I can’t even handle Once Upon A Time right now. If they aren’t going to bring Sheriff Graham back then I really just want them to stop taunting me with the beauty of Jamie Dornan’s face. I love the guy. I just want more of him. And this whole episode was just a constant reminder of how angry I was with Once Upon A Time last season. Because I totally felt like stopping watching for a while there.
Anyway.
This week’s episode is treating us to the history of Storybrooke from the very beginning. Though there isn’t a whole lot of history to the place. No one has aged or done anything monumental since 1983. David was in a coma from day one until he awoke after Emma arrived. Everyone just sort of went along with their day-to-day lives as determined by the curse. Including the children. Who I assume never advanced in a grade so Mary Margaret has been teaching the same kids for thirty years now. Well, I guess more like twenty-eight years since the curse has been broken for two years in our time. And apparently in their time, too? I don’t know. What it does mean, though, is that Henry was the only one in his school ever advancing through the grades. Think maybe that’s what really tipped him off to the curse?
In the past, the day the town showed up there was a man and his son camping in the area overnight. And then suddnely – there was a town. They are created by the Sheriff which made me very sad because I really, really miss Graham. Everyone in town pretty much thinks things have been this way forever and Regina pretty much just wants these two people gone. She doesn’t like surprises, she says. Or visitors. But her little interactions with the little boy seem to show her that she’ smissing something. Owen even gives her a gift – a little plastic woven lanyard he made.
Every day in Storybrooke is the same. Gephetto fixes the same sign. She sees the same people. She watches Mary Margaret go every day to visit David in his coma – something that she’s only doing because Regina took her there and asked her there to see if she remembered him. She didn’t. But she felt bad for him. So she started volunteering there. And Regina took great pride in her sadness. At first. But after a while it got boring. And she resented that everyone did the things they did because they HAD to. Not because they wanted to.
“I’m not happy.”
“Well, I believe Dr. Hopper’s office is right down the street.”
Meanwhile in the present, Regina is mourning Cora. She’s plotting revenge against Snow who is imobile in bed all day beacuse of her guilt. The Charming family is all back in the apartment now and Henry realizes something is up. Since Emma has been lying about a lot of things lately she finally just tells him the truth – that Snow had something to do with Cora’s death – and pretty much shatters his belief in the goodness of Snow White. Rumple comes with the news that Regina plans to kill Snow and David forces him to help them because Rumple owes Snow a debt. And like a Lannister, Rumple always pays his debts.
David and Rumple find out that Regina is a spell to change up everything. Basically, if she kills Snow she can use her heart in a spell to make Henry love him. Which of course makes Emma and David angry. They demand Rumple help them out but he’s like “Whatevs.” He doesn’t give a shit about Henry and protecthing him. Emma tries to get Henry to go back to New York with Neal but he sneaks out the back of the diner after claiming he was “going to the bathroom.” Emma berates Neal – understandably – because she can’t believe he fell for that trick considering his coloured past.
So we go back to 1983.
Regina is hanging out with Kurt and Owen – the camper and his son. She likes their spontenaeity and the fact that they don’t have to like her. She bonds with Owen while making apple turnovers. His mother had died recently and he hates being at home because people treat him weird now. He tells Regina that she would be a good mother which just makes her get all these #feels. She asks them to stay. Just move there. And Kurt – obviously, says no.
At the diner in the present, the motorist who was in the accident earlier in the season is up and about and walking around. He tells Emma he’s going to go on a hike.
Is he supposed to be little boy from 1983.
Back in the past, Regina is trying to get Owen for herself. She tells Graham to pull over the father on their way out of town and arrest him for drunk driving so she can keep the boy. But he hadn’t actually been leaving. Kurt had been coming back to thank her for her hospitality and he heard all of it. He heard her talking into Graham’s heart and realized she was controlling him. Which basically makes him take off with Owen to try and escape. Regina follows him with Graham in the police car and eventually they catch them. They arrest Kurt and Owen runs off after telling her that he did want to stay, he did want to belong. But “not like this.”
Meanwhile in the present Henry is off some place getting dynamite and trying to blow up the old well to get rid of magic so Regina can’t kill Snow and they won’t kill Regina.
Because Henry is really the only one who as a plan here. Rumple is safeguarding Snow while everyone else looks for Henry but no one seems to have a real plan on how to deal with this whole blood feud that’s going on. (Except by killing Regina but no one wants to do that.) At least Henry is showing some initiative.
And in the forest he runs into the motorist whose taking pictures of the woods and wandering around off the hiking path. Unfortunately the motorist is a moron and he calls Regina to tell him that her son is wandering around in the woods.
They have a little show down in the forest then. Regina gets to Henry first and stops him from blowing himself up with the dynamite. She explains to him that the magic is there to stay. He can’t get rid of it. No one can. David, Emma, and Neal show up and Henry basically goes baslistic and yells at all of them. Regina is about to kill all of them with a fire ball and David whips out his gun. Which is good. He really needs to learn to use that in this world because the sword thing? Not really going to do him much good if real world bank robbers decide to come into town. Henry begs them all to destroy magic and meanwhile Neal is just like “Holy shit someone is going to kill this kid” and he’s freaking out.
Regina tells him again that he can’t destroy magic. None of them can. But she does make a show of destroying the spell she was going to use after Henry responds to her grand dream of them living together and having everything and Henry fake loving her by implying he does love her. He does want to save all of his family and he does want to be with Regina – to some extent – but “not like this.”
In the past, Owen manages to bring the cops back to where he left Regina, Graham, and his Dad. But there is nothing there that anyone can see. So they take him away as Regina watches from the other side of the magical barrier and Owen vows to come back and find his father.
In the present, Rumple tells Snow that things are fine now after getting a call from David and they have a touching moment where Snow asks him how he lives with himself and all the terrible things he has done. And he tells her that she just has to keep telling herself that it was the right thing. Maybe after a while she’ll believe it.
But then instead of doing that she goes to Regina and asks her to kill her so.
Touching moment gone to waste.
Becuase she DOES take Snow’s heart. Tears it out. Even after she says that Henry would never forgive her for it. Though when she pulls out the hear there is a black spot on the heart. Because Snow was a moron and killed someone and let the darkness into her heart. Of course, Regina finds hilarious. So she puts the heart back and doesn’t kill her. Because apparently your heart just keeps going dark or something. The motorist sees ALL of it and records it on his phone.
And then he strokes this keychain his father – the camper – gave him and says again that he’ll find his father.
There was not nearly enough Jamie Dornan in this episode.
Anyway, so, we now know officially who the motorist is and … ERMAGHERD AUGUST IS COMING BACK NEXT EPISODE.
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