Once Upon a Time - 'Hyperion Heights' and 'A Pirate's Life'

New beginning, new adorable moppet believer.

So, for six seasons I haven't been reviewing Once Upon a Time, but I figure that since Hanna and I - well, mostly Hanna; I've not seen everything since about Season four - have now caught up with the series, we could watch it together, and thus we come to the firts two episodes of Season seven: 'Hyperion Heights' and 'A Pirate's Life'.

We begin with Henry Mills, a slightly successful author, getting an unexpected visit from his self-proclaimed daughter Lucy, who tells him that he needs to come to the gentrifying Seattle neighbourhood of Hyperion Heights to be reunited with his true love, her mother Cinderella, and break the curse which has robbed him and the folk of the Heights of their memories. Flashbacks reveal that, after the happy ending of the original six-season arc, Henry went off in search of his own story and almost literally ran into Cinderella, a fiery Latina who stole his motorcycle and tried to assassinate a prince, only for her stepmother Lady Temayne to jump in after she had a change of heart and pin the killing on her anyway.

"We should probably exchange insurance details."

In Hyperion Heights, Henry is accosted by a strange girl, who is the cursed analogue of Alice, a woman who drugged him in the fairytale realm and now works for Weaver, an apparently recursed Rumplestiltskin introduced half-drowning a man in a bucket. Now, the attentive will have picked up that Once Upon a Time already had a Cinderella, who fell foul of Rumplestiltskin and was on the whiter side, and that Once Upon a Time in Wonderland had its Alice. Well, as Henry remarks early on, there are many versions of every fairy tale, and they are all out there somewhere(1), so what we have here is a chance to reuse some of the old stories since the past six seasons have come perilously close to running the well dry. This is a little disappointing as compared to the option of looking to lesser known fairy tales, but I suppose they are looking to keep it as Disney as possible.

This is Alice. She spikes drinks.

Henry meets the local bartender, Roni, who is his foster mother Regina, if only he knew it. Jacinda - Cinderella's Earth name - tries to get out from under her stepmother's thumb - Lady Tremayne presenting as Veronic Belfrey, businesswoman and mastermind of the gentrification which, Lucy explains, is forcing the fairy tale folk out of the neighbourhood and replacing them with regular Earth folk - by running away with Lucy. Henry, well-meaning, but a dope, turns them in. Jacinda loses custody and Henry loses any shot at a snog. His only apparent allies are Officer Rogers - a cursed Captain Hook and the Heights one honest copper - and Roni, who refuses to sell out to Belfrey after seeing Jacinda stand up to her. Rogers himself is promoted to Detective and partnered with none other than Detective Weaver, or as I like to think of him, Gene Huntlestiltskin.

Like the anti-Cheers, this bar is literally a place where nobody even knows
their own name.

A few things come clearer in 'A Pirate's Life', as flashback Henry is captured as Cinderella's accomplice, but uses a message bottle given to him by Hook to summon help. Hook and Regina rescue Henry, but are all mysterious about Emma. Then Hook is bushwhacked by an alternate version of himself from a universe created by a wish - because why the fuck not - who wants to take his life and steal Emma away from him. He gets Lady Tremayne to use a stolen wand to change him into the semblance of his other self, but has a change of heart when he learns that Emma is pregnant. Killian Jones Hook goes home with Emma, while other Hook - healed of a stab wound by Emma after he allows himself to believe in her - teams up with Henry and Regina to find both Cinderella and Hook's missing daughter.

Lawful evil is just the worst.

In the present, Belfrey tasks Weaver and Rogers with getting rid of Henry. They search his flat, with Rogers giving away that he has visited before. Meanwhile, to make amends for his mistakes, Henry arranges for Jacinda and her friend Sabine to get pick-up work at Lucy's ballet recital, which Belfrey has turned into a $200 a ticket charity gala in order to shut Jacinda out of Lucy's life. At the recital, Weaver tells Rogers to plant a stolen bracelet on Henry, but having been inspired by the swan pendant on Henry's keychain, Rogers doesn't go through with it. Weaver tells Belfrey not to make the mistake of thinking that she owns him, and Rogers that he is looking for someone with a moral core.

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

Henry, Rogers and Roni get together in Roni's bar and form an anti-Belfrey coalition, sadly not called Operation anything, so Henry must really have lost his mojo to the curse. Rogers also recounts his cursed backstory, in which his daughter is replaced in memory by a kidnapped girl he has been looking for since he joined the force, and a woman whom the swan reminded him of once saved his life by holding pressure on a wound until the ambulance arrived.

This big reboot is a gamble for Once Upon a Time, and it's hard to say whether it's writer-driven or the result of unavoidable cast changes. Either way, it's interesting, and gives us a fresh take without Emma constantly talking about her superpower and acting all holier than thou. It remains to be seen if it will go the distance - to quote one of the source properties of the series - but it's got potential.

(1) Although a stickler might point out that, as a work of literary fiction, Alice really only has the one identifiable source version.