ONCE UPON A TIME Review: Questioning Trust in “Siege Perilous”

By Meredith Loftus

In the third installment of this season, “Siege Perilous” shook the balance and flipped who we think we should trust on its head. While the motives are still entirely unclear, power plays have been made, and the players are setting up their next move.

Arthur has Charming’s trust and Dark Swan has Rumple. Meanwhile, Lancelot returns and tells Snow to be wary of Arthur. Even with the external trust in question, there was also an emphasis of doubting yourself. The constant question for this season’s arc: who do we trust and can they trust themselves to do the right thing?

Charming faces his own sets of trust issues, but rather with himself more than with the people around him. He feels as though he failed his daughter and therefore doesn’t believe in himself anymore. This doubt makes him question if he really does have what it takes to be the hero people have believed him to be.

Sometimes the most damage we can do to ourselves is to lose our confidence. When we begin to doubt who we are, we grow fearful and wary of ourselves and the world around us. If we don’t believe in ourselves, who will? So when Arthur provides him an opportunity to be that hero in Camelot and in Storybrooke, Charming quickly accepts the opportunity.

From there, we see Charming’s confidence begin to grow again, getting back into his element of going on a quest. By fighting off the undead knights in Camelot and finding the Crimson Crown mushroom in Storybrooke, Charming gets his groove back. He is affirmed by the Storybrooke heroes, as well as Camelot when he is knighted to join the Knights of the Round Table and gets seated at the Siege Perilous, the place of honor for heroes of the purest form.

In Arthurian legend, the knights seated there would later quest to go after the Holy Grail; only the pure and worthy would be able to find it. While it’s too early to tell if this arc will go into Grail mythology, this honor resonates with Charming. He is now one of Arthur’s trusted knights.

Unfortunately, that trust might be misplaced.