Once upon a Time Rewatch 2.16, "The Miller's Daughter"

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

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2.16, "The Miller's Daughter"

Written by Jane Espenson
Directed by Ralph Hemecker

Synopsis

Following a recapitulation of series events, the episode begins with a scene some years in the past, when a young Cora deals with her drunkard father and carts a load of flour to the local castle. There, she is mocked and rebuked by local and visiting nobility, including Snow White's mother, for whom Cora conceives no small hatred.

What's in a name? What about when it fades?
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Following the title card, the episode follows Emma, Henry, Gold, and Baelfire as they return to Storybrooke aboard the Jolly Roger. Gold continues to suffer, and Emma inquires after the dagger and its power. Emma notes the familial bond among them that has been revealed, affirming it begrudgingly. Report of events reaches Storybrooke, overheard by Regina and Cora, who confer about Gold's looming death. The implication of his death is noted, and Cora notes her intent to succeed Rumpelstiltskin as the Dark One, shocking Regina into recognition of Cora's true intent.

The episode shifts to a masquerade ball which a young Cora attends and at which she is swiftly shamed. She replies with the boast of turning straw into gold, which prompts the local ruler to expose her and put her to the test--with her life and a potential marriage on the line.

Mary Margaret and David meet the returning Jolly Roger and her passengers. They confer, and Mary Margaret purposes to kill Cora. David attempts to dissuade her from vengeance. Gold asks to be taken to his shop, and Henry is sent aside to keep him safe.

The non-assumption of literacy has...implications.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The young Cora contemplates her situation and is joined by Rumpelstiltskin. He offers her a solution to her problem--for a price: her firstborn child, a daughter. She insists on being taught how to work magic, herself, and a deal between the two is struck.

Gold guides preparations for the coming conflict, including reminding Mary Margaret of the fatal candle a disguised Cora had provided her. Emma prepares a minor working, assisted by Baelfire; they confer about their respective situations briefly. Gold presses Mary Margaret to use the candle, explaining how it can be done. She argues, and Gold reminds her that Henry will have feelings about his departed grandfather. Preparations continue, and Emma struggles to enact the working on which she began, guided by Gold--and it works, Emma beginning to understand magic. 

The event parallels Rumpelstiltskin's earlier experience teaching Cora, which is depicted. He guides her through enacting the working that makes straw into gold, tapping into strong emotion. It succeeds, and the Dark One promises that there is more to come. Cora demonstrates the ability before the local court, to the disbelief of all, and she is given the promised betrothal.

In advance of Cora's assault, David and Mary Margaret confer as she weighs her decision. The assault begins, Regina and Cora breaking Emma's spell with seeming ease. They proceed in, and Mary Margaret absconds as melee ensues. Mary Margaret reaches Cora's heart, to which Regina is dispatched, and Cora proceeds against Rumpelstiltskin.

In advance of her wedding, Cora finds herself confronted by Rumpelstiltskin. After a brief romantic exchange, Cora notes the hollowness of her achievement. Drawn along by his amorous feelings, Rumpelstiltskin offers an altered arrangement, and he shows her how to remove hearts.

Wow. That's not ominous at all.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Mary Margaret searches for Cora's heart in Regina's vault. The conflict at Gold's shop continues, and Mary Margaret's absence is noted. She finds the heart in question and hesitates over it briefly before enacting her own working.

A young Cora confronts her future father-in-law. They have a frank exchange, in which the king rebukes the weakness of love and her lowborn status  again; she takes his heart from his chest.

The assault on Gold's shop continues, and Gold begins to resign himself to death. Baelfire objects, and Gold offers such final consolations and confessions as he can. That he gives the amnesiac Belle moves Emma and Baelfire. That he offers to Baelfire prompts something akin to reconciliation. And as they do, Regina confronts Mary Margaret, who deceives her into taking Cora's cursed heart for reinsertion. How the heart had come to be removed is disclosed as a young Cora meets with and spurns Rumpelstiltskin in favor of retaining political power, effectively side-stepping the renegotiated deal between the pair.

David confronts Mary Margaret outside Regina's vault, realizing that she has done some wrong. Regina returns from the vault to Cora as the latter breaches Gold's sanctuary and confronts him. She prepares to kill him to take his power, only to be thwarted by Regina's reinsertion of her heart and concomitant death by magic mere moments after being returned to her ability to love--as Gold recovers and resumes his dagger. And Mary Margaret's perfidy is revealed in full.

Discussion

As to the obvious (to me, at least): Cora's origin as the daughter of the miller is a reference to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As one of the medieval works most likely to be known to the presumed general audience of the series--even in Texas, high school English textbooks contain selections from CT, although the editors tend to be...circumspect in their apparatus--the unfinished collection is positioned ideally to be a point of reference for series viewers. Additionally, the presentation of the Miller in the Tales is one that readily associates itself with the lower-class ideation of the miller in the present episode; other "peasant" professions that might be accessible to general viewers (and that might generate names for characters, since "Mills" is the family name accorded to Regina and hers in the series) do not operate under any particular onus. Brewers, butchers, coopers, tanners, and the like could just as easily have been selected as millers for the family origin, and butchers and tanners could easily have borne negative associations, since working with meat and hide is often smelly and unpleasant work. Yet they do not carry the stigma associated with millers--in part to mainstream audiences, however subconsciously, due to Chaucer's Miller being "a thikke knarre" and, frankly, much like a now-stereotypical redneck or cast-member of Jackass in his depiction in the General Prologue (ll. 545-66). So there's that.