Once Upon a Time 1-14: Dreamy

When it comes to fairy tales, the biggest question that has never been answered is, why is Grumpy grumpy? Okay, okay, so I’ve never really wondered that, but that’s what was explored on this week’s Once Upon a Time. We even got a cameo by a guest star from a couple episodes back and Amy Acker as a new character. Here’s hoping they can get her back as well.

The parallels between the Fairy Tale romance of Dreamy (aka Grumpy) and Nova the fairy and the Storybrooke relationship between Leroy and Sister Astrid were fun. Plus we also got an update on Katherine’s disappearance.

We’ve got lots of ground to cover, so let’s start in Fairy Tale.

Our story opens with Nova, a fairy in training, almost dropping a year’s supply of fairy dust. The Blue Fairy tells her to be more careful, but encourages her with the knowledge that next year she’ll be making the pick up herself. As they fly off, some of it falls out of the bag and lands on an egg. The egg hatches early and out comes a dwarf.

This dwarf learns that dwarves mine diamonds to be turned into fairy dust. They rarely leave the mines, and they never fall in love. As he and his seven brothers get their axes, they also magically get their names. Yep, six of his seven brothers are names you’d recognize from Disney’s famous movie. And our main dwarf’s name? Dreamy. As a nice touch, as they head off to their first day of work they whistle “Hi Ho.”

A year goes by, and Nova shows up to make her pick up. She has problems, and who comes to her rescue but Dreamy. He recognizes her as the woman from a dream he had before he hatched. It’s love at first sight on both ends. Nova invites him to view the fireflies with her, but he misses what she is really saying.

That evening, he and his brother dwarves are in a tavern, but he’s too upset to eat. That’s when Belle pops up. She’s depressed, but offers him advice, telling him that he’s in love and that Nova was inviting him to see the fireflies with her. Elated, he runs off and meets up with Nova. They agree to buy a boat and run off together.

The next night, Dreamy tries to sneak out, but Sneaky catches him and the rest of his brothers wake up. They don’t try to stop him, instead wishing him well as he leaves. However, the head dwarf, Bossy, and the Blue Fairy both show up and convince him that if he and Nova run off together, things will end badly. So instead of running off together, Dreamy breaks Nova’s heart.

The next morning, he returns to the mine. In his grief, he breaks his ax and asks for a new one. On it, a new name is revealed – Grumpy.

Over in Storybrooke….

Mary Margaret is trying to find a way back into the good graces of the town, so she’s leading the candle sale drive for Miner Day, a local holiday. The funds from the candles will go to help the local nuns. She tries to get people to help her in the diner, but no one is at all interested, including Leroy. That is until he’s wandering around the town square and meets Sister Astrid. She’s trying to hang the lights, and they aren’t working. He quickly figures out the problem, and a delighted Astrid calls him her hero. Leroy is instantly smitten, and volunteers to help Mary Margaret.

The problem is, Leroy is the town drunk and pretty much despised by all. They have no luck in the booth, so they head out door to door, where they also sell none.

Meanwhile, we’ve learned that the nuns need all the candles sold. Astrid has accidentally ordered 12 dozen canisters of helium instead of 12. There goes their rent money, and their landlord, Mr. Gold, is looking for a reason to evict them.

Leroy goes to tell Astrid the bad news, but seeing the hope in her eyes, he just can’t. Instead, he lies, telling her that he’s sold them all. In a desperate attempt to raise the cash, he tries to tell a boat he bought to fix up to Mr. Gold, who won’t buy it for the asking price or at all when he finds out why Leroy wants to sell it. Astrid shows up and sees all the supposedly sold candles and realizes he lied.

Depressed, Leroy joins Mary Margaret for a drink. He encourages her by telling her to dwell on the happy memories she has with David. Leroy just wants one memory like that for himself, even if it is with a nun which means they have no real future together. And suddenly, he has a way to fix things.

First, he climbs up to the roof of a building. I was wondering where they were going with this, and I’ve got to admit I was running toward the same idea that Mary Margaret had. She rushes up to the roof to tell Leroy not to kill himself. But that’s not his idea. Instead, he hits the main power relay to the town, plunging it into darkness. Suddenly, the candles are hot items, and he and Mary Margaret quickly sell out. He then gives the money to a delighted Astrid. Leroy promises to fix up his boat and offers her a ride as his first passenger, which she accepts. Meanwhile, Mary Margaret goes to get in her car to find that someone has once again spray painted “tramp” on the windows. As she starts to walk back to the town center, her candle out, Granny stops and relights it for her.

Looking for news of Katherine? That was developed as the sub-plot. Emma is called to the scene of the accident to find the empty car but all Katherine’s luggage still there. Sidney shows up. Even though he’s been fired from the paper, he still freelances for them and offers to help Emma investigate. David also shows up, and is quite obviously upset by the scene of the accident. While Sidney is quick point the blame in David’s direction, Emma believes David when he says he doesn’t know what’s going on.

Sidney has a source that can get Katherine’s phone records in a couple of hours instead of the days that it would take Emma to get them from the phone company. That source? Mayor Regina, of course. While waiting for the phone records, Emma learns that Katherine never showed up to register for classes in Boston.

The records show that Katherine made an 8 minute phone call to David the day she disappeared. Yet he denied talking to her that day. Emma doesn’t know what to make of it, but Regina shows up and basically threatens her job if she doesn’t follow up on the lead. Reluctantly, Emma goes to pick up David for more formal questioning. She catches up with him at the town square, so she hauls him off in front of the entire town, including Mary Margaret.

And yes, when I realized that was where they were going to leave us, I yelled “NOOO!” I really want to know what is going on. Yes, I think Regina doctored those phone records, but how long is it going to take Emma to figure that out. And how is she going to do that. When will she stop trusting Sidney? And how can I wait a whole week to see what happens next?

A few other thoughts. It was great to see Belle again. Obviously, this was after she left Rumplestiltskin because of how upset she was to have lost her love. Which proves that Regina lied to Rump a few weeks back and Belle being imprisoned by her father after she left Rump. Frankly, I already knew that, but it was nice to have it confirmed.

The story of how Dreamy became Grumpy was tragic. I would love to see a happy ending for them in Fairy Tale as well as Storybrooke.

And am I so dense that I just made the connection with how close in spelling Sidney is to Disney. I’d bet that’s a nod, although I seriously doubt they are trying to say anything else with that reference.

So, what did you think? Anything important I missed? Theories to discuss?

Next week, we finally get the back story on Ruby, plus hopefully some more developments on Katherine.