Once Upon a Time has been my non-guilty pleasure of the winter TV schedule. (The guilty pleasures are Glee, which sometimes makes me cringe, and Terra Nova, where an awesome concept has to deal with the Shannons.) My only demur about loving OUT is that I am sure the laws of narrative consequence will mean Regina will have to get her come-uppance.

Probably involving her losing Henry again, a second time since she named him after her dear, departed, heart cut-out Dad. (Really, Regina, you do that once and it is a faux pax, you do it twice and it is a hobby.)

Anyhow, this week is the story of Jiminy Cricket, played wimpishly by Raphael Sbarge (not a slight on the actor. Jiminy is meant to be a bit indecisive.) It isn’t one of the show’s stronger episodes. Other than a bit of background on Jiminy and the big reveal at the end, we don’t really learn that much new. Still, even one of OUT’s weaker episodes is a bouncing, inflatable fairytale castle of fun.

Young fairy-tale Jiminy was a ginger-curled young lad whose heart was in the right place, but whose spine had gone missing. Under the distraction of a travelling puppet show, he picked pockets, cut-purses and generally filched the crowd blind. He didn’t want to though, he wanted to be good but his parents, played by Harry Groener and Carolyn Hennesy who I would love to see on the show again, wouldn’t let him.

I sympathise, when I was a child I wanted to be bad and my parents wouldn’t let me either.

OK, we should probably get it out of the way now. Jiminy’s parents are ne’er-do-wells, thieves, con-artists and skinnymalinks (I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds like them) and probably the Cat and Fox who later bedevil poor, dumb Pinnochio. They tell their poor, ginger son that ‘you are who you are, there’s no changing.’. Unfortunately, they are also awesome. The evil characters are just so much fun on this show.

Anyhow, little Jiminy is unimpressed by this and looks longingly at a cricket. Methinks, little Jiminy needed more friends.

Back in Storybrooke, aka ‘The Real World’, Emma feels the ground move. Unfortunately, she hasn’t jumped the Sheriff’s bones to save him from Regina’s evil vagina (couldn’t resist, sorry). All she had done was clip on a deputy badge and the ground collapsed. Regina claims it just old tunnels, but that is probably a lie!

Henry thinks so anyhow. The sink-hole is a portal to Fairytaleland, he believes, and he just needs to get the proof.

Oh, there was a brief detour back to Fairytaleland here. I mention it only because it once more showcased the wonderful Myrna and Martin. When young Jiminy (who now has a thinning cap of ginger curls, all that worrying about being good probably. His parents are both fully be-haired. Indeed, they may have more than their fair share of hair.) tries to leave, his parents go into a practiced routine.

‘It’s my hip.’

‘It’s my liver’

‘I’ve got burning sensations.’

To convince him to stay. He does, because he has less spine in him than the puppets.

Unfortunately, ‘Real World’ Jiminy in the form of Dalmation owning Dr Archibald Hopper has no more of a crisp moral centre than his fairy-tale counterpart did. Faced with threats by Regina, he tells Henry that his whole fairy-tale idea is a delusion and that it isn’t real.

Shocked by the repetition of what everyone has been saying every episode, Henry gets teary eyed, runs to his bio-mum and then goes to investigate the sinkhole on his own. He’s secretly royalty you see, all that inbreeding is what leads to stupid decisions like fighting dragons or going spelunking when you’re 10.

Although by that logic, young Jiminy was stolen royalty. He’s off making a weird deal with ole Rumplestiltskin despite the fact that it is a transparently bad idea. Still, any chance to spend more time with Rumpy is good. Here he is spinning straw into gold and gold into magic. He also collects ‘treasures’. Rumpy’s Real World counterpart, Mr Gold, probably plays a lot of World of Warcraft.

Anyhow, since he can’t get up the gumption to confront his parents or run away or secretly turn them into the authorities, Jiminy decides to kill them using Rumpy’s potion and leave their bodies for the creepy imp to take. Seriously. Just top them to avoid awkward Thanksgivings, Jiminy. It’s what they would have wanted.

Back in the ‘Real World’ Henry is down a hole, then Archie goes into the hole too. They get stuck. Pongo doesn’t go into the hole, because Pongo isn’t stupid.

OK, you caught me out, the ‘Real World’ storyline this time around was pretty boring. Other than Mary Margaret being just a bit willing to go for a bit of slap and tickle with her amnesiac beau (she decided against it, which sucked. She also resigned from her position as volunteer, with a letter. It seemed terribly formal.) there wasn’t a lot going on.

So I will summarise. Regina actually seems cut up at the thought of Henry in danger. Emma does bitch-face. They find a hole and Emma goes down to rescue Henry. Afterwards she is surprised when Regina continues to cut her dead.

Back in the interesting side of things, the Jiminys rock up to a little farm. Jiminy, who is a bit of a buzz-kill, complains that they don’t need the money. Martin the Cat says that it is the principle of the thing. Go Mr Jiminy, that’s the right work-ethic to teach the boy.

Turns out fairy-tale people are astonishingly gullible. With nowt but a casually dropped line, ‘Well, it was a plague certainly.’ and a quickly produced magical item, ‘Elf-tonic. Made by elves, from elves.’ they were in possession of all the simple farm folks worldly possessions. They also ‘owned’ Jiminy, whose attempt to murder his parents back-fired when it turned out his Dad had swapped vials on him.

Presumably, Rumpy tipped them the wink. They seemed to have a long business relationship and Rumpy doesn’t like betrayal much. Cruelty, baby-snatching and being creepy (awesomely): yes. Betrayal: no. (Can you IMAGINE Mr Gold filling out a dating profile online? It would have be hysterical)

Jiminy realizes, distraught, that he had murderised the wrong couple and runs back inside to find out he’d turned the simple farm-folk into some very, very disturbing puppets. Most disturbing of all, however, is the discovery that the wee’est Simple Farmer is actually Gepetto! We find that out when the be-bosumed and be-tanned Blue Fairy turns up to bibbedy-bobbedy-boo poor old Jiminy into a cricket. It makes Gepetto’s hobby of puppet-making a bit worrying doesn’t it?

Don’t worry. It wasn’t a punishment – and Jiminy seemed both unrepentant over having almost puppetified his parents and ungrateful for them forgiving him the attempt – wanted to be a cricket. It wouldn’t have been my choice, but to each their own. And luckily, in his tiny form Jiminy had enough of a backbone to stop with the family murdering.

I snark because I love, but really, having a supposedly sympathetic character try and murder his parents is pretty harsh. I know they were ‘bad’, but murder was a bit extreme.

‘You leave me no choice!’

Really, Jiminy? They weren’t killing people (or cutting out hearts, Regina) or snatching babies or anything like that. They were a bit manipulative, but they were obviously devoted to each other and Jiminy wasn’t so disgusted by their crimes that he refused to wear the clothes it bought or ride in the caravan or eat the food.

Oh, and back in our world Hopper pulls all his courage together and threatens Regina that if she doesn’t let him do his job he’ll testify against her in a custody hearing. For some reason, this always seems to work in Storybrooke. Maybe it is the carry-over from all those gullible folk that the Jiminy’s used to con?

It worked last episode on Emma, when Mr Gold told her that if she owed him a favour he’d not enforce his illegal contract he had no way of enforcing. This week it works on Regina, despite the fact that Emma has no legal claim to Henry and couldn’t sue for custody of his toenails. Maybe she could try and foster him if he was taken off Regina by social services, but even that would be iffy. What with her turning up in Henry’s life and attempting to worsen his relationship with his legal mother while encouraging his delusions about a fairy-tale world.

(I like Emma, I do. When she cut down the tree, I was cheering. However, her actions don’t look great in a non-fairytale curse setting.)

I suspect Hopper ain’t long for this world, but at least he got to win once before he goes.