This week’s was another episode without Belle, Bae or August, but I’ll trade them all for Sinqua Walls! I didn’t get to watch any ‘live’ TV last night, so I ended up watching this episode after Revenge, which guest starred JR Bourne. Best weekend ever for Teen Wolf fans!
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| Source: ABC |
Moving on, we begin in flashback mode, as Red runs through the woods to alert Charming, Snow, and their army that King George is coming for them, and has a new secret weapon nicknamed ‘The Leviathan.’ He’s uber-fierce and scary, and makes his presence known by firing an arrow through their tent. Snow and Charming exit the tent and decide that they’ll meet at his mother’s cabin, where Snow will be introduced to Ruth for the first time. As if she doesn’t have enough to worry about! Shortly after they part, The Leviathan catches Snow and she all but calls him a coward for wearing a mask. He removes it and introduces himself as Lancelot, formerly ‘of the round table.’
In the safe haven‘s ‘pit‘, Emma frets over Snow, who’s still knocked out. Cora tells her not to worry and starts to tell Emma that they found the safe haven after her daughter cast a curse upon the land. Emma instantly realizes that she’s Regina’s mom when Snow wakes up and tells her not to talk to strangers. Cora insists that she’s a nice lady who wants to help, and Emma reveals that they need to get back to David and Henry in Storybrooke. Suddenly, a rope is lowered and the Charming girls are called up to meet the boss.
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| Source: ABC |
In Storybrooke, Henry debates whether or not to call their secret plan ‘Operation Scorpion’ or ‘Operation Viper,’ when Grandpa Charming takes the wind out of his sails and tells him it’s to dangerous for him to be involved. He tells him that he already located Jefferson and talked to him, but he didn’t have the magic needed to make the hat work again. He sends him off to school, but when David turns the corner, Henry runs right past his short bus. Yes, it’s literally short. I know this is a small town, but do you have to insult their intelligence?
Clearly Henry gets his cockiness from Emma, who says Cora is harmless, but Snow quickly tells her she’s in over her head. Two seconds later, she sees Lancelot and they have a joyous reunion. Emma fidgets like a little kid who doesn’t know how to occupy herself while her mom talks to other grown ups. Meanwhile, Mulan tries to calm down a fuming Aurora, who still doesn’t like Snow and Emma. Mulan assures her that if Lancelot is friends with Snow, then they’re cool. This obviously doesn’t do much, because Sleeping Ditzy pulls out a knife once her Asian friend leaves.
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| Source: ABC |
Later, Lancelot serves up some grilled chimera and explains to the Charmings that their ‘hood wasn’t touched by the curse, and their safe haven is what protects them from ogres. Once again, Emma laughs and her mommy tells her down a peg. What I’d like to know is why the safe haven is so safe from everything? Is there magic protecting them? Anyways, Snow then tells him that she thinks there’s one portal left that can get them back to Storybrooke, but doesn’t want to say where it is in case Cora catches wind. After some light arguing, he allows them to leave as long as they have Mulan to protect them, which is followed by some heavy eye-rolling on Emma’s part.
In the flashback, Lancelot brings Snow to King George and is immediately ordered to fetch her some water. George rants to snow about how much grief he’s had to endure in his life, after his wife took a potion that kept her from having children, his adopted son died, and Charming was a crappy replacement. He vows that instead of killing Charming, he’ll make him suffer as he did. As he finishes this pledge, Snow realizes that the sip of water she just drank was poisoned, though we already know (spoiler alert!) she’ll have a daughter somehow.
Back at the safe haven, Mulan and Snow arm themselves and Mulan returns Emma’s gun, asking if it’s magic. I guess the Chinese hadn’t yet invented gunpowder when the curse hit. Emma’s still acting too big for her britches because she’s a dragon slayer, but her mom and Mulan assure her that there’s danger ahead. Snow spills that they’re going to find the wardrobe at her old castle and Emma is dubious. Or maybe she’s just a little weirded out that her mother is taking her back to the place where she was conceived.
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| Source: ABC |
Next, we see Jefferson staring at a poorly drawn picture of himself, with the caption ‘Have you seen my papa?’ When Henry confronts him, he tells him that he has no magic with which to help him, but lets it slip that Regina has a vault in Storybrooke. Henry notices the drawing and calls him out on not finding his daughter after the curse was lifted. He tells Jeff that she won’t be mad that he ‘left her,’ because Emma did the same thing to him and she’s his hero. He fails to mention how angry and awkward Emma was with Snow and Charming, but Jeff doesn’t look convinced anyways.
At her boxed-up office, Regina answers a call from Henry inviting her to lunch at Granny’s. Right, because all 5th graders get to have off-campus lunch. She quickly accepts his offer and exits, after which we see Henry come out from behind a very sound-proof closet door. Miraculously, she hasn’t packed her keys yet, which he finds in a desk drawer before and scampering off.
Meanwhile, the Charmings follow Mulan through the woods until she tells them they’ve reached the spot where they’ll rest for the night. Someone sign this woman up for an REI credit card because she loves to camp! Emma continues to sass her mom, arguing that they won’t be safe there, when Snow tells her that ogres are blind and rely on their sense of hearing to find their prey. Translation: shut your mouth, little girl.
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| Source: ABC |
We then see Old Snow get tossed from a carriage before hearing someone ride up on horseback. Somehow, the biggest, weapon-looking stick is lying 5 feet away, with which Snow arms herself and uses to knock Lancelot from his horse. Lance tells her that it’s not his fault the King roofied her but he wants to help her defend Ruth from George. He literally tells her that George wants to ‘kill her man’s mother.’ Seriously, that’s the line they write for the token black guy? Snow isn’t fazed by this racism and is only concerned that Charming is at the cabin. Sure, because Ruth knows how to fight a handful of royal guards and Charming doesn’t.
We then flash to the cabin, where Charming finds Ruth scattering flowers in preparation to meet her daughter-in-law when he hears someone coming and tells her to go inside where it’s safe. Suddenly, he’s surrounded by guards and I’m super bored because we already know he’s pretty much a fairy-tale Jack Bauer. However, after he’s downed each of them singlehandedly, we discover that Ruth has been struck through the heart by a wayward arrow. Snow and Lancelot then arrive and Snow is introduced to her half-dead mother-in-law.
During their journey to the castle, Aurora pops out of the woods and pulls a knife on Snow, only to get owned in a matter of two seconds. What a chump. Mulan pulls Snow away and says she’ll ‘deal with her.’ She’s basically saying, ‘I know she’s kind of weird but she’s my friend so promise you won’t make fun of her.’ The next thing we hear is Emma firing a shot at the three Mean Girls, and Snow all but grumbles, stupid kid. We hear an ogre growl and Emma and Snow split from Mulan and Aurora. While they run away, Emma trips and inexplicably can’t muster her lightning fast reflexes to escape before the ogre reaches her. She cocks her gun at it, but is swatted away faster than she can yell, Freeze! Being the good mommy she is, Snow whistles to distract the ogre and fires an arrow in its eye. Apparently this is the only way to kill an ogre, and Snow is still the baddest chick in all the land.
We return to Lancelot and the Charmings, where our black knight (no relation to the Martin Laurence film) tells the young lovers that Ruth’s arrow is laced with a poison that not even fairy dust can cure. Charming announces that they’ll travel to Lake Nostos and during their journey Lancelot shares that he was kicked out of the round table crew because of a girl. Sadly, we don’t get to see any of his history with King Arthur and Guinevere because you can’t have a flashback within a flashback. When they stop for gas, we see Snow look after Ruth, who tells her that she’s made all of Charming’s dreams come true because they’ll get married and have a son. Snow then gets as uncomfortable as I do when discussing future children with my in-laws, but Ruth is oblivious and gives her the pendant bequeathed to her by her mother when she had a bun in the oven. She tells her that when you hold the pendant over a woman’s hand, it’ll swing north and south if she’s going to have a son and from east to west if she’s going to have a girl. I guess this is where the old wives’ tale came from. Sadly, when she holds it over Snow’s hand, it doesn’t move at all, and she shrugs it off as superstition. Snow is even more despondent and Ruth gets her to tell her about the King’s curse Hello, you just met her an hour ago. Ruth tells her to cheer up, as she’ll surely find a cure within the waters of Lake Nostos.
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| Source: ABC |
Much to Mulan’s dismay (the woman loves to sleep in tents), the girls keep traveling through the night. Even though they’re going to a castle instead of roughing it, Aurora still complains until Emma gives her one of her many leather jackets. No big deal, she has two more at home. The two bond for a moment over being the idiots of the group until Aurora out-bimbos her, asking if the jacket is some sort of ‘corset.’ Before Emma can ask, ’are we there yet?’ they stop when they reach a bluff and behold the castle in the distance.
Elsewhere, Lancelot and the Charmings arrive at Lake Nostos, only to find that it’s all dried up, just like Snow’s ovaries. Charming blames himself because he killed the siren, aka ‘The Lady of the Lake,’ but Lancelot quickly finds a seashell containing just enough water to heal one person. He mixes it with whatever is in his flask and Ruth drinks it, but isn’t healed. Charming is downtrodden, but determined to find another cure. Panicked, he searches for more water, but his mother stops him and tells him that she’s ready to die, but regrets that she couldn’t see his wedding. Fortunately, like Jim and Pam Halpert, Charming and Snow have a Plan B. Because he was once a knight of the round table, Lancelot has the authority to marry them simply by drinking from the same cup. I think this might be how the myth about cooties started also. The last thing Ruth sees before she dies is Charming and Snow kissing before their makeshift wedding altar.
In Storybrooke, Henry uses the book to find Regina’s vault in the graveyard and even figures out the secret entrance. Maybe I should give the kid more credit. He passes the wall of beating hearts and goes further inside to a shelf with other boxes. I still don’t understand exactly what he’s looking for, but when he pulls one of the boxes and unlocks it he comes across the same two-headed snake that killed his grandfather. His other grandfather enters and shuts the box before the asp can bite him. David tells him that Regina figured out what he was up to when he didn’t show at Granny’s and her keys were missing. Henry whines that he wants to go to the Enchanted Forest, as though it’s as simple as taking a trip to Disneyland. If the kid can’t even defend himself against a snake, how does he expect to survive against ogres?
When they arrive at the trashed castle, Snow tells Emma that the room in which they find the wardrobe was her nursery. Snow takes a female moment to dream about what could have been and Emma tells her to snap out of it because Henry and David are waiting for them in Storybrooke. They discuss how to get the cabinet back to the safe haven when Lancelot appears, willing to help. All is well until he mentions how nice it’ll be to get back to Henry and Snow remembers that Cora is the only one in the Enchanted Forest that knows his name. She draws her sword and our handsome knight shifts back into an old woman. Cora confesses that she killed Lancelot a long time ago, and I’m wondering if it was her magic that both saved a certain part of the forest and created the safe haven. She traps Snow and Emma with her magic, but Emma is able to reach the wardrobe and lights it on fire when Cora says she’s going to use it to travel to Storybrooke. Cora grabs a hot handful of fire and throws it at Emma, but Mulan swats it away and Cora vanishes. Apparently magic wardrobes aren’t like marshmallows, because Snow seems to be convinced that it’s not any good if it’s a little burnt.
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| Source: ABC |
Back to the flashback, Snow apologizes that Charming’s only family is dead, but he tells her that she’s his family now. He tries to give her the necklace when Snow stops him. She’s about to tell him about the curse but she notices the necklace swinging from east to west and she instantly cheers up. Charming gets all gung-ho about the kingdom again and runs to the car to call the army on his cell phone. Snow walks over to Lancelot and calls him out for switching the lake water and putting it in the wedding chalice. She excitedly tells him that her baby will be a girl, which is also how she already knew in the show’s pilot. Unfortunately, this is probably the last we’ll see of Sinqua Walls until he returns to us as a werewolf battling an eating disorder. I enjoyed seeing what he was like pre-curse, though he’s not a Storybrooke character.
When Mulan and Aurora find the Charmings, Snow recalls how dope Lance was and Mulan gets angry that she didn’t know it was Cora the whole time. Worried about how the kingdom will defend itself against Cora, Mulan also appoints Snow to lead them, at least temporarily. She and Aurora agree to help Snow and Emma get back to Storybrooke, though I don’t know how much help Sleeping Ditsy will be. When their new friends leave, Emma and Snow have a tearful moment, where Emma is finally grateful that her mom isn’t dead or addicted to drugs. After they exit, Cora returns to collect the ash from the wardrobe and it glows red in her vial.
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| Source: ABC |
Back in Storybrooke, Jeff watches his daughter get off the short bus and calls to her. Instead of being mad, she runs up and hugs him and they live happily ever after. Henry watches them from Emma’s car, sad and missing his mother until David walks up with fake swords. The two of them start to play fight and then we see George watching them from his ultra fancy car, which makes sense since the sheriff is out of town and there’s nobody to stop them from creeping on one another.
Thanks for reading, Dearies! Feel free to check out my previous reviews of OUAT and other shows at WatchItRae.com or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, where I post links of my articles when they go live. Stay tuned for a recap of the next week's episode, "The Crocodile."
What did you think of this week’s episode?
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