A few thoughts on Tallahassee, my favourite Once Upon a Time episode of season two so far. I predicted a long con of Jennifer Morrison’s young Emma Swan by Michael Raymond-James’s fellow thief Neal Cassady but did not anticipate he would do it out of love for her after Eion Bailey’s August showed him Emma’s destiny to break the curse in Storybrooke.
I’d seen the thieving pair on set in the Downtown Eastside near the Main Street overpass filming the scene of them being pulled over by the Portland police after Emma learns she “stole a stolen car.”
Once Upon a Time filmed later scenes of the new “Bonnie & Clyde” examining their stolen loot from a corner store in a motel room at the City Centre Motor Hotel on Main Street and then planning to make a real home together in Tallahassee.
Emma’s offer to retrieve Neal’s stolen watches from a storage locker in the train station to fund their trip to Tallahassee and the actual retrieval were filmed outside and inside Pacific Central Station off Main Street.
And I happened by the night shoot in an alley off Main Street where Neil meets August and is convinced to double cross Emma for her own good and even spotted Michael Raymond-James strolling across the parking lot in his muscle shirt but didn’t stop. So I had no idea Eion Bailey was on set too. Damn. (The filming notice for this shoot did not say it was Once Upon a Time — that’s how hush hush this storyline was.)
And a friend spotted the yellow VW bug out at Helijet near the Seabus terminal in downtown Vancouver as Vancouver, where August promised to send Neal a postcard if the curse were ever broken and Emma free (which he got in the season two premiere). You could see Canada Place, Burrard Inlet, North Vancouver and the North Shore mountains in the background as the two men talked. And with that scene of young Emma pregnant in jail it does seem that Neal is indeed Henry’s father.
Once Upon a Time is unlikely to ever be this Vancouver-as-Vancouver again. Thankyou.
*************************************************************************************************************************************