I love fall. I love fall because it has Halloween and Thanksgiving. I love fall because the weather starts to finally cool down (not today though, it was up at about 104 degrees today!) and I can put on cardigans and jeans and boots but not freeze my butt off. And I love fall because some of my awesome favorite television shows come back.

Doctor Who has come back and we allll know how I felt about that.

I’m still awaiting The Walking Dead and Suburgatory. I’ve enjoyed the beginnings of Switched at Birth and I am intriqued, if not completely sold, on Revolution.

Once Upon a Time though…that’s a great show.

I watched all of season one from the beginning and I fell in love with it as soon as it aired. The basic premise is this: we all know our favorite fairy tale characters, Snow White, Prince Charming, the dwarves, the evil queen, Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jiminy Cricket and so on. But do we know them as well as we think? This is an alternate view of all the fairy tales, but its also a modern view too.

The story begins with a woman named Emma, celebrating her 28th birthday. As she celebrates alone, she makes a wish and her son, the son she gave up for adoption ten years earlier finds her and brings her to the town of Storybrooke, Maine. Her son, Henry, says he brings her here for a reason, a purpose. She has to set all the citizens of Storybrooke free, for they are trapped fairy tale characters.

Rewind a little bit: the fairy tale characters live in their fairy tale world. But instead of getting the happily ever after she’s always dreamed of, Snow White is threatened by the evil queen. The evil queen is creating a curse, a curse to take all the people of that world and take them to a world without magic, our world, without any memory of who they are. Their only hope is Emma, the newborn daughter of Snow and Prince Charming, who they send into our world to come back to them when she turns 28 years old.

Usually an episode focuses on a conflict in the real world while flashing back to a conflict of that character as their true self in fairy tale world. The season ends with Emma breaking the curse and the people of Storybrooke remembering who they are. However, they stay in Storybrooke and the evil and cunning Rumplestiltskin brings magic to a land that has none. The season ends.

I couldn’t handle that kind of ending! How do you do that! Think about all the unanswered questions! What is it going to be like for Snow and Prince Charming to finally meet their daughter and know its their daughter? What is that going to be like for Emma, who has been friends with these people for so long? How are all these characters going to act on the evil queen, Regina, who brought them there? What is going to happen now that the magic has returned? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.

I was very happy with the season premiere of season two. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. They created such a fun and altnerate universe. How would this translate into the second season.

The Good:

I liked the way Emma reacted to Mary Margaret and David becoming Snow and Prince Charming. And I loved the way they reacted back. They are so insanely excited to see her again. The last time they saw her, she was only an hour old? Maybe? Now she’s 28 years old and they are so so happy to see her; she found them and she saved them. But Emma is so reluctant. She’s been friends with them for so long, she’s seen them as equals so its kind of weird for her. It’s extremely real. I liked it so much. Its really awkward and realistic. They are feeling so much and Emma literally has a perpetual “WTF?” sort of attitude about it.

Rumplestiltskin and Belle. I mean, need I say more? Cutest thing ever.

The fact that they just don’t kill Regina. Even though she literally has made their lives a living hell, both in fairy tale world and in real world and she deserves the worst punishment possible, they don’t do it. I feel like it makes them the better people. I also hope that means they make her life a living hell before she does eventually go. The fact is, they didn’t return to their world and they’re in our world with magic and they’re pissed, everyone is pissed at her and it makes for an interesting story.

The Bad:

There isn’t a lot of bad. The only bad about this episode was the kind of messy “flashback” fairy tale parts. They are flashing to Aurora being woken up by Prince Phillip, who is weirdly accompanied by Mulan. Technically these parts are happening about the same time, instead of being flashbacks. When Regina enacted the curse, it left some parts untouched and there were some people left untouched. They hint at a safe haven where the survivors have banded together in a world torn apart. That part is interesting, kind of a little teaser for the rest of the season.

However, the Aurora, Phillip, and Mulan story with the wraith and all that was so confusing and kind of weird. I know this is alternate fairly tale, but Mulan’s presence was random and her being in love with Prince Phillip really bothered me. I also didn’t like Aurora. She was super pretty and her acting was fine but the character itself was really annoying. She was super weak, too much the damsel in distress, not at all the way they portayed Snow and Red and Cinderella. And she has this weird jealousy. She seemed very stereotype. I wasn’t into that.

Besides that though, I definitely enjoyed the episode and I am most looking forward to the rest of the season. I can’t wait to see what happens with Regina, and I can’t wait to see the sort of family bonding that happens between Emma, Snow, Charming and Henry. Its going to be a good season and I can’t wait.