S01.E11: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

A dejected Sidney enlists the aid of Emma to help uncover evidence that could expose Mayor Regina as the corrupt person she really is to the townspeople of Storybrooke. Mary Margaret and David continue their secret rendezvous while trying to figure out a way to unleash their forbidden love.

[Rumsy4]

This was not an interesting episode to rewatch. It was not fun to see Emma being so easily duped by Sidney and Regina. The backstory was better, but it still predicated on people being stupid and Regina being cleverer than everyone else. She played Sidney like a fiddle. 

Regina acting sad when Leopold praised his daughter as the greatest gift only made her look like the stereotypical jealous step-mother. I guess Sidney bought it. However, I didn't like Leopold reading Regina's diary. And it's not clear if Regina really was under house-arrest or if that was also part of her manipulation of Sidney.

Spoiler

Henry Sr. is no innocent doormat. He passively let Cora abuse his daughter, and later actively aided Regina in her villany. And yet, he went to heaven. Only in this Show...

David and MM's private picnic was cringey. 

All in all--meh.

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

This was not an interesting episode to rewatch. It was not fun to see Emma being so easily duped by Sidney and Regina. The backstory was better, but it still predicated on people being stupid and Regina being cleverer than everyone else. She played Sidney like a fiddle. 

Regina acting sad when Leopold praised his daughter as the greatest gift only made her look like the stereotypical jealous step-mother. I guess Sidney bought it. However, I didn't like Leopold reading Regina's diary. And it's not clear if Regina really was under house-arrest or if that was also part of her manipulation of Sidney.

  Reveal hidden contents

Henry Sr. is no innocent doormat. He passively let Cora abuse his daughter, and later actively aided Regina in her villany. And yet, he went to heaven. Only in this Show...

David and MM's private picnic was cringey. 

All in all--meh.

No, it wasn't. There's no reason way Emma would believe anything Sidney said. I didn't like how Regina played Sidney in the past although he does come off as a moron with his wish and slightly with believing Regina. He didn't know her or Leopold and I agree Regina did a real good job to try and convince Sidney she was sad but he sure switched quickly to murder the man who freed him and falling for his wife. I hated David and MM's picnic. And I hate that their twisting it. We know they are really married.  But its still hard to watch the "affair".

Spoiler

I agree about Henry Sr he could have done something a long time ago and chose not to. Not only that he helped his daughter murder her husband, he helped her take over the kingdom and so much more. I think we're suppose to think of he's a nice guy. If he is how is he not sick without how his daughter turned out? Why didn't he do anything to stop her? Why isn't he sick about his part in all of this and all the murders his daughter committed? She became the Evil Queen and he helped her. 

 

 

Spoiler

 

I'm not sure why Leopold was reading Regina's diary. He always left her alone in other flashbacks so why does he care so much now? Has he never once wondered what she's up too? Or has he only now been getting rumors that his wife may have a lover? How did he get a hold of her diary? I assume Regina or Henry Sr made sure he came across it but how? It shouldn't be anywhere but in Regina's rooms. Leopold doesn't seem like he's been to her rooms in a long time if ever. Is she acting like a woman in love with someone else around her husband? I really don't understand it doesn't make any sense. Why does he only suspect a lover and not that Regina is psycho and plotting his murder?

 

[Shanna Marie]

This episode is the perfect case study of what I said in the All Seasons thread earlier this week about how so much in this show is driven strictly by the plot needs of the individual episode, regardless of character, world, or even the big-picture plot.

In the present, the plot needed Regina and Sidney to dupe Emma, so our cynical, street-smart bail bondsperson/bounty hunter with WALLS who doesn't trust anyone and knows Regina has her fingers in everything in town just decides to totally trust Sidney completely, to the point that she not only acts on his information, but also brings him in on everything she does. The person who, just an episode or so ago, made a big public stance about doing things the right way because it was important to show Henry now is willing to totally break the law to get what she wants. And it won't even do her any good. She already knows everyone in town hates Regina. Does she think that exposing corruption is really going to change anything? Her only hope is getting something that will hold up in court, and breaking into Regina's office will ruin her entire investigation.

Meanwhile, Regina's scheming to replace the playground is purely for the purpose of giving something for Emma to be suspicious of. Why would anyone put a playground in the middle of the woods, far enough from town that you have to drive to get there? Why would she need to buy new land to put the playground on when there was already land the existing playground was on? Why not just put a new, safer playground on the site of the existing one? Even if that was the place where Henry met with Emma, at least it was fairly public and visible. With the new playground, she just gave them a more private and remote place to meet.

At least Regina is being consistent and in character for being willing to do things that hurt Henry just to make Emma look bad. She destroys his favorite spot in order to create an elaborate scheme to set up Emma.

Why would the meeting to purchase land for the city take place in the woods, at night, and in cash? Wouldn't lawyers and Realtors be involved, with paperwork to be signed? Even if there was a legitimate reason for Regina to be purchasing land for the city, her doing so in the woods at night without a paper trail would be highly irregular and suspicious. This only happened because Regina wanted Emma to be suspicious. And just an episode or so ago, Gold was trying to help Emma get an advantage over Regina, so why is he cooperating with Regina here?

Spoiler

I don't even thing there was any long-term plot reason for this whole scheme. It just sets up the fact that Emma trusts Sidney while Sidney is still working with Regina, and it sets up the missing book. But the playground thing doesn't matter at all.

Then there's the flashback. The genie really is a jerk if he immediately puts the moves on the wife of the guy who selflessly gave up his wishes and freed him. Yeah, Regina manipulated him, but only after he approached her. All she was doing before that was looking sad and put upon. It would have worked better if maybe he'd met her before he found out who she was, and then he was actually torn, like there was a real dilemma. As it was, he barely showed the slightest qualm for screwing over and even murdering someone he owed his life to.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to think or believe about Leopold. It's really hard to believe that a guy so selfless and kind that he gave up his wishes to free a genie would be a cruel and abusive husband. He did read her diary, which is shady, but was it a case of her leaving it open and obvious? Did he really lock her up, or was that all part of the setup and her father was in on it? They're really vague on how it's all presented, so it's not clear how much of what Regina told the genie is true. On a normal show, I'd read between the lines and take the fact that we know Regina wasn't going to kill herself and the fact that she immediately turned around and framed the genie for the murder, plus the fact that they showed how kind and selfless Leo was and assume that everything Regina did was a lie to manipulate the genie. On this show, they're totally capable of presenting a character as kind and selfless one minute and expecting us to believe he'd imprison his wife for cheating on him later in the same episode, especially if that provided an excuse for Regina to murder him.

I find it really hard to watch this episode. In fact, midway through I got up and was looking out the window to see if it was raining.

[superloislane]

I thought this was the weakest episode of season 1 at the time and I still believe it. I don't like anything about this - it's boring and characters make dumb choices.

14 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

However, I didn't like Leopold reading Regina's diary. And it's not clear if Regina really was under house-arrest or if that was also part of her manipulation of Sidney.

I don't think he did since I doubt she had an actual diary - if Regina had a personal diary wouldn't it be filled with 'Kill Snow!' and details of her murder plots? Everything in the flashback was Regina's manipulation - she left out a fake diary for Leopold to find - probably on the page where she wrote she was in love with another man.

[Rumsy4]

18 minutes ago, superloislane said:

she left out a fake diary for Leopold to find - probably on the page where she wrote she was in love with another man.

With red arrows pointing to the line. :-p 

[KingOfHearts]

I feel like this episode's purpose is to both show off Regina's skills of manipulation and give Emma angst to help pad out the season. "Look how evil Regina is! See how capable/seductive she can be! Isn't she just unstoppable??", except, everyone else has to hold the idiot balls to make that work. Regina's scheme depends on everyone cooperating with zero margin for error. She needed Sidney, Leopold, Henry Sr., Emma, and Gold to do what she wanted without suspicion. It doesn't make Regina look intelligent - just ridiculously lucky. 

Spoiler

There's a recurring theme in this show where the heroes are idiots and the villains just stumble upon their victories.

Emma being unable to visit Henry is inconsequential. They meet in secret anyway. It's supposed to hurt but it doesn't actually provide any sort of roadblock at all.

Edited July 7, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, superloislane said:

I don't think he did since I doubt she had an actual diary - if Regina had a personal diary wouldn't it be filled with 'Kill Snow!' and details of her murder plots?

Yeah, if it was Regina's real, private diary, being in love with another man would have been the least shocking thing in it. It would have been full of how much she hated Snow, how frustrated she was with the fact that everyone loved Snow and didn't realize what a monster she was. Plus, she wasn't actually in love with the genie, given that she was setting him up to murder her husband and take the fall for it, and she had zero interest in actually being with him, which resulted in him using the final wish to always be with Regina, thus turning himself into the magic mirror. It had to have been a fake diary.

I guess if you'd only seen the series up to this point, you might have felt a bit bad for Regina being ignored, though we already knew she'd tried to have Snow murdered and had cast the Dark Curse. There was still the chance that she had been in love with Leopold, but her love was unrequited, or something like that. But with the information we get later ...

Spoiler

We know she was never in love with Leopold, that she didn't have to marry him, that she pretty much married him just to get revenge on Snow, that she spent their entire marriage sneaking off to learn magic, plus she went in search of her soulmate while married to him and spent some time trying to undermine Snow. So by this time in their marriage, Leo probably had given up on even being all that civil to her.

 

42 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I feel like this episode's purpose is to both show off Regina's skills of manipulation and give Emma angst to help pad out the season. "Look how evil Regina is! See how capable/seductive she can be! Isn't she just unstoppable??", except, everyone else has to hold the idiot balls to make that work. Regina's scheme depends on everyone cooperating with zero margin for error. She needed Sidney, Leopold, Henry Sr., Emma, and Gold to do what she wanted without suspicion. It doesn't make Regina look intelligent - just ridiculously lucky. 

It is an awfully convoluted plot. She had to hope that the person who was willing to possibly lose the election in order to tell the truth would be willing to do shady and underhanded things in order to get dirt on her. Emma had to care about possible corruption in the town government. She had to assume Emma would bug her office. She had to get Gold's cooperation. And she didn't even accomplish all that much.

I wonder what she was planning to do with those snakes if the genie hadn't come along. Did she just happen to have them handy or did she go out and find them once someone from Agrabah showed up in the castle?

[andromeda331]

7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Yeah, if it was Regina's real, private diary, being in love with another man would have been the least shocking thing in it. It would have been full of how much she hated Snow, how frustrated she was with the fact that everyone loved Snow and didn't realize what a monster she was. Plus, she wasn't actually in love with the genie, given that she was setting him up to murder her husband and take the fall for it, and she had zero interest in actually being with him, which resulted in him using the final wish to always be with Regina, thus turning himself into the magic mirror. It had to have been a fake diary.

I guess if you'd only seen the series up to this point, you might have felt a bit bad for Regina being ignored, though we already knew she'd tried to have Snow murdered and had cast the Dark Curse. There was still the chance that she had been in love with Leopold, but her love was unrequited, or something like that. But with the information we get later ...

  Reveal hidden contents

We know she was never in love with Leopold, that she didn't have to marry him, that she pretty much married him just to get revenge on Snow, that she spent their entire marriage sneaking off to learn magic, plus she went in search of her soulmate while married to him and spent some time trying to undermine Snow. So by this time in their marriage, Leo probably had given up on even being all that civil to her.

 

It is an awfully convoluted plot. She had to hope that the person who was willing to possibly lose the election in order to tell the truth would be willing to do shady and underhanded things in order to get dirt on her. Emma had to care about possible corruption in the town government. She had to assume Emma would bug her office. She had to get Gold's cooperation. And she didn't even accomplish all that much.

I wonder what she was planning to do with those snakes if the genie hadn't come along. Did she just happen to have them handy or did she go out and find them once someone from Agrabah showed up in the castle?

It really is. Why was Emma so willing to believe Sidney? There was really no reason. Ooh Regina maybe corrupt. Except she's already knows that. Now if Sidney brought her something better. Like maybe a secret file on Graham's autopsy or pay off to the M.E then maybe peak her interest. Something big enough to get Emma to overlook the source. If that was possible because Sidney does whatever Regina wants and Emma already knows it. 

[daxx]

Not much to add. I don’t understand why Emma would even believe Sidney. I do buy Sidney being that naive in the flashback though. People tend to think less clearly when they are in love.

[tennisgurl]

Honestly, everyone comes off as either an asshole, or a dumbass. Or, in many cases, both. You have Regina being awful as always, Leopold being a crappy husband while not noticing his wife is pretty obviously evil, the Genie macks on the wife of the guy who set him free, and fell hook line and sinker for her bullshit (in both worlds), Mary M and David are having their adultery picnic, and Emma is just played like a fiddle and seems like a moron. Even compared to doormat Sidney whos love for Regina is as inexplicable as A&Es. 

At least we got to see a bit of the nice Leopold a few times (and this is basically as bad as he gets as a husband, which is...not that bad) with the Genie, even if that led to a weird "dont be nice to people, they`ll just betray you!" moral. His character is, like many characters, all over the place in this episode. It seems like they need him to be a cold, even possibly abusive husband, but he also has to be a super nice guy and great dad, leading not to a complicated character, but to a mess that says that plot is more important than character. 

Not much else to say. Not really a fan of this one. 

Edited July 9, 2018 by tennisgurl

[Rumsy4]

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

a mess that says that plot is more important than character

The signs were there all along. We were just fooled into Hoping for the best. 

[KingOfHearts]

I've got to dissect the scene where Emma breaks into Regina's office, simply for who atrociously stupid it is. Firstly, it's a dumb idea to commit a crime in order to expose someone committing another crime of equal or similar caliber. Regina may be supposedly embezzling funds, but that's nothing anyone wouldn't expect her to do anyway. Nobody needs to see how evil she is, as others have already pointed out. Emma breaking and entering in order to prove a point is much more damaging to her reputation because she is law enforcement and respected not only by the community, but by Henry. I get the show is trying to say she's gotten emotionally invested in taking down Regina and that has impaired her judgement. However, there's not enough to spurn that within the immediate context.

Regina already has enough material to discredit Emma with and she's already tried. How is cutting down her apple tree with a chainsaw any better than breaking into her office? She ran a smear campaign in the newspaper for goodness sake. It's not even about Henry. He didn't even know about the entire scheme and his opinion of Emma didn't change. She didn't need additional reasons to keep Henry away from Emma if a custody battle were even on the table. I guess maybe she just wanted to intimidate Emma, but hasn't she learned already that she's a bit more resilient than that? It just doesn't make much sense why Regina would even go through the trouble of humiliating Emma. It didn't get her anywhere beyond reducing a little HOPE.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from the break-in scene. Emma is framed as being foolish, but she talks as if she knows what she's doing. (I had to laugh at the "security override" text on the computer. Magic USB Stick to the rescue.) She said they had several minutes, but Regina arrived almost instantly. Was she sitting outside in the car waiting? Emma's lie about the kids breaking in and Sidney being a witness was insultingly unbelievable. Regina made no gesture, even during the lingering shot of her alone after they left, that she was onto them or suspected anything. (Most assuredly so that the audience would be surprised by her cunning at the end of the episode.) 

It's funny that Emma found the skeleton keys and didn't question that more. 

Spoiler

Henry even mentioned them in a later episode and she didn't believe him. So what was the point of her finding them?

[Camera One]

I'm catching up on the rewatch while I have the chance, so I decided to watch another fruit of the poisonous tree of A&E's minds.

I think this episode might have been even more frustrating to watch this second time around.  The first time around, I did want to know what happened next.  One could feel badly for Regina since we didn't know the circumstances of how she became involved in a loveless marriage.  

Spoiler

Knowing that she chose to follow through with marrying Leopold made me have zero sympathy for her in this episode, especially with her cruel actions.

I remember being peeved yet again that no kindly act went unpunished on this show.  Leopold was nice enough to free the Genie, and clearly was simple minded enough not to have any desire.  Yet, he had to die.  

As Shanna Marie said above, Regina was incredibly lucky with her plan in the flashback.  Though why she didn't have the snakes kill Snow too is a mystery.  It seems like Regina came up with her plans to use Sydney incredibly quickly.  I always assumed the diary was fake, complete with the mirror, and it was integral for Leopold to happen upon it.  The piecemeal scenes we got really made it difficult to tell exactly what happened.  There were guards outside Regina's room but I don't think we can be sure that Leopold imprisoned her.  Surely, if the King trusted the Genie that much, he would know that she was locked up, but he didn't.  And Henry Sr. would have needed time to acquire exotic snakes, no? 

How could Regina have predicted the Genie was psycho enough to murder for her?  I suppose she could have set the snakes loose in Leopold's room herself and the guards would still blame the Genie because the snakes were from Agrabah.  Why was there such a time gap between the Genie setting the snakes on Leopold and the Genie coming to Regina, who told him the guards had found the snakes and he was the main suspect?

In the present-day, I just hated how Emma fell for Regina and Sidney's shenanigans.  Even if Regina used the money to build a playground, if this were a real town, the proposal would have needed to go through city council for approval before public money was handed over and before a playground design would be approved and then built.  Why did Regina need to pay Gold cash in a suitcase in the woods?  It was so contrived and idiotic.  Emma couldn't tell from those computer files that they were designs for a playground?  

Emma had 6 minutes in Regina's office and decided that she was going to print it out there?  Is this because Mary Margaret doesn't own a printer?  It's just so laughable.  

As mentioned above, this episode was basically pointless:

Spoiler

If Regina's goal was to diminish Emma in the eyes of the town, I don't remember that being an issue at all in upcoming episodes.  Henry and Emma continued to communicate... in fact, Regina made herself even more of a bad guy to Henry by forbidding contact with Emma.  

So despite his wish backfiring and being trapped in a mirror and knowing he was manipulated, the Genie was STILL devoted to Regina as The Magic Mirror?  Why?  The Genie never figured out how to get out of the Mirror?