Once Upon A Time Season 7 Episode 14: The Girl in the Tower Review

By Sarah Campbell
8 years Ago

Picking up from where it left off last week, Rogers continues to try and prove Tilly’s innocence&period; To do this, he must retrace Tilly’s steps&period; For some reason, he chooses to enlist Henry’s help&period; I guess the promising plot teased last week didn’t pan out for him and the writers need something for Henry to do&period; It’s ok Henry, you’ll be the main character again someday&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;136976" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-136976" style="width&colon; 942px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-136976 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/24164622/title-card2&period;jpg" alt="" width="942" height="530" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-136976" class="wp-caption-text">Source&colon; Once Upon a Time, ABC</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;<h2>Tilly</h2>&NewLine;The episode’s plot focuses on Tilly and her ongoing identity crisis&period; Henry and Rogers leave until it’s narratively convenient for them to show back up again, allowing Tilly to go on a solo adventure to a grocery store she frequents&period; As she searches for people who might know her&period; &NewLine;Unfortunately for Tilly, these people work retail jobs&period; They see hundreds of people a day, and can’t reasonably be expected to remember them all&period; It might seem a little unrealistic for none of the staff to recognize Tilly, given that she apparently goes to that particular store every day&period; I’ve worked in retail, and I can believe it&period; Excepting a couple of special cases, I couldn’t pick one of my customers out of a lineup if my life depended on it&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;136973" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-136973" style="width&colon; 945px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-136973 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/24164433/haaaaaair&period;jpg" alt="" width="945" height="531" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-136973" class="wp-caption-text">Source&colon; Once Upon a Time, ABC</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;Tilly discovers locks of hair from the victims in the backpack she had lost&period; No longer certain about her own innocence, she plans to run away&period; She stops by the troll statue that she talks to sometimes to say goodbye&period; The flashback plot reveals that the troll statue is actually a real troll that Alice had wished to live via magic&period; Tilly is stopped from running by Margot, the cursed identity of Robin&period; Their talk delays her long enough for Rogers and Henry to catch up with her&period; &NewLine;They realize that the troll statue has a security camera in it, which they use to establish an alibi for Tilly&period; Rogers invites Tilly to live with him as her life might still be in danger&period;&NewLine;<h2>Robin</h2>&NewLine; Robin is such a problem character for me, because of the unsavory implications that her birth onto the show never addressed&period; I guess since this is a family show, pointing out that Robin is a rape baby wouldn’t be an especially comfortable thing to talk about&period; Nobody in the show ever addressed it, and I wonder what the point of that storyline was in the first place&period; I honestly don’t know how the writers would bring it up at this point&period; I guess it’s better to forget about it&period; The writers probably did&period; &NewLine;I just can’t help but be reminded of it every time Robin talks about her parents&period; &NewLine;That being said, ignoring the problems I have surrounding her, Robin as a character isn’t especially engaging&period; She appears to be in the middle of some coming of age story where she tries to find her own footing given her famous parents&period; This could be interesting to watch, but the writers aren’t doing anything with it&period; &NewLine;Robin’s character arc thus far has been as repetitive and boring as Hook’s&period; One of Robin’s parents did x, so Robin feels that she should also do x&period; Wait, Robin doesn’t like doing x, she’s just doing it because she feels she has to&period; Robin decides to do y instead&period; &NewLine;I just hope that her budding relationship with Alice turns her an interesting character&period; &NewLine;<h2>The Love Story</h2>&NewLine;The flashback plot starts with Robin catching Alice spying on the camp from afar&period; Alice falls into a trap that Robin set up, which on this show means it’s true love&period; Robin lets Alice out of the cage, and they hear the roar of a troll&period;&NewLine;Alice insists that it’s friendly, as it is the troll that let her out of the tower she had been trapped in&period; Robin decides she’s going to kill it because it’s been terrorizing villages and because there needs to be some conflict between these two for true love to overcome&period;&NewLine;They come to the village where a hunting party has been forming up&period; Alice and Robin are locked up together when Alice tries to defend her troll friend&period; They end up bonding in their cell, where Robin confesses to having stolen Emma’s car while she was in Storybrooke&period; I’m not sure if this is meant to establish Robin’s character as one of the dumbest characters in a show full of the dumbest characters, or if the writers just really wanted an excuse to bring back an iconic part of the older seasons&period; Robin escapes from the cell and leaves Alice behind&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;136974" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-136974" style="width&colon; 944px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-136974 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/24164455/prison&period;jpg" alt="" width="944" height="529" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-136974" class="wp-caption-text">Source&colon; Once Upon a Time, ABC</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;Robin convinces the hunters to allow her a shot at the troll but is stopped by Alice who can also pick locks for some reason&period; Although Alice is literally a wizard, so I guess she did it with magic&period; The troll wanders off, and the mob decides to take it out on Alice&period; Robin decides to step in but doesn’t do much more than ineffectually point her bow at people&period; Alice summons the yellow bug, and they make their getaway in a car&period; &NewLine;This show has a real problem with telling and not showing&period; Characters will often stop and give monologues about their motivations&period; One such example is the emotional climax of the flashback plot after Robin and Tilly escape from the mob&period; Robin stops to discuss her motivations in a far too long speech&period; &NewLine;Robin drives Alice back to the tower where she and Alice talk about their motivations some more until the troll attacks&period; Robin convinces Alice that she can stop it because she was the one who created it in the first place&period; Alice tells the troll that she’s happy now, and it turns into the stone statue that we see over in the real world plot&period; &NewLine;It’s unclear as to why the curse brought the troll statue over with it, but how and why the curse works changes every season&period;&NewLine;<h2>Crimes</h2>&NewLine; Regina decides to have Lucy do a B&amp&semi;E while she distracts Dr&period; Facilier with a date&period; Ignoring the ethical implications of making a child do criminal activities, Dr&period; Facilier is a dangerous wizard&period; Lucy is like, eight&period; This is a stupid plan&period;&NewLine; Of course, Regina doesn’t involve her adult sister with the plan&period; Regina doesn’t want to have the awkward conversation about getting back together with her evil ex-boyfriend&period; This causes Zelena to step in at the worst possible moment, and interrupt the operation&period; &NewLine; Meanwhile, Lucy spots some tarot cards on the table&period; One of the cards is the Death card in the upright position&period; I can forgive the eight-year-old for not knowing her tarot, but it’s clear that the writers don’t know it either&period; &NewLine;This is a trope that I hate&period; Every hack writer uses The Death card to represent literal physical death or danger&period; I’m assuming they do this because taking ten seconds to google it is too much for them&period; &NewLine;The Death card doesn’t represent literal physical death, but a spiritual one&period; It’s the changing of seasons and letting go of an emotional attachment&period; Sometimes it can portend an upcoming failure&period; But, Death is a spooky looking card, and it has the word death in it&period; So the writers chose to interpret it literally, and not think about it at all&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;136975" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-136975" style="width&colon; 943px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-136975 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/24164524/shes-eight&period;jpg" alt="" width="943" height="529" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-136975" class="wp-caption-text">Source&colon; Once Upon a Time, ABC</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;Facilier confronts Regina with the evidence that Lucy left behind because Lucy is eight and this was a stupid idea&period; He scolds her because she could have just asked what he was after&period; Then he proceeds just to tell her what he wants&period; Facilier is honestly a breath of fresh air after seasons and seasons of nobody telling anybody anything&period;&NewLine;He admits that he’s after the dagger, but doesn’t explain why&period; Facilier leaves after giving Regina a lazy card reading&period; Facilier seems pretty cool with the whole breaking and entering thing, and even goes so far as to tell Regina that they can still work things out&period;&NewLine;<h2>Conclusion</h2>&NewLine;This episode was better than last week’s&period; I feel like Henry is being woefully underutilized&period; His interactions with Ivy show that he could be a solid emotional core for our intrepid heroes&period; Having Henry to bounce off of while trying to retrace her steps would have helped the present day plot feel a little less jumbled&period; &NewLine;It’s nice to have an LGBT couple as focal characters in this show&period; While they did briefly have an LGBT couple in Ruby and Dorothy a few seasons ago, they showed up for exactly one episode and then never again&period; And unlike those two, Robin and Alice are actually kind of cute together&period; &NewLine;This episode got enough things right that I’m almost hopeful for the future episodes to also be good&period;&NewLine;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;

Categories: Geek Culture, TV Shows
Tags: ABC Episode Guide Ginnifer Goodwin Once Upon a Time Top Stories TV Episode Review

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