![]() ![]() The music is haunting, ethereal and cleverly used with a memorable main theme. On the other hand, "In the Name of the Brother" is a very handsomely mounted episode visually, the settings and costumes are both colourful and atmospheric, not too dark or garish and never cookie-cutter. Too much of the writing felt cheesy, corny and under-explored. David Anders' material is too weak for him to do much with his character, a problem seeing as he is one of the episode's primary focuses. Characters that were becoming more complex and conflicted were here one-dimensional and like the writers had forgotten what the previous three episodes did in developing them, Rumplestiltskin in particular. The conflict in the awkwardly tacky, in fit and writing, flashback lacks tension and some of it came over as vague. How? There is very little here that is propelled or moves the story forward, too much of it feels like filler with elements feeling forced in rather than natural. This episode however felt like the show was taking a few steps backwards. So what makes "In the Name of the Brother" a frustrating episode? The main reason is that 'Once Upon a Time' was making particularly major strides in the right direction with "Queen of Hearts", "The Cricket Game" and "The Outsider", where characters were becoming more complex and interesting, there was a stronger emotional core and things were really moving forward. Again from personal opinion, "In the Name of the Brother" is the weakest 'Once Upon a Time' episode since Season 1's "Dreamy", will even go as far to say it's the weakest of the show up to this point. For me though, "In the Name of the Brother", while not a bad episode, was frustrating and the first disappointment of Season 2 which was generally very good to great even with the three-episode dip. Not everybody is going to agree with this. Ok, there was a three-episode dip between "The Doctor" and "Queen of Hearts", with "Tallahassee", "Child of the Moon" and "Into the Deep" (particularly "Tallahassee"), but they still had enough to make them decent episodes in my opinion. Which was why it was sad when it ran out of ideas and lost its magic in the later seasons. Watched it without fail every time it came on and it was often a highlight of the week. Really loved the idea of turning familiar fairy tales on their heads and putting own interpretations on them and the show early on clearly had clearly had a ball. When 'Once Upon a Time' first started it was highly addictive and made the most of a truly great and creative premise.
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