Once Upon a Time Review: A Bitter Draught (Season 6 Episode 2)

With Once Upon a Time Season 6 Episode 2, we return to the show’s classic format – the split-narrative between the present story and a character-focused series of flashbacks.

During last week’s Once Upon a Time Season 6 Premiere “The Savior,” save for the brief introduction to Aladdin, the Oracle, and Jafar in the opening scene, there were no flashbacks at all. That really stuck out to me, because it’s a format that the writers have relied heavily on since the very beginning of the series – to varying degrees of success.

I’ve been pretty vocal in the past about being totally over the use of backstories. When a flashback is good, it can be really good. But all too often, the writers will throw in flashbacks that seem to regurgitate the same thing we’ve already seen in a minutely different way. It feels, on occasion, like the flashbacks happen just for the sake of having flashbacks.

Luckily, the flashback sequence at the heart of “A Bitter Draught” isn’t like that at all. The flashbacks focus on a brand-new character who, unfortunately, isn’t long for Storybrooke – the Count of Monte Cristo, a.k.a Edmond Dantes.

The Count’s portrayer, Craig Horner, is very in the role, for the short time we have him. Like many of the formerly-bad characters of Once Upon a Time, I fully expected the writers to rehabilitate the Count. It certainly seemed like they were going that way – his backstory finds him recruited by the pre-rehabilitated Evil Queen to assassinate Charming and Snow by infiltrating their castle under the guise of a vintner, only to have second thoughts when he realizes that the two don’t deserve to die after all.

But that doesn’t happen. Instead, the Count ends up a sacrifice to prove to our heroes (and the audience) that the Evil Queen means business.

After six seasons, not many twists on the show can get me. But I legitimately didn’t see the fact that the Evil Queen wanted Regina to kill the Count coming.

Clearly, the Evil Queen as her own separate entity is incredibly maniacal and a huge threat. She’s all of Regina’s evil distilled.

On “The Bitter Draught,” we learn her evil plan for the season – she wants to bring out the darkness still remaining in Regina, leading her to destroy the happy endings of her friends and reveling in the misery as the group of heroes “tears itself apart.” To start Regina down on that road, she comes up with an intricate and pretty dastardly plan.

I, like many other viewers, simply assumed that the Evil Queen wanted to set the Count loose after the Charmings because she still hates them and wants them dead. This scenario is so much worse. Not only does she still hate the Charmings, but she hates Regina for separating from her and attempting to kill her. Not only does she still want to destroy the Charmings – she wants Regina to be the one to do it.

That’s, like, next level evil right there. It is the ultimate punishment for Regina, who has worked so hard for her redemption over the past five years.

In the past, we see the Count struggle with assassinating the Charmings, as the Evil Queen had demanded in exchange for the list of names of those who wronged him and lead to his fiancee’s death. For anyone who has actually read the Count of Monte Cristo, this is obviously a departure from that traditional narrative, but it works well for the purposes of the show.

By the end of the flashbacks, we see the Count decide not to kill the Charmings – but Rumple isn’t too willing to let him stick around and possibly decide to try again.

As we all already know, at this point in the timeline, Rumple needed the Charmings to remain alive and was actively preventing Regina from harming them, because he needed Emma to be born so that she could lead him to reunite with his son. In a classic Rumple move, past-Rumple poisons Charlotte, Snow’s handmaiden who the Count sorta has the hots for, forcing the two to escape to the Land of Untold Stories.

Rumple forcing the two out of the Enchanted Forest introduces an interesting aspect of the Land of Untold Stories that I don’t think we already knew about – namely, that every inhabitant’s stories just stop once they go there. That includes people who are dying – they cease to die if they go there, as Charlotte remained alive for years though fatally poisoned. Until she got to Storybrooke, anyway.

It seems very clear that the show will use this “death loophole” on a character at some point. As in, someone will be dying and they’ll need to go to the Land of Untold Stories and stay there forever (or until a cure is found) in order to remain alive. Taking bets on this now.

Tragically, part one of the Evil Queen’s plan goes off flawlessly. Regina is forced to kill the Count (after a pretty epic swordfight) because the Evil Queen has stolen his heart and is controlling him, forcing him to relentlessly go after the Charmings.

It’s particularly sad because the Count is very clearly over the whole murder thing – it’s suggested that he just wants to live a happy life with Charlotte. Instead, they both die horribly. It’s actually pretty dark for OUAT.

The scene itself is stellar, though. Lana Parrilla is an absolute powerhouse, as per usual, as both Regina, who is destroyed and very upset after killing the Count, and the Evil Queen, who is campy evil personified.

Elsewhere, a few other storylines introduced during the premiere run concurrently, to varying degrees of interesting.

By far the least engaging storyline is this Emma-not-telling-anyone-she’s-gonna-die nonsense. Well, sorry, to be clear, she has told one person – Archie, who is bound by cricket doctor-patient confidentiality not to tell anyone else, I assume.

I’ve already mentioned that I don’t care for this storyline at all. The far more interesting option would have been for Emma to demonstrate that she’s grown as a character and is more willing to let people in now by telling her family what’s up. Instead, she regresses and chooses to put all her walls back up. But will this decision cost her her life?

I get where the show is trying to go with this storyline – I really do. Emma is having an identity crisis, because if she’s forced to stop saving people in order to not die herself, she feels she’s no longer the Savior. And if she’s not the Savior, who is she?

It’s, in theory, a great way to take Emma back to her pre-Savior roots because, after all, she wasn’t always (known to be) the Savior. In the very beginning of the show, she was just Emma, Henry’s birth mom and the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. The Savior stuff came after.

But I’m simply not thrilled with the way the show is going about it. Unless something super twist-y happens, I expect this will play out in a very predictable way – the truth about Emma’s imminent demise will eventually be revealed to her family in some dramatic fashion. Emma will die regardless of what they attempt to do.

But, JK, not really, because OUAT would never kill off their main character – some “twist” will allow her to live. This is a Disney show; they’re not that metal.

I also like that we’ve seen more of Archie, but is this seriously going to be Emma’s arc all season? Having deep introspective conversations with Archie? That’s great and all, but I want her to do more. I love the moment when Regina asks Henry to call Emma for backup while she’s fighting with the Count and attempting not to kill him – I want more of Emma and Regina working together to defeat the bad guys that this season will throw at them.

Unfortunately, the writers have set us up for a season of Emma and Regina being pit against one another once again.

Shortly after Regina kills the count, Emma has a realization. The only person not standing with her family in the vision where Emma is killed is Regina – meaning that Regina or her Evil Queen counterpart might very well be under that hood and be the one who kills Emma. Yikes.

Stray thoughts:

• New favorite platonic pairing alert! I like the idea of a Hook and Belle friendship. Hook’s apology to Belle for having harmed her previously, and his explanation that he is trying to make it up to her by allowing her to hide away from Rumple on the Jolly Roger, was absolutely wonderful. Probably the best moment of the episode.
• Least favorite pairing alert – the Evil Queen aggressively hit on Rumple. Huh? What? Why? This seems like some dark fanfic fulfillment. Rumple was once in love with Regina’s mother. This is all kinds of weird and unsavory. Plus, what does the Evil Queen even want from Rumple anyway? Does she legitimately just wanna get busy, or is there some deeper maniacal plan she has in store for him?
• The Evil Queen suggests to Charming that his father might not actually have died in a cart “accident” – someone may have murdered him. It’s a cool scene, but where exactly are they going with this? Is she insinuating it was Regina who killed his father?
• Zelena, girl, what are you doing? All that character development throughout Season 5B, down the toilet.
• I feel like we’ve seen a lot of baby Robin recently – but where is baby Neal? Has his babysitter absconded with him? Who is his babysitter anyway, ever since Belle became out of commission for babysitting duties?
• Speaking of the babies – it just occurred to me that they’re totally going to get together if the show does some kind of flashforward for its finale. The son of Rumple and the daughter of Zelena? OBVIOUSLY. And the resulting child of that union will be all powerful. BRB, off to write some fanfiction of my own…

What did you think of this episode of Once Upon a Time? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Reviewer Rating:

User Rating:

 

Once Upon a Time airs Sunday at 8/7c on ABC.

Follow us on Twitter @TellTV

5 TV Tropes We Want More of… and 5 We Never Want to See Again