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stahlop · 2 months

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Once Upon a Time 4x06 "Family Business" Review

We learn a little more about the Snow Queen’s plans and about her past with Emma. And apparently Belle and Anna knew each other but Belle has kept it a secret from Elsa because she’s ashamed that she wanted her memories more than saving a girl she’d just met. So apparently shame is a big deterrent in not helping save Anna this time too.

Summary: The Snow Queen leads our heroes on a chase so they can see that she actually cared for Emma at one point. In the past, Belle can’t remember how her mother died in an Ogre attack, so she goes to Arendelle to visit the Rock Trolls and meets Princess Anna who is looking for information on her Aunt Ingrid.

Opening: Ice Cream Truck

New Characters:

Belle’s Mother (Colette): First off, I really thought Belle’s mother would get more air time in this episode, considering she’s played by Frances O’Connor (known for Mansfield Park, AI, The Importance of Being Earnest), but alas, she’s killed off pretty quickly. We do see where Belle gets her love of reading from, as they both try to get priceless books out of the library before the Ogre attacks them. They end up hiding under a table, and I’m confused about how he finds them. Does he hear them, because it was established that Ogres were blind back in Lady of the Lake. However he figured out where they were, Colette does not end up making it through the attack.

Character Observations:

Belle: In the past, Belle and her mother are attacked in their library by an Ogre. I get that there are priceless books in there (or in Belle’s case, the book that she remembers her mother first reading to her), but Ogres are attacking. You can come back for the books once they leave! Belle and her mother get trapped under a table and the last thing Belle remembers is the Ogre lifting the table off them and yelling in their faces. Belle awakens to find her mother is dead and she can’t remember how she died (I’m guessing an Ogre killed her). Belle is insistent in trying to recover her memories, but her father doesn’t think that’s a good idea. She tells him about magical beings who can restore memories, but he brings up the whole ‘All magic comes with a price’ line and tells her she is not to leave. Belle makes up her mind to go to Arendelle anyway, where she meets Anna at Oaken’s. Anna also happens to be going to see the Rock Trolls, so they decide to go together. They discuss the fact that they both lost their mothers, and when Anna slips trying to get up the mountain, Belle discovers the hat box (that she stole from Rumple in The Apprentice). Anna won’t give much away to Belle about the evil wizard she stole it from, just tells her she hopes she never meets him. Well, Anna, maybe if you’d given Belle a hint, she wouldn’t be married to him now! Somehow, despite the fact that they could barely make it up the first rock, they get to the top to the Rock Trolls. Grand Pabbie pulls the memory from Belle’s consciousness and puts it in a stone which he tells her to brew in tea at the place where she lost her memory (nice plot point so she can’t brew it right away), and when she drinks the tea she’ll remember what happened to her mother. On the way back down the mountain they get caught up in a storm. Anna is convinced it’s her Aunt Ingrid. When Belle asks what she’s going to do about it, Anna pulls out the hat box again and says she’s going to take her aunt’s magic. And that’s when a big gust of wind comes, knocking the memory stone out of Belle’s hand, and knocking Anna off the trail so she’s hanging off the edge of the mountain. Belle tries to go for the stone first, but it’s knocked off the edge and shatters. Then she tries to get Anna, but Anna falls. Belle witnesses the Snow Queen poof Anna away. Belle returns home and tells her father she didn’t find what she was looking for and her trip was a huge mistake. Maurice finally tells Belle what happened. That her mother stood in the path of the Ogre while the guards pulled Belle to safety, and her mother was killed before the guards could get back. Maurice tells her the war isn’t going well, and Belle suggests calling upon a powerful wizard she read about (not putting together that this might be the same wizard Anna was warning her about). Maurice knows who she is talking about and doesn’t want to call him, but Belle thinks it’s their only choice so they can win the war and so she can be a hero like her mother.

Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, Belle is keeping a secret that she knew Anna back in their realm. Elsa wants to research Arendelle in the library with Belle, which is making her very uncomfortable. Elsa starts having a crisis of faith about finding Anna, but Belle tells her she will find Anna, but she looks very guilty about the whole thing. Belle decides the best thing to do is go to the Snow Queen’s hideout, and ‘commands’ Rumple to take her to her lair using the dagger. When they get there, Rumple tells Belle that the Snow Queen isn’t there, but she’s okay with that. She’s looking for the hat to strip someone of their powers! Too bad she doesn’t know Rumple hid it away at the shop, would’ve saved her a trip. Rumple wonders why Belle is helping a stranger. She gives him the excuse that a hero always helps people. She makes Rumple keep watch while she goes inside to look for the hat box. Instead, she hears someone calling for her from behind a covered mirror. When she takes the sheet off, it’s her reflection, but it tells her things she doesn’t want to hear. Basically, all her insecurities, like that Rumple doesn’t really trust her and he didn’t give her the real dagger (listen to the mirror, Belle). Rumple comes in, warning Bell they have to leave since the Snow Queen is coming. She lashes out and cuts him with the dagger before he poofs them back to the shop. Belle starts to believe what mirror Belle said about the dagger, since she had commanded Rumple to stay outside. He gets around that by saying she said to keep watch, and since the Snow Queen was coming back, he was allowed to go in and get her. Belle breaks down when she sees she has cut him and tells him all the awful things the mirror told her. Rumple assures her none of it is true. Belle confesses that Anna is missing because of her and feels guilty for using the dagger on Rumple. She doesn’t think she’s worthy of his love. Oh, lord, if only Belle knew how it’s Rumple who isn’t worthy of her love with all of his lies, manipulation, and deceit. She then spreads on the guilt even thicker by apologizing for keeping this secret, since she knows Rumple would never keep a secret from her. UGH! Belle finally confesses to Elsa about knowing Anna and how the Snow Queen captured her. Belle tells Emma, Elsa, and Killian about the mirror. Rumple has told her that it will be used for the Spell of Shattered Sight, turning the whole town on one another.

Emma: She shows everyone the video of the Snow Queen as her foster mother. Henry suggests looking for her ice cream truck to either find her or find clues. They end up finding it out by the Merry Men’s camp. Robin wants to talk to Regina, but she rebuffs him. Emma tells her she could have been nicer, but Regina tells her to stay out of it and is upset she has to deal with her and Killian making eyes at each other. Emma protests this, but then Killian definitely makes eyes at her. Once inside the truck, neither Regina nor Killian notice the lock on the freezer (how did these two last so long as villains when they don’t even notice details?). Killian uses his hook to break the lock and they find a file on Emma inside, starting from the article on how she was found on the side of the road. Emma looks through the file and discovers she stayed with the Snow Queen for six months, the longest she’d ever stayed anywhere. Killian asks if she’s okay, but she just tells him it was a long time ago, prompting a conversation about the fact that Killian was once a child about 200 years ago. Emma realizes that the Snow Queen has kept old art projects and essays and a card Emma wrote to her, and that someone doesn’t do that unless they care about you. They also discover a scroll with Arendelle writing on it. Back at the sheriff’s station, Elsa has discovered that the Snow Queen is her aunt. She and Emma look at the family tree and discover another sister that Killian thinks looks just like Emma (I really don’t see that except for the fact that she is blonde). Elsa sees the scroll and translates it. It basically says that Emma is the Savior and will become Ingrid’s (the Snow Queen) sister. Belle comes in letting them know about the mirror and the Shattered Sight spell, and Emma and Elsa figure out that they’ll be the only two left that aren’t affected so the Snow Queen can have her family.

Ingrid/The Snow Queen: Anna is introduced to Ingrid who let’s Anna know that the reason she doesn’t know her is because she was put in an urn by people who didn’t understand her. She shows Anna that she also has the same powers as Elsa and that it runs in the family. We don’t see Ingrid again until Anna is on her way back from the Rock Trolls. Ingrid creates a storm that results in Anna falling off a mountain. Ingrid steals the hat box from Anna before poofing them back to the castle. Ingrid has Anna locked in a cell in the dungeons of the castle. She accuses Anna of wanting to strip Elsa of her powers with the hat. Anna claims she wasn’t going to use it on Elsa, but that their parents were. Anna then reveals that the Rock Trolls told her she had another sister and Ingrid gets very angry. Anna asks what Ingrid wants. Ingrid says she wanted a family that would embrace her for who she was, but she doesn’t think Anna can be part of that family since she has nothing in common with her and Elsa. She will have to find someone else to take Anna’s place.

Rumple seeks out the Snow Queen and lets her know Emma is on to her. The Snow Queen tells him that Emma didn’t discover anything she didn’t want her to discover. She goes head to head with Rumple which is pretty fantastic. He doesn’t scare her like he does most others. She tells him to stay out of her way, Later, after Belle has glimpsed the mirror, Rumple comes back to confront the Snow Queen about it. They posture and threaten each other again: Rumple telling her she better now hurt anyone he loves with her plans and the Snow Queen claiming she can’t make any guarantees. Rumple shows her that he has the hat and the Snow Queen shows fear for the first time.

Anna: She comes back from Misthaven and lies to Elsa about what she’s found out. She notices there are no flurries or any of Elsa’s normal icy behaviors happening. Elsa excitedly introduces Anna to their Aunt Ingrid and Anna immediately goes into disbelieving mode. She immediately goes to Kristoff and tells him that she doesn’t trust Ingrid. She claims to be a good judge of character, but Kristoff calls her out on that as she almost married Hans after 10 minutes. Anna doesn’t understand why there isn’t any record of Ingrid anywhere, so she wants to visit the Rock Trolls to find out about her. She also tells Kristoff that she didn’t tell Elsa what she found out on her trip. Unfortunately, Ingrid has been listening to their conversation. Anna runs into Belle at Oaken’s and since they are going to the same place, invites her to come with her to visit the Rock Trolls. Anna asks Grand Pabbie about Ingrid and he tells her that her mother actually had two sisters, and they were quite close. But then one day Ingrid and their other sister, Helga, vanished, so the royal family asked the Rock Trolls to make everyone forget them. This makes Anna think Ingrid is a liar because she didn’t tell them about this (um, wasn’t she trapped in an urn until recently), and needs to get back to the castle fast. Ingrid causes a storm and imprisons Anna, telling her she can’t be part of their family because she is the outsider.

Questions:

Why are they wondering how the Snow Queen got to our world? My first thought would be a magic bean since we’ve seen them several times at this point. I know they were supposed to be gone, but that obviously wasn’t true.

What is up with Belle’s traveling outfit? It’s a short skirt that has that caveman-like cut and knee-high stockings! And it’s white! Plus she’s in full make up.

Can someone please explain why Emma was moved around in foster care so much that six months was the longest she was anywhere? Isn’t the point of foster care to find a family to take them in so their life isn’t disrupted so much? No wonder Emma is the way she is if she was moved from family to family so much she couldn’t ever form any bonds.

Once again, what is up with Belle’s Storybrooke outfit? She’s going to infiltrate the Snow Queen’s lair in a short skirt and knee high boots (I mean, they are fur lined, but still)?

Ingrid told Anna she’d been trapped in an urn, so why would Anna think she knew anything about her family erasing everyone’s memories?

Who’s voice is coming from the mirror before Belle takes the cover off. It’s not speaking in Belle’s normal accent.

So, did Colette and Belle somehow get up when the Ogre pulled the table off of them? Maurice says her mother stood up to the Ogre, but they’d been lying under a table.

Why was Belle so worried about the Ogres reaching the road? They’d already been to the castle.

Where did this prophecy come from? Most prophecies aren’t so literal.

Observations:

The first book Belle’s mother ever read to her was called Her Handsome Hero.

Belle is wearing her blue movie dress. We saw her wear this in Rumple’s castle in Skin Deep. I had assumed that it had been something Rumple had given her since she didn’t bring anything with her, but maybe Rumple magicked her belongings to the castle at some point.

If this were real life, Anna would be so dead, or at least have multiple broken bones after falling off the mountain.

Rumple looks into the Snow Queen’s mirror and nothing happens.

The Snow Queen’s plan to use a mirror for the Spell of Shattered Sight comes directly from the Hans Christian Anderson story The Snow Queen. Although it is not her mirror that shatters, but the devil’s mirror. Read the tale here.

The false eyelashes on Belle are over the top this episode.

Timeline Issues:

Emma says she’s 13, maybe 14 in the video, but it’s supposed to be 1998, and in the fall. Emma was born in 1983, so that would make her 15, maybe 14 if it’s still the beginning of October.

If Anna met Belle before Belle met Rumple, then how old must she be now? Belle lived with Rumple, probably for at least a year (despite the short time we saw in Skin Deep and Lacey), and then she went on the adventure with Mulan to find the Yaoguai in The Outsider, and then she was captured by the Evil Queen and imprisoned for about 2 ½ years according to the hash marks in her cell in that we saw in Queen of Hearts. We know Elsa was trapped in the urn (although we don’t know how), but it had to have happened before Snow and Charming met, as it came through the time portal with Emma and Killian during There’s No Place Like Home, and as we saw, Belle was still Rumplestiltskin’s maid at this time. Assuming Arendelle wasn’t part of the curse (which, it shouldn’t be since it wasn’t part of the Enchanted Forest), at least 35 years must have passed from what we just saw.

So the Snow Queen apparently cared about Emma, but what happened for Emma to leave and the Snow Queen make her forget? How did she get to our land if not by my theory of a magic bean? The Snow Queen is planning to tear the town apart just so she can get Emma and Elsa to become her sisters, and Rumple is being a conniving ass as usual.

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x15 2x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x01 3x02 3x03 3x04 3x05 3x06 3x07 3x08 3x09 3x10 3x11 3x12 3x13 3x14 3x15 3x16 3x17 3x18 3x19 3x20 3x21 3x22 4x01 4x02 4x03 4x04 4x05

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#once upon a time #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time review #once upon a time 4x06 #once upon a time family business

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drjohndisco · 3 months

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why's he by the fucking salad?

#liveblogs*#2.11 #once upon a time #once upon a time rewatch

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jackiestarsister · 10 months

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OUAT rewatch: Episode 1x01

~ The written intro feels more like the script for a trailer than a prologue/introduction. It doesn’t seem necessary to me, since the audience presumably has some idea of the premise already, and if they don’t, it’s explained pretty early on.

~ The open scene really is magical, from the landscape shots to the perfect actors to the real snowfall.

~ No disrespect to Prince Charming, but shouting “Hey” to get the Evil Queen’s attention before throwing the sword at her was not smart. It’s like shouting “Sneak attack” while attacking someone.

~ Emma’s blue star-shaped candle = making a wish on a star, associated with the Blue Fairy

~ It’s striking how Emma and Henry face each other. He’s much shrewder than you’d expect a 10-year-old to be, and he has some similarities to her in attitude and intelligence. The way he outmaneuvers her is similar to how she outmaneuvered her fake date at the start of the episode.

~ “Come home with me.” = a Hadestown reference?

~ “Believing in something doesn’t make it true.” “That’s exactly what makes it true.” Sounds like a convicting statement, but that’s not how either stories or the real world work. There is truth in metaphor, symbolism, and story itself; but truth does not depend on whether someone believes, understands, or acknowledges it. But (spoiler alert) this becomes a key concept in the season 6 finale.

~ Rumpelstiltskin’s first scene is fantastic. I wonder if him being in the dungeon at the beginning has some psychological symbolism for Snow and Charming. His return at the end is a bit startling, and confirms him as a significant recurring character, someone Emma will have to contend with, rather than just a footnote or supporting character in her parents’ story.

~ I don’t know why I didn’t realize it from the start, but the title is much more than just the first line of most fairy tales. Time itself is a central theme of the show, from the very beginning. The curse is being frozen in time. The story structure in each episode jumps between different points in time, showing the impact of the past on the present.

~ In light of these themes, the fact that the clock tower is located right above the library, a place that houses books, is quite fitting!

~ “Giving into one’s dark side never accomplishes anything.” – That line, spoken twice in this episode, could be one of the theses of the show. It hits differently knowing what lies in store for many of the characters!

~ The reply, “How many wars has a clear conscience won?” is a valid question. It’s easy to have principles and ideals in the abstract, but it’s another thing to live them out, especially when someone is threatening you or your loved ones.

~ “Our fate rests on a tree?” makes me think of the cross of Christ, another foretold Savior

~ It’s interesting that Regina’s house has a white color scheme, and in her first scene as mayor she’s wearing light-colored outfit. It’s only afterwards that she switches to a darker outfit. Maybe, instead of the white = good and black = evil symbolism used elsewhere, they decided to contrast white/neutral colors for Regina with vivid colors for Emma, as seen in her red jacket and yellow car.

~ I have questions about the castle setup. Why did Gepetto and Pinocchio go about constructing the wardrobe so far away from the royal couple’s bedrooms? My only guess is that they didn’t expect the baby or the curse to come as quickly as they did.

~ It makes sense for Emma’s last name to be a type of bird, given her mother’s connection with them and the metaphor they serve in her first scene as Mary Margaret.

~ I remain curious about religion in both the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke. An archbishop officiated Snow and Charming’s wedding, and Mary Margaret is wearing a cross necklace in her first scene. Given that the Grimm brothers were theologians, it would make sense for these characters to be influenced by Christianity, but that raises questions about where the Enchanted Forest and other realms exist.

~ The queen and her forces approaching when a mother is giving birth and searching for her child to kill it is reminiscent of the mother, child, and dragon in Revelation 12

~ Snow and Charming’s love for their daughter and capacity for self-sacrifice are what establishes them as heroes, even more than the audience’s familiarity with their story.

~ Prince Charming defending his newborn child with his life = the most dramatic possible visualization of fatherhood, both gentle and fierce

~ Emma’s journey through the tree-wardrobe is similar to the stories of Moses, Elora Danan, and other mythical children who escape danger as infants, signifying hope for the future of their people.

~ I love all the motifs and little details that nod to the characters’ stories, like Pinocchio carving a whale, Henry’s bedroom lamp showing images of birds, starting with a swan, and Regina going to a mirror when she is threatened.

~ The episode is relatively simple and self-contained, but soooo good! Even though it switches between two timelines, they manage to lead into each other with great effect. For example, Pinocchio appears just one scene after he’s first mentioned, and Grumpy gets his big closeup and line right before his first scene as Leroy.

#Once Upon a Time rewatch #ABC's Once Upon a Time #Once Upon a Time #Welcome to Storybrooke #Emma Swan

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coffee-with-mint-syrup · 2 years

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Malcolm - Peter Pan from OUAT season 3 was one of the best commentary on irresponsible manchild fathers and the impact they leave on their children. Little Rumpel made a great image of child having to be more mature than their parent. Rips my heart even after all those years.

I kinda forgot that OUAT had such a hard topics in its first few seasons.

#ouat rewatch #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time #rumpelstiltskin #ouat peter pan

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katsotherworld · 2 years

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And Blaine DeBeers/John Gilbert aka David Anders.

#tv time with kat #once upon a time #once upon a time rewatch #david anders

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darling--pretty · 2 years

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At a crisp two minutes, this is easily the funniest thing to ever come out of our podcast.

#once upon a time #once upon a time podcast #once upon a time rewatch #wine whine and once

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onceuponaouat · 3 months

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restarting my 2024 rewatch of once upon a time because I have a blog to be annoying about it on now

#once upon a time #ouat #ouat rewatch #once upon a time rewatch #ouat rewatch 2024 #Rae’s Rewatch 2024

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bisaster-energy · 7 months

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regina wanted to take in those kids so bad man i forgor

#once upon a time rewatch #im gonna cry she was like... what if i was a mom..like evil still but also a mom..what then #true north

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dinneratgrannys · 4 months

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ONCE UPON A TIME 5.15, The Brothers Jones

#ouatedit #onceuponatimeedit #swanqueenedit #henrymillsedit #once upon a time #ouat #swan queen #henry mills #regina mills #emma swan #s5 #5x15 the brothers jones #dynamic: the swan-mills family #event: rewatch 22

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stahlop · 2 months

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Once Upon a Time 4x05 "Breaking Glass" Review

I know, it’s been 84 years since my last review. I am hoping to get back on a schedule and get moving on season 4. This one introduces us to a friend Emma had for a hot second when she was about 15, and there’s no way this person could be of any importance in the future. Right?

Summary: Emma meets a fellow orphan as a kid and bonds with her. In Storybrooke, Emma keeps trying to repair her friendship with Regina, and Mary Margaret and David go out for the first time without baby Neal.

Opening: Ice Bridge

New Characters:

Lily: We meet Lily in a grocery store where Emma is attempting to shoplift some PopTarts. Lily helps her out when she’s caught by the store manager by paying for them with a supposedly pilfered credit card. Once they’ve made their purchases, Lily has them outrun someone in a car who is after her, which becomes a kind of bonding experience between her and Emma. They have a picnic and Emma explains how she ran away after seeing a little girl in her group home get adopted (which we saw in Snow Drifts), and how she felt invisible. Lily sympathizes with her and Emma assumes she’s in a group home too and the man chasing her was from Social Services. Lily agrees that’s what’s going on, but you can tell that she’s lying by her hesitation. Lily points out that the houses across from the lake are empty now that summer is over, and suggests hanging out in one of them. They break in and play video games and then Emma notices a star-shaped birthmark on Lily’s wrist. Lily says she likes to pretend it makes her special like Harry Potter and Emma says it makes her one of a kind. Lily decides that Emma needs to be special too by putting a marker version of her birthmark on Emma’s wrist. Then Emma discovers a video camera and she and Lily make a little video of themselves. Lily then makes Emma promise they will stay friends no matter what, obviously thinking about when the truth comes out.

Later on, a man comes into the house after the girls have fallen asleep. Emma tells Lily to run and tells the man they won’t go back into the system, but it turns out he’s Lily’s father. Lily is crying, knowing that her lies have caught up with her. Once police have been called and Lily is in her father’s car, she tries to give Emma her information and explain herself. She is an orphan, she was just adopted, and she doesn't feel like it’s her home. She wants to run away with Emma. She reminds Emma she promised to be her friend no matter what. Emma refuses to take her info and Lily screams in betrayal as Emma walks off to social services and rubs the marker star birthmark off her wrist.

Character Observations:

Emma:

Past Emma feels she has found a kindred spirit in Lily, only to be betrayed by her lies when she finds out Lily has a family and is not a runaway orphan like she is.

In Storybrooke, Emma and Elsa are looking through files to see if there’s anything about Anna in them. Elsa wants to confront the Snow Queen head on, but Emma says they have to be careful as it’s obvious she took their memories and they don’t know why. Elsa comes across photo’s Sidney had taken of Emma from when she first came to town, and they discover photos of Emma and the Snow Queen in the ice cream shop. Emma decides she needs to find Sidney to ask him about the pictures and goes to Regina’s vault to do so. Emma tells Elsa how she and Regina hated each other when she first came, then amends it to them not mixing (no Emma, you were right the first time, she was trying to kill you, that’s hate), and Elsa points out they’ve come a long way, but Emma feels they’re right back where they started (well, Regina’s not trying to kill you this time, so it’s an improvement). Elsa thinks they can mend their friendship, but Emma says that once you screw someone over there’s no coming back (I think Regina would disagree as Mary Margaret and David seem to have forgiven her for the whole trying to kill them, cursing the whole town, and making their daughter grow up without them). Emma asks Regina about the pictures, but she just makes catty remarks. When Emma asks her about Sidney, she says she’s too busy trying to save Marian to help her find him. Emma then offers to help Regina with extra magic juice, say she has Regina’s back, but Regina makes it very clear that she doesn’t think Emma has ever had her back (and again, why should she? But apparently Emma thinks she did at some point).

Emma finds Elsa missing from her car and goes searching for her. She ends up meeting up with Regina who is looking for the Snow Queen’s lair. Regina makes more catty remarks, and they go off together (much to Regina’s chagrin) to find the Snow Queen. Regina keeps making remarks about Emma’s lack of magic knowledge and Emma says she learned better when Regina helped her, but Regina says she’s too busy right now to help her with her magic. Emma tries to appease Regina by complimenting her on helping to reverse Marian’s spell, but Regina just takes it as another ploy to try and win her over again. She tells Emma she won’t assuage her guilt and accuses Emma of ruining her life (even if it wasn’t intentional) and tells her to live with it. Biggest eye roll ever at Regina. And I don’t understand why Emma just stands there and takes this tongue lashing from Regina. Emma ruined Regina’s life? Well if she did, maybe it’s payback for Regina ruining hers. Regina has no right to complain to Emma about ruined lives (rant over)They find the ice bridge Elsa made earlier, but the Snow Queen attempts to stop them with very heavy winds. Emma realizes Regina lied to her about not knowing where Sidney was, and then the bridge begins to break. Emma and Regina run for it and make it to the other side just in time.

They then come upon an Ice Viking. They each try to kill it with magic, but it only works when they use their magic together. Then the Snow Queen appears, steals Regina’s compact mirror, and then starts magic choking both Regina and Emma. Luckily, Elsa has escaped the chains the Snow Queen put her in and saves them. The Snow Queen poofs away. Regina and Emma argue about Sidney being held captive in Regina’s mirror. Elsa tries to be the referee, but eventually Regina says she doesn’t want to make up with Emma and poofs away. Elsa once again reminds Emma that if you care for someone, you try to make things work.

This whole Emma and Regina forced friendship is really grating on me. There has really not been anything up to this point about them being friends. Regina helped Emma learn magic, they’ve worked together to be good moms to Henry, but it’s not like they were hanging out and having girl talk. They were never friends. Reluctant co-parents at the least, but not friends. Emma tracks Regina down in her vault and tells her the story of Lily and how she regretted not forgiving Lily and how she and Regina are the only ones who understand each other (why?). She just wanted Regina to be her friend. Even Regina is shocked at this (as is everyone else watching). Back at the Sheriff’s Station, Killian comes in while Emma is looking at a box of childhood memories. They find the video camera from Lily’s summer house (Lily’s dad let her keep that?), so they sit down to watch it. It’s a very cute moment where Emma puts Killian’s arm around her. They are so couply here. We see the video of her and Lily, but then the tape shows her at a foster home that Emma doesn’t remember, and her foster mother happens to be the Snow Queen!!

Regina: Ugh! I don’t even know where to start with Regina. She’s a raging bitch in this episode. She chides Sidney for his attitude towards her (well deserved) and then tasks him with finding the Snow Queen. Emma confronts her about the photos that Sidney took and Regina is as delightful as ever with her. Emma asks Regina if she knows where Sidney is, and she sidesteps the question by reminding her that she’s working on saving Marian and blames Emma for it, again. Emma offers to help Regina, but Regina rebuffs her. Sidney appears in the mirror, telling Regina he found the Snow Queen, but he won’t tell her where until she releases him from the mirror. Regina basically tells him that if he doesn’t help her, she’ll put him back in the cell at the hospital, so he decides his best option is to guide her to the Snow Queen’s lair.

Regina runs into Emma in the woods and is a bitch to her the whole time when Emma is explaining that Elsa ran off. Regina reluctantly lets Emma tag along. Emma starts asking Regina questions pertaining to the magic she is doing to find the Snow Queen, but Regina again rebuffs her and answers her with catty comments. Then Emma tries to be nice, telling Regina how admirable it is what she’s doing for Marian, but Regina isn’t having it. She keeps cutting Emma down and going off on her, and I get that Regina is angry. She is entitled to her feelings, but she’s making the situation out to be like Emma purposefully brought back Marian to hurt Regina, and that’s not what happened at all. Not to mention that Regina doesn’t even feel that this might be karma for all the terrible things she’s done to everyone else. But no, to Regina it’s all about her. For all the ‘growth’ that she’s had, she’s still exactly the same, just without the killing of everyone when she doesn’t get her way.

Regina and Emma end up on Elsa’s ice bridge when a fierce wind comes at them. Regina finally figures out that Sidney double crossed her and is working with the Snow Queen. Emma is pissed that Regina lied to her about knowing where Sidney was. And Sidney finally calls out Regina for the bitch that she is. Then they come upon the Ice Viking that the Snow Queen sent for them, and Regina is not too happy that it takes both her and Emma’s magic to defeat it. But before they can bask in their defeat of it, the Snow Queen arrives and takes Regina’s compact mirror. She also starts to choke them both when they start to argue with her, but Elsa saves them. The Snow Queen poofs off and Emma lays into Regina about the whole Sidney thing. Regina tells her why she put Sidney back in the mirror (originally to somehow kill Marian in the past) and then tells Emma that she doesn’t want to forgive her and poofs off as well. Regina is feeling sorry for herself back in her vault when Emma comes back, again. Emma tells her the story of Lily and says that Regina’s the only one who can understand her, and Regina starts looking sad or guilty, I don’t know, but eventually Emma says she thought they were friends, and Regina is surprised by this revelation (so are the rest of us).

Elsa: She is a world class idiot in this episode. While waiting in Emma’s car, she starts hearing Anna call to her, and why that isn’t suspicious right off the bat to her is baffling to me. I get that she’s desperate to find Anna, but does she really think Anna is just going to appear, calling her name and for help? And then Anna just turns and walks off in the opposite direction and Elsa doesn’t think this is odd in the slightest? Then Elsa sees Anna across a ravine calling for help, and instead of wondering how she got across the ravine, she creates an ice bridge so she can cross it. Elsa finally finds ‘Anna’, but it turns out it’s just an icey illusion that the Snow Queen built to lure Elsa to her (well, who didn’t see that coming, Elsa, that’s who). The Snow Queen conjures chains to tie Elsa to the ground, letting her know the more frightened she is the tighter they will get. After the Snow Queen leaves, Elsa struggles to get out of the chains, and luckily, she’s actually smart and calms herself down enough that she’s able to break the chains by letting go of her fear. Elsa then become quite confident when she blasts down the Snow Queen, saving Regina and Emma from being magically choked. The Snow Queen congratulates her on conquering her fear and poofs off. Elsa tries playing referee between Regina and Emma, but Regina’s not having it. Elsa later reminds Emma that if someone is important to you, you don’t give up on them. Blech.

Mary Margaret and David: Mary Margaret is nervous about leaving baby Neal alone, even if Belle is his babysitter. David tells Mary Margaret they need this time away. It’s just for an evening stroll, but that’s progress for Mary Margaret who doesn’t want to let baby Neal out of her sight. They head over to the sheriff’s station to grab some walkie talkies so Belle can communicate with them (they’re apparently hiking to an area with no cell reception), when David notices Will Scarlet is no longer locked in his cell. He decides he and Mary Margaret should have an adventure tracking down Will, just like old times (but without the Evil Queen on their trail). Mary Margaret does not seem thrilled about this. An hour later, Mary Margaret wants to go home. David decides to continue looking for Will, and apparently he is blind, because Mary Margaret spots him immediately, digging on the beach, right in the direction they were heading. She and Will have a hilarious conversation about how the map he needs to find his traveling sack happens to be in the traveling sack that he buried because he buried it when he was drunk. Mary Margaret convinces herself that David let Will go so she could track him down and feel more like herself. Will tries to convince her that’s not the case until she reveals she is the Mayor and pardons him. When David comes home, Mary Margaret commends him on the whole Will Scarlet plot, and tells him she feels more like herself again. David is happy for her, but tells her he had nothing to do with it. They don’t seem that worried about the whole affair, considering he was in jail for breaking into a library and passing out.

The Snow Queen: We see her raising something from ice with glowing eyes. We next see her when she has lured Elsa to her with the Anna ice illusion (the thing with glowing eyes at the beginning). She chains Elsa up and tells her the more frightened she is, the tighter the chains will be. Why do the villains always give away the secret to getting free? If Elsa hadn't known that, she might not have escaped. She goes on about how much fear Elsa has, how she had the chance to get rid of that fear once, but she squandered it (reference to their past?). She tells Elsa she just needs her out of the way for now, and then tells her she won’t tell her she’ll be okay, because she needs her to be frightened for the time being. She leaves, telling Elsa she’s going to build a snowman. Regina and Emma defeat her ‘snowman’. The Snow Queen steals Regina’s compact mirror (what she was apparently after the whole time), and then Elsa comes and saves them by blasting the Snow Queen. Instead of being angry, she applauds Elsa for getting over her fears and then poofs away.

Back at her lair, the Snow Queen frees Sidney from the mirror. Apparently, their deal was that he would serve her if she freed him, but she doesn’t need him, she just wanted the mirror because it is imbued with dark magic. Sidney asks what she’s planning, and she tells him to get what’s always been denied to her. Sidney asks what that is, but she won’t tell him. He is free to go. She does give him the advice to get a warm coat as it’s going to be getting cooler in Storybrooke. She then cracks the compact mirror and places the piece into her own cracked mirror, which then becomes whole and uncracked. She then reveals to the mirror that what she wants is a family that loves her. I think there may be an easier way to go about that Snow Queen.

Questions:

Wouldn’t it have been easier for Emma to try and hide the PopTarts in her backpack rather than in her jacket?

Why is the store manager so surprised that two teenage girls are in a grocery store without adults? It’s 1998, they’re both around 14/15 years old. This shouldn’t be such a weird thing.

So, knowing the man in the car is Lily’s dad later on, are we assuming she stole her dad’s credit card and he figured she’d be at the grocery store? Or had he given her his credit card to buy groceries and when he went to pick her up she started running and he went after her?

How is Elsa running through Storybrooke Wilderness Park in that dress, cape and heels with nary a tear or broken heel in sight?

Was Emma planning on erasing the video or taking the video camera with her? Because otherwise, there is video evidence of who broke into the house.

Had Emma’s superpower of detecting lies not kicked in at this point? How old was she when it did?

Why doesn’t Lily’s dad turn on the lights when he enters the house looking for Lily? Why is he using a flashlight?

Observations:

Emma looks pretty good for being a runaway. Clean clothes, hair styled. Unless she’s only been on the run for a day or two, she should be much more dirty looking.

Emma meets Lily in 1998. Lily points out it is fall when talking about the lake houses being empty, which would make Emma 15 or close to it (depending on when in the fall it is).

Lily mentions her birthmark making her feel like Harry Potter. Only Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets had been released by the fall of 1998.

David mentions falling through a portal to Asgard. He played one of Thor’s friends in the first MCU Thor movie, which takes place in Asgard.

Considering Mary Margaret and David were supposed to be going hiking, Mary Margaret is not wearing hiking boots or any type of shoe conducive to hiking.

Mary Margaret’s pattern on her shirt looks very similar to the pattern on Emma’s shirt that she wore in New York Serenade.

Regina is still calling Emma, Swan, instead of Miss Swan.

It looks like they filmed the Snow Queen getting up off the ground in reverse. It’s very stilted and just looks weird.

Things we see in Emma’s memory box: Emma’s black glasses, mood ring, Polaroid of Emma and Neal, Emma’s baby blanket, the video camera.

Names:

Lilith: Means of the night. Lilith is also considered either a villain or a heroine in Jewish lore, depending on which myth you look at. She is the first woman before Eve, made from the ground instead of from Adam’s rib, and thrown out of Eden for not submitting to Adam (heroine). In some lore she becomes a demon and was blamed for making babies die (villain).

This is not one of the better episodes this season. Regina is too bitchy, Emma is too needy, Elsa is too stupid, and the Snow Queen’s grand plan is to give her the family she deserves (whatever that means). At least Sidney is now free of Regina (let’s hope he stays far away from her so that she doesn’t put him back in the mirror), and Mary Margaret is feeling less postpartum depression and more like her old self. And the discovery that the Snow Queen was once Emma’s foster mother was a huge surprise.

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