Because The A.V. Club knows that TV shows keep going even if we’re not writing at length about them, we’re experimenting with discussion posts. For certain shows, one of our TV writers will publish some brief thoughts about the latest episode, and open the comments for readers to share theirs.
- Like last week, this episode appears to remember what people started tuning in to Once Upon A Time for in the first place: the chance to see Jasmine and Ariel hang out, strange sea monsters, new takes on old tales. Really liked all the Jasmine stuff, especially as it showed a princess figuring out how to defeat the villain and get her kingdom back, without any help from rando heroes like Hook and Aladdin.
- Not so great: Regina trying to psychoanalyze Emma about her feelings at the bar. Although the whole “Aesop’s Table” concept was pretty clever, with drinks like “The Fox And The Grapes.” And drunk Snow was pretty funny.
- Aladdin searching for Jasmine on what’s got to be a pretty small ship.
- Oded Fehr made an excellent Jafar, just like when he was the perfect villain in The Mummy.
- Killian and Liam should honestly hang out more.
- Henry = now official typical ear-budded teenager
- This episode, maybe because it was written by Jane Espenson and Joe Schwartz, managed to highlight the hokey Once Upon A Time rules that are now familiar: the difficulty in passing between different realms, the power of true love’s kiss, magic always coming with a price, and all that. But it was delivered in such a straightforward way that even Aladdin and Jasmine’s kiss restoring all of Agrabah didn’t bug as much as it probably should.
- Why didn’t they have the Evil Queen get rid of the sleeping curse before she took off last week?
- Next week also looks promising, and Rumple returns, thank God.
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