Once Upon a Fangirl...: The Tower

This episode this time round is much more of a character study and centres on the theme of fear instead of following the story. Easily one of the darkest episodes in the show, we get to see David's perspective on Mary Margaret's pregnancy, hiding his fears about failing their child like he unintentionally did with Emma. Zelena, spiking tea with nightroot, summons a physical form of his fears to confront them in order to take his courage away from him, therefore making him the show's version of the Cowardly Lion. We see some boring CaptainSwan moments with him trying to In the flashbacks, we got to see Charming's view of Snow's pregnancy, with Robin Hood convinving him to find night root which is said to get rid of your fears. During a quest to find them, he comes across the long haired princess Rapunzel, hiding in the tower after a witch took her up there while trying to find nightroot to calm her fears of becoming a leader after her brother died. And if I can be honest it really disappointed me!
I'm sorry, I just thought Rapunzel and her backstory was very very weak! I was so excited to see her in the show when she was announced, but all we got was a one dimensional and boring character just used as a plot device to benefit Charming's arc. Now, I'm not saying Alexandra Metz did a bad job! In fact, she did well with what little material she got! And the pacing of the flashbacks was way too slow in my opinion! If anything, the Rapunzel scenes took place in less than an hour! This is a case where you need Disney's version to benefit Rapunzel's character, or even the Brothers Grimm's version to make the story darker, not a made up one to benefit an established main character! The Captain Swan stuff, like I said, really bothered me since we still don't know where Neal is, and he's just being rude after she had her heart broken by Walsh! And Mary Margaret, AGAIN, was just being an idiot with Zelena, being completely unsuspicious about her, and even David of all people doesn't trust her!
This episode is a total dud, right? Actually, there are some good things, and my biggest praise is the opening nightmare! Everything about it, the acting, visuals, music, dialogue, effects was wonderfully put together to see Charming & Emma have the life they could've had if it weren't for the curse (and her dress was stunning!) And the concept with the nightroot was actually very interesting to see, but if it were me, I would've saved the fear theme for a future episode if Elsa from Frozen were ever to appear in the show! Overall, probably the first season 3 episode which really disapopointed me. Hopefully things are different when Lumiere & Neal appear next time in Quiet Minds!