Once Upon a Time REACTION - S01E06 - The Shepherd

I think it's great that you stated Mr. Gold seems creepier than he does even in make up as Rumplestiltskin. Because you're absolutely right and while Rumplestiltskin is creepy, he's also funny and charismatic. Whereas with Gold... he is very calm, quiet, and collected. And his facial expressions are also very subtle most of the time as well. They are both two very different characters despite being one in the same. A major reason why I really love Robert Carlyle in these roles. :) Thank you so much for another fantastic reaction for Once Upon a Time!!! I really enjoyed this reaction, and I really love this episode a lot too. So many twists and they're brilliant!! Now... I absolutely love the scenes between Charming and Rumplestiltskin, and the scenes between Charming and King George, who I love to hate. We have this episode's biggest twist when Prince James is killed, and we learn that he had a twin brother no one knew about except for Rumple himself, and of course the twins' parents. Not even Charming knew he had a brother, since they were babies when Rumple made the deal with his parents to save them and their farm. I love each of these revelations... between Rumple and King George, as well as Rumple and Charming before he becomes Prince James. And I love that Josh Dallas plays both roles as himself and Prince James as well. I like seeing him play duel roles that may not seem so different in this episode, but perhaps they will in others. Robert Carlyle is always brilliant in his acting of Rumplestiltskin, as well as Mr. Gold, both characters who have their hands in pretty much everything that goes on in our characters' lives. Both in the Enchanted Forest and in Storybrooke too. He's very clever and conniving, and like I stated before... he has a reason for doing everything he does. Then, Rumple and King George convinces Charming to take on this ruse for King Midas so that George's kingdom will be replenished and so that Midas will give King George all the gold he desires. And yet Charming isn't meant to kill the dragon himself, only to pretend to have done so while George's men go into the cave to do so for him, seeing as he's nothing more than a shepherd. Little does anyone realize how skilled Charming is upon being a shepherd, as he charges in to try to protect the men's lives, then soon slays the dragon himself despite what everyone believed him to be capable of. I love how brave he is, and while the graphics like you pointed out might not be so great due to this show having a low budget, I really love this battle between Charming and the dragon. The sets themselves are quite spectacular. :) However, I feel that my favorite scenes throughout this episode are definitely those between Charming and his mother. Such a tender and heartbreaking moment as they say goodbye to one another, as Charming is forced to agree to George's demands in order to protect his mother. His voice break in this moment sounds very real and their acting in their scenes together is beautiful. David's mother is so sweet and loving, and I love that she gives her son her ring and states that it will lead him to his true love, which it does as we see in the end when it shows Snow waiting in the tree as the royal carriage with Charming and Abigail drive past, leading into the beginning of Snow White's and Prince Charming's love story shown in Snow Falls. Beautiful. I also love the beginning scene with him and his mother when she's trying to set him up with another woman, then his mother gets upset with herself for trying to set her son up in a marriage she knows he would never be happy in. These scenes show how much she truly loves her son, and how close she and Charming are with one another. Next... I enjoy this show's take on King Midas, as well as seeing that Kathryn, whose true name is Abigail in the Enchanted Forest and is Midas' daughter, is sweet and kind in Storybrooke and you feel really badly for her, while Abigail is quite the opposite and you feel badly only for Charming. And yet, there's more to her than meets the eye. And in his own fairytale, King Midas is known as the man with the golden touch. A man cursed to turn everything his hand touches into gold. It sounds great at first, but the price of this magic is most definitely a curse. As for the present day storylines... First, with David and the windmill when he sees it in Gold's shop... Because Charming was unconscious upon being severely wounded when the curse fell over them, in Storybrooke he's found in a coma and once he awakens, the curse hasn't affected him fully yet because of his unconscious state as the curse reformed everyone's memories, including his. That's what the curse has done for everyone from the Enchanted Forest brought over into Storybrooke within the curse, except for Regina because she's the one who cast it and created a way to keep her own memories intact. The curse alters everyone's memories... taking pieces from everyone's true lives and manipulating them in such a way so that everyone is truly miserable, and everyone's happy endings are simply gone. For David... because he was briefly engaged to Princess Abigail in the Enchanted Forest, the curse made both him and Kathryn believe that they're married in their cursed lives here in Storybrooke, just like you stated. However, that they are also in a rocky marriage. However, again because David was unconscious when the curse hit him, his false memories didn't work on him like they instantaneously did for everyone else. He simply has no memories of anyone or anything whatsoever. Which is why he is confused by his true love for Mary Margaret, who he is really married to like we saw from their wedding shown in the pilot episode, and his false love for Kathryn he can't remember. Until of course Regina leads David to Gold, who then uses the windmill to help implant the false memories permanently within David's mind, so that he will remember feelings for Kathryn he never actually had. The windmill was used not to so much help trigger the memories, but to hypnotize David in a way, until the false memories flooded through his mind. A very interesting twist and from the look on Regina's face, it appears she expected Gold could help David's false memories to take hold of him, despite not knowing for sure Gold was truly awake. Unless of course... she knew that her curse was actually cast over the windmill itself instead knowing that Charming would be in a coma for the twenty-eight years and would need a "wake up call" himself when the time came. And Regina knew that the windmill was in Gold's shop waiting for David to come see it. Gold simply smiled because he is awake. I also really love that the first word Gold says to David in this scene once he walks out from the back of his shop to find David in the main room... is "charming", as if Gold is calling David by Snow's pet name for him, then goes on to explain the Snow's unicorn mobile that used to hang over Emma's would be crib in the enchanted forest is what is charming. As for the end scene between David and Mary Margaret once he remembers his false memories and then comes to find her down by the troll bridge... this scene was beautifully acted by both Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas, and you could really feel Mary Margaret's heart shatter upon being crushed when David tells her he wants to do right by Kathryn. And to be honest... I'm not so sure which is worse... for him to break Mary Margaret's heart, or Kathryn's heart. It's crushing either way. But oh... I just felt so bad for Mary Margaret. As for the scene between Emma and Sheriff Graham... it's brief and just okay. I didn't really take much away from it, although that it's meant to help make you feel there's something more between Emma and Graham, which explains why she's more jealous of his twisted relationship with Regina, than angry over his deception and him having sex with Regina while Henry's asleep in the house. And lastly... we have the end scene between Mary Margaret and Dr. Whale. I do not like them together. And I got so frustrated when he asked if he could buy her a drink, and she said that he could buy her two. Clearly, this leads us to believe something more might happen between them and yikes... they are not good together whatsoever. Overall... I love this episode and I loved getting more of a brilliant backstory with Charming and his twin brother, Prince James. I also loved David's constant pursuit of Mary Margaret, as he struggles to convince her that he wants to be with her, not Kathryn. I love how he states that he never chose Kathryn, only the man he couldn't remember had because he never was him. He was only ever a man who loves Mary Margaret and is drawn to her because they are one another's true loves. The twists are great and the acting is top notch. Thank you so much!!! I can't wait for more, so until next time...

Heidi Elizabeth Marcum