Once Upon A Time, Episode 7, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

December 12, 2011

“The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter” Once Upon A Time, Episode #7

Oh, the humanity!
photo credit, kennowen.blogspot.com

I have been patiently waiting for this episode staring my TV crush, the Shmexy Sheriff. Yes, I know his name is Graham, but like all my TV crushes, I refer to him by his nickname. I would like to take this time to let Pretty Boy Damon know he's now my second favorite, but still ahead of the guy in the Gillette commercial.

Ruby, the only waitress in Storybrooke, offers the Shmexy Sheriff a shot. He slugs it back without hesitating, then throws his dart right into the bulls eye of the dart board. Wow! The guy with the Irish accent likes to drink, and is good at darts—shocking character profile. I'm a bit confused by the setting though. The diner is a bar/pub? And in the Cinderella episode wasn't there a laundromat out back?

Emma, who I guess needed to eat/drink or do laundry, bumps into Shmexy Sheriff. Must have been awkward to see the guy she secretly has a crush on, drunk and embarrassed that she caught him jumping out of the woman's house who is her sworn enemy. Awkward, just like that last sentence.

He's upset by her aloofness and throws a dart narrowly missing her flaxen waves. I've always wanted to write flaxen waves. She's miffed, and like every chick who wants her secret crush to follow her, she marches out to the street, not looking back.

He catches up and talks about how he doesn't feel anything...even when he's with the Mayor. Whoa, Shmexy, way too much information. I'm not a die hard romantic, but I'm pretty sure talking about the unsatisfying sex life with the Mayor is not the right thing to say.

When Emma challenges why he feels the need to dish all the ugly out for her, he only stares into the distance. There...in the dark shadows...a wolf.

ABC has been reading my blog!?

Again, he tells her he needs to feel something, and he leans closer. Dude, that line might have worked when you played 'spin the bottle' in grade eight, but Emma's been around, you know. Before I can say Judy Blume books rock, he kisses her. Hooray! And the peasants rejoice. Suddenly, Shmexy sees disturbing images of a wolf in the forest and me typing this blog in my housecoat.

Terrified, he runs to the Mayor's house. She's confused to find him disheveled and wild eyed on her front porch. He kisses her like like some kind of animal, and a wolf bays in the distance. Actually, I made the wolf part up.

We fly through the air to the Queen's castle that looks like it was designed by Edward Scissorhands. There is a white coffin covered in red rose petals. The Queen approaches the black clad figure sobbing over the coffin of the King. It is Snow White. The Queen says a bunch of lies about love and loss which Snow White seems to find comforting.

Back in her steel chamber of grey, this was before her black and white period apparently, we see her talking to her mirror. The plan is to kill Snow White as well, and then the kingdom will be hers.

But this is more about revenge than prime real estate. The writers...sorry, the Queen drops a few hints about how she can never forgive Snow White for what she did. Is this still about being 'the fairest of them all'? I'm guessing there's more, but before I can spin my own theory, Shmexy Sheriff is running through the woods.

Except this time he's the Shmexy Huntsman. He's strong, he's fearless, he's wild. He...he cries when he kills the deer? He thanks the deer for it's life and something about nature and the circle of life. I'm having an Avatar flashback. There is a growl from the bushes and the wolf appears. *wink wink ABC*.

The Sheriff wakes up in the Mayor's bed and begins talking about the wolf with one red eye and one black eye. I'm guessing Google got thousands of hits for this description. The Mayor says he must still drunk. He reaches for his jeans, telling her it feels too real...like a memory.

My mouth drops open. He's wearing boxers? Funny, I pictured him as a boxer-brief kind of guy. He goes to his police car and WHAMO! the freaky eyed wolf is there.

Hmm...how can he be the Big Bad Wolf, if the wolf is there too...? Note to self, you are not smarter than the team of writers on ABC.

At Mary Margaret's apartment, Emma mistakenly tossing a bouquet of flowers into the garbage thinking they're from Shmexy, but Mary Margaret tells her they're from the sleazy Doctor she's dating in hopes of getting David off her mind.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about him. Maybe she should try and date the Sheriff instead, cause I'm pretty sure no one was wondering about David this episode.

The girls (secretly mother and daughter) have a heart felt talk about boys. Mary Margaret counsels Emma, saying her fear of commitment has caused her to put up an emotional wall. The wall will keep out pain, but it will also keep out love. And if built high enough, it will also keep the neighbors from spying.

While Emma thinks about her walls, Shmexy is chasing the wolf of his dreams through the forest. Here is another awkward man-chasing-beast moment. Remember Prince Charming as the Shepherd? Sorry, I digress.

When you're running through the lush forest, what are you are most likely to bump into? A squirrel? No. A rabbit? No. A woodpecker? No. A sparkling Edward Cullen draining a deer? No. You bump into Mr. Gold.

He's in a suit and tie, wobbling with his cane over moss covered logs, wearing a green apron, and carrying a shovel. The Sheriff, a keen observer, like all law officers, ignores Mr. Gold's rather ridiculous line about gardening, and tells him he's chasing a wolf with different colored eyes from a dream. Mr. Gold gives him that crooked smile and tells him that dreams are actually memories of another life. Then he wobbles away.

Me? I'd like to know what he was really doing with the shovel. *cough* Shallow grave *cough*

Wearing his fur cape, Shmexy Huntsman enters the local pub with his wolf pet. Oooh, it's his pet. Cool, did not see that coming. A few of the grungy customers begin to make fun of the wolf. But Shmexy fiercely defends the animal saying it's pure of heart and better than any human he's ever met.

They tease him for being abandoned by his parents and raised by wolves. Hold on! He's not the Huntsman, he's Mowgli, from the Jungle Book. However, instead of stating a chorus of “I Want To Walk Like You,” Shmexy starts a huge brawl. The Queen sees this in her mirror and asks her guards to bring him to her.

Meanwhile, Shmexy Sheriff is still running. He finds the wolf with the red eye, and they have a staring contest. He's blasted with images of being in the forest with Snow White. He then races to the elementary school and walks in on Mary Margaret's classroom as her student's are leaving. Good thing all the revelations happen during recess. He confesses his thoughts about believing they've met in another life.

The Evil Queen, looking very Kardashian, meets with Shmexy Huntsman. She talks about his lack of compassion and orders him to carve out Snow White's heart for her collection. She has a collection of hearts? Eww, messy. When he pauses, she offers him anything in return. He wants to outlaw the hunting of wolves.

During the longest recess in history, Mary Margaret and Shmexy Sheriff talk about Henry and his book of answers—except the ending. Emma burned the last few pages so the Queen wouldn't know what happened...remember?

We see Snow White and Shmexy walking in the forest. Except this time he's disguised as one of the Royal Knights, complete with big silly feathered hat and Batman's six pack body armor. Snow White talks about birds and nature and offers him an apple. Geez, more apples! But she realizes he's an imposter and wallops him with a stick, leaving him scrambling in his heavy chain mail.

Shmexy visits Henry and asks about the book. Funny, now that he's sober he sounds less Irish. I'm sure that's coincidence and no fault of the actor, or director...at all.

When Shmexy Huntsman catches up to her, Snow White gives him a letter to deliver to Queen. She knows she can never outrun him, and has decided to face death bravely. He takes the letter, and even though there isn't a dead deer in sight, he begins to cry.

And that unfeeling boy who was raised by wolves and hated people, do you know what happened to his heart when he read Snow White's letter? Well in Whoville they say, that his small heart grew three sizes that day.

Before he let's her go, he makes a quick whistle out of a stick and tells her run far away. I'm guessing the whistle can only be heard by tiny men who work in a diamond mine.

Using the fairytale book as proof, Henry tells Shmexy Sheriff the truth. He confesses he remembered the wolf when he kissed Emma. Henry reasons the wolf is his guide, and that Emma owes Shmexy her life because he saved her mother. Should make for interesting conversation at the annual family BBQ. And the real reason he doesn't feel anything is because the Queen stole his heart.

The Queen keeps his heart in a volt. Brilliant! I love being wrong.

Emma shows up wearing the red jacket—now things are getting serious. Shmexy gives her a quick recap saying he's going to follow the wolf from his dreams to the Emerald City because he needs to find his heart. Emma, who has taken all of this freaky shit so well each episode, puts her hand on his chest and feels it beating. See? You're real, she tells him...crazy, but real. Then her face falls. Shmexy turns and sees Jacob Black in his cutoffs. Hey, I had to mention him too, not just the vampire.

Together, they follow the wolf to the cemetery. It's always the dogs that show them the way. No! The dalmatian was right. Go to the mine with the long shaft and the broken glass...and flowers and stuff.

They make it to a crypt and notice a strange symbol. Emma breaks open the door. I'm thinking if this is the place the Queen stores her collection of hearts, a swarm of flies should engulf her flaxen waves. I'm also thinking that with the town's only two law enforcers preoccupied, this is a good time to rob the bank in Storybrooke.

Shmexy Huntsman is looking very nice in tight black leather. I swear he and the Queen get all their outfits at the Halloween Store. She asks if Snow White is dead, and he hands her his bulging man purse as proof. *giggles* He also holds out the letter, but the Queen is so preoccupied with getting her hands on his bulging man purse, she tells him to read it out loud.

The next two things are very disappointing.

1. The heart looks like a rock painted with pink chalk.
2. How can he read? He was raised by wolves?

We accept it though because we like him too much to question a plot that doesn't make sense. Snow White knew of the Queen's plan all along, but was willing to die to bring peace to the kingdom...or something really close to that. The Queen only laughs and watches greedily as she puts the pink rock made by Mary Margaret's elementary class into a mini coffin. She holds it in front of a wall of safety deposit boxers, but nothing happens.

Furious, she throws it down and demands what he killed instead. What did he kill? His wolf? Oh, the humanity.

Back at the crypt all Emma and Shmexy find is the name MILLS and one coffin. Open it! Open it! The Mayor shows up with flowers for her father's grave—you know the one whose heart she carved out.

Thinking the grave of his lover's father is a good place to break up, Shmexy tells the Mayor their late night trysts are over, and that things have to change (and not just his accent, either). He tells her, “It's not me, it's you.” Holy crap! High five! Then he says that having nothing is better than having less.

Huh? Pass the Tylenol.

At this point I'm expecting Mr. Gold to show up with his shovel, but Emma gets all up in the Mayor's face and decks her. All over the country bored husbands bolt upright out of their Lazyboys and scream, “CAT FIGHT!”

Emma and Shmexy go back to the police station for some first aid. It only makes sense that she takes off her top so he can press an icepack to her forehead.

Not ready to give up, the Mayor enters her father's crypt and pushes open the lid, and we see stairs disappearing into a dark and bottomless pit. Excellent.

The Queen rips out Shmexy's heart. Obviously, ABC couldn't hire a surgeon for their panel of experts. The heart is a big glowing ruby. Now, he is her pet, and will do whatever she commands. If he disobeys, she can squeeze his heart and kill him.

Dabbing a cotton ball to Emma's eyebrow has made them realize they should stop running all over Storybrooke and just make out. When Shmexy kisses Emma again he remembers everything...again, like that first time, but everything that we know now too...so yeah.

If he suddenly remembers everything, shouldn't he get the back to the volt and save his heart? Oops, never mind, the Mayor crushes the ruby into a fine black powder.

Argh! How can we stop her? Where is Mr. Gold and his shovel when you need him?

But it's okay. I know we saw Shmexy collapse to the floor. And I know we saw Emma pound on his chest like she was giving him CPR. And I know my theory about the Big Bad Wolf was wrong.

However, if you read the episode guide, like I did...twice, it says. Someone in Storybrooke remembers while another person dies. See? He can't be the one who remembers and be the one who dies. I know who died—the person Mr. Gold buried in the forest.

Shmexy is still alive. I believe that his wolf buddy now carries his soul, and that means I could still be right about him and Little Red Riding Hood.

And better yet, did you see in the promo for the next episode? What is that running through the blue forest....a UNICORN! When they bring out the unicorns, look out man, things are about to get wacko.

My prediction for the next episode: Emma and the Mayor arrive at Dr. Hopper's for anger management only to end up breaking his umbrella. Shmexy Sheriff is now unconscious in the hospital, on a respirator while miraculously, his stubble remains unchanged. ABC politely asks me to stop coming up with predictions causing them to re-write the script.

What is your theory on the Sheriff?

Cheers!