Once Upon A Time SEASON 2 EPISODE 6 FULL LENGTH REACTION

Tallahassee- I absolutely love this episode so much, so thank you for another fun reaction for Once Upon a Time, Timothee! Of course, you can probably guess that my favorite scenes throughout this episode, are all those between Emma and Hook, given that they are my favorite characters throughout this entire show. Which I've mentioned more than once already. I just absolutely love these two characters!! :) Also... I love this episode, because it answers so many questions in regards to Emma's past, and there are so many brilliant connections that I really love too! First and foremost... I just absolutely love Hook's and Emma's banter, Hook's cheekiness towards Emma, and how he always flirts with her. Although, he doesn't just flirt with Emma. He flirts with all women including Mary Margaret, Aurora, and Mulan too. However, it's clear in this episode that Hook is far more intrigued by, and is interested mostly in Emma like he indicates when it's decided she's the one going with Hook up the beanstalk, and he states to her, "I hoped it'd be you.", when Emma comes over to him so he can place the magic cuff on her wrist. He also tries to learn more about Emma as they're climbing the beanstalk together because he genuinely appears to want to get to know who she really is. And I love it! I love, love, love Hook... Like I've mentioned a number of times!! :) One of my very favorite moments within this episode... I love, love, love the moment Hook and Emma share as he's helping her by disinfecting her wound with his rum and by wrapping a rag around her bloodied injured hand. He's totally flirting with her, all the while helping to protect her from the legends he knows about the giants smelling blood and of them being dastardly and evil. I especially love when Emma notices his tattoo and calls him out on his real reason for wanting to kill Rumplestiltskin... For Rumple having killed Milah. Such a beautiful moment between these two! :) Also... Killian did steal Milah away from Rumple, and while it was wrong of him to have an affair and to be willing to take her away from her husband and son, Milah was the one who left them. Having willingly left with Killian because they loved one another. I feel that the fault for what happened to Milah was her own, and Rumplestiltskin's. Killian wasn't really to blame. Not nearly as much as Milah was. You can't always help who you fall in love with. And she came to him. Another of my absolute favorite moments, is when Emma and Hook are climbing the beanstalk, when Hook reveals he can read the look of loss and lack of love on her face, because he had lived among the Lost Boys in Neverland for centuries and he understands the reasons for their despair as well. Both Emma and Hook are very perceptive characters, which makes them an amazing team! Just like Hook tells Emma. And in regards to the reasons for Hook and Emma needing to wear the magical cuffs so they can climb the beanstalk... Hook tells the women that the beanstalk has a protection spell surrounding it, keeping any intruders from climbing up to the giants' castle to try to steal the giants' gold and treasures. The cuffs Hook steals from Cora allow for him and Emma, as they would have allowed for him and Cora had they been the ones to go after the compass as was originally planned, to climb the beanstalk against the magic protecting it. Now... I understand why Emma locks Hook's wrist in the shackle in order to force him to stay behind long enough to give her and her mother and their friends a head start. Because she doesn't trust him, especially given the circumstances of her past in regards to Neal, as well as from her parents abandoning her too, and seeing Hook only as a villain. It makes sense that she would be especially skeptical of Hook and his true motives. And I completely understand why she doesn't trust Captain Hook of all people. However, I was just so disappointed in watching this scene play out the first time I ever watched this episode and am still disappointed. Because I really would have loved to see where things went from there on out between the women and Hook had he continued on with them on their journey. In my eyes, Hook truly appears to be genuine in his desire to help them in spite of him being a pirate, and I believe he was telling them the truth. Which is why he is so hurt that Emma would abandon him up there. Especially believing the giant would kill him. Sadly, Emma can only see him as a pirate out for himself though, and she is desperate to get home to her son. And now... Hook is angry all right. I love that while these scenes between Emma and Hook are indeed a fabulous parallel to the scenes between Emma and Neal, they are also a great contrast as well, given that this time... It's actually Emma who betrays Hook, just like Neal betrayed Emma. Instead of it being the other way around like you first believed, Jay. Because Emma absolutely learned from her mistakes in trusting someone like Neal... A thief and a liar, as far as she now believes Neal to be. Just like Hook is a pirate, a thief, and a villain. It's all absolutely brilliant!! I love this all so much!!! :) And now... I really feel the chemistry between Hook and Emma, and especially with the actors who play them... Colin O'Donoghue and Jennifer Morrison. Both are absolutely fantastic!! They both play off one another so well. Next... I also really like the scene in the very end with David and Henry, as David lights the candle for his grandson to catch Henry's nightmares like he used to do for Snow. It's so sweet. And the parallel between this scene and Aurora having the same nightmares in the Enchanted Forest is fantastic as well. As are the parallels between Emma and Hook, with Emma and Neal eleven years ago, given that Emma and Neal were once thieves, and now Emma is once again stealing something from someone else along with Hook. It's just sad learning all that Emma had to go through, with being abandoned by the man she loved when he turned her in, and she becomes imprisoned, and worse... upon her having Henry in prison too. I can't even imagine how difficult her life had been back then. She wasn't innocent in the crimes that landed her in jail, but she didn't deserve that kind of pain. And while Neal did seemingly do right by Emma, so that she would be able to start a new life for herself and then arrive in Storybrooke to break the curse, she doesn't know this. Any of this. So, her anger towards Neal is absolutely understandable. So sad. And all of this of course explains why she felt she had to give Henry up for adoption. So he could have a better life, that she couldn't offer him. Not so long as she remained in prison, then would eventually have to build a new life for herself upon her release, with her time in prison hanging over her head. Emma wanted what was better for her son, so she could give him his best chance. As is shared way back in the Pilot episode as well. Emma's past is so sad. And I feel so badly for her, but I absolutely love learning more about her past. And as for August being there in the first place... August tells Emma that it wasn't until his own arrival in Storybrooke that he finally found her again. However, this episode, titled... Tallahassee, reveals to us that over the years, he never completely forgets his promise to his father that he would take care of Emma and make sure she comes to Storybrooke upon turning twenty-eight so she can break the curse. And therefore, he had been searching for her within the past years as well. Unfortunately, the temptation of the money Neal gives to him for her was too much of a temptation for August. And August does tell Neal he's not very good at ignoring the temptations he comes across because he isn't built that way... A nod to the reveal of August really being Pinocchio, which I love. It is subtlety revealed in the end of this episode that he steels the money Neal had gotten from fencing the stolen watches, and then strays from trying to help Emma once again. And back in season one's episode... The Stranger, when he tells Emma he got a painful reminder at 815 AM in Phuket, which is at 815 PM in Storybrooke upon Emma's first arrival in Storybrooke, while he was living on the island of Phuket as he started to become wood again... It's because he lost track of Emma once again after stealing this money. Phuket is the name August wrote down for the cops when he sends Emma the keys for her yellow bug, yet no money like Neal asked him to do for her, as is revealed in the end scene when the guard shows Emma what she'd be getting when she is released from prison months later. So, we know then that August had stolen the money, and had started living in Phuket not long after he left Neal in this episode, and it's where he had been living when he started becoming wood again as he revealed to Emma back in The Stranger. I love all of the great parallels and nods to past episodes in this one! Next... I also like the moment with Mary Margaret helping Aurora to sleep like David did for her when she had nightmares, even without the candle. I like how very motherly she is for Aurora while her own daughter is busy trying to get the compass with Hook. And I love how her own experiences with having nightmares after waking from the sleeping curse, allows for her to be able to now help Aurora too. I also really like how Emma asks Mulan to be the one to cut the beanstalk down in case she didn't return in ten hours. Because she knows her mother would never agree. And I love even more how Mary Margaret fights Mulan to protect her daughter when Mulan starts to cut it down with her enchanted sword, and the moment afterwards between Emma and Mary Margaret as her mother pleads with her daughter never to ask something like that of Mulan again, because they need to return home together. So beautiful. :) And lastly... I really love the giant we meet in this episode, and especially how he reveals that the victors are the ones to tell the stories their way, to make all people believe giants are evil, when in fact none of it is true. This giant isn't evil at all. Just lonely, misunderstood, and sad after there had been a great battle between the giants and humans that wound up killing all the rest of his family. I love this giant's line about how the victors are the ones to tell the tale, because it's so true in every battle. And it's certainly a major reason for why history can be so complicated and confusing, because there are so many different stories and tales told through different perspectives. Especially through the eyes of the victors. The special effects for the giant might not be so great in certain scenes or moments within this episode, but I really like this overall storyline with him. And I like the actor who plays him a lot too. Jorge Garcia, who I know and love from another TV show... Hawaii Five-0. I never watched Lost because I never had any interest in it, but I also know he's from that show as well, which is pretty cool. But I am always able to look past all of the special effects within this show when they appear to be bad, because I appreciate this show so much!! And because I absolutely love the stories that this show's creators, writers, and especially the actors are trying to tell!! :) Overall... I really love this episode so much, and it is definitely one of my overall favorite episodes throughout season two!! Thank you again, so much for reacting to Once Upon a Time, Tim! Be well and be happy. :) Until next time, my friend... Sincerely, Heidi

Heidi Elizabeth Marcum