Once upon a Time Rewatch 1.11, "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree"

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

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1.11, "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree"

Written by Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss
Directed by Bryan Spencer

Synopsis

A relief...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

After the title card, a reprise of the series' premise being again skipped, the episode opens with Emma meeting with Henry at the playground he favors--and at which he has hidden his book; he is concerned that a recent storm has damaged things. Regina soon arrives, searching for her adoptive son and chides Emma--something about which she grouses to Mary Margaret later on. A text from David interrupts, summoning Mary Margaret away; Sidney, the newspaperman, slides in as she leaves, making an offer to Emma of information on Regina.

Robin Williams, he ain't.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

In the Enchanted Forest, Sidney's alter-ego languishes in captivity, a genie in a lamp pulled from a lake. He is released by a crowned man and gives a spiel about the wishes he can grant and their limits. The figure refuses to wish, and the genie discourses on his situation, only to be freed from his servitude and granted a final wish; he holds it, praised for his wisdom as he begins to search for love. The crowned figure takes him along with him to his home--the palace it happens he shares with Regina and his daughter, Snow White. He is welcomed warmly, and his attention follows the queen.

In Storybrooke, Henry's playground is demolished at Regina's insistence, and Henry's book has gone missing. Emma chides Regina for her actions and is dismissed; she decides to accept Sidney's offer. Mary Margaret meets David in the woods, where he has prepared a picnic meal for their illicit assignation, and Emma meets Sidney clandestinely. He notes that Regina has been embezzling funds and asks for aid in ferreting out more details about her.

Naughty, naughty.
Image take from the episode, used for commentary.

In the Enchanted Forest, Snow White's father's birthday is celebrated; he praises his daughter, and Regina is disturbed, which the genie marks. He moves to comfort her, and an illicit attachment of their own begins to develop.

Emma and Sidney review records, finding a gap in them. Mary Margaret returns home, and Sidney undertakes to conduct clandestine acts, supported by Mary Margaret; Emma demurs for a time, but ultimately confronts Regina about it--and plants a listening device in her office.

In the Enchanted Forest, the king confronts the genie about Regina's affections. He opines about his wife's feelings and tasks the genie with finding the object of her affections; the genie accepts the task.

Emma and Sidney, acting on illicitly gained information, pursue Regina during to a clandestine cash handoff; the brakes on their car fail, though, and they crash. Hampered but uninjured, they find the brakes tampered with; Emma presses ahead, finding that the payment was being made to Gold. He notes the payment was for land, his land, and warns them against acting further.

The genie confers with Regina's father, who notes that she is captive. He asks the genie to take a parcel to Regina, citing his affection for her as reason.

Purely platonic...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Emma and Sidney ransack Regina's office, being confronted by Regina. Emma offers to help, only to be turned down, and the genie delivers the package as requested. It turns out to contain a deadly snake, which Regina tacitly encourages the genie to deliver to the king's chambers.

Henry confers with the visitor about the material he recalls from his book. Henry challenges the visitor about his motives, receiving a glib answer and sincere encouragement. Sidney and Emma review the information purloined from Regina, Emma coming to doubt their work; Sidney reveals more information, noting his complicity, and the information is presented in an open town hall meeting--only to be revealed as plans for a new playground, undermining the attempt to thwart Regina's power.

In the Enchanted Forest, the genie delivers the poisonous serpent to the king's chambers, where it kills him as the genie watches, attending his death and confessing his complicity and apologizing. 

Oh, ho, ho!
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Regina confronts Emma, rebuking her. Emma is obliged to keep distance from Henry for some time, but engages in a search for his lost book--which is in the visitor's possession. Emma and Sidney confer about their failure, affirming their alliance.

The genie reports the king's death to Regina, only to learn that he is suspected of the king's death and is to be executed for his perfidy. Regina dismisses him with disdain. He refuses to flee, and enacts his final wish: to remain with Regina. He is trapped in her mirror as a result--much as Sidney is trapped in Regina's service even still.

Discussion

I probably should've read Said more closely than I did and more recently than I have, but it's still clear to me that the episode is reveling in Orientalist tropes that really ought not to be reinvoked--especially in the political climate contemporary to the series. (They don't do much better in the context of the current composition and publication, given events in Afghanistan.) The attire of the genie and the illicit lustfulness associated with him, among others, are both fetishizations, exoticisms, a reduction of what could have been a compelling character down to stereotypes--which is problematic enough on its own, and more so when applied to a person of color and one with a putatively Middle Eastern background. (I have to question the accuracy of the depiction in more general terms; I am not an expert in such matters, so I cannot go into much detail, but I also cannot shake the feeling that it's wrong.) It seems to me to be the kind of thing that was going on in depictions of Middle Eastern people during the Crusades and in many, many presentations of that time and those conflicts more recently. And that is problematic for reasons I should not have to rehearse...

As a reminder, please consider submitting work to the coming roundtable at #Kzoo2020, Twenty-First Century Neo/Medievalisms;
information is here.