Once Upon a Time, "Heroes and Villains": 101 Dalmatians is Not a Fairy Tale

I know, I know, neither is Frankenstein.  But it's still a bit out of left field.  Here's where you say, "Did you not see the previews?  You knew Cruella was coming."  And you know what?  I did see the previews.  I guess I thought that there was going to be some kind of explanation as to what realm she came from, instead of her just popping in next to Maleficent and Ursula.  Two powerful magical creatures and...a rich lady who likes making coats out of dogs.  Someone is clearly not pulling their weight in the evil trio.

This is the result of Disney execs frantically searching their rogues' gallery for three recognizable femmes fatales, instead of going for magical and recognizable regardless of gender (Facilier, much?) or going for magical and female, regardless of pop culture cred, in which case they could have gone with...

The magnificent, marvelous, mad Madam Mim!

Who is that, you ask?  Well, young'uns, Madam Mim is an evil witch from 1963's The Sword in the Stone.  I'm too young to have caught it's actual theatrical release, but I am just ancient enough to have watched it when Disney released it as a VHS tape in a puffy case (80's babies know what I'm talking about.  They all came in puffy cases 'cause every Disney movie was a precious classic).  She has a really cool magic battle with Merlin--

Cut that out, imaginary youthful reader!  Anyway, where was I?  Magic?  Check.  Disney character?  Check.  Female?  Check.  Evil?  Check.  Instantly recognizable to the 18-35 demographic?  Oops.  Ah, well.  Can't blame them, really.  It's just that skinning dogs for outerwear is a really limited skill set, especially in the Enchanted Forest where I suspect there isn't much call for that sort of thing.

Unless, of course,  they just make Cruella magical.

Oh. 

Oh dear.

That's what they're going to do, isn't it?

Haven "Chosen" Episode Review

That awkward moment when you discover that your girlfriend is a thousand-year-old alien and the mom of one of your work friends.  Poor Dwight.  Well, they'll always have the hospital storage room.

Totally called it on the whole "Charlotte fixing Mara's whoopsies" thing, although they kinda telegraphed it with her CDC cover.  I'll give myself one pat on the back for my insight.  And in case you weren't satisfied with just one plot point lifted from Star Trek, Mara and Audrey had to be smooshed back together like Kirk in "The Enemy Within."  Is this a setup for the introduction of William Shatner into the series?

Gotta love the technicality of the "if Mara dies" clause.  Reminds me of the "certain point of view" caveat from Star Wars.  We've got our fully reconstituted Audrey back, but the Duke-bomb went off anyway and released a whole other season's worth of troubles into the world.  And if the ones he leaked out before he erupted are any indication (EXPLODY TOUCH), lots of fun post-break mayhem will ensue--maybe even enough to finally get on all the social media that exists in the twenty-first century.  I mean seriously, what is up with Haven's teenagers?  I'm guessing no one's gonna update their Facebook status to "glad to be out of that boat we were magically trapped in."  The Guard may be good at damage control, but they can't do an end-run on every kid's iPhone.  For every large-scale trouble Audrey and the Audreyettes have solved, there should be someone in the background yelling out "WORLDSTAR!  WORLDSTAR!"  Anyway...

Vince and Dave's excellent adventure leads them to a rock carved with the word "Croatoan" recently carved into it.  As we all know, Haven takes place in the Kingiverse and we've already seen references to King's other works, but they've usually been subtle.  An appearance by Linoge from Storm of the Century would be a much bigger deal, and probably not up the show's alley.  Plus, they'd have some serious retconning to do; the backstory of Haven's Roanoke mystery is a departure from the weird-demon-guy-comes-and-takes-kid-or-destroys-whole-town-if-they-refuse plot of the other story.  So what is Dave? And what is the thingamajig that he picked up from the cave?  Perhaps it is a creature from the Void itself, one of the many reasons why the Otherworlders don't hold truck with gallivanting back and forth.  I eagerly await the answers to some of these questions--but not all of them, as mystery is part of what makes Haven tick.

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

How cool was Mara's tipsy rant in the car?  She was a very bad lady, but she will be missed.

I would like to see a Veronica flashback, please.

On Bewitched, a witch couldn't undo a spell made by another witch.  I sense a similar thing in effect here, as a being powerful enough to slam two people into one seems flummoxed by the Troubles.  However, Mara is portrayed as kind of an innovator in aether science, and a people that eschews trans-world travel might have a bit of trouble wrapping their heads around Mara's accomplishments.


Havest thou a theory regarding any of these fine topics?  Leave a comment in my web zone if you want a pizza roll--wait, that's that other guy...



  

Grimm "The Grimm Who Stole Christmas" Episode Review

Huzzah!  The Christmas episode is upon us!  And nothing says "Happy Holidays" like juvenile delinquency.  I couldn't help getting nostalgic feelings for all of the  "tiny things coming to get you" movies of the 80's and 90's--Gremlins, Critters, Ghoulies, Puppet Master, etc.  Not a particularly interesting plot, but the execution was fun enough to watch.  I always like the little bits of "Wesen science" world-building stuffs they slip in from time to time--in this case, the rarity of Kallikantzaroi Syndrome being compared to Tay-Sachs and, as the Indole Gentile dad turns toward Hank, "like sickle-cell anemia in African-Americans."  And Hank's all, "Oh, now I get it."  

By the way, how does one have the "You may or may not turn into a Christmas Goblin" talk with their child?  Also, how do you have the "I may or may not have bashed your child's face in with a frying pan" talk with that child's parents?  I would've liked to have seen at least a little throwaway line from Juliette or Rosalee along the lines of "whoops," or something.  If you still have the episode on your DVR, play back all the scenes and witness the horrific child abuse taking place.  Kudos to David Giuntoli for his completely straight delivery of the line, "Got any fruitcake?" as he walks up to a fruitcake truck.  Yet another excellent piece of world-building from the creative team: a strange alternate reality where fruitcake is in such demand that someone could have a successful fruitcake truck business.  Can't wait for the Candy Corn Emporium to appear in the next Halloween episode.  

Speaking of that, the caper is finally solved with what could be the most ill-conceived plan of all time.  You could either: A) inform all the Indole Gentile parents that their kids might be publicly morphing into evil Hobbits so that they could all be privately contained and fed fruitcake in some secret room somewhere, or B) create a public spectacle and lead the kids out the FRONT OF THE CHURCH with cake crumbs that lead to a spectacularly conspicuous fruitcake truck.  

In another thread, we have the adventures of Trubel and Josh the Boy Wonder.  From this pairing we get wonderful buddy chemistry between Jacqueline Toboni and Lucas Near-Verbrugghe (I giggled at Trubel maternally moving Josh's hand away from the dangerous weapons), two weenie jokes and some more information about the Wesen Skinheads.  Apparently, some loose-lipped bonehead, possibly in full knowledge of the existence of these racist groups, posted Blutbad/Fuchsbau wedding pics on his Facebook page and figured whoever didn't like it would just get over it.

Blabbermouth: Hey, you're not gonna throw a brick through their window 'cause I told you that, are you?

Blabbermouth's Racist Friend: No, of course not, that would be silly.  Where would I even find a brick at this time of day?

Blabbermouth: I dunno...the hardware store?

Blabbermouth's Racist Friend: [getting out a pen and paper] Which hardware store?

After their little investigation, Josh decides to go back home, and Trubel decides to go with him.  We'll either be checking in on them sporadically a la Adalind in Austria, or we'll check on them way later, like Nick's mom and Adalind's baby.  It'd be cool to see a couple of Trubel-centric Philly episodes in the future.  Grimm East, anyone?  

So, Juliette is preggers--which would normally be good news, except she might have been Adalind at the time of conception.  Which begs the question, as put forth by Melissa McCarthy in The Heat: What's gonna come poppin' out?  Another Hexenbaby?  Maybe it'll be part Grimm, part Hexenbiest--a super-cool thing whose full coolness would have to be realized in flash-forward: a cloaked figure, roaming the streets of future Portland, telekinetically dispatching evil Wesen.  Then again, Adalind's baby is doing some pretty cool things in baby form, so maybe not.  Either way, the royals will probably be interested in that too, and we can weave another thread into our giant ball of plot yarn. 

Monroe and Rosalee are finally going on their honeymoon.  Will the Secundum Ordinem E Pluribus Unum follow them to Tahiti or wherever?  What of the ominous portent of the fallen model train?  Time will tell.  For now, according to the preview, we can look forward to a visit from El Chupacabra and Wu possibly being brought into the fold.  Methinks he might not be as receptive as Hank--especially when Wu realizes that Nick and Hank allowed him to be institutionalized to protect their secret.  

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

"Kallikantzaroi" is one of the most fun Wesen words since "Unbezahlbar."

I feel like I haven't seen Rosalee's adorable woge in quite some time.  

Hey, remember that Juliette is a veterinarian?  We were pleasantly reminded of this as she drugged and caged a child.

In a post-9/11 world, who takes a giant, anonymously delivered box into their home and puts it under the Christmas tree?

When the Indole Gentile mom woged, I was like, "Beat THEM peepers, Juliette!"