(Be advised, I can’t talk about this without spoiling a major plot development from season 1.)
This isn’t one of the most prominent relationships on Once Upon a Time, but I adore it. Since the initial premise of the show placed most of the characters under a curse that, among other things, made time stand still, Emma grew up while her parents stayed the same age in Storybrooke. So, when the curse breaks and the Enchanted Forest folk regain their true memories, the mother and father Emma has looked for her entire life stand in front of her, and they’re her age. Thus begins two of the most unconventional parent-child relationships on TV.
Emma’s relationship with Snow is interesting, too, but today’s post is about Emma and her dad. Magic weirdness aside, it’s a tough situation – Charming and Emma have spent 28 years apart. He hasn’t felt those years, being frozen in time (and in a coma) for most of it, and he doesn’t know who either of them are when they meet. Emma, on the other hand, has been wondering about the unknown parents who seemingly dropped her into the world and then erased every hint of their existence as she was shunted around the foster system, made some bad choices, and put her life back together. She doesn’t know that his sword protected her the moment she was born, that he fought tooth and nail and nearly died getting her out of the curse’s reach.
So when Charming gets his memory back, he’s every inch the proud papa who knew his little girl could save the day, and Emma is very not ready to deal with him or Snow. The father who, in her mind, abandoned her, is both Prince friggin’ Charming and a 20-something (in fact, Josh Dallas is a couple years youngerthan Jennifer Morrison.) She doesn’t know how to wrap her head around a relationship like that, and an awkward stretch of episodes is spent with him wanting to make up for lost time and her wanting to avoid the issue. She’s had a difficult life, and she can’t simply forgive and forget because her dad was a fairytale character under a curse, and her cold shoulder serves to remind him of all the years he couldn’t be there for her.
As time goes on and Emma starts to open up, though, she and Charming develop a really great dynamic. He works alongside her at the sheriff’s department where they make a good team. Both are trackers who are handy in a fight, and she gradually gets used to him having her back. While he’s protective, he still lets her stand on her own, and when it comes to sharing, Charming is good about waiting for Emma to come to him. He always lets her know he’s there for whatever she needs, to help or to listen, but he doesn’t push. As a result, he’s been a sounding board when she’s confused, a comfort when she’s upset, and a support when she’s overwhelmed.
I really have to hand it to Jennifer Morrison and Josh Dallas. Any time you have two good-looking actors of the same age portraying a familial relationship, you can run the risk of inappropriate chemistry; too many onscreen siblings have trouble giving off consistent “sibling” vibes, and it gets weird. These two have an even harder task, making the audience buy him as her dad, but they’re more than up to the challenge. In all their interactions, you never lose sight of the fact that she’s his daughter. There’s even a scene where he’s teaching her to dance, a dream sequence in which he’s regretting all the years he missed with her. Both are dressed to the nines and dancing to lovely music, and it’s father-daughter all the way. He’s warm and paternal, and she’s slowly, beautifully becoming an incurable daddy’s girl. I love it.
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