In the form of Snow Drifts and No Place Like Home the fairytales as we know them were turned upside down and inside out – and not only are the traditional fairytales ‘tweaked’ but the established ONCE storylines that we have started to accept as the official real-life truth (yes... you know you have started to question the classics too…) are scattered with the introduction of time travel. An episode like never before – if you haven’t watched Once Upon a Time yet, I would strongly suggest you start before Season Four arrives. Or else you’ll be left in the dark… and the cold.
Previous episodes were missing something. Something subtle – starting with Zelena, passing over to Regina and even Snow White. Finally the missing ingredient was oomph, gusto, drive and gumption. The subtle cherry or icing sugar missing from the cupcake.
How fast can one reviewer back pedal? The answer, despite the inherent lack of ability to ride a bike backwards, very very fast indeed.
Emma (Jennifer Morrison) is at the heart of events, managing to fall through a time portal with the potential to ruin fairytales as we/she knows them and destroy her own future. Luckily for her she has her gallant, rapscallion of a ‘boyfriend-in-denial’ (otherwise known as Killian ‘Hook’ Jones – Colin O’Donoghue) as her time travel companion (Can we call him Captain Whok now? - Ed.), leaving her newly born baby brother, parents, son and fellow townspeople back in the future!
Emma finally experiences parts of the life she would have had, as a fairytale princess, that she never could have as an orphan on the run. We see her backstory, as a child, as a runaway with Neal (Michael Raymond-James), yet also compare present-day Emma, present-day Emma in the past and the new present-day Emma, facing the future with the comforting truth that home is where the heart is. Elaborated of course by Once Upon a Time drama, but true just the same.
Princess Anna of Frozen fame once said ‘Why have a ballroom with no balls?’ Once Upon a Time presents us with the classics, turned upside-down, inside-out and back-to-front in a magnificent celebration of the stories to date - the writers have balls, giving us this embellished shiny three-season flourish yet still maintaining the uncertainty of future tales and the final destination. No story is safe!