So now Snow and Charming have a big dark secret that they don’t want
anyone to find out. That doesn’t sound
good, does it?
Cruella and Ursula are now roaming free around Storybrooke, and no
one is happy about it. Even Granny is
being all ‘we don’t serve your kind here.’ But no one is more on edge than Snow and Charming,
because they’re terrified that they will bring that dark secret of theirs to
light. In their desperation to figure
out exactly what Cruella and Ursula are up to, particularly after the two women
steal a box from Gold’s shop, which Belle is now running by herself, they end
up digging themselves deeper into a hole as they continue lying to Emma to keep
her out of the loop. When Charming gets
Emma to help him tail them and pull them over to search their car for the
stolen box, he finds the box hidden in a secret compartment beneath the car
seat. But Charming ends up keeping this
find to himself and doesn’t let Emma know anything. He does tell Snow, however, when they see the
box contained an item that belonged to Maleficent and realize Ursula and Cruella
are planning to resurrect her. This is
something Snow and Charming does not want to happen, because if Maleficent
comes back, their dark secret will most certainly be found out. Apparently, this dark secret had something to
do with Maleficent, and how Snow and Charming’s actions wronged her
somehow. Of course, their attempts at
preventing the resurrection backfires, as Cruella and Ursula were expecting
them to try and get rid of Maleficent’s ashes before they could locate them and
actually followed the royal couple down to the underground cavern. What’s more, the item that they took from
Gold’s shop was just a decoy, and what they really needed to bring Maleficent
back was some of Snow and Charming’s blood.
(And why do people always go for cutting the palm of the hand when they
want to draw blood? That’s one of the
worst places to cut yourself.) The plan
succeeds, and Maleficent comes back to life.
The Dragon Sorceress (has anyone ever thought to call her that?) is not
all that pleased to see Snow and Charming, and announces her plan to make them
suffer as she had.
So what is this horrible secret that Snow and Charming don’t want
anyone, especially Emma, to find out?
Well, it’s not exactly explained in detail, but in the final moments,
Snow meets with Regina in secret in order to confide the secret with her. According to Snow, something she and Charming
did in the past resulted in Maleficent losing her baby. Yeah, Maleficent was a mother. Whodathunk?
Oh, and the thing that was inside the box Ursula swiped from Gold’s
shop? It was half of a baby rattle.
Of course, we’re not yet told exactly what Snow and Charming did yet,
and the flashback this episode doesn’t provide much in the way of answers. After Snow and Charming returned from their
honeymoon (which, as we recall, began with them squaring off against Medusa),
they are approached by Maleficent, Ursula and Cruella. (Seriously, where did those three meet? Is there a top-secret bridge club in the
Enchanted Forest where all the villains hang out with each other and play cards?) It turns out that they’ve come to warn the
royal couple about the curse Evil Queen Regina plans to cast. It makes sense that they know, as we’ve seen
way back in season 1 how Evil Queen Regina had taken the curse from
Maleficent. Of course, they don’t want
to see that curse being cast any more than the good guys do, as it will target
just about everyone. So there’s now this
magic tree that can let them know how to stop Regina’s curse, but it will only
reveal the answer to a person who is completely valiant. They figure that Snow and Charming can fit
the bill, because, duh, they’re the heroes.
But when they get there, the tree rejects them, because Snow is already
pregnant with Baby Emma, whose path hasn’t been determined yet. It’s a completely blank slate. Meaning, she could be good or evil. Which is pretty much true of any baby, when
you think about it. Because of the fact
that unborn Baby Emma future hasn’t been determined yet, the tree rejected Snow
and Charming. Of course, we know that
they figured stuff out even without the help of the tree, so it didn’t matter
in the end.
Speaking of Emma and people keeping things from her, Killian also
nearly ends up in the hot seat. When
they come across each other on the street, its revealed Killian and Ursula have
a history of some sort. But when Emma
questions Killian about it, he starts to pull back, deflecting the question. Emma can immediately tell he’s lying, and she
didn’t even need to utilize her internal lie-detector to do so. The fact that Killian refuses to fess up ends
up forming a visible wedge between them, which becomes even wider when they
become closed off to each other, with Killian leaving the room. This could easily have become a long drawn-out
issue that continued through multiple episodes, but thankfully, it was resolved
by the end of the episode. And they did
so in a very mature way, with Emma telling Killian that it’s perfectly fine
that there was something about his past that he’s not telling her. At the same time, she informs him she will
not accept him lying to her by saying he didn’t remember his past run-in with
Ursula. Again, this is a very mature
approach to the situation. Killian does
have a very long past history, and it would be somewhat unreasonable for Emma
to expect him to tell her everything he got up to before they’d met, let alone
before she was even born. However, she’s
done with him lying to her, especially after what happened with Zelena placing
that curse on him or even the whole debacle where Gold blackmailed him and
eventually enslaved him through heart possession. It probably didn’t help matters that both
incidents nearly resulted in Killian’s death.
And Killian can accept that semi-ultimatum, admitting that he wasn’t
being truthful. But he still can’t come
out and discuss that moment in his life, even after Emma’s reassurances that it
won’t change how she feels about him.
She knows he’s not a saint and has done wrong in the past, but she also
knows that he’s changed since those days and will therefore not hold his past
misdeeds against him. However, Emma
doesn’t let Killian’s reluctance to share the story bother her, simply stating
she’ll wait until he’s ready. This is
completely fair, considering how many times Killian has waited for her to be
ready to let him in completely. I just
love how much these two lost souls have come together and formed what is quite
possibly one of the most healthy, stable relationships on the show. They just stick together no matter what, and
support one another in all manner of circumstances. Whether it be Emma accepting Killian’s
reluctance to discuss a particular dark moment in his past or Killian showing
up at the Sheriff Station with the grilled cheese lunch that Emma had been
craving all day, but had to skip out on because of work-related demands. He even managed to include Emma’s favorite
side dish of onion rings. I just love
how well these two know one another, and I can’t understand how anyone could
not love this pairing.
Regina and Henry are still trying to track down the Author, with
Henry scouring the book over doughnuts.
And how can you prefer chocolate frosted doughnuts over chocolate
ones? What’s wrong with you, kid? Besides, cake doughnuts in general are
superior to yeast doughnuts, unless they’re the crème-filled kind. Or if it’s a Krispy Kreme doughnut, but
those ones are in a class of their own.
(Can you tell I’m very particular about my pastry products?) Anyway, Regina notices that the pages that
feature Pinocchio’s story are a bit different than the other pages, which is
because that particular story wasn’t part of the original book. It was added later by August in an effort to
get Emma to believe in magic and the curse back in season 1. Tell me that this isn’t awesome- they’re
actually bringing that plotpoint back!
Which means they might finally address some questions that still haven’t
been answered. Like how August knew
about the book to begin with. Or how he
knew Neal was Adult Baelfire. Of course,
the problem is that August is gone, because he was turned back to his Boy
Pinocchio state, with no memory of anything he did as an adult. Even when they try to trigger his memories by
showing him the book, or even having him talk with Emma, his life as August just
isn’t coming back to him. Regina ends up
losing her temper because of this and ends up snapping at Pinocchio. As you might imagine, Marco/Geppetto does not
take that lying down. I have to admit, I
really enjoyed seeing the interaction between Marco/Geppetto and Regina in this
episode. It’s quite rare to see people
actually acknowledging the horrible stuff Regina did in the past and their
lingering bitterness about it. It’s
something that’s not really touched upon in the show. While we see quite a bit of the Charmings
being all ‘no big deal; we’re family now’
about it, you never really see how the rest of Storybrooke feel about how the
former evil queen pretty much got away with everything she’s done to them with
barely a slap on the wrist. And I really
like how Regina was mature enough to admit she was wrong and apologize for her
behavior in this episode. I’m really
hoping this is an indication that she’s finally sincerely trying to change.
I know she’s said she was trying quite a few times before, but her
actions always seemed to contradict that statement, and she almost always had
relapses whenever she encountered a setback.
At least she’s finally acknowledged that she’ll “never find [my happy
ending] if I revert to my old ways.” Her
display of remorse even seems to earn her Marco/Geppetto’s forgiveness, as he decides to allow her
access to some of August’s belongings, which he’s kept in his workshop, in case
there could be something among those things that could help Regina and Henry on
their personal mission. And this ends up
being the lucky break they needed, as Henry finds a loose page from the book
inside August’s old bag. A page that has
an illustration of a door on it, with a post-it note simply saying ‘Author?’ attached
to the page.
Oh, and Gold, while spying on Belle from across the street, sees
she’s now dating Will Scarlett.
Um…okay. When did THAT
happen? No, really. Where did that even come from? We’ve never seen them interacting at all before this. In fact, have they even been in a scene at
the same time? Now, out of nowhere,
they’re kissing? It’s like suddenly
having Little John and Ruby dating. It
wouldn’t be any less random. And it’s
implied that this has been going on for a while, as we see Will step into
Granny’s for the ‘usual’ two coffees.
What exactly has been going on in the six weeks between the Frozen arc and this one?
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