That Still Small Voice
Meanwhile, the backstory of Jiminy Cricket (Sbarge) is revealed – he yearns to leave his con artist parents and become a good person, but accidentally hurts an innocent couple along the way.
Espenson was "thrilled" to be assigned the episode; Jiminy Cricket was typically a character that appeared in other people's stories, so she was eager to explore him in his own narrative.
In the Enchanted Forest, a young pickpocket named Jiminy desires the chance to be a good person, but is forced by his father (Harry Groener) and mother (Carolyn Hennesy) to participate in their cons.
One night, Jiminy pays a visit to see Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) and is given a tonic that will set him free from his parents and is told to either have them drink it or throw it over them.
As Emma, Henry, Archie, and the sheriff show up to see the damaged area, Regina (Lana Parrilla) arrives to try to keep everyone from going any further, then comes across a certain object which looks like an ornate piece of glass and puts it in her pocket.
She is also not pleased with the sheriff hiring Emma, and also reminds Archie that she can have him fired and out on the streets if he fails to succeed in dissuading Henry of the veracity of the fairy tale stories.
Regina backs down after Archie's threat, she looks at the object she had in her pocket and throws it down the shaft, where it is revealed that it is a small shard of the infamous glass coffin of Snow White's (Ginnifer Goodwin).
The beauty of the production, the care and the effort and, honestly, the expense that was put into it just made clear that was a project done with a lot of attention and love.
[1]Actor Raphael Sbarge became attracted to join the series because he would effectively be helping tell two stories, one in a fantasy world and the other in a modern setting.
"[6] When Sbarge read the script for "That Still Small Voice", he was worried about "treading into people's imaginations," but ultimately decided that "they cast me for a reason because there are some qualities in me that they obviously recognize for the story they want to tell.
"[7] Believing that his character was "sort of a surrogate father figure" to Henry, Sbarge admitted that the script "made me weep because what they came up with is so lovely and magical and delightful.
"[8] Referring to his character's storyline as a hero's journey, Sbarge said the intention was to show that Jiminy Cricket did not just begin as a noble guy – "what you get to see on this trip are the fire rings he had to walk through to get to a place where he could evolve to develop a sense of doing the right thing.
An estimated 10.7 million watched the episode, and it ranked third in its timeslot behind Football Night In America on NBC and 60 Minutes on CBS but ahead of The Simpsons on the Fox network.
Writing for AOL TV, Laura Prudom noted that the episode "proved to be an undeniably satisfying hour of television, deepening our understanding of Archie/Jiminy's character and giving us some welcome development in Mary Margaret and David's tragic romance.
"[20] Entertainment Weekly columnist Shaunna Murphy wrote that while she "ragged on Robert Carlyle initially, his campy Rumpel is quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of this show.
[9] Sava felt that Espenson, based on her previous work, was good at balancing large casts and wrote "this episode juggles the expansive character roster of this series better than its predecessors.
[21] Ratcliffe added that Jiminy had the "most touching backstory" of the season up to that point, opining that "the transformation of Dr. Hopper was moving, and this episode maybe felt the most like a fairytale of the stories we've seen so far.
