S01.E09: True North

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Feeling their pain from having lived through the same experience, Emma desperately tries to help two homeless children find their birth father before they’re separated and put into the foster care system. Meanwhile, back in the fairytale world that was, the Evil Queen coerces Hansel and Gretel into stealing an important artifact from a blind witch.

[Shanna Marie]

The main thing I have to say about this episode is that Regina is The Worst. Her evil here was so petty. In the flashback, she got what she needed from the kids, but she had to be so vindictive because they didn't want the woman who kidnapped them from the woods and sent to face a cannibal witch to be their new mommy. So she let these kids think their father abandoned them, and then in the curse they spent all that time alone. The mother must have been a curse memory because she was dead before the curse. That meant these children spent 28 years utterly on their own, and Regina was willing to potentially kill them just so Emma would look bad to Henry.

Gold looks positively saintly in comparison, helping Emma help the kids, for no discernible reason. I can't see where he got anything out of it.

[Rumsy4]

She really was the worst! 

Spoiler

And then she got judgemental towards the blind witch in the Underworld, as though she hadn't sent tons of kids to be eaten by her. Typical. 

Regina seems to have become obsessed with having a kid even back in the EF, and after she had intentionally rendered herself infertile. 

Those two kids did a great job. I really liked this episode and how Emma saved them.

Spoiler

And this was a way better Blind witch story than the buffoonery we got in Season 7. lol

Edited June 30, 2018 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

8 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

The main thing I have to say about this episode is that Regina is The Worst. Her evil here was so petty.

Spoiler

The writers should've strayed from making Regina so petty outside of her quest for revenge if they wanted her to be redeemable. Being blind from her cause is different from just being an asshole to random strangers because they don't like you. It's laughable that Regina basically got a "mother of the year" award later on when she lead so many innocent children to their deaths.

[Shanna Marie]

I really did feel Emma's pain over the kids' situation and how it reflected her own background. I wish they hadn't demonized foster parents (I know people who are foster parents who do wonderful things for kids), but I recognize that it's from Emma's perspective.

I like how they found modern American parallels for the fairy tale, showing how that situation might fit into our world, and then there was Emma's role in intervening in the fairy tales to make them work out better.

When Emma told Henry the story (lie) about his father, it didn't quite line up. She said she was just out of the foster care system when she met his father, but then she went to jail later. But she wouldn't have been out of the system before 18, and she would have had an adult record if she'd gone to jail after 18. I don't know if that was sloppiness on the writers' part or Emma messing things up in her lie.

[Camera One]

I liked this episode a little bit more the second time around.  To me, this was a good example of an episode that adapted a well-known fairy-tale in the flashback while developing and delving into a character's past in the present-day story (in this case, Emma).  

Henry looked so hurt when he realized he was being used by Gretel and Hansel in the store.  The kid was in need of a friend.  

Spoiler

Too bad he never got one!

After last episode, again, it struck me how evil the Black knights were.  I still don't understand why Leopold would dress them in such ominous uniforms.

It looks like Regina doesn't even bother to honor deals that she makes.  The kids got her the apple, fair and square, but she decided she didn't feel like reuniting them with their father.  Sorry, the sad-face when she asked the father, "Why did your children refuse me" didn't make me sympathetic.

Emma's story about Henry's father was awfully elaborate considering she made it up on the spot.  

Henry said "You're the first strange here... ever."

Spoiler

I know it does make sense that he doesn't know about Greg and Owen.  Were they allowed to enter Storybrooke because they were within the perimeter when the Curse first created the town?

Why would the Curse include in the dad's memory the loss of his compass?  

Mary Margaret was quite the Debbie Downer in this episode.  Her comments weren't hopeful at all in regards to what might happen to the two kids.  They were inconsistent with her characterization even back then.

But I did love the scenes with MM and Emma.

Spoiler

Looking back, I remember I was anticipating MM starting to remember when she smelled Emma's blanket.  Or maybe have *some* progression of memory return.  But nope.  If they had known they would break the Curse in the Season 1 finale, there was no excuse for such horrible pacing.  

I wasn't too intrigued about August the first time around, but this time, I rolled my eyes in annoyance when I first saw him.  Rewatching this, the actor did portray that he knew exactly who the two of them were when he walked up to them.

[andromeda331]

Regina is so awesome and so great. She breaks a deal with children because they didn't want her to be their mommy. So she separates them from their father for decades. She sent other children into the Blind Witch's house who were killed. Twenty-eight years later she still is bent on keeping them apart this time by separating them in Boston or killing them when they leave Storybrook. This is someone we are suppose to feel sorry for.  Poor Henry for a second he thought made friends. I loved how Emma knew they were lying and followed them.  Emma and Snow talking and Emma telling Snow Henry thinks she's her mother. I loved Snow's reaction and her remark about Snow White having a kid and Emma remarking the stories weren't exactly most traditional ones. I loved Emma being able to help Hansel and Gretel. It was fun watching her breaking the curse in small ways helping Cinderella, and now Hansel and Gretel.

I don't know how I feel about Emma lying about Henry's dad. At the time I really thought it was to protect Henry. The poor kid already had so many issues I'm not sure it would have helped him to know his bio father sent his mother to jail for his crimes. He already had to deal with having Regina as a mother, knowing she murdered Graham, and had no friends.   It was probably to also protect herself.     

[Camera One]

I found it interesting that Emma thought it was important for Henry to think of his father as a hero.  

[Rumsy4]

7 hours ago, Camera One said:

I found it interesting that Emma thought it was important for Henry to think of his father as a hero.  

I guess that's the kind of man she thought Henry would want as a father--a hero. 

[daxx]

7 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

It was probably to also protect herself.    

Mostly this I think. He really did a number on Emma emotionally.

[companionenvy]

Catching up with the rewatch - one thing that surprised me this time around is how automatically Emma comes up with the story about the firefighter. This suggests at the very least that she had been preparing herself for what she would say when Henry asked, but even beyond that it is interesting that she would go there - surely, the easiest thing to have told him would have been the child-friendly version of "Had a one-night stand with a stranger. Don't know who or where the guy is." That she didn't might just be an attempt to give Henry a heroic narrative to latch onto, but that would be pretty misguided: even If she's concerned that Henry thinks she's some mythical savior, replacing that with a more realistic hero-story is counterproductive if that's based on a lie, especially as it is a lie that would be pretty easy to uncover down the road. Emma's story might satisfy a ten year old for a while, but any ordinarily curious kid is at some point going to ask for the name and want to find articles about what would have surely been a news-worthy incident.  So I'm wondering if part of it was for herself as well: she's also drawn to a revisionist narrative that was nobler and better than it was, maybe inspired by Henry. It seems not coincidental that in this same episode, Emma tells MM Henry's theory about their relationship; though on the surface, she still doesn't believe it, I wonder if that signifies that there's a part of her who is becoming aware of the oddity of Storybrooke and starting to wonder at least enough to float the idea, if only in a "haha, ridiculous, I know, right?" kind of way. 

Also, Regina really is the worst. This episode epitomizes just how awful she is, in that much of what she does, past and present, is independent of any tactical goals she has. She's just horrible. More than anything she does to Snow or Emma, the fact that she a)apparently sent multiple kids to their deaths in the service of her revenge and b) many years later, under the very different circumstances of the modern world, is willing to separate a brother and sister just to score emotional points against a rival makes her utterly irredeemable. 

Gold, by contrast, continues being kind of gray in his helpfulness to Emma - at this point in the series, it really does seem to me that he is well-disposed toward Emma (and Henry) for reasons other than his larger goals. Of course, he'd sell her out in thirty seconds if it served his interests, but I do think he actually has some respect and even fondness for her.  

One logistical question: surely Regina knows that no one brought into town by the curse can leave Storybrooke. So, what does she think is going to happen when she sends Ava and Nicholas over the town line? I expect it is just one of those things we aren't supposed to think about, but the thought did occur to me. 

[Shanna Marie]

3 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

One logistical question: surely Regina knows that no one brought into town by the curse can leave Storybrooke. So, what does she think is going to happen when she sends Ava and Nicholas over the town line? I expect it is just one of those things we aren't supposed to think about, but the thought did occur to me. 

It seems like bad things happen when people try to leave. They mentioned that Granny had a heart attack when Ruby tried to leave town. Wasn't Henry concerned that something horrible was going to happen to Ava and Nicholas if Emma tried to take them out of town? I think Regina believed that something awful would happen, like Emma would have a wreck and the kids would die, or something. Best case scenario is they'd actually leave and wouldn't be able to come back, including Emma. Mostly, I think Regina was focused on the fact that Emma failing and having to take the kids out of town would diminish her in Henry's eyes. Even if nothing did happen, Emma having to take them out of town would be a failure. She really didn't give a second thought to the kids' fate.

Though it would have been interesting if Emma had managed to get them to Boston, and the system there was like "huh?" with no record of them or of any contact from Storybrooke. Or if Emma had called them herself before leaving or had called the state of Maine office to plead for a better placement, and she learned that Regina hadn't actually called any of them (because I seriously doubt she did). I think I would have liked more investigation from Emma, checking Regina's stories and figuring out more about the town, Regina, and the curse on her own, since there's a lot that doesn't add up. For someone whose primary character trait is WALLS and who supposedly doesn't trust anyone, she's actually pretty gullible.

[KAOS Agent]

What crazy land do these writers live in that foster kids are shipped out of state? Do the taxpayers of Massachusetts know that Maine continually ships their foster kids into their state? Just for fun, I looked up this phenomenon known as the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children.

"A request for placement of a child in another state requires a court order, case plan, a summary of information on the child, and a financial and medical plan. A ten-step process must be completed to comply with the ICPC's requirements. This process involves the ICPC offices in both states and the local social services program. There can be delays of over six months for completing the process, and some states do not accept requests for out-of-state placements." 

The ICPC was not designed for random children to be placed when a state's system is full. That doesn't happen.  It was designed to reunite family members who live out of state from their relative children and would like to open their home to said children. It requires a lot of time and effort to do so.

Emma ending up in Boston never made any sense either. I don't need this show to be crazy realistically detailed, but it's dumb that they would write something that could be so easily correct and not affect the story at all. Why not send the kids to different group homes in Maine like one in Portland and one in Augusta? I know that it's because the showrunners have a special affinity for the cities of Boston and Minneapolis, but it bothers me when their personal ideas negatively affect the realism of the story. Not to mention when it completely messes with their previously established canon.

Edited July 2, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[KingOfHearts]

16 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I don't need this show to be crazy realistically detailed, but it's dumb that they would write something that could be so easily correct and not affect the story at all.

This never really bothered me. While it would be easy to fix, it also doesn't really affect the story either. Whether Emma was in Maine or Boston, it doesn't change the plot much at all. 

Spoiler

But in S7, a sense of realism would've drastically changed things. Victoria's scheme would've been different, Lucy's custody situation would've been different, and Jacinda would've been fired from Mr. Cluck's.

Edited July 3, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

18 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I don't need this show to be crazy realistically detailed, but it's dumb that they would write something that could be so easily correct and not affect the story at all. Why not send the kids to different group homes in Maine like one in Portland and one in Augusta?

I don't so much mind in this case because it was probably a lie. What I do mind is that Emma didn't question it, when she grew up in the foster system and knew how it worked. That's where the realism comes in, if you know it doesn't work that way, and you then wonder why no one on the show is questioning it because you don't know if you're supposed to spot the flaw that's a sign Regina is lying or if the writers just screwed up. They didn't forget Emma's superpower in this episode because she mentioned it in dealing with the kids, but how did she not know Regina was lying? It's really hard to believe that Regina actually called the state child services office, given that she knew they couldn't leave the town, and it would be bad to alert the state that the kids were coming and then not have them show up. Emma was trying everything to help these kids, but she didn't consider making a phone call herself to try to wrangle a better placement or plead for more time with the system? It's not even really the mayor's job to deal with that stuff. The sheriff who caught the kids shoplifting should have been the one interfacing with child services, so Emma should have asserted herself and insisted on doing her own job. She still would probably have had to take the kids out of Storybrooke because the state would have had no records of foster homes in the town, so the ultimate result could have been the same, but it would have been even more tragic if Emma really had tried everything and still had no choice but to take them away. At the same time, she might have learned that Regina had lied when she called and there was no record of Regina having called, and the town just not adding up might have made her dig more.

I just hate how gullible they made Emma throughout the season. She refuses to believe in the curse, but she believes just about everything else anyone tells her.

[KAOS Agent]

If I recall correctly, the world building throughout S1 is not consistent in terms of whether the outside world can enter or even knows of Storybrooke. It's a sign that the writers just didn't care enough to actually create rules and stick to them. In the Pilot, Henry says Emma is the first new person ever to arrive in town that he knows of. This is confirmed by the dust and cobwebs at Granny's check-in desk. How is this possible though if Regina adopted Henry? There would need to be home visits and reference checks and all that adoption entails. How is the town supplied with goods? Are there no deliveries or mail service or repairs or upgrades needed for utilities? Do the utility companies not notice a massive drain on their services from a town that doesn't exist? They went 30 years without anyone upgrading their infrastructure? They have cell phones, so how does that even work? I'd buy that Nicholas and Ava could be easily placed in the system now (not by the mayor though) if they hadn't gone out of their way to establish Storybrooke as this invisible/unknown city in the Pilot. 

It's all about plot needs with this show. It seriously messes with the overall story they are trying to tell. Is Storybrooke integrated into the real world or not? If not, then Emma should have been completely suspicious after a couple of days when noticing the abundance of supplies in town but never any deliveries. A social worker would have shown up to get the kids and Emma would have known that, so again, where is her suspicion when things are being arranged by the mayor and she is expected to do the work of social services?  I also don't buy her just giving in to Regina's claim that they need to be shipped off immediately. Emma could easily have called social services and worked to place those kids in temporary care in Storybrooke. Whether that would be granted is debatable, but I don't see Emma just letting it happen without bothering to check on the possibility given her own poor experiences in the system.

[superloislane]

5 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Are there no deliveries or mail service or repairs or upgrades needed for utilities?

There is apparently a bus service as Henry did get to Boston on a bus...but since no one can come to Storybrooke then that means Henry walked a fair distance out of Storybrooke to catch this bus?

Spoiler

I remember Ruby was waiting for a bus later on in the season but it never arrives so that was at least consistent with the curse but it doesn't explain Henry

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, superloislane said:

There is apparently a bus service as Henry did get to Boston on a bus...but since no one can come to Storybrooke then that means Henry walked a fair distance out of Storybrooke to catch this bus?

That's always bugged me, too. I figure either he stepped over the town line and the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, or because Henry was immune to the curse, when he was at the bus stop, the bus stop became visible to the bus driver. Though you've got to wonder what the bus driver thought about a bus stop he'd never noticed before out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe Henry walked to outside the town line, hitchhiked to the next town, and caught the bus there.

[tennisgurl]

On 7/1/2018 at 5:07 PM, companionenvy said:

Also, Regina really is the worst. This episode epitomizes just how awful she is, in that much of what she does, past and present, is independent of any tactical goals she has. She's just horrible. More than anything she does to Snow or Emma, the fact that she a)apparently sent multiple kids to their deaths in the service of her revenge and b) many years later, under the very different circumstances of the modern world, is willing to separate a brother and sister just to score emotional points against a rival makes her utterly irredeemable. 

Yeah, this re-watch has just been me going "wow, Regina is the absolute worst" several times a watch. And so much of the evil things she does has nothing to do with her hatred of Snow, its just her being a sadistic, power hungry psychopath, and evil just for the sake of being evil. You know, like an evil witch from a fairy tale. 

Spoiler

So this all works fine for a full on supervillain from a fairytale world, but for a character they wanted to eventually redeem? Nope. Like, did they actually write these episodes planning to make her the hero/Queen of Everything, even after sending innocent children to their deaths? Really? 

You know, with all the talk about going into Foster Care being a fate worse than death and Emma trying to reunite the kids with their dad, I can kind see some of the issues adoption advocates has with this show. I think they should have, if they were getting shit about Regina being an awful adopted mom, they could have shown a sympathetic foster parent, or adopted parent to counterbalance her? 

I do like this episode, and I think it lines up pretty well with a modern version of Hansel and Gretel. 

[daxx]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

they could have shown a sympathetic foster parent, or adopted parent to counterbalance her? 

Grace's curse parents could have been adopted or foster and they could have had them reach out to still have visitation with her after the curse broke to show a positive experience.

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

You know, with all the talk about going into Foster Care being a fate worse than death and Emma trying to reunite the kids with their dad, I can kind see some of the issues adoption advocates has with this show.

One can understand why Emma distrusts the Foster System, but there definitely should have been a positive counterpoint to it. As such, the show does come off as anti-adoption and anti-fostering, without providing any alternative solution. Why did Emma think uniting the kids with their father who didn't know they existed was a good thing? She didn't know his character or personality (unlike the audience). 

1 minute ago, daxx said:

Grace's curse parents could have been adopted or foster and they could have had them reach out to still have visitation with her after the curse broke to show a positive experience.

This really was a missed opportunity. 

[KingOfHearts]

6 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

One can understand why Emma distrusts the Foster System, but there definitely should have been a positive counterpoint to it. As such, the show does come off as anti-adoption and anti-fostering, without providing any alternative solution. Why did Emma think uniting the kids with their father who didn't know they existed was a good thing? She didn't know his character or personality (unlike the audience). 

Spoiler

It's a little too convenient for the story that Emma had no positive experiences with foster homes, especially since we learned later she had several near-opportunities for happy living conditions. She had a family until she was 3, there was Ingrid who genuinely loved her, and there was also that family Emma was staying with before Lily screwed things up. You're telling me that despite all the people "watching over her", Emma never had a positive experience with another family or person for 28 years? Please.

Found family is a concept I really love in writing because there's so much you can do with that and it's not always conventional. Even though Emma and Mary Margaret are quite literally "found family", Emma regards her as family because of their friendship - not Henry's book. However, the writers constantly resort to making everyone related because they don't know how to create relationships without using blood ties or sexual tension as a crutch. Things like adoption or friendship are swept under the rug or even demonized. If a character is not related to or romantically interested in one of the main characters, their story is not important.

Edited July 11, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[andromeda331]

8 hours ago, daxx said:

Grace's curse parents could have been adopted or foster and they could have had them reach out to still have visitation with her after the curse broke to show a positive experience.

That would have been a great idea! And it makes sense. They raised Grace for 28 years it had to be hard to just let her go. For Grace too, she no doubt loved her dad but she probably loved them too.

Spoiler

I know it never gets brought up. But they had to treat Grace well or Jefferson would have done something. So that could have been a good counterpoint to Emma growing up in crappy foster homes.

 

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

Why did Emma think uniting the kids with their father who didn't know they existed was a good thing? She didn't know his character or personality (unlike the audience). 

Emma getting the kids' dad to take them may have ultimately been a bad thing, but it makes better sense than sending them out of state to group homes and separated. Those kids weren't being placed into a foster home, but a group home and that's an entirely different situation than being placed with a potentially nice family. Plus, they wouldn't be together, so there's that. On the other hand, those kids staying in Storybrooke meant that Emma, as law enforcement, could keep an eye on their situation and move in if she felt like it wasn't desirable. They would also be able to stay in a town that was familiar to them and stick in the same school with their friends. It would also allow her to gain some more time to make sure that those kids stayed together if they did need to be in the system. Maybe even find them a foster home in Storybrooke. 

In preparation for the show, Jen Morrison said that she read tons of books by foster kids detailing their experiences and she incorporated that into her character regardless of whether it was explicit in the script. It's why you always see Emma eat as fast as she can. It was something she picked up from those foster kids' stories. She also basically described the standard foster experience as landing in a decent home and then pulled out to somewhere else where things were bad and then moved elsewhere where things were better and then somewhere awful, and so on. This being the case, someone who'd experienced this life would be extremely wary of those kids ending up in a bad situation and isn't going to focus on how it could be a potentially positive experience. 

Edited July 11, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[Rumsy4]

You’ve convinced me @KAOS Agent. :-) That makes me feel better, because I actually do like this episode. 

Spoiler

Mary Margaret downplaying Emma’s fears and concerns over the foster system is actually quite true to her later attitude to Emma. Meeting David Nolan is what seems to have brought out her worst personality traits. :-/

Edited July 11, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Colette]

On 30/6/2018 at 4:16 PM, daxx said:

Mostly this I think. He really did a number on Emma emotionally.

Maybe she also wanted to make sure Henry wouldn't try to find him like he did with Emma. In this episode she pretty much told Mary Margaret that he was a bad person and that Henry was better off without him in his life.

Spoiler

And in New York Serenade she absolutely doesn't want Neal to meet Henry. It was interesting how in that version she had told Henry everything that Neal did to her and didn't paint him as a hero.

 

 

On 2/7/2018 at 1:17 AM, Shanna Marie said:

Mostly, I think Regina was focused on the fact that Emma failing and having to take the kids out of town would diminish her in Henry's eyes. Even if nothing did happen, Emma having to take them out of town would be a failure. She really didn't give a second thought to the kids' fate.

I think Regina was also driven by the resentment she still felt towards them for choosing their father over her and wanted to make them suffer some more for it, She is SO maternal, isn't she?

[Shanna Marie]

It says a lot about Regina that her way of competing against Emma over Henry is to arrange what would likely have been the deaths of two kids in order to make Emma look like a failure to Henry so Henry won't trust Emma rather than making herself look like a hero to Henry and proving to him that she's not the Evil Queen by getting personally involved to make sure things worked out for those kids, "miraculously" (since she knew who he was) finding their father and reuniting them with him, or else pulling strings to get them into a good foster home, if not stepping up to foster them, herself (which would even have worked as a kind of payback for them rejecting her as an adoptive mother in the past, since they wouldn't even know or remember rejecting her).

She can't bring herself to help someone even when doing so would benefit her far more than her evil scheming possibly could. Even if she "won" and Emma looked like a failure, Henry knew she'd given the order, so she was just confirming his belief that she was the Evil Queen. He might lose some faith in Emma, but he was only going to resent Regina even more.

[Camera One]

On 7/11/2018 at 4:32 AM, Rumsy4 said:

Mary Margaret downplaying Emma’s fears and concerns over the foster system

I actually thought that was an early indication of the Writers using Mary Margaret as a counterpoint.  It's similar to the way they would use Mary Margaret or David later on.  One would take one side, and the other would take the other side, for the sake of the conversation needing a Devil's advocate.  I thought Mary Margaret's reactions in this episode didn't seem natural and counter to her philosophy in the eight episodes prior to this.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Camera One