Once upon a Time Rewatch 1.1, "Pilot"

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

---

1.1, "Pilot"

Written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz
Directed by Mark Mylod

Synopsis

That's neither ominous nor disheartening...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Following a brief textual introduction, a richly-clad rider races along a causeway (that obviously sees a lot of wheeled traffic) and through a forest as snow begins to fall. He joins a group of dwarves who surround the glassy coffin of a pale woman; he bids the coffin opened and kisses the woman within. After a rippling of rainbow magic, she wakes, Snow White responding to Prince Charming once again. The two are wed in a towering, stained-glass-walled room with many in attendance, the ceremony interrupted by the entrance of a dark-clad queen who proclaims her evil intent to destroy the happiness of all there gathered.

Yeah, the aspect's off, and the illustration's odd...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The whole is revealed to be a story in a book, read by a boy on a bus bound for Boston. As he arrives there, a woman in a red dress makes her way into a restaurant to meet a date--as a pretext to pursue a bail-jumper; she is a bail bondsperson, taking her quarry. After, she returns to a hotel room, where the boy confronts her, naming her as Emma Swan and claiming to be her son, Henry. Emma is understandably taken aback by the revelation, as by the assertion that Henry is the child she gave up for adoption a decade earlier. He tries to enlist her to return to his home: Storybrooke, Maine. She agrees to take him home.

Pretty, yes?
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

A castle towers over an inlet amid mountains. In it, the pregnant Snow White muses over the evil queen's threat, with Charming trying to comfort her; she reminds him of the queen's evil and suggests visiting an imprisoned figure. Charming reluctantly agrees.

Emma drives Henry back out of Boston as he resumes reading from his book; he asserts the truth of the stories therein, as well as the power of belief. He notes that Emma herself is in the book, the story from which he reads treating the visit of Snow White and Prince Charming to the imprisoned figure--Rumpelstiltskin. After Snow White agrees to give Rumpelstiltskin the name of her unborn child, he informs her of the queen's machinations; a dark curse is in the offing, one that will trap them all in time and in a place where what they value is gone from them. "No more happy endings," he says, but notes that the child will be their savior on its twenty-eighth birthday; the child's name is revealed to be Emma.

That's neither ominous nor disheartening...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

At length, Emma and Henry reach Storybrooke. She pulls the car to a stop in front of a library with a stilled clock, and Henry notes that time is frozen as he explicates the situation: "The evil queen sent a bunch of fairy-tale characters here," trapping them. His therapist, Archie, meets them, expressing concern and informing Emma that Henry's mother is the mayor; she goes to return him home.

Snow White, Charming, dwarves, and others gather around a round table to confer about what to do. Discussion is not productive until a blue fairy arrives, bringing enchanted wood that can be used to save the as-yet-unborn Emma--and only one other.

Henry resists being returned to his mother, the mayor, Regina Mills. Regina, for her part, is happy to see her son, and she and Emma confer about Henry's situation. The circumstances of his adoption are noted, as are his current difficulties. Emma notes the strange book, which surprises Regina; Emma is surprised in turn to be hastened on her way away, but as she tries to leave town, she sees she still has Henry's book--and she crashes, swerving to avoid a wolf in the road just as she reaches the edge of town.

That's neither ominous nor disheartening...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Geppetto and his son, Pinocchio, work on the tree to effect Emma's escape from the coming curse. Snow White looks out over her domain before conferring with Charming about which of them will accompany Emma. The decision is made to send Snow White with their daughter, and she goes into labor as the curse begins to encroach.

Emma wakes in jail, having evidently wrecked her car while driving drunk. She, another prisoner, and a local confer briefly before Regina enters, noting Henry's absence; a search for the boy begins, with Emma showing her skills. They point to Henry's teacher--who appears to be Snow White, bird-handling and all. Regina confronts her, but it yields no useful information--but does present an opportunity for Henry's teacher to wax eloquent on the value of story before making a painful gaffe and offering Emma direction.

The birth proceeds as the curse approaches--along with the evil queen. Geppetto's work is completed, and Emma is taken to it for her safety shortly after her delivery; Charming saves the child at the cost of himself. Snow White later finds Charming--and their daughter absent, while the queen gloats over her partial success as the curse takes hold.

In Storybrooke, Emma finds Henry at a dilapidated playscape. He implores her for aid and forgives her for giving him up for adoption; she denies that she is a savior, but she affirms the reason for giving him up for adoption and relates her own background as a foster-child. She also takes him back to Regina once again; their ensuring conversation irks Regina greatly, prompting her to threaten Emma. Henry is despondent, and Regina takes away his book, beginning to panic at events.

Henry's teacher volunteers in a hospital, comforting patients--including one who looks much like Charming. Emma takes a room at a local inn, where a sinister landlord, Mr. Gold, greets her. And the library clock begins to tick again.

Discussion

Okay, so, first thing's first: it's Disney. Given that the series ran on ABC, it's not unexpected--nor yet is the fact that the series, rather than being medievalist in itself, is predominantly neomedievalist--that is, rather than going to medieval antecedents more or less directly, it works from sources that are themselves interpretations or reimaginings of medieval antecedents. In the main, the series uses Disney's interpretations of fairy tales and other public domain narratives as its touchstones, rather than the things Disney interprets. (Kavita Mudan Finn offers discussion of the phenomenon here.) In doing so, the series reinforces the already-existing overdetermination of such narratives by Disney, but that is not to be wondered at; media production is a business, after all, it's better business to pay less for materials than to pay more, and using what you already own is cheap. Nor yet is it to be blithely set aside; yes, "it's just a show," but it's one that does get watched with children, and even adults are often deeply influenced by the entertainment media they consume; consequently, the series is in position to shape and shade popular understandings of the medieval, not because it treats the medieval, but because it is perceived as doing so. (Paul Sturtevant's book, discussed here and here, speaks to the idea, among others.) So there's that.

Even with that, though, there are medievalist things that the episode gets right. The round table, for one thing, calls back powerfully to Arthurian legend, perhaps the medieval narrative most likely to be familiar to the general viewership of the series (a prime-time show on ABC will necessarily be trying to reach the broadest possible audience, something that might explain some of the simplifications, etc., at work in the series). The involvement of the fairies in world-shifting lines up with traditional stories, as well.

There are also things the episode gets wrong (aside from some dubious costume decisions--even aside from the historical issues, to which others can speak with greater knowledge and insight than I, several of the pairs of pants worn look like they would chafe). Although there are people of color present and active in the neomedievalist fairy-tale world, they are not among the "important" protagonists for the most part; they tend to be subordinate figures, with the exception of the evil queen--a Latina coded as overtly and, well, evilly sexual. The stereotyping is...not to Disney's credit, and it problematically reinforces both the usual ills associated with reductive typing and what Helen Young describes as the myth of the monochrome Middle Ages, the notion that the only people, or the only people who mattered, in medieval Europe were white people. And, again, since popular media narratives exercise influence, and those promulgated by Disney are positioned to exercise more influence, the already-problematic stereotyping is...even worse.

As a note, I'll be away on vacation next week, so no update. Join us again on 17 June 2021!