Once Upon a Time Round Table: "What Happened to Frederick"

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Once Upon a Time may have taken last night off in favor of the Academy Awards, but this mini hiatus simply gave our Round Table team an extra week to contemplate the fallout from "What Happened to Frederick."

In the following edition of the feature, staff writers Christine Orlando, Jim Garner and Nick McHatton are joined by author Molly Harper as they analyze the latest happenings in and around Storybrooke...

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Prince Charming seems to be getting more awesome every week, while David is coming off more and more like a spineless weenie. Are the writers pushing the character past the post where he will be able to redeem himself to the audience?
Christine: They are certainly pushing the limits of the curse.  Strong men become whiny cowards. Virtuous women become home wreckers. I am really starting to dislike David and I hope they begin to redeem him.  At this point I liked him better when he was in a coma.

Jim: I certainly hope so, I really want him to be a prince in both places. It sucks that he's such a tool right now. Come on James snap out of it!

Molly: The writers are really pushing the limits of the audience's tolerance. It's going to take some work before David can be considered more than a cheating jerk in my eyes.  He's really going to have to step it up and do something dramatically heroic or honest.

Nick: Apparently this doesn’t bother me as much as you guys, but I was raised on All My Children and Days of our Lives so my perceptions of relationships of TV might be a little skewed. The great thing about David is he has an innocence to him, and he’s trying to please everyone and be as gentle as possible. Granted, it’s making him look rather terrible, but his heart is in the right place, and I believe he’ll get to his “Charming” self soon.

Emma drank the magic well water, and got Henry's book back. What will the extra pages that August Booth added mean for our characters? Are his intentions good or bad?
Christine: I keep wondering if there is any meaning in that name. August certainly knows a lot about Storybooke which makes me wonder who he knows in Storybrooke that we're unaware of. He could using the book to help break the curse or to secure it.

Jim: I think he replaced pages, I think he was removing himself from the book so that he is not affected by the curse (or removal of the curse). Or more importantly not under the influence of the Queen/Regina.

Molly: I still haven't sussed out whether he's a good or bad character, so I'm not sure.  I'm hoping that he has sewn extra clues or maybe even updated the pages to reflect the current state of the characters.  But knowing my luck, he just added a table of contents or something.

Nick: If we were to compare Once to Fringe would August be the Observer? He changed something in the book, and I honestly have no idea what he did. My hope is he’s writing in how the Huntsman comes in to save the day! Honestly, I think he’s adding in Emma and how she’s changing things.

Are Regina's keys just skeleton keys that appear to let her through any locked door in town? Or are they quite literally the keys to her power?
Christine: Well, one of them leads to a room full of people's hearts and that's just creepy.  The keys must be important as we've seen them more than once.  Perhaps they hold a way for Emma to take the mayor down.

Jim: I think its the keys to the city.. Maybe one is all the doors in place, but we know that some of them are to the heart boxes she keeps as poor Graham found out. I would expect to see them more often if they were the physical manifestation of her powers.

Molly: They have to mean more than just unlocked door.  I have this fear that she's going to get angry enough at Emma to storm into the "heart vault" and just start smashing cardio-caskets.

Nick: Both. This is Regina’s curse and it makes sense to me that she would have access to people and places in this world she’s created, along with the places she’s carried along with her.

Given the way she dispatched Catherine by merely burning an envelope, do you think Regina has control over all of the characters' fates (save Emma) or did Catherine enter into some sort of unspoken doomed agreement with Regina by accepting her friendship?
Christine: No one from the fairy tale world can leave Storybrook. It's part of the curse. I was holding my breath as Catherine drove out of town. Regina obviously knew she wouldn't make it. So what happened when she reached the border? Did she turn to dust? Was she snatched and thrown in the same hospital as Belle? Where she is is anyone's guess.

Jim: I'm not sure if Catherine is "gone" or just misplaced. I can't fathom the connection between burning a letter she wrote to making her disappear. I totally go the connection of Graham's heart to his death - this one, not making any sense so far.

Molly: I don't think she managed to leave the city limits, so I think Catherine's going missing has to do with her relationship with Regina. She gave Regina more and more control as their friendship developed, who knows what sort of big-haired evil Regina can work with that. Also, I'm just going to say it, Poor Soccer Ball Guy! He made contact with the love of his life, only to have her snatched away.  And he went from being Frederick the Brave to 'Soccer Ball Guy.' Downgrade all around.

Nick: I don’t think she dispatched Catherine by burning the envelope, I think there would have been signs inside her car of some kind of fire. Graham died from heart related issues, and fire would have killed Catherine had Regina used some sort of Voodoo doll spell. The curse is no one can leave Storybrooke and that’s what happened. She’s probably running around in the forest like it’s Lost.

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