‘Once Upon a Time’ season 3: What ‘Community’ star was the voice of the REAL Ursula?
“Once Upon a Time” has been hyping up the appearance of Ursula on the show for some time in the “Ariel” episode, but for most of that the assumption was made that the character was going to be played by the Evil Queen Regina (Lana Parrilla). Instead, what we had was Regina pretending to be Ursula in order to trick Ariel, but the real Ursula had a different, but very familiar voice.
Ursula was actually voiced in her brief scene by “Community’s” own Shirley in Yvette Nicole Brown, and appeared in the credits for the episode. Co-creator Adam Horowitz also made this clear in a post on Twitter that it was Brown behind the role.
But is there going to be any real story left for the character? Given that we only saw Ursula behind a frame, and her threat to Regina was pretty clear to not impersonate her again or pay the consequences, there may not be any reason at all for her to be back. It also probably depends largely on both Brown’s availability and how much more the show decides to use Ariel on the show the rest of the way. So far, she has only been a part of one episode, and another one confirmed on Sunday night that brings her back to Storybrooke. That is not really a lot to go on.
But at least “Once Upon a Time’ did something nice here in introducing a character who is not actually just another side of someone we’ve already met. There really has been enough of that courtesy of some of the villains that we have already, including Rumpelstiltskin also being the Beast and Peter Pan doubling up as the Pied Piper. This is more of a character steeped in mythology that may not always have a part in the story. Think of it as someone similar to Maleficent, who unfortunately has not had much to do given how she is played by the rather brilliant Kristin Bauer van Straten.
Do you wish that we had actually seen more of the real Ursula, and do you also think that Brown is the right person to play her? Be sure to share your thoughts below, and click here for a look at next week’s “Once Upon a Time” episode.
Photo: ABC