TV Review: Once Upon A Time 1.4, "The Price of Gold"
This week on Once Upon a Time Cinderella gets her night at the ball with some unexpected consequences.
rating: 2.5
This week on Once Upon a Time Cinderella (Jessy Schram) gets her night at the ball with some unexpected consequences. Meanwhile her real world counterpart Ashley is on the run from Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle), trying to save herself and her unborn child. Sadly the plot gets lost in a garbled message about choices, that they invariably lead to unwanted consequences and that we must learn to be cautious in our choice making, particularly when they involve high risks. Unfortunately none of the characters seem to learn anything from their choices and they continue to make the same bad decisions, simply shifting the responsibility onto other third parties. The episode opens with Cinderella left behind while her stepmother and sisters go off to the ball. Her fairy godmother promptly arrives only to be blasted into fairy dust by who else? Rumplestiltskin. He offers a deal to Cinderella to give her the magic she needs to change her life into the one she always dreamed of, but he warns, magic always comes with a price. He then produces a comically large contract that she signs without reading. I know its a fairytale, but do the characters have to be ignorant fools? It turns out the price will be her firstborn child, a fact she doesnt learn until the night of her wedding to Prince Thomas (Tim Phillipps). Teaming up with Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) and Grumpy (Lee Arenberg) the happy couple concoct a plan to imprison Rumplestiltskin for good by making him sign a new contract with an enchanted quill. This will disable his magic and allow them to capture him. How do they get him to sign a new deal? By tricking him into thinking that Cinderella is going to have twins, putting another baby up for grabs. Rumplestiltskin suspects they have used magic to entrap him and once again he warns that magic doesnt come without a price. Cinderella still insists on the new deal and he signs the contract, paralyzing him long enough to be captured. Some time later, Prince Thomas disappears, never to be seen again. Basically, Cinderella learns nothing from this adventure.
In the real world, Emma Swann (Jennifer Morrison) meets a pregnant Ashley who is struggling, just as she was, about becoming a mother. Emma convinces her that other people will always tell her how to live her life and if she wants anything to change she has to take charge for herself. Ashley breaks into Mr. Golds pawnshop and then makes a break for Boston. Mr. Gold recruits Emma to help find Ashley, claiming that she has stolen something precious to him. The rest of the episode consists of Emma attempting to locate Ashley with the help of Henry (Jared Gilmore). They learn that the thing stolen from Mr. Gold is actually the unborn child, whom Ashley sold to him. Having changed her mind, she broke into his shop to steal the contract. In the end they find Ashley as she is going into labour and they bring her back to the hospital, where Emma makes a deal with Mr. Gold that Ashley can keep the baby in return for a future favour. Once again, Cinderella/Ashley passes responsibility for her choice onto someone else. She gets to keep her baby while Emma pays the price. Noticing a pattern here? It seems that Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold can make deals with people without actually asking for anything in return, whilst the other party doesnt seem to think there will be any issue when he eventually calls in his price. Cinderella/Ashley does it three times and Emma does it after she knows Mr. Gold is dishonest. (He deliberately didnt tell her about the baby being the stolen property) Emma makes a pretty good claim that if the contract between Ashley and Mr. Gold were taken to court, no jury in the world would side against her, and that it would probably uncover some nasty dirt on Mr. Gold. Despite this she still enters into a deal with him without knowing what she is giving in return. Im unsure what the writers are trying to tell us with this episode. Surely its that choices have consequences and that high-risk choices shouldnt be made unless we are prepared to deal with them, but they dont demonstrate this by showing that the characters have learnt this. They continue to blunder about, making new deals to cover up old deals without any regard to what they are offering in return, or at the very least, understanding what they are offering in return. Cinderella/Ashley makes three deals with Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold and yet in the end she breaks them all, but still gets to keep her baby and her Prince (boyfriend Shaun in the real world). What kind of lesson is that? If you make bad choices you can just palm them off on someone else willing to help you? If characters dont learn anything they cant develop, and if they dont develop there is no point to the theme. Considering this episode was all about theme, theres really not much else to go on.