In this Prince-Charming-centric episode we find out that Abigail/Katherine isn’t so bad after all, but the Evil Queen (still) is. We learn the Mysterious Stranger’s name; Henry gets his book back, except it’s not exactly his book; Mary Margaret breaks up with David; and Katherine disappears.
Recap
It’s Prince Charming and Abigail’s wedding day, but the groom has fled. King George sends out his goons to find him, but Prince C has a surprising rescuer — the jilted bride herself. She doesn’t mind that the wedding was called off because she also loves another — Frederick, who was turned to gold by accidentally touching King Midas.
Prince Charming risks his life to get a cup of magic water that will bring Frederick back to life. The Prince is brave and honest — the exact opposite of his Storybrooke self, David, who is cowardly and a liar. We watch the action flip back and forth between FTL and Storybrooke, emphasizing the contrast between the two personalities of Prince Charming and David.
Prince Charming
David and Mary Margaret
David, Mary Margaret, and Katherine
David promises Mary Margaret that he will tell Katherine the truth, but he chickens out, and just tells Katherine he’s unable to connect with her.
Katherine finds out from Regina, who oh-so-conveniently has incriminating photos of David and Mary M in her top desk drawer. Then Mary Margaret finds out from Katherine that David didn’t tell her the whole story.
In a nice twist, Katherine, true to her Abigail roots, realizes that David and Mary M are true lovers, and that she and David are not.
Mary M, meanwhile, gets the Scarlet Letter treatment from the town folks, which seems anachronistic. The town may or may not be in 2012, but it’s taking place in a time recent enough to have cell phones and the internet.
Mary M blames David for the appalling way the town treats her, which I thought wasn’t totally fair, because it wasn’t only David’s lie at the last moment that was wrong, but also the lie that both she and David perpetuated all along. In any case, he did do her wrong, and once again, we see that the course of true love is not running smoothly.
The Siren
David bravely goes to the lake where few come back alive. It’s guarded not by an ugly beast, but a beautiful siren, perhaps an allusion to the Lady of the Lake.
She’s a shapeshifter who looks like whoever anyone wants her to be. She turns into the likeness of Snow White, and Prince Charming kisses her. I thought he was a goner for sure, but he manages to kill her and escape. (But will that kiss, like slow-acting poison, come back to haunt him later?)
He frees Frederick, whose Storybrooke equivalent is the gym teacher.
The Mysterious Stranger
We learn the mysterious stranger’s name — August W. Booth, with the W. standing for Wayne. He does something to Henry’s book — either copies it, adds something to it, or changes it.
Booth adding pages to Henry’s book
When we first saw him fiddling with the book, I thought he was making a copy of the book because it looked like he was in a photographic darkroom. But now I’m not sure. Maybe he was creating new pages and adding them to the existing book.
Katherine and Regina
Katherine doesn’t catch on that Regina is not really her friend, and there’s a great moment where Katherine hugs Regina, and Regina’s cheek muscles twitch.
Katherine, in her newfound understanding of true love, leaves a letter for David and Mary Margaret, telling them they should be together. Too bad she told Regina about the letter. The scenes cut back-and-forth between Katherine driving away towards the town border, which we know no fairytale character can safely pass — and Regina burning the letter.
Regina burning Katherine’s letter to David
Is Regina’s burning the letter hurting Katherine, the way Regina’s squeezing the heart hurt and ultimately killed Graham? Or is it just the curse that prevents Katherine from leaving? Either way, we see Katherine’s car crashed on the side of the road, just before the “Storybrooke” sign — and in this week’s twist ending, the gym teacher/Frederick finds the car, and Katherine is not inside.
What we didn’t see
We didn’t see Rumpelstiltskin or Mr. Gold. Maybe Robert Carlyle got a week off to rest after his intense performance last week.
LOST shout out?
When Emma and August W. Booth go for their drink — not cocktails, but magic water from the lake where Prince Charming battled the Siren — they have a conversation about faith versus reason that reminded me of similar conversations between Jack and Locke in LOST. Booth takes Locke’s side, talking about magic and telling Emma she has to take a leap of faith, while Emma is Jack-like, wanting to see evidence before she will believe.
At one point, Booth says, “If you drink the water from this well, something lost will be returned to you.” Normally, I wouldn’t have thought much of this — after all, the television show LOST does not have a monopoly on the word “lost” itself — except that it happened during a scene that was otherwise very reminiscent of one of LOST’s central themes.
Editing
Usually, I don’t notice the editing much, but there were several dramatic and interesting cuts in this episode:
— The horseback chase scene in the beginning ends on a cliffhanger. Prince C, thinking he is safe, turns around and finds two hooded thugs right behind him moving in fast. The screen goes to black — I thought for a commercial — but then the camera, surprisingly, cuts to David and Katherine quietly eating dinner, which was quite a contrast.
— We see Booth and Emma on Booth’s motorcyle leaving the boardinghouse and pulling out into the street — and then, seconds later, we see them in the middle of the forest. That jarring cut heightened the feeling of magic and altered reality that the scene was about.
— Prince Charming rises triumphantly from the enchanted lake after vanquishing the Siren — then the camera cuts to a hand in what looks like a bucket of bloody water — but it’s David, washing the red “Tramp” paint off of Mary Margaret’s car.
Gripe
Sometimes, especially in the Storybrooke scenes, the show hammers home a point when it would be better to let it speak for itself. It’s as if they feel compelled to explain the punchlines to jokes:
When Mary Margaret and Emma are sitting in the cafe talking, Mary M asks Emma why she didn’t say anything after seeing the two cups in the sink, etc. Emma has a great line: “I’m not your mother.” They should have left it at that, instead of having Mary Margaret add, “According to Henry, I’m yours.”
Questions
The Mysterious Stranger’s Name
We learned that the mysterious stranger’s name is August W. Booth. That’s certainly a strange name. It must mean something — but what?
I thought it might be an anagram, but when I tried anagramming it, all I came up with was “Wash, But Go Out,” and “Was Bought Out.” I tried anagramming the full name (August Wayne Booth), and got “Big Tawny Outhouse,” “Gunboat Awes Youth,” and “Gay Tuba Townhouse.”
I don’t think any of those are the answer to this riddle. What do you think the name might mean?
David and Prince Charming
Why was David so different from Prince Charming — cowardly instead of brave, lying instead of honest? Was it just because of the curse? Or do you think something happened to Prince Charming, that we haven’t yet seen, that changed his fundamental character?
I think most, maybe all, of the other characters have kept their basic personalities in both worlds. Why would David be different?
The Gym Teacher (Frederick)
Why was he driving down that road, at the end of the episode? Was he following Katherine?
“Frederick” looking inside Katherine’s empty car
Katherine
Where is she? Any guesses?
The Mysterious Stranger, aka David W. Booth, but still mysterious
Who do you think he is now?
August Wayne Booth sounds similar to John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln’s assassin).
From wikipedia…In August 1855 John Wilkes Booth made his stage debut in the supporting role of the Earl of Richmond in Richard III at Baltimore’s Charles Street Theatre. Author Gene Smith wrote that Booth’s acting may not have been as precise as his brother Edwin’s, but his strikingly handsome appearance enthralled women.
I’m grasping at straws here:
August – defined as “majestic”
Wayne – “wane” perhaps? Bringing or coming to an end
Booth – could be referring to Lincoln’s assassin.
Could the stranger bring an end to the evil queen or other royal family member? Like I said, I’m grasping. About the book, at first, I thought it was a flashback to when he was creating it. If not, then perhaps he has written himself into the story. Whatever changes he has made, Henry will be sure to notice.
I also thought of John Wilkes Booth right away — and I like David’s note that his “strikingly handsome appearance enthralled women,” a description that also fits our Booth to a T.
When he said “It’s August,” for a split-second I thought he was talking about the month. Then I thought, what an odd name. And then I thought of August Wilson, who was a playwright, because the Mysterious Stranger is a writer too. And there’s also August Strindberg. But I don’t think OUAT has ever used real people as references for names (that would be far more typical of LOST), and the references might be too obscure anyway.
The middle initial, followed by his telling us what it stands for, is what made me think some kind of word or letter play was involved.
I think he could be part of bringing an end to the Evil Queen, and he seems to be on Emma’s side, but I’m not sure whose side he’s really on.
I like to think that the Stranger, as a writer, enters Storybrooke physically because writers normally enter fairy-tale land metaphorically; he penned the original books by visiting the land in his imagination, but now that the realm is made concrete by the curse, he must actually go there to draw inspiration and chronicle new stories.
It might be that he can partly or entirely see through the Queen’s illusions, if he does have the writer’s usual omniscience about stories. If so, I like to think that he is trying to open Emma’s eyes to the truth, in order to influence events and write the kind of happy ending that he gives the characters in his book.
The set of characters who are aware of the curse has certainly had several potential additions recently: first the Sheriff, then Rumple, then August. I also like to think that perhaps Belle’s Storybrooke equivalent remembers the truth, since a large part of Beauty’s narrative purpose is to see past the superficial to the underlying nature, and it would provide a good reason for her to be locked in an insane asylum in our world.
An interesting tidbit. The surname ‘Booth’ comes from the Middle English bothe meaning a ‘temporary shelter or dwelling’ . So maybe he was somehow hidden in the wardrobe with Emma?? Maybe Gepetto’s son since he built the wardrobe?
More from wikipedia: “In 1808, Jacob Grimm was appointed court librarian to the King of Westphalia. In 1812 the brothers published their first volume of fairy tales, Tales of Children and the Home. They had collected the stories from peasants and villagers; they were also aided by their close friend August von Haxthausen. “
August is definitely friend, not foe. He was clearly adding pages to the book — first staining them for an aged look to match what was already there. I wondered if “booth” might have anything to do with his being a collector (of stories as opposed to tolls) …
Just found this blog.
I really wish someone would remember something. It seems like we keep ending up at square one, which is getting frustrated. The “real world” is becoming boring.
I dont know much about August, but I think he is interesting. I like the idea of him being the writer and adding new stories… I wish Gold was in this episode.
David is so cowardly because of the curse. Just like Snow White is sort of a fierce lady in fairy tale land, she is also kind of withdrawn. The curse brings out the inner fears, doubts of the fairy tale person. Just like with Belle being crazy, Jimminey under Regina’s thumb, and etc.
I was thinking the same about the letter burning-hurting Katherine thing. Because it cuts from Regina burning the letter to soccer coach/Frederick finding Katherine’s empty car. I hope there will be some sort of explanation to this because, even though I just watched the episode, it is driving me crazy.
Looking forward to next week’s episode, that I won’t get to watch until Monday.
Also, is it possible that Katherine was put in the same ward as Belle [that we saw last week] b/c Regina didn’t get her way?
Welcome to Ava and everyone else who is here for the first time (and to everyone who has been here before, too).
Just thought of something — when August rides his motorcycle, it seems to be more than just a way to get around — it seems to be an important part of who he is. Is there a fairytale character who is known for riding something?
I think it’s very possible that Katherine is in the dungeon with Belle.
I hope that August is friend, not foe. He does seem to be trying to lead Emma to the truth — not by telling her straight out, but by giving her the tools (the well water, the remade book) to enable her to discover it for herself. But without knowing who he really is, I still have the nagging feeling that he could be laying a trap.
After the reporter pretended to be on Katherine’s side …and really wasn’t I don’t trust August and the “appearance” that he’s on her side. Hopefully, I’m wrong. If he really is a “friend” I think he knows more about ftl than he is letting on and is there to show Katherine that the curse is real. I just can’t wait for more people to start remembering!! And I agree with Ava. I really missed Gold in this episode… he is so wickedly great!
SO, I’ve heard a lot of the theories so far about the strange, August. I’m partial to the idea that he might be a grimm, someone who’s capable to adding or changing the story so that the eventuall happy ending can come about.
However another theory I’ve got and haven’t really seen hit upon so far is this:
Since the huntsman has been removed as a possibly love interest, and when you break this down to its story format, this is a happily ever after tale. Emma, even if she is the heroine, will eventually find her prince charming. However, she is of both worlds now, FTL and ours.
Is it not possible that August, a man who is possibly of both worlds too, is her new love interest and might be her knight so to speak?
My theory, which I now love, but is founded on NOTHING….
Since he was able to enter Storybrooke, I assume August is a Character of interest..
Knowing that RumpelStiltstkin can foresee the future AND loves dealing in the lives of Babies… Maybe August is a baby of a different kingdom.. Kind of Emma’s counterpart.. the “prince she would’ve married had she grown up in the enchanted forest.
After all.. Where did MaryMargaret get the original book from?? There are forces at work outside of Regina’s curse. I think We still don’t have a full view of all that took place in the land of magic, but we do know that Rumpel was manipulating many many lives…
I think it will be interesting to see where it goes.
I looked up Wayne Booth who was a literary critic who coned the term “unreliable narrator”. Usually in first person, this narrator is one whose “credibility has been seriously compromised.” (Unreliable narrator-wilkipedia)
Augustus, Emperor of Rome was given the powe of ‘censor’-supervising public morality.
Could August be one who must supervise the morality of the narrators of the stories so that they are NOT unreliable, letting the truth come out?
It’s a thought.
Wow, great find! The idea of the unreliable narrator ties in with OUAT in so many ways. The SB characters are living out a false narrative — the narrative created by the curse — which keeps them from living their true stories, reaching their true destinies, being with their true loves. The show is all about narratives. The false narrative of the curse is challenged by the true narrative in Henry’s book.
In literary terms, an unreliable narrator is one who tells the reader things, often about himself, that aren’t true. The reader may not catch on right away. So many of the characters on the show have secrets and could be telling us stories to make things appear other than they really are.
I’m going to take back what I said before about the OUAT writers not making references to actual people in the names of the characters. I think they must have done that here. This seems too good to be just a coincidence.
But if August W. Booth is an unreliable narrator, does that mean he put something into Henry’s book that is meant to deceive? Hmmm …
Well, there is the August part of his name, which, as you say, suggests honesty.
Another possibility is that “Wayne Booth” is being used not to refer specifically to the idea of false narration, but to the more general idea of a literary critic. Which could mean that August Booth is helping the SB people find the true meaning of their own narratives — which would make him a good guy, on Emma’s side.
I was wondering why Fredrick was driving the same road out of town as Katherine. We know she was trying to get to Boston. Where was Fred going?
I instantly thought that EQ took Katherine to the asylum with Belle. She needed Katherine to stay with David. MaryM/Snow and David/Prince cannot get together in SB. Did you notice the look on the EQ’s face when Katherine told her of her plans.
Also, in the opening credits, is it a coinseidenc that when the voice over talks about breaking the curse the scene is on August?
I always wondered if August was always in SB. Never left or came back. Maybe he has been hiding. He knows alot about the people and town to be a stranger.
I don’t know why but since I watched the latest episode, I think that August & Henry got something in commons, this way to telling stories (the wishing well), and this obsession for the fairytale book ! Even Emma said it when they were into the forest ! Also, I don’t really think that he could be the kind of “new Emma’s lover”, because after all, there is only one true love kiss, and she did it, with Sherif Graam, which remembered his hunter’s life, right ? (Only a true love kiss can break a curse).
I just hope there is good reason to make David so different than the FTL, because as other people said, every charactere is suppose to keep a part from their origin, and exept his love for Mary Margaret/Snow…
About Katherine, I’m pretty sure that she’s in thd dungeon like Belle.
AND K MISSED RUMPLESTILSKIN TOO !!!
Has anyone ever thought that August W. Booth could be some type of pen name. The emphasis on the W. makes me suspicious, every good writer includes an initial J.K Rowlins, C.S Lewis. Also Samuel Clements used the fake name Mark Twain. Kind of has the same ring to it! I think David needs to man up.
“We learned that the mysterious stranger’s name is August W. Booth. That’s certainly a strange name. It must mean something — but what? I thought it might be an anagram, but …I don’t think any of those are the answer to this riddle. What do you think the name might mean?”
I’ve got an answer for you, thanks to the improbable serendipity of my stumbling upon a giant clue that OUAT is not only an obvious reworking of various Disney-fied stories, but is also (perhaps solely for the intellectual amusement of the show’s literarily sophisticated writers) a sly and veiled reworking of many elements from Jane Austen’s work of staggering genius, Emma.
That clue was the character name “August Wayne Booth.” There’s an obvious additional clue, which is that the heroine of OUAT, like the heroine of Jane Austen’s novel, has the first name “Emma”!
Well, now here’s another tantalizing clue from last night’s episode, which adds weight to my increasing certainty that the writers of this show have been playing some very clever literary games, in very much the same way that Jane Austen did in all her writing, but most of all in Emma!
August Wayne Booth, that very same mysterious character with the literary critic’s name, picks up Emma Swan and takes her to a “watering hole” he knows, but Emma is surprised to find out that this is only the town wishing well, but then he tells her of the well’s magical powers, etc etc.
So what does that have to do with Jane Austen? Well, any Janeite really familiar with her novels, and with the social history of the Regency Era during which she spent the final decade of her all too short life, knows that seaside pleasure destinations like Brighton and Weymouth (sorta like Atlantic City in the modern day US), where twenty somethings would hook up, Regency Era-style, were commonly referred to as “watering holes” or “watering places”!
And look in particular at the following descriptions of Frank Churchill spit out most uncharitably by the jealous Mr. Knightley to Emma Woodhouse in Emma:
“We hear of him for ever at some WATERING-PLACE or other. A little while ago, he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the Churchills……Frank Churchill is, indeed, the favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good.—He meets with a young woman at a WATERING-PLACE, gains her affection, cannot even weary her by negligent treatment—and had he and all his family sought round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found her superior.—His aunt is in the way.—His aunt dies.—He has only to speak.—His friends are eager to promote his happiness.—He had used every body ill—and they are all delighted to forgive him.—He is a fortunate man indeed!”
And look at this—the young woman that Frank C. has met at Weymouth is of course Jane Fairfax, the mystery woman whom Emma is so jealous of, who I believe was secretly pregnant in the shadow story of _Emma_, and who secretly gives away her illegitimate baby daughter to Mrs. Weston, who has pretended to be pregnant.
And of course Frank Churchill in _Emma_, like Emma Swan’s son Henry, was given away for adoption years before, but has come back to the town of his birth (Highbury in Emma, Storybrooke in OUAT) and has brought mystery with him.
Booth says, ” I will always tell the truth”. I find this telling. I always beleived he was meant to be a Grimm. He’s a writer, knows everything ABOUT FTL/Storybrooke but isn’t FROM either. And now… He’s writing the book. For a speculative drama, this seems kinda obvious.
My theory is the “August” is Robinhood!!… He’s been hidding in the woods and listening to everything and everyone… It is possible that he was also inside a tree, made of the same wood of Ema’s closed and got spared of the curse… Is that too ilusional??
I think the stanger is Pinnochio. Think about it- pinnochio is yet to be shown in Storybrooke and Ghepetto says he wishes he had kids but doesn’t; the stranger also says that he “doesn’t lie” or he “has to tell the truth”-something like that. It is possible that in order to save his son Ghepetto put Pinnochio in the wardrobe in order to save him…the only flaw in that theory is that there was only enough magic for one person. I guess we will have to see!
In addition to that is it possible that pinnochio was originally made out of the same wood/tree as the wardrobe? Just saying….
Hi there, after last night’s severe lack of OUAT (and the fact that none of my friends watch this show) I’ve been reading blogs like crazy. I was reading your comments and I thought, what if Booth is the wardrobe itself and he is also Pinnichio? Can’t Pinnochio and the wardrobe be one in the same? It wouldn’t be the first little fairytale twist they’ve thrown at us. After all, Rumple and the Beast are the same person. As it was said, only one person could travel through the wardrobe . But what happend to the wardrobe? I had completely forgotten about the part where he says he always tells the truth. Although, I’m not sure where the fact he is a writer fits in to that theory.
Hi, there. I really like the idea of Booth being Pinocchio. Not sure about him actually being the wardrobe, though. If I recall correctly (and I’m not positive that I do), Pinocchio (at that time, a human boy) was working alongside Geppetto in building the wardrobe. I do like the similar idea that a couple of people suggested that Pinocchio was originally made out of wood from the same tree as the wood used for the wardrobe, and that gave him some kind of immunity to the curse.
Oh, I like that theory!
Thanks Ms. Terri
About the whole cell phone/Internet thing.. Have you noticed that everything seems to be as it would 28 years ago? Regina gave Henry a game that Emma said she played as a kid.. That thing was way outdated. Besides the pilot (and pilots do tend to have differences that are changed in the real season) it seems like computers are hardly used and if so they’re also outdated. Time doesn’t change so I think it’s technically still the 80s in Storybrooke
It’s an interesting question — what era is Storybrooke set in? I think the writers/producers/designers kept that deliberately vague. Emma’s VW bug could be from any era — she could be driving a well-maintained older car today, in 2012, that was made, say, 40 years ago.
I don’t think that Storybrooke is set in the 1980s, though. For one thing, the cell phones in the 80s were huge — and in Storybrooke they use the type of handheld phones that weren’t introduced until a decade later. Also, the clothing, hair, and make-up all look contemporary to me, not like a throwback to an earlier era.
I think Storybrooke seems more like a modern-day town where people just don’t use technology very often, rather than a town set in the past.
So I found a blog post yesterday about the contrast between Snow/Charming and David/Margaret.
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2012/02/fractured_fairy_tale_the_appea_1.html
Warning – Its a Christian Blog so they draw parallels between the absence of God and the curse. But I think it also hits a very important point. Fairytales are about the journeys their characters take to get their happy ending. And a lot of the journey is filled with intervening circumstances. The curse not only wipes out their memories but also takes them to a place where they have to take that journey again to find happiness in Storybrooke. And because of the curse, the false memories and allegiances work against them making the right choices.
And that is where Emma comes in. Even if she is not at a point where she can completely lift the curse and restore their memories, she takes the place of the intervening circumstances in Storybrooke. She makes Hansel and Gretel’s dad face what he has to abandon. Or Jiminy Cricket stand up to Regina for Henry. And that is how these characters find a measure of happiness in Storybrooke.
Now coming back to Charming/David, if you go back to the episode 7:15 am, Charming initially wanted Snow to make the decision about his marriage for him. In fairytale world, he found the strength to get past that and take a stand. But in Storybrooke, he is not able to. They have told us repeatedly that David’s memories of his feelings for Abigail are very real to him. They should have done an episode which dealt with the David-Abigail marriage (the show not tell rule) before he embarked on the whole affair but its something that’s clearly important to David. And the conflict between that and his equally real feelings for Margaret means he made some really atrocious choices that left everyone around him hurt.
Or I am totally fanwanking and the writers didn’t think through how horrible David would look.
Wow this is crazy! I’ve been reading blogs since I haven’t been obssessed with a show since the first season of Heroes! Anyway I was reading some other blog and someone mentioned that they think the Queen of Hearts was the Evil Queen/Regina’s mother! Isn’t that crazy! That’s why the father Henry was taken to Wonderland because he was the only one who loved the EQ/Regina.
I LOVE August. I think he’s a good character- even Emma’s counterpart. I think he knows that too and he wants to help her see the truth for herself- also cause he knows she won’t just believe word of mouth. Anyways I noticed from Regina looking at the book in episode 2 after the page with her getting the sword thrown at her the next pages were about Emma but they were torn out because of Henry. 13 we see August working on the book. I think he gave Emma more story to go on. In Stable Boy Emma is flipping through the pages on the bench and there are more pages after the Queen getting Charming’s sword flung at her… the very next page LOOKS like AUGUST! After August the next looks like Hansel n Gretel and theres MANY more pages when they zoom out n Emma closes the book as August approaches her. Here are snapshots I compiled using VLC media player:
html not working so here’s the link if ur interested http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t386/vanessaprism/augadded.png
That’s interesting — the book does look thicker after August gets done with it — and that picture does look like him. Thanks! So we can probably add to what we know about him that he really is a fairytale character and that he really is there to help Emma. And thanks also for mentioning the VLC media player — I was looking for a better way to take screenshots than what I was doing, and I’m going to give that a try.
August is Pinnochio. He could have been in the wardrobe (booth) in his wooden puppet form with Emma. That way he could accompany her with the wardrobe carrying only one “person”, and also be the boy that found her. He said he was sick and needs magic to stay alive. Either that means he needs magic to stay human OR to he needs it to prevent him from being part donkey. Yes, donkey, from the original Pinnochio story. Another clue was that his paperweight was a donkey.