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“Once Upon A Time” recap: Get Off My Porch (2.17)

Previously on Once Upon A Time, Mary Margaret ditched her ‘pure as snow’ shtick and killed Cora, Regina vowed to make her pay, and I started putting up Lost Wolf posters for Ruby.

Since this episode took place entirely in Storybrooke, but at two different times, I’m just going to call it like I see it to hopefully keep everything where it belongs. Wish me luck.

THE PAST (1983, to be exact.)

We open on a boy learning to make a knot with his dad in the woods. Papa bear even gives his little cub a key chain he made when he was a kid himself. It’s cute and sweet and therefore I immediately fear for their lives. Sure enough, a purple cloud descends upon them and they take cover. Fortunately, they were safe in their tent, but their surroundings were pretty much obliterated, including their truck. They start heading towards the highway when they come across a small town. Stranger Dad is totally thrown because he’s quite certain this was nothing but woods the night before.

Out of a police car steps none other than good ol’ Sheriff Graham who welcomes them to the tiny town – Storybrooke.

The Evil Queen wakes up in her brand new town bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to be Mayor.

She’s pretty impressed with the wardrobe collection she gave herself and struts around town, checking out her loyal subjects in the new roles she created for them. I won’t lie, I was checking some of them out myself.

When Regina pops into Granny’s for a bit, Stranger Dad is there. His name is Kurt and he asks for a hotel room, since they’re far from their home in New Jersey (also home of The Boss). Regina is confused and demanding answers from Graham as if he would somehow know more than her. The whole unknown-ness of these two is really throwing Regina for a loop.

PRESENT DAY

Regina is at her mother’s coffin…again. Gold comes to pay his respects and try to convince Regina to give up this vengeance bit, telling her that it will cost her Henry. She’s not moved by his plea, however. She wants to have her cake and eat it too.

Mary Margaret is having the biggest pity party ever. She made her bed and now she refuses to do anything but lie in it. Henry’s wondering why Grandma is so weepy, and Emma tries to explain it to Henry but he doesn’t understand – Snow White couldn’t have had a hand in someone’s death, that wasn’t in his book.

After breakfast, Gold comes a-knockin’ and is told to GET OUT and also to GET IN HERE AND HELP US all within thirty seconds.

THE PAST

The next day in Granny’s Diner, Regina tries to kick Stranger Child out of “her” seat. He refuses, but as soon as they get up to leave, she Sheldon Coopers her way back onto her stool. Stranger Child gives her a key chain he made and she seems struck by his innocence and sweetness.

Regina tires of the Groundhog Day routine pretty quickly. Even though I would not hate seeing Ruby in those shorts every morning, the tedium is starting driving her a little insane. When she bumps into Mary Margaret again and she realizes that she sucked all the fight out of her arch nemesis, she goes to Gold’s shop to complain about the caveats to the curse.

Rumple plays dumb and pretends to not remember life before the curse, asking her what’s so bad about being the Mayor. Regina doesn’t want people to just obey her because they have no other choice. She wants them to want to worship her because they want to.

PRESENT DAY

Regina pulls a full-on Santana Lopez and rifles through her mother’s things until she finds what appears to be a super fancy fortune from a fortune cookie. Soon after, David and Gold head down to the tomb, Gold realizes some ingredients are missing and that it seems to be just what you need to create the Curse of the Empty Hearted, which will make someone love you.

Emma’s confused (as per usual). She’s pretty sure that, in Aladdin, the Genie made it very clear that making someone fall in love with you is a big magic no-no. Gold explains that it just makes the object of the curse THINK they love the person casting it, and that it’s enough for some people.

Henry is, unsurprisingly, eavesdropping and thinks Regina is going to use this curse on him. He’s calling Emma and Regina by their first names, until Gold points out that Regina will need Snow’s heart and suggests the only way to stop the Queen is to kill her. Emma hopes aloud that there is another way and Henry is offended that his heroes are even talking about killing his mom. He says so, and storms out of the Loft in a dramatic flourish.

THE PAST

Regina’s doing a pretty decent job of trying to blend in, but she can’t make a very good lasagna (yet) and she adorably doesn’t know who The Boss is when the Strangers come over for a farewell dinner. Owen’s bordering between being an adorable kid with no filter and a brat, asking questions like “Why aren’t you a mom?”. Regina likes his forwardness, though, and is absolutely precious with him. In fact, if you think about the actual timeline of all the worlds, this is probably the first time Regina has been genuinely kind to anyone since Rumpelstiltskin taught her to rip out hearts.

After they finish making dessert, Regina decides to ask the Stranger Duo to pick up and leave their lives and stick around Storybrooke for a while. Kurt, being an adult from the real world, turns down the invitation. A typical alpha, Regina doesn’t handle the rejection well.

PRESENT DAY

At the diner, Ruby is wearing red leather pants. I think Neal and Henry are talking about something but Ruby is wearing RED. LEATHER. PANTS.

Emma walks up to the table to find out that Neal already lost Henry. He was too busy patting himself on the back for successfully bribing a twelve-year-old with an ice cream sundae to notice that Henry took his backpack with him “to the bathroom”. As predicted, he’s not in the bathroom, but instead is running through the forest, his trademark scarf flapping in the wind.

Across town, Regina magics her way into the Charming Loft and finds a defeated Mary Margaret, still curled up in bed. She heads towards her with one hand ungloved and ready for heart-ripping, but Gold steps in at the eleventh hour. In true villain fashion, she promises they haven’t seen the last of her.

THE PAST

Regina finds GusGus the mechanic and asks him to stall the Strangers leaving town, but he tells her that they already left. She rushes back to her office and takes Sheriff Graham’s heart out and starts talking into it, speaking instructions as if it’s a Nextel. Stranger Dad overhears and is totally weirded out. I don’t even think wireless phones existed yet back then, let alone human organ communication devices.

Kurt decides this would be a good time to make like a tree and get the hell out of town, and just barely escapes the Sheriff trying to cuff him for drunk driving, like he had been instructed, even though it clearly made no sense.

PRESENT DAY

Stranger Greg runs into Henry (literally) in the woods and claims to be hiking, even though he’s wearing loafers. Henry tells him he’s trying to get a boy scout badge and scurries off without a second thought. As soon as he’s out of sight, Greg calls Regina to let her know that her boy is running around by himself and she says she’s on her way.

Across town in the mines, Ruby is leading the pack, sniffing out Henry, who I imagine smells like mischief and disobedience.

Team Charming (minus Snow) realizes that some dynamite is missing, and that Henry is probably going to try to blow up the town because he mentioned wanting to get rid of magic. And they think they might know where he’d go to try.

Regina figures it out first, however, and finds Henry at the well. With the wave of a hand, she magically stops him from blowing himself up. Unlike Emma, who has been coddling him ever since she decided to start calling him her son again, Regina is brutally honest with Henry, admitting the curse is for him and that she can’t get rid of magic.

Team Charming shows up and Emma shouts for Regina to get away from her son but Regina yells back that he’s hers. I try to explain that they can all just live as one happy family but no one listens to me.

They resort to their usual chests-puffed-out stand off, throwing in a cliched, “If you want to get to Mary Margaret, you have to go through us.” Regina literally laughs in their faces and informs them that won’t be a problem.

Henry begs Regina to get rid of magic. She says no, she says that she can’t, but she does get rid of the potion with the magic fireball she’d been sporting.

Then there’s a moment where it’s almost like Henry is a puppy and Regina and Emma are on either side of the room, saying “Here, boy!” and seeing who he comes to. For a second it seems like he’s going to go to Regina, but he eventually chooses Emma and that gang instead. However, Regina seemed to get a tiny spark of hope that maybe she can still win him back someday after all.

THE PAST

Graham and Regina begin a high-speed chase around Storybrooke, going after Stranger Dad and Little Owen. The Mayor catches them at the town line and Kurt sends his son running into the woods. Regina tries to get Owen to stay, but he doesn’t want to, not anymore. Not like this. She lets him run off, but she still has his dad in the back of his car.

Little Owen finds the police and leads them to the Storybrooke town line…at least where he thought it was. But now there’s nothing there,. He shouts into the ether that he’ll never stop looking for his dad, and Regina stands on the other side of the invisible barrier, a single tear falling for the little boy she befriended and lost in the matter of a week.

PRESENT DAY

Regina opens her front door to find Snow White waiting on her welcome mat. Mary Margaret looks her in the eye and asks her to end all of the feuding between them, asks her to kill her. So Regina rips Snow’s heart right out and points to a dark spot on it. Regina’s too amused by this to give Snow the satisfaction of dying, so she plops it right back in where it belongs, feeling assured that she’ll destroy her own family and Regina will get the happy ending she’s been vying for all this time after all.

Creeping in the bushes, Stranger Greg caught this whole heart-stealing business on camera. And sure enough, his key chain is the one Stranger Dad gave Little Owen. And once again, I find myself yelling at the television: DAMMIT GREG!!

Next week on Once Upon A Time, Neal’s fiance might not be as good as she is pretty and we might actually figure out where the hell Pinocchio has been all this time

What did you think of “Welcome To Storybrooke”?

Check out some of our favorite #SwanQueen tweets from this episode.

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