“No, you always think that pulling away from people will fix your problems but it never does. I can help you.”
- Henry
In case you missed it folks, tonight’s episode is double the trouble so be prepared for a slightly longer than normal recap. We begin this week back in Arendelle a long time ago. Ingrid is hiding the sorcerer’s hat box in a cave and then she goes to see the Apprentice in the Enchanted Forest to make a deal; she will hand over the hat if the Sorcerer gives her happiness in the form of two new sisters; Elsa and someone perfectly matched. She seems willing to wait for however long it takes. Back in Storybrooke, Emma has slept in her car overnight (she’s probably used to it from her time with Neal) and Henry manages to find her. He tries to convince her to let him help but her powers go freaky again and he gets knocked down. He’s got a little cut on his head but he insists he’s okay. Still, Emma orders him to stay away. Of course, Ingrid has to show up and try to convince Emma that siding with the Snow Queen is the only way to get her power sin check. Yeah, Emma’s not likely to follow that option, lady. She in fact heads off to Gold’s shop for some help after everyone else gets home exhausted and empty handed. Henry does fill in his grandparents though when he gets back. Hook suggests sending one of the dwarves after her since Elsa points out that being around the ones she loves is a little dangerous right now. Rumple convinces Emma that he has a spell that will work to pull her powers out of her but it is kind of destructive and so they will do it at an abandoned manor at the edge of town. After she leaves, he crumples up the random piece of paper he pulled out of a book. I really hope Emma knows what she’s doing.
Back in Arendelle Elsa is getting ready to give Anna a big welcome home dinner type thing with lots of chocolate when Ingrid drops the “hat” bomb on her. She convinces Elsa that Anna was going to use it on her and had tried to use it on Ingrid, too. She also tells Elsa that her mother trapped her in the urn (which at least is the truth). Elsa goes to pay Anna a visit in the dungeon and after yelling at Anna to make the guards believe she was on Ingrid’s side, she frees Anna and comes up with a plan to trap Ingrid back in the urn. I’m getting the feeling that Elsa may end up trapped instead. They find the urn (along with Hans frozen into a statue) and narrowly avoid being spotted by some guards. Anna admits that their parents wanted to take Elsa’s powers but she (Anna) could never imagine her sister without her magic.
And in what is probably my favorite part of the early half of the episode, Regina and Robin post-coital in the magic vault. They clearly hooked up and Robin offers to go back to his tent and make her breakfast. Regina bemoans the fact that she let her own drama get in the way of their meeting decades ago but even if he weren’t presently married, she’d probably find some way to screw it up. And thus she introduces Robin to the story book. He begs her to let him help before convincing her that if they don’t leave the vault, then hooking up again doesn’t’ count as a second go around. That cracks me up and makes me so happy. You have no idea! Oh and then Robin goes and interrupts Will pouring whiskey into his tea (his lunch and dinner) to get some assistance on tracking down the author of the story book. The two of them teaming up and Robin being a little thief also makes my heart sing. Love it! Will points Robin to the library and off they pop. I had to laugh as Will started picking the lock and Robin just pushed the door open, pointing out the library was actually open.
Back at the Charmings’ loft, Elsa has explained to Henry that Emma’s magic is tied to her emotions and that in so desperately not wanting to hurt him, that’s why her magic did in fact hurt him. But he’s got some ice for a while. Regina shows up, snapping at them for wanting her attention all the time and demands to see Henry. She’s brought a locator potion too. Snow suggests Regina might want to finish buttoning her shirt before seeing Henry. I guess that not-second time was pretty good. Emma calls from the woods and tells Snow that she’s going to get rid of her powers permanently. Hook worries that Rumple will use the hat on her (having seen the effects before) and so he fakes having lost his phone so he can go after her. A little later, Snow is looking at a photo of her and Emma and David and she and David have a little chat about whether Emma giving up her powers is the right thing. David wonders if maybe right now her best chance is to be ordinary. Elsa overhears all of this and sneaks off with the tracking potion.
Up in Henry’s room, Regina heals his head wound (it was just a little scratch) and reminds Henry that he has the heart of the truest believer and he should never feel ordinary. It was a very sweet moment between the two of them and I’m glad we are getting some more of that. Especially when Regina is in a good mood. Elsewhere, Hook is blundering about Gold’s shop and he calls Emma and spills a lot of exposition before finding the map with the manor circled on it. And Ingrid is finally free of the dust of the urn that Rumple sprinkled around her earlier to keep her out of his way while he took Emma’s magic. So now we’ve got two villains hoping for Emma does what they want and two sort-of heroes racing to save her.
It turns out Ingrid isn’t actually free. She’s sort of astral projecting but Emma doesn’t want to hear it and so she takes off and ends up at the creepy manor house surrounded by fog. And thanks to Regina, Snow and David come around to the idea that Emma losing her powers isn’t a good idea. Interesting point, Regina regrets not supporting Henry when he found the story book. I don’t know why she doesn’t ask Snow where it came from but whatever, they have more important things to deal with.
Back in Arendelle, Anna is going to slip back into her cell and when Elsa sends Ingrid down to banish her, Anna will use the urn. Unfortunately, Ingrid planned for this and she traps Anna in shackles. After having Anna recount a Nordic story about a king who used dark magic to cast the spell of shattered sight on his whole kingdom, Ingrid uses it on Anna to try and pit the girls against each other. We actually see how Elsa gets trapped in the urn and in a way, Ingrid was telling the truth. Anna’s darkest feelings came out thanks to the spell and she trapped her sister. But Elsa refused to harm her sister. Ingrid freezes over the entire kingdom and we sort of get an ice palace homage to the film. Why do I get the feeling her secret ice cave is somehow linked to Arendelle and that’s how they heard Anna’s heartbeat? Rumple pays Ingrid a visit as she’s stealing Elsa’s memories from within the urn and Rumple takes it from her. He promises to give it back if she delivers the hat. She’s about to when the Apprentice (who I really think is the Sorcerer and possibly the author of the story book) appears and promises that if she goes to a new land and gives him the hat, she’ll get her happy ending. So she ends up in our world in the early 1980s.
As the Charmings and Regina go out looking for Emma, Snow and Regina get to have a little girl chat about Regina being all angst-ridden over hooking up with Robin and not getting her happy ending. Snow believes that if Regina believe in the happy ending she wants, it will come true in its own time. And it seems that perhaps things are taking an interesting turn as Robin and Will search the library and Robin finds a new story book page in his bag. So Regina goes off to see what it is and Emma tries to find Rumple in the big manor. Regina and Robin discover that the new page is actually a different path to when they could have met. It shows them kissing in the pub instead of Regina running away. Robin chooses to believe this is a sign of hope and they kiss some more. You have no idea how happy I was that Outlaw Queen had some good positive momentum this week.
It seems that Hook is right and Rumple will use the hat on Emma. She asks what he would do in her situation and he quite honestly admits he wouldn’t go through with it because he’s a man who makes bad decisions and despite his good intentions, always manages to screw things up. This of course prompts Emma to take the plunge, foolish girl. Rumple also ties Hook up and steals Emma’s phone so she won’t ever get Killian’s message of epic exposition. And it turns out the secret ingredient in Rumple’s plan to get free of the dagger is the heart of someone who knew him before the dagger. Seeing as Milah and Neal (and technically his father) are dead, that leaves Hook. So he promptly steals Hook’s heart and now has complete control over the pirate.
Elsa manages to talk Emma out of giving up her magic because she realized that they need to love themselves and embrace their magic. As wonderful as it is that Emma is now in control of her magic, I’m pretty sure that’s what Ingrid wanted. Emma gets to put on a little fireworks display for everyone to show she’s got things under control. And I was right, Ingrid gets free and the ribbons appear on all three of their wrists. Apparently, Ingrid can siphon off their power to a degree and after Rumple threatens she shatters the mirror and unleashes the spell. I have to say I really enjoyed this episode and I’m very glad we got two hours to explore things. I can’t wait to see what happens next. Only a handful of episodes left until the winter finale.
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