The Problem with Once Upon A Time

It’s tempting to say the writing and make this a tumblr post (seriously, they have a character who's been living two separates lives and has to choose sum up his problems with "it's like I've been living two separate lives!"). But I actually have two distinct problems that go straight to the core concept of the show.

1. The CGI is shit. And I realize that they have a budget and a time table, but seriously, is there a reason they’ve decided it’s better to suggest that Regina lives in a giant chasm full of CGI instead of building a reasonably sized room out of stone? And even (gasp!) dressing it up so it can serve as other stone rooms in other episodes? I’m not sure how the budget works, but you’d think a primetime show on a major network would be able to afford a better set than, say, the dungeon in the Denna episode of Legend of the Seeker. Which was, you know, a room. That people stood in.

1a. What makes this even more frustrating is that they switch between BIG! CGI! CASTLES! And practical sets which look believable. I’m surprised no one thought to use camera tricks and editing and such to make the fairy tale world all magical or whatever, so at least it’s consistent and consistently distinct from Storybrooke. Even Smallville managed to portray the town in warm earth tones, while Metropolis was blue and sharp.

2. The dialogue. No, no I’m not talking about “Who’s to say which life is real?” or whatever. I mean that both the fairy tale dialogue and the real world dialogue is the same post-Buffy snarkfest. You’d think, for a soap opera in a world where Downton Abbey is the mother of all soap operas, the dialogue in fairy tale land would be stilted, or formal, or otherwise play up the fantasy nature of the world. Instead, we get scenes where Snow White is in hiding and asks what things are like “out in the World.” You tell me: why is a fairy tale character using slang from the Vietnam War? As it is now, when fairy tale characters talk like fairy tales characters about love being a disease and needing to cure it, it comes off as awkward. It’s not that I want everyone to talk like a Thor comic book, but… something like the Thor movie? There, all Thor and Loki’s high-faluting matched the epic quality of the story. The epic in Once Upon A Time (arranged marriages! Forbidden romances! Magical shit!) should get that treatment, while the comparatively mundane stuff in the real world (custody battles! Frowned-upon romances! Lesbianism!) is elevated by witty dialogue and pop culture references.

2a. Is there any reason every character must have two distinct names? I can understand someone with a unique name like Snow White being called Mary Margaret in the real world, but is there a reason “Ashlyn” has to be the counterpart of “Kathryn”? That’s like mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent secretly being amazing superhero… John Kim!

ETA: I have to hand it to OUAT, they really nailed the life of the writer. Putting on your best leather jacket, strapping your typewriter to your motorcycle, and riding into a town to get inspiration from the attractive women who find you oh-so mysterious and intriguing… That’s totally my process too.

Cassidy Freeman IS Charlene Holmes. With Gina Carono AS Johanna Watson

Johanna Watson drank alone.

She hadn’t always. In Iraq, she was a walking drinking game, able to do more shots than all of Seal Team Six put together. Then the IED. Her friends bleeding out next to her, Jo caught inbetween, not able to follow and not alive enough to shoot back. She’d almost taken another round, a stray shot clipping her helmet and sending molten chips into her temple, the scar still the first thing she saw when she looked into a mirror. Sometimes, she thought it’d have been luckier if the bullet had hit dead-center.

The rest was like an amputation. She’d seen it happen, she knew what it entailed, she just never thought it would’ve happened to her. Honorable discharge. VA hospital. Benefits package, and fuck, of all the things for the liberals to be right about, because she couldn’t even afford to pay the brownstone’s bills.

So here she was, reduced to bar peanuts, hoping someone would buy her a drink. She wasn’t optimistic. Guys didn’t go for women who could do more push-ups than they could. Maybe she should try the dyke bars.

A drink slid in front of her. The bartender delivered it, with a nod toward a booth in the back, so not much chance of a roofie. Jo sipped. Hard Wet Sex on a Cold Cement Floor. She chugged. Her favorite.

She got the drink halfway down, because let the bastard wait, he was on her timetable, not the other way around. Then she put her swagger on and sauntered over to the booth. The man didn’t seem to have gotten the memo about smoking in bars; he was wreathed in smoke. It didn’t smell like the real deal—-that e-cigarette junk. Jo took off some of the points he’d earned with the drink. If you were going to smoke, smoke.

Lookwise, he had a steampunk thing going, as the kids called it. Topcoat, waistcoat, sideburns and a goatee. All groomed well, so even if he was a hipster, at least he wasn’t lazy about it. A porkpie hat and an iPhone sat on the table, along a row of shots. His gloved hand pushed the first toward her.

“Do you like silk panties?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Jo took the shot and kicked it back. Peach schnapps and vodka. Literally, ‘silk panties.’ “Any port in a storm. How about you?”

The man took one, sipped it all in one take. Jo quirked an eyebrow. A weird one. But hell, sometimes the weird ones were good in bed.

“Jo Watson,” she said, taking a seat.

“Sherlock Holmes,” he replied. “How’d you like Fallujah?”

She blinked. But fuck it, he was buying the drinks. “For a stalker, you could work on being subtle.”

“No stalking. Simple deduction, Sergeant, the same way I knew you took… the first drink.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“You’re five seconds from getting a drink thrown in your face. Ever had vodka in your eye?”

Sherlock leaned forward, collecting a shotglass. On its way to his mouth: “Tattoo on your left bicep, gives your unit number but not the assignment. Ring on your right hand, United States Marine Corps with an Officer Candidates School design on the sidepanel, means you at least made sergeant and tried for officer, but if you had made second lieutenant you would’ve gone to the Basic School and the current fad there is to get a tattoo of a scorpion on the back of the hand upon graduation.”

“Maybe I’m not much for peer pressure.”

He paused with the shotglass at his lips. “Then why the arm tattoo? Gunpowder residue under your fingernails, so you keep current on the shooting range. Given that I can’t see you on active duty with that limp you showed on the way over, means the gunplay’s a habit. Perhaps a form of meditation? Primitive cultures often fetishize violence, makes it easier to live with. The point is, the shooting range is a habit, one you wouldn’t have if you were rear-echelon, besides the fact that there aren’t a lot of bullets flying around base camp, hence the scarring about your eye.”

He drank.

“So who says I was in Fallujah?”

“Your tan. Fading but noticeable, shows you wore fingerless gloves and goggles, so it wasn’t something you picked up in Barcelona. You were deployed quite recently. For the last six months, the only place American forces have been assisting Iraqi peacekeepers is the Fallujah uprising.”

“You must watch a lot of Fox News.”

“Blogs, mainly. Talking heads talk too slow. How’d you like the party trick?”

“I’d say it at least rates a handjob.”

***

Sherlock was maybe the last guy in New York who didn’t use public transportation. He led her to an Audi A4 the color of sterling silver and tossed her the keys.

“I’m driving?” she asked.

“We’re going to your place. And I can’t deduce your knowledge of traffic laws, I’ll have to see it in action.”

“You’ve got the weirdest fetishes I’ve ever seen.”

***

Jo was staying at an old brownstone in Hell’s Kitchen owned by a friend of her mother’s, Mrs. Hudson. It was a decent place to crash while she tried to find out what to do with herself out in the World. There was even a gym downstairs for would-be cage fighters. Jo kept up her work-out regime out of resolved ‘fuck you’ for anyone who wouldn’t date a woman with a six-pack. The trainer let her use the equipment for free. He had a bald spot, but she might’ve given him a ride if he hadn’t brought up how sexy he found Nazi uniforms during their fourth conversation. Deal broken.

“Baker Street,” Sherlock said as she led him inside, getting the eye from the janitor who existed to Tweet walks of shame. “Not a very nice neighborhood, is it? Lots of crime scenes?”

“If you wanted crime scenes, you should’ve picked me up when I lived in LA.”

“Gang violence. Boring. No challenge.”

“What are you, a coroner? You’ve got the face for it.”

She led him up the stairs. One of them creaked. Sherlock stomped on it, testing the effect.

“Consulting detective!” he said between the beats he laid down. “I assist the police on cases too interesting to be wasted on them.”

“Don’t they have detectives for that?”

“We’re going upstairs for sex. Don’t you have fingers?”

“Thanks for sharing that with the janitor.”

Sherlock gave him a look. “Don’t worry. Asexual.” He finally joined her at the top of the steps. “Loud neighbors?”

“Only us.”

“Ah. You’re a screamer.” He cocked his head. “That might be useful information. Is your wi-fi network secure?”

“Yes. That’s a much more pressing question. Let me check, right away.” She unlocked her door.

“Locks are in good condition,” he commented over her shoulder.

“You are this close to making me a cocktease.” She pushed the door open.

“Nice decorating. Lots of room. Have you ever thought about having a dog?”

“Shut up and kiss me.” And before he could, she did. His taste was antiseptically minty, but not unpleasant. She had the good, grounded feeling of something she could work with.

“Ma’am, you’re—“ Hooking her fingers in his shirtcollar, she led him toward the bedroom. He stuttered like a dubstep album. “And the home repairs are up to date?”

“Yes, I just spent a day under the sink with a wrench to fix a leaky pipe. It was very butch. I almost played soccer.” She pressed him against the door to her bedroom and kissed him again, coming away with her lips tingling. It was his moustache, stuck to her mouth.

“I can explain that,” he said as she peeled it away.

His sideburns came off too. So did the hair, wig, letting down a tangle of burnished red hair. When Jo ripped open his shirt, she found breasts tied-down. And they were bigger than hers. Christ.

“What is it about me that people just assume I have a fetish for drag queens?” Jo asked.

“Your want ad,” Sherlock replied, disassembling the rest of the illusion herself. She’d given herself a good-sized prosthetic between the legs; Jo thought about asking to borrow it later. “You’re looking for a roommate. There are things you’d tell a lover that you wouldn’t tell a prospective buyer.”

“A one night stand is not a lover. Didn’t RuPaul teach you that?”

“I’m not a drag queen. In fact, the technical term is drag king. I can pay my share of the rent for six months in advance.”

Jo ripped the bottom of Sherlock’s goatee off. “Are you insane?”

“By some standards. I also own a very large TV, which you’re welcome to use when Mythbusters isn’t on.”

Jo sighed. “What’s the dog like?”