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Starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Lana Parrilla, Josh Dallas, Emilie de Ravin, Jared S. Gilmore, Meghan Ory, and Robert Carlyle.

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Unfortunately, Once Upon a Time’s thirteenth instalment of the second season, “Tiny” has many of the issues that “In the Name of the Brother” possesses: namely, focussing for far too long on the backstory of a character who the audience really aren’t invested in, and barely advance the main plot of the season. At the end of the day, Tiny’s tragic fairytale backstory is that he didn’t feel like he fit in with the giants, so travelled to the humans, got tricked by David’s twin brother James (yes, I’d completely forgotten about that bizarre plot point as well), and Jack (yes, that Jack. But, get this: Jack is short for Jacqueline. Why? Because the writers just cannot resist adapting fairytales and fiddling with them, regardless of how mundane the change may appear to regular mortals like ourselves). Via this trickery, the other giants were slain, except for Tiny, and all of the giant’s magic beans were destroyed. Ultimately, the episode merely sets up Tiny, and the dwarves, as growing a crop of magic beans, enabling the citizens of Storybrooke to return to the Enchanted Forest.

The only other elements of note are the fact that Belle still has no memory of who she is, even when Ruby visits her and attempts to connect with her. Instead of revealing any of the truth to Belle, and explaining the situation, Ruby instead completely denies Belle’s claims that she saw Gold using magic, and similarly Ruby tries to brush off Greg to persuade him to leave town. However, he later speaks to Belle and admits that he saw Gold holding flames in his hands. So, that small threat to the anonymity and safety of Storybrooke continues to loom large.

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In Short

• Tiny the giant has a terrible backstory that nobody is emotionally invested in.
• Cora brought him to Storybrooke so that he could grow magic beans.
• Charming and Snow put him to work growing magic beans for the side of good.
• Emma, Gold and Henry head to New York to find Bae.

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Other thoughts

• I can’t help but feel like this magic bean plot will go awry in some way. Despite Snow’s insistence that they’ll stop Cora from getting her hands on them, they’ve hardly been especially effectual at stopping Cora up until this point, so I doubt they will succeed here.
• I feel like Regina is just picking reasons to be angry here. She went off by herself anonymously and was uncontactable on purpose. Because of that lack of contact, Henry and Emma have headed off on Gold’s quest, and Regina is annoyed that she was not consulted. I mean, ignoring the fact that Emma wasn’t letting Regina alone with Henry even before Cora was back in town, it would make complete sense that Emma would take him with her and get him away from Cora. She’s clearly already decided which side she is on, but I wish she would remember the desire that she head to protect Henry from Cora in the first place, even intent upon resorting to murder.
• It was a nice role reversal to see Gold outside of Storybrooke and struggling. His repeated punching of the wall in the bathroom, and his realisation that his magic has no effect here: his clear sense of being overwhelmed on the plane all indicate that this outside world is putting into perspective the enormity of the real world.

Verdict

Yet another diversion on the way to Bae and Gold’s reunion.

You can watch Once Upon a Time Seasons 1 – 7 on Netflix. It is also available on home media and other digital platforms for purchase or rent.