Pornokitsch

Before the curse was cast, Snow White and Prince Charming had a baby. Knowing the curse was coming, they sent her to the real world to protect her and give her a chance to realize her prophesized destiny: as the Savior.

The baby, Emma Swan, grew up to be an angry unmarried teen mother ex-con bounty-hunter with a chip on her shoulder. (The father’s identity is just one of show’s many labyrinthine, later-season plot-developments. Don't worry; I'll get there!) Ten years before S1, Emma, in prison during her pregnancy, put her baby up for adoption immediately after giving birth to him. Randomly – or actually not, because there’s no such thing as a random plot-development on Once Upon a Time – the kid (Henry) was adopted and raised in Storybrooke by Regina, now mayor of the town (and the only fairy-tale character who can remember the past.)

It's sort of complicated but there's some cool stuff there, right? Let's keep going!

Season One is about Henry thinking that 'something' is off about Storybrooke, and when Snow White (his teacher) gives him a book of fairy-tales, he becomes convinced that the entire town is filled with fairy-tale characters. He leaves to find his biological mother, Emma, and drag her back to town. Because she's the Savior, remember?

Which is a little weird for Emma. You see, adult Emma's hobbies are a) drawing her gun but never firing and b) not talking about her feelings, and c) being really angry about being an orphan.  So, yes, it's a little weird for her when she eventually discovers that she's not only not an orphan, but actually the daughter of a) Snow White, yes like from the fairy-tale, who's b)  exactly Emma's age (because of the time thing?), and c) who also wants nothing more than to talk about Emma's feelings (Snow's hobbies: talking about her own feelings; asking other people to talk about their feelings). Eventually, Emma lifts the curse and magic comes back to Storybrooke, ushering in Season 2. In the show's sophomore run, Regina's mother - also an evil queen - shows up and causes a lot of trouble, and then a bunch of our heroes get on a boat and sail...to Neverland. Season 3 opens in Neverland.

So much stuff, right? Here's more backstory, bullet-pointed for your convenience:

• Henry is the son of Emma and a guy named Neal – fairy-tale name: Baelfire –
  • Who’s the long-lost son of Rumplestiltskin
    • (yes, he’s here too, and the characters insist on shortening his name to the horrific 'Rumple')
  • and a woman named Mia
    • who might be Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame?

• Mia left Rumplestiltskin
  • for Captain Hook!
• Rumplestiltskin, angry about Mia's abandonment,
  • went full-evil and ripped out her heart
    • a favourite way of killing - or sometimes just controlling - characters on this show.

• Hook then vowed revenge
  • and spent years (maybe? this show is so bad at time) chasing after Rumplestiltskin
    • (who wears a crocodile-skin coat - geddit?),
  • finally teaming up with Regina’s evil mother Cora,
    • which made him immune to Regina’s initial curse, and
    • after some number of years (again; time lol) wandering around the Enchanted Forest with Cora not aging, like seriously, how old is Hook?, winds up
    • following all the fairy-tale characters to Storybrooke
    • to kill Rumplestiltskin.

• There, of course, Hook falls in love with Emma Swan.
  • And, further complicating that little love-snarl, is this:
    • Neal ran away from his father, Rumplestiltskin, when he was a young teen and wound up as a cabin-boy
      
      •  on the Jolly Roger with Hook, for like years,
        
        • leading Hook to develop fatherly feelings towards Neal
        • without knowing that Neal's father is Rumplestiltskin
        • and anyway Neal eventually decamped to Neverland to become a Lost Boy
        • all of which leaves Hook feeling kind of conflicted about the fact that Emma and Neal still have feelings for each other
        • even though ten years ago Emma went to prison because Neal set her up
        • (Neal didn't know Emma was pregnant with his baby)
        • even though Neal sent Emma to prison to protect her on Pinocchio's suggestion (?!)
        • because that would somehow make her The Savior
          
          • because THIS SHOW.

Rumplestiltskin, by the way, is Peter Pan’s son, and is now married to Belle from Beauty and the Beast, whom Regina kept prisoner in an insane asylum for like 25 years.

Confused yet? Let's keep going!

Since arriving in Storybrooke, Emma has had relationships with everyone from

• the Big Bad Wolf
• to Pinocchio
• to a flying monkey in disguise (yes, really)
• and is now there's the thing with Hook, but we’ll get back there.

Snow White

• had a one night stand with Doctor Frankenstein (!!)
• before she regained her memory of being married to Prince Charming
• who in the Enchated Forest was engaged to the daughter of King Midas
• but left her for Snow White
• but in Storybrook was married to the daughter of King Midas,
• whom he was then accused of murdering,
• but actually Regina was just holding her captive to frame him
• because she's evil.

In Season 3, we learned that Regina has a half-sister: the Wicked Witch of the West. (Yes, from Oz.) And Regina’s in love with Robin Hood. (Tinkerbell set that up.)

And that’s without getting into the extremely complicated fairy-tale backstories of Snow White (who spent some quality time brigand-ing around the Enchanted Forest being hunted by the Evil Queen), Prince Charming (and his evil identical twin brother), Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio…

Basically, the show is Fairy-Tale Soap Opera Theatre.

Obviously I love it.

As the show is produced by and aired on ABC, which is owned by Disney, basically any Disney property is up for grabs. So there are a lot of random cameos and short arcs with, like, Ariel and Mulan.

Also, a lot of poofy dresses.

Anyway. Season 3 of OUaT ended with a bang: following a Peter Pan storyline, the Wicked Witch of the West spent several episodes holding an insane Rumplestiltskin hostage in a, like, cellar and trying to kidnap Snow and Charming’s new baby to enact a spell to travel back in time. In the original timeline, you see, Rumplestiltskin taught Regina magic, sending Regina along the path of darkness that ended with her being the Evil Queen of Everything. The WW got jealous and planned to go back in time and have Rumplestiltskin teach her how to be really good at dark magic instead of Regina.

Because: of course that was her plan.

Incidentally, Rumplestiltskin had a thing going on with Regina’s mom Cora at some point before Regina was born, so it’s possible he’s her father, too. It's also possible that he hooked up with Regina at some point? It's unclear. And weird.

Anyway, Season 3 ended with Emma and Hook getting sucked into the time-portal thing and thrown back to the time when Snow White and Prince Charming first met. They save the day, of course, but accidentally bring some sort of magic urn back to the present - an item so dangerous that Rumplestiltskin keeps it in his vault of dangerous magical items... and from which hatches Elsa from Frozen.

God, this show. You might be a little lost, so here's a handy infographic:

So. The big cliffhanger from last season: what’s going to happen now that Elsa from Frozen is loose in Storybrooke? Also, Elsa from Frozen?!

FINALLY: Season 4, Episode 1: 'A Tale of Two Sisters'

Following a summer rife with casting spoilers, the first episode of the new season has landed. And it has raised more questions than it has answered. Yes, Elsa’s wandering around Storybrooke making things cold and, though the story takes place after the events of Frozen, Elsa still has some anxiety issues. Anna’s around somewhere, too – in a flashback, we get to see her trying on a wedding gown, because this show's favorite hobbies are a) putting its female characters in giant poofy dresses and b) then having them talk about their feelings. We last see Anna heading off to the Enchanted Forest to find… something to do with their dead parents. Kristof and Sven the reindeer make cameos. As that big monstrous snowman from Frozen. And Frozen baddie Hans gets a mention, so odds are good that he’ll show up eventually, too.

Anyway, back in Storybrook, Elsa finds Anna’s necklace in Rumplestiltskin’s pawn shop - but where’s Anna herself? And why was Elsa… in a vase in past-Rumplestiltskin’s vault of really powerful magic stuff back in the fairy-tale past anyway?

All of which is fine, I guess, but the issue is this: the show spends a lot of the episode's runtime introducing Anna and Elsa and trying to set up a new story with the two of them. In doing so it takes time away from the characters and stories that the audience actually care about. And the other major plots from the episode suffer for it.

At the end of Season 3, after a year of will-they/won’t-theying, Hook & Emma finally made out. But now, with some scary frost-monster running around the town, Emma has another good excuse to do her favorite thing in all the world (not talk about her feelings) and goes tearing after the new baddie, Hook following along behind her, as always.  After Emma refuses, point-blank, to talk things over with Hook and he (quite reasonably) gets a little peeved with her, she gives him a little smooch on the lips and asks him to be patient. THANKS, SHOW.

The episode’s second major non-Frozen plot revolves around Regina freeing her old magic mirror (who used to be a courtier who was in love with her, of course) to help her get rid of Maid Marian – Robin Hood’s wife, whom Emma brought back from the past at the end of S3 – so that she can keep Robin Hood for herself. Regina’s bounced back and forth between being super evil and trying to be good for the last few seasons, and was doing well at the whole goodness thing until Marian reappeared. Historically, the show has struggled with Regina's characterization. It seemed as though some real progress had been made by the end of S3, but now, now apparently she's maybe evil again but maybe not but maybe so but omg what will Henry think??!!!??! Four years of this stuff is boring. So let's hope that's not what they're doing, again.

Finally, Belle discovers a big, empty house on the outskirts of town and suggests that she and Rumplestiltskin honeymoon there. Because that’s a totally normal, reasonable thing to do. Like Regina, Rumplestiltskin has also been bouncing back and forth between good and evil (though it's more accurate to say that he tends to bounce between 'evil' and 'feeling guilty about being evil, a little, sometimes'), and in one of the most interesting developments of the previous season, flat-out lied to Belle about giving up the source of his dark magic, a dagger with his name written across it. Now, feeling guilty (see?) about lying to the person he professes to love more than anyone else in the whole world or something, R tries once again to give up his power. When he discovers a mysterious magical item in the honeymoon house and instead uses his evil powers to open it, he reveals… the hat from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Yes, from Fantasia. Hard to predict where that story will go, but I expect we'll see Belle once again disappointed in Rumplestiltskin, because why hit a character note gently and then move on when you can beat it to death, for years?

Once Upon a Time is an uneven show in every sense of the word: uneven storytelling, uneven graphics, uneven acting, uneven ideas. But it’s also a fun show; it’s committed to its silly premise and takes that silly premise seriously. Would it be a better show if it were, say, ten or twelve episodes rather than 22 a year? Perhaps. But it is what it is, and you've got to take it as it is or drive yourself crazy. It's not hard to see why they tossed Frozen - the giganticest animated film of all time zomg - into the mix this year, and the potential is there for some fun storytelling. But the first episode of the new season is a mixed bag.

And yet, when asked to be patient with OUaT I find myself, like Hook, pretty willing.