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“Once Upon A Time” recap (3.17): SwanQueen Magic

Previously on Once Upon A Time, Regina got out-magicked by Zelena but Zelena got out-witted by Regina, Hook became Henry’s official babysitter, and we found out the Wicked Witch wants to turn back the hands of time.

We open in the Enchanted Forest, during the Missing Year, where men on horseback are stopped by a Knight of Ni. The knight tells them that he’ll be taking the gold they are traveling with, and after a flash of showmanship, the men retreat, leaving behind their riches. The knight reveals himself to be Hook; he and his men have been land-pirating in the absence of the Jolly Roger. They take their spoils to the local bar and toast to good ol’ Captain Hook. Smee and the crew pitch in to buy Hook a whore who looks like the late Milah. A literal hooker. Once they’re outside, Hook gives her some extra money and tells her to shoo. Before he can disappear into the night, he is knocked over and pinned to the ground, with a knife to his throat. The woman who has him pinned says, “My name is Ariel and you’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”

In present-day Storybrooke, Emma and David are trying to put a crib together quite unsuccessfully. Mary Margaret, proving that pregnancy brain also works in reverse, suggests they stop wasting their time on furniture and focus on finding the Wicked Witch who is threatening the entire town. Arguably the only good idea she’s ever had in Storybrooke.

David says that the crip is a statement, a symbol of their relentless optimism, proof that they won’t back down. He says he doesn’t want to lose another baby, and Regina swoops in, saying, “Thanks to me, you won’t.” I like to believe Regina was listening outside the door for a moment waiting for the perfect time to make a dramatic entrance.

Regina has finished putting a protection spell on the Charming Loft, so Zelena shouldn’t be able to snatch up the Second Savior or whatever Mary Margaret is cooking up this time. Emma doesn’t think that’s good enough-she doesn’t want to just sit around and hide under a magic blanket, she wants to fight. She’s ready to learn how to use her thus far extremely unreliable magic. She wants Regina to teach her.

Regina says that in order to truly learn how to control her magic, Emma is going to have to really commit. Emma doesn’t hesitate, as though she’s been waiting for Regina to ask her to commit for three and a half seasons now. Regina tells Emma to meet her in her vault in an hour. David offers to watch Henry, but Emma tells him that Henry (and the audience) thinks she’s boring. Mary Margaret, too. They are highly offended.

Across town, Smee goes up to Hook and asks why they’re not out doing pirate-y things. He likes Storybrooke all right, but he’d rather be doing literally anything else. He has questions for his captain: Where’s the Jolly Roger? Why can’t we just take another boat? Why can you remember the Missing Year but nobody else can? Why haven’t you been telling us about every second of every day in that Missing Year so we can try to start solving this mystery? Were you born with it or is it Maybelline?

Hook tells him the STFU because he’s staying in Storybrooke and he’s not answering any of this questions so go get some frozen yogurt and shove it.

Emma approaches Hook to ask him to babysit again, and tells him that she’s going to make some magic with Regina. Hook likes the sound of that, but he doesn’t like the sound of Emma saying that after they defeat Zelena, she’s taking New Henry back to New York. He was happy there, and he’s way less annoying now that he’s not yammering on about Operation Cobra or offering his heart to evil villains. Hook tells her to let it go, that there’s no going back, the past is in the past.

Down by the beach, where it is raining, Mary Margaret and David are trying to figure out how to be more fun when they find a crowd buzzing about something that washed up on the shore. They wiggle their way through and see that it’s not a something but a someone; Ariel has arrived! She’s been “unda da sea,” looking for clues as to where Prince Eric may have gone, since she hasn’t seen him since the new curse, and she also can’t remember anything from the Missing Year. Since Eric was a seaman, they suggest asking Hook if he remembers seeing Eric at all.

Cue a flashback to Ariel, waving a knife around at Hook, demanding him to give back her kidnapped prince. Her source was a man who escaped from the ship where Prince Eric was being held, which was the Jolly Roger. Hook flips the script and puts the knife to her throat, demanding to know who is captaining his ship. The wild rage in his eyes proves to Ariel that he really didn’t kidnap her prince, so she tells him that the knife he’s wielding came from the new captain’s armory. Hook looks at the hilt and sees an engraving of the letters BB.

Inside, Hook rallies his men. It’s Blackbeard who stole his ship, and it’s Blackbeard they’ll take the ship back from! Smee is hesitant, Blackbeard is not exactly a cartoon pirate whose nemesis is a flying boy in tights…Blackbeard is the real deal. But Hook has the fire of Captain Flint in his heart and will not take no for an answer. Ariel appears and says she’s coming too!

In present-day Storybrooke, Hook is teaching Henry how to cheat at dice games when David and Mary Margaret walk in, Ariel in tow. They ask if he knows Prince Eric, but he plays dumb, saying he’s never heard of the guy. Ariel thanks him anyway, and they decide to check Gold’s shop for any sign of him. Hook tries to warn David that they might be getting the girl’s hopes up, but David’s like, “Um, she loves him, he can’t be dead, duh.” Hook starts to point out that his logic makes literally no sense, but knows his boyfriend well enough to know it would be fighting a losing battle, so he lets them go.

In Regina’s Sex Dungeon Vault, Regina tells Emma not to touch anything. Emma asks how she’s expected to do magic without touching anything, since her magic tends to work the best when they’re touching. Regina starts to explain her lesson plan, and turns around to find Emma deliberately disobeying her, because she no longer sees her as the Evil Queen, so she isn’t afraid of her even a little. Regina scolds her but it’s more adorable than anything else.

Regina asks if “The Uncharmings” are looking after Henry, which is obviously how they will henceforth be known. Emma says Hook is looking after him, to which Regina arches a perfectly formed eyebrow. Emma says she trusts Hook; he brought her back to Storybrooke. Regina says, her voice dripping with jealousy, that everyone sees the yearning looks and doey eyes. Emma scoffs and says she’s done no such thing and Regina knows that, obviously, but HE pines after her like Ron Weasley under a love spell.

Regina tries to start with a simple spell but Emma wants more Rumpelstiltskin-style teaching. Regina tells her that Rumple was a mean teacher and wouldn’t have cuddled her like she planned to. (Okay fine she said coddled but shh it’s better my way.) She said that if Rumple was trying to teach you how to swim and you weren’t learning fast enough, he’d let you drown. Emma is mildly horrified by this, and it gives Regina an idea.

She wooshes them to a rope bridge where Emma is in the middle, hanging precariously over a deep canyon. (How big IS Storybrooke, anyway?)

Flash back to Hook and Ariel marching through the forest, Ariel being an ingrate about her new legs. She wishes she could just swim there, despite the fact that I distinctly remember her complaining that flipping your fins, you don’t get too far. Ariel tells Hook that stories of his turn for the good have been spreading, which makes him rather grumpy.

In present-day Storybrooke, Ariel and Hook go into Gold’s shop, and Ariel and Belle embrace and then stand holding hands. Hook finds Prince Eric’s hook, recognizing it by the Kraken/Sea Witch clasp, proof that Eric was in Storybrooke at some point. Belle puts a locator spell on it and they follow it out of the shop.

Out on the bridge, Regina tells Emma she’s pushing her, making her react by instinct. Emma wants to go back to the vault, but Regina has a plan. She knocks the bridge out from under Emma, telling her that magic is all that can save her now.

Emma plummets to her doom, and for a moment Regina gets a terrified “what have I done?!” expression on her face. But at the last minute, Emma turns the remains of the bridge into a floating chariot that safely returns her to Regina. Regina says she had only asked her to put the bridge back together, but Emma asks why it matters, asking why she’s pissed because she just wanted to make her proud. Regina looks lovingly at her and says she’s not mad she didn’t listen, she’s mad that Emma has all this potential inside her that she’s been wasting by relying too heavily on her “superpower” of being able to detect lies with 62% accuracy.

Across town, Ariel and Hook follow Eric’s cloak out to the ocean, where it dives underneath. Realizing what this must mean, Ariel cries into Hook’s shoulder, while he squirms with guilt.

She considers the irony of Eric dying at sea, the place she left to be with him, but thanks Hook for helping her find some closure, even though she wished she had more details. She tells Hook he’s more than a pirate, that he has a good heart somewhere under all that eyeliner.

Flash back to the Missing Year, where Hook, Smee, and Ariel barge their way onto the Jolly Roger. Hook fights Blackbeard, who looks more like the cartoon version of Captain Hook than Hook does, and they demand to know where Eric is. Blackbeard tries to barter info for his lift, but Hook makes Blackbeard walk the plank, desperate to prove he’s not “good.”

He takes over the Jolly Roger once more, and Ariel slaps him across his pretty face and calls him selfish. She then makes an epically dramatic exit by diving off the side of the boat and swimming away to find Eric.

Flash forward again to Hook running to catch up to Ariel to confess what happened during the Missing Year, that he chose to save his ship over saving Eric. She slaps him across his pretty face. He feels really bad about it, and she makes him swear on the name of the person he loves (as we learned from Rumpelstiltskin, there’s power in a name). When he swears on Emma Swan, Ariel gets an uncharacteristically mischievous smile on her face. His mouth flashes green and Ariel transforms into Zelena. Ariel and Prince Eric have been living out their happily ever after on some island this whole time, Zelena was just having some sociopathic fun times. The magic she performed on Hook’s mouth (wanky) means that his kiss is now poison and will suck up all of Emma’s powers. He’s like, “Fine, then I won’t kiss her. She doesn’t seem all that interested in me anyway.” And she says, “OK, but every time you don’t kiss her, I’ll kill someone she loves. So have fun with that.”

Hook goes to the Loft and is surprised that, instead of the Uncharmings, he is interrupting some quality SwanQueen time. He lies on his feet pretty quickly about why he was there, and Emma, Human Lie Detector, detects nothing. He says that Ariel and Eric are living happily ever after, and Regina says they can check, using mirror magic. She uses her sultry voice to coach Emma through it, and sure enough, they see Ariel and her prince giggling and kissing and smiling.

The Uncharmings get back with Henry and confess that, in an attempt to be the cool grandparents, they let Henry drive a truck. Regina is mama bear mad, but plays it off by saying she is actually just Mayor-mad. They tell them about Ariel being home now, and Mary Margaret is just tickled pink by another happy ending-just by believing!!

So pleased, in fact, that she suggests dinner at Granny’s, all together. Hook creepily spies on this family affair, seeing how happy Emma is with all the people she loves the most, and contemplates his next move.

Next week, Emma and Regina use their SwanQueen magic to tell Cora she’ll have a new daughter-in-law soon.

What did you think of “The Jolly Roger”?

Here are some of our favorite #queerytales tweets from this week:

                         

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