Tuesday 21 August 2012

Once Upon a Time: Dreamy

Episode 1.14

Yay for Grumpy! Only his name isn’t Grumpy: it’s Dreamy. We’ve seen him a few times in Storybrooke and he was in jail with Snow a few episodes ago. I said then that there’s an interesting take on the seven dwarves and this episode shows how Dreamy/Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Dopey, Doc, Sleepy and Sneezy got together – oh, and Stealthy too. That’s right, there’s eight dwarves. In this set, at least.

Dwarves are brought into the world in a huge barn-like facility where hundreds of eggs are waiting to be hatched. One egg is visited by the fairy Nova and this seems to have some sort of incubating effect as it hatches early to reveal a very smile-y Grumpy. All these dwarves are destined for the mines and Grumpy is to live and work with his seven brethren. Their task is to mine diamonds and rocks that will be used to make fairydust using special axes that name their owners when they first touch them. That’s how Dreamy became Dreamy.


Amy Acker as we've never seen her before ...
Despite being told that dwarves don’t fall in love, Dreamy does exactly that. He’s helping the clumsy fairy Nova (played by Amy Acker!) with her bag of fairydust and he falls headlong into love. Luckily, she feels the same way and they make plans to sail and travel the world together. While Dreamy’s brothers give their blessings, their dreams are thwarted by Nova’s mentor and the father-figure guy in the mines. They tell Dreamy that what he is feeling is just a dream and he shouldn’t hold Nova back when she has the potential to be a great fairy godmother. Their words get through and Dreamy is left to break poor Nova’s heart and return to the mines. His axe breaks and when he is handed another, Dreamy’s new name imprints itself on the handle: Grumpy.

In Storybrooke, MM has thrown herself into charity work in order to get the people of the town to like her. She’s helping the convent sell hand-made candles for the annual Miner’s Festival and because of her current social status, there’s no one willing to help her.

Who will buy our sweet yellow candles?
A helpless Sister Astrid is trying to fix the lights for the festival when she drops chalk/paint/some white stuff on somebody passing underneath her ladder. It turns out to be Leroy (Grumpy) and his grin as she tries to brush it all off his face and coat is so wide that he’s in danger of splitting his face. Instantly smitten, he agrees to help MM, but as the town drunk and town harlot respectively, their chances of success are not great. To top it off, Astrid had mistakenly ordered twelve dozen canisters of helium instead of one dozen and their monthly stipend has all been spent. If they don’t sell the candles to pay their rent, their landlord is going to kick them out. The landlord is none other than Mr Gold.

In the end, MM and Leroy manage to raise the money they needed and MM is slowly accepted back into the community.

Meanwhile, Emma has been trying to locate Kathryn after finding her abandoned car. As Sidney gets involved and we know that he is secretly working for Regina, something is bound to go awry. We then see Regina with her hands on Kathryn’s phone records that put David into the uncomfortable position of prime suspect. The episode closes with Emma shutting the door to her Sheriff’s car on David as she takes him into the station for questioning!

This was a really cute episode, despite all the bad stuff that happens. I like that Grumpy wasn’t always grumpy and to see him full of dreams and hope when he was in love with Nova was sweet to watch. Being the Joss Whedon fanatic that I am, I did a little squealing when I saw that Amy Acker was playing the fairy. Her pink dress just edged into the realm of cringe-y but her enthusiasm shone through and showed once again why I love her.

The stuff with David broke my heart. Yes, he’s an asshole at times but he’s meant to be with MM and he obviously had nothing to do with Kathryn’s disappearance. Why on earth don’t people see through what Regina does, and why do others scheme alongside her? Despite knowing what will happen in several episodes time, I still can’t help but get angry with Regina and the whole show for making the good guys suffer. Tomorrow’s episode had better put me in a better mood.

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