Joana Metrass Joins OUAT Cast, How Will Her Character Fit in?

It was announced at SDCC 2015 in the Once Upon a Time panel that the crew is growing next season with Joana Metrass (the second Portuguese actor appearing on the show) joining the medieval cast as Queen consort of King Arthur, Guinevere.

Good for her, I say! What, with so many Portuguese actors getting jobs in the States, like Daniela Ruah as badass Kensi Blye (NCIS: Los Angeles), and Diogo Morgado playing both Hot Jesus (Son of God and The Bible) and Hot Lucifer (The Messengers). And then we have Joaquim de Almeida, who not only appeared in Once Upon a Time as King Xavier, but also stared in other popular TV shows like Bones, The Mentalist, Revolution, Revenge and even played a villain in the testosterone-inducing movie series, The Fast and the Furious.

Apparently, when you´re Portuguese, you only seem to get work outside of the country(work involving the arts, anyway)!

But speaking less politically, I really am happy for her. She´s come a long way since her soap opera days working in the famous (but less than mediocre) young adult series, Morangos com Açúcar (Strawberries with Sugar), and a popular novela at the time, Rosa Fogo (Fire Rose).

Yes, we have weird names for our shows, we know. Nowadays, it´s kind of a contest to see who gets the odder and cheesier names. Mar Salgado (Salty Sea) seems to be winning, in my opinion.

The actress is currently living between Los Angeles and London, and was born in Lisbon, in 1988. Joana Metrass also graduated from the Superior School of Theatre and Cinema in Lisbon and studied in the performance institute for actors in New York, USA, HB Studio NY.

With those qualifications, I´m hopeful she´ll make a lasting performance as her new role as Queen Guinevere. Of course, we´re talking about a show created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. You know, the guys who made Lost? And the same flaws that grew its nasty head on that show are appearing quite rapidly in Once Upon a Time.

We´ve got the basics: the first season was great, well thought-out, all characters seemed to have a purpose to the plot, and it ended on a cliff-hanger that made all of us excited for next season! But then the mess started. The subplots became confusing, major plotlines even more baffling, it got so much cheesier than they probably intended, and some characters that seemed to have a point in the story started to disappear from the screen; and I don´t mean they died (like in Lost), they just stopped showing up! Secondary characters that the audience loved and apparently still had their own stories to tell just disappeared from the face of the Earth!

And then they managed to get the rights for Disney character. Oh boy, was that a mistake.

They immediately forced Frozen into their already tiny – but largely filled – plot (which they didn´t need or have to), who looked like some badly written fan-fiction by the way, and then – on the same freaking season – they introduced the Queens of Darkness; which included Maleficent, Ursula, and Cruella de Vil. They were great characters on their own right, but their plotline ended as I expected: rushed, messy, and unsatisfying.

They even changed Maleficent’s original look on the show with the Angelina horn-like form (not a cash grab at all, guys) and created a convoluted and confused way to bring her back since they already killed her off at the end of season one (once again, really not smelling the desperate greed here).

To put it bluntly, I wouldn´t be surprised if Joana Metrass had to co-star alongside some badly CGI Minions. Or her storyline would also be pointless and unnecessary. Or she´ll get killed without a real motive. Or all three of them.

Honestly, the only reason I´m still watching this show is because of Lana Parrilla, who plays the Evil Queen, Regina Mills. I´ve become too attached to this character, and Lana´s performance as Regina is always mesmerizing, even when she has stupid plotlines to deal with. She´s just that talented.

But if they keep up piling up famous character after famous character without any interesting plot substance, I´m not sure I´ll still be there for another season. Looking on the bright side, however, I will stop crying over good characters stuck in bad storytelling!

I wish best of luck on Joana Metrass´s new project, and I hope she manages to bring some sort of stability to this show. She probably won´t though, but I guess we´ll have to wait till September to see what Once Upon a Time has in store for us (please let there be no badly CGI Minions).