This Week ABC's Once Upon A Time Features Archie/Jiminy Cricket

 

It's Sunday and it's that Once Upon A Time time of the week. Yay! Gotta love new fairy tale retellings coming to your living room twice a week these days. :)

Storybrooke's resident therapist Archie Hopper (aka Jiminy Cricket) gets a lot of screen time this week and (if they must have use Jiminy Cricket to start with) I initially thought there was a lot of story potential in having his real life persona turn out like this. If you're interested, there's a little article interviewing the actor on his dual role HERE and a longer one on Jiminy Cricket's personal journey HERE. (We also get some further insight into Ruby/Red Riding Hood's character in the article too.)

However, if this preview clip of tonight's episode is any indication, I'm not sure Jiminy Cricket is someone I want to be talking my troubles over with, or sending my child to. I'm already cringing over the "real mother" smack down between Regina and Emma (this aspect has a high squick factor for more than a few parents out there) but now we have a therapist telling a kid he's crazy... :/



The episode this week is called "That Still Small Voice" so I'm hoping we'll see Jiminy/Archie looking into his own heart and finding a still-small-something in the midst of this episode to redeem it. There are a lot of references to "finding your conscience" so fingers crossed. In the midst of all this there are also some dark hints out there about what's to come HERE. (>>> NOTE: this article may have spoilers!!)

Here's a second (spoiler-free) and action-packed sneak peek of tonight's show:


And yes, for all my criticism, you know I'll be watching. I think the treatment/interpretation of archetypes is fascinating and an interesting reflection on how our society views them. For every bit of squick in the fairy tale shows (yes, both of them), there always manages to be one or more things that are worth coming to the party to see first hand.

In Once Upon A Time, there is a little something for everyone: real world reflections of fairy tale tropes and characters, fairy tale fantasy sequences, mysteries, drama, action (nothing like a sinkhole/abandoned mine suddenly appearing to get the adrenalin pumping) and a little swashbuckling now and then. One thing is for certain - the more people see of this show, the more people are talking fairy tales. That alone is reason to tune in.