by Tony Ortega
For those of you who read my previous post, “The Psychological Implications of Frozen or Let It Go,” you have come to realize my fixation and over identification with Elsa from Frozen. Now, being a Once Upon A Time fan as well, I was in sheer delight seeing Elsa last minute appearance during the Season 3 Finale of Once Upon A Time. Season 3 was not one of my favorites as they really did a poor job portraying Elphaba. Hence, September 28, 2014 at 8PM was very important to me to see what they were going to do with one of my all-time favorite Disney characters.
The season premiere tells two tales: what happens once Elsa landed in Storybrooke and what happened at the end of Frozen. Needless to say, I was more invested in what happened after the movie ended than anything else. We see Elsa and Anna preparing for Anna’s wedding to Kristoff. While Elsa shows Anna their mother’s wedding dress, Elsa stumbles across her mother’s diary, detailing the real reason why they left Arendelle. This sends Elsa into an emotional tailspin as she blames herself for her parents’ death. Anna, being the heroine that she is, decides to investigate further and consult her soon to be in-laws. More questions arise and Anna commits to making the trek to Misthaven, a name not previously mentioned in Frozen. We see guest appearances of Kristoff and Sven (hello, where was Olaf) as well. Anna ditches her sister and goes off to investigate what actually happened in Misthaven, or as the natives call it, The Enchanted Forest (cue mysterious music). I feel that the writers really did a good job addressing the events that occurred after the movie and I am anxious to see where they will take this particularly storyline. I also really enjoyed how the writers of OUAT stayed true to the essence of the Frozen characters. It’s almost like a seamless transition from the movie to the show.
Back in Storybrooke, Elsa begins to create havoc with her powers. We even see an appearance of the giant snow monster (the outward manifestation of what Elsa believes others perceive her as). While the main characters are battling the monster, Elsa stumbles across a newspaper article about Rumple and Belle getting married and spots the necklace she gave Anna for her nuptials in the newspaper picture. She subsequently retrieves it and we are left with a greater question, just where the heck is Anna?
On to the residents of Storybrooke for a bit: Regina is struggling with the reappearance of Marian, putting a major damper on her romance with Robin Hood. Everyone becomes increasingly concerned that Regina will become evil again. Rumple and Belle dance to the musical score of Beauty and the Beast as he struggles with telling Belle the truth that he has the real dagger (did he summon Mickey’s Fantasia hat?). Regina concocts her plan to kill Marian. And Emma and Hook still haven’t done the horizontal mambo. I am so looking forward to seeing Elsa and Regina butt heads this season. This would make for a chilly encounter (cue mysterious music again).
Once Upon A Time has always done an excellent job with character development, suspenseful story lines and making us really like the characters (I will forget their horrific portrayal of Elphaba last season). I think that season 4 is off to a great start and I particularly like this dual storyline (Arendelle and Storybrooke). Of course, they are playing on the popularity of Frozen this season, but hey, this Frozen fanatic is not complaining. I give this episode 4.5 out of 5 stars (only because we don’t see Olaf).