Henry, but not before he and Emma declared their feelings for each other. |
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Like so many previous times before, Mary Margaret had helped Regina, only to find that she is completely irredeemable in her evil ways, this time in having created the fail safe as a part of the curse. This led to the end scene, which had Greg and Tamara in possession of the black diamond, and having to follow the direction provided to them by their superiors, to wipe out Storybrooke. |
With one episode of Once Upon a Time left to go in this season, this leaves the inhabitants of Storybrooke in jeopardy of the black diamond trigger being pulled, setting up the season to end in a major way. It will be interesting to see just who Greg and Tamara report to, and what will and ability this organization has, to do to Storybrooke and the destruction of magic.
Tags: Once Upon A Time, Second Star to The Right, Snow White, Peter Pan, Beauty And The Beast, Emilie de Ravin, Robert Carlyle, Lana Parrilla, Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin
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