Previously on Once Upon A Time, Zelena took Rumple’s brain, David’s courage (so she might need more), tried to take Regina’s heart, and is vying for Mary Margaret’s baby. She also proved herself a SwanQueen shipper when she rendered Hook unable to kiss Emma.
We open on Regina, doing pretty things around her pretty house, and answering the door to find a basket of green apples on her doorstep. Zelena appears inside and they bicker about apples; Zelena thinks the red are sickeningly sweet, while Regina thinks the green are bitter.
Regina mocks Zelena’s envy, but Zelena says she’s just a harder worker, that she has ambition and drive, while all Regina does is hide behind her curses.
They both remain poised and cocky as they spit insults back and forth, and I think Regina is kind of enjoying this whole sister thing. When Regina finally bores of this back-and-forth, she asks Zelena what she’s really doing here. Zelena smirks and says she was just a distraction so she could send the Dark One to collect her heart.
Sure enough, in the Storybrooke forest, Rumple is standing at the business end of Robin Hood’s arrow. Unfortunately, Robin Hood’s adorable son picks that moment to make an appearance, and a threat to the little one’s life is just what Rumple needed to get Robin to give up Regina’s heart.
Regina shows up a second too late and Robin tells her everything. She understands, and despite being literally heartless, says “nothing’s worth the loss of a child.” This, from the woman who once ordered an entire village, children included, be slain just because she suspected them of harboring Snow White. She’s come so far. *wipes away proud tear*
Regina is concerned, however, because she’s still alive, which means Zelena is surely up to something. Robin Hood can’t think of anything worse than murder, but Regina can think of a few things. But, no worries, she’ll stop her.
She heads to Gold’s shop and starts trashing the place. Belle’s spidey-sense could tell someone somewhere was hurting books so she comes in and tells her to stop. When she finds out Zelena has Regina’s heart, she takes a step back, but Regina says she’s protected her heart from being able to control the rest of her. She asks Belle for help, and Belle wants to know why in seven hells she would help the woman who held her captive in an insane asylum. Regina is impressed that she has the gall to stand up for herself, but she uses Rumple as leverage to get Belle to agree to help. She’s been doing research, but it would help if she knew why it needed to be Regina’s heart, specifically. Regina has no idea.
Though she has no idea why her heart is so special, she does have an idea of what they can do to get one up on Zelena, and for it, she needs the two-sided candle that killed her mother.
Flash back to Cora the Bar Wench.
A gentleman asks her to sit and calls her a lady, flirting up a storm. She notices the royal emblem on his handkerchief, and he says he’s Prince Leopold. They giggle and flirt and he offers her a ring of straw, promising to exchange it for a ring of gold in two weeks time if she’ll agree to marry him. After she agrees, he says he has to leave in the morning, so she offers him some premarital sexitimes. Not for nothing, but they’ve been getting awfully salacious lately, so I think it’s time to bring the lesbian back so we can have some equal opportunity hay rolling.
In present-day Storybrooke, Emma goes into Regina’s library and tells Hook to watch out for the apples in this house. Hook has a hard time being less than serious, what with the witch on the loose, but the Uncharmings don’t have that problem, and are talking baby names. Which is convenient, otherwise we might have forgotten that Leopold was Snow White’s father’s name.
Regina brings them tea that’s not to be drunk, but to be used in the seance she’s planning so that they can talk to Cora.
Across town, Zelena is fondling Regina’s heart, and when her flying monkey says it looks battered, Zelena says that’s a good thing. She now has everything she needs sans the baby, so she tells Rumple to suit up, it’s time to celebrate. She tells him she won’t use the dagger to make him, but instead uses good, old-fashioned physical threats.
Team Charming asks Regina why they had never done a seance before, and Regina says it’s because you need the murder weapon…and the murderer. Which causes Mary Margaret to flinch. Regina holds out her hands and Emma moves to take it before anyone else. They all join hands/hooks and focus on Cora.
Before long, a blue portal opens in the ceiling, and Regina shouts into it.
However, nothing happens, and the sky closes. Regina says it worked; but that Cora chose not to come through, because clearly she doesn’t want to talk to Regina.
Flash back to Young Cora, waiting in the rain by the crossroads, eventually taking off her straw ring and giving up.
Two months later, she arrives at the castle and finds her prince glowering in a gazebo. As it turns out, he’s not a prince, but a gardener. He calls her a harlot and she tells him she’s pregnant. He doesn’t really care at all. Cora threatens to tell the real prince, but he is still lacking the ability to care. She tries to call out for help, but the gardener disappears.
A man offers Cora a hand and some assistance, and tells her that he’s the real prince, Prince Leopold.
At Regina’s house, present-day, Emma says her powers are growing by the minute, so she’ll be ready for Zelena soon, and Regina agrees. Mary Margaret offers to stay and help Regina clean, but Regina says she doesn’t want a heart-to-heart. Mary Margaret reminds us that she still has a little Snow White left in her when she says she doesn’t think a heart to heart is physically possible. This gets Regina to relent and she allows Mary Margaret to stick around.
Mary Margaret apologizes for killing Regina’s mother and Regina says she understands, because Cora killed Snow’s mother. She wonders aloud why Cora would hide Zelena from her, but they are interrupted by a noise upstairs. They follow it to a room, and as soon as they get up there, the door is blown off its hinges. “Heartless” Regina instinctively protects the baby.
A ghostly Cora takes shape before them.
In Granny’s Diner, Emma shows off her powers by making a cup of hot cocoa disappear and reappear clear across the room. Then she giggles and makes Hook’s hook hang from the chandelier. Hook is still feeling grumpy because she’s being extra adorable and he can’t force his kisses on her without stealing all this new magic. Before she can make his ‘tude disappear, Belle comes rushing in-she knows what Zelena is cooking up.
And what Zelena is cooking up is an extra helping of cleavage. She sits Rumple down at a table in the farmhouse for a nice dinner. Zelena knows he wants to know her secret, because she can reunite him with her son. He points out that he’s dead, but Zelena says he wasn’t always that way. She’s going to go back in time. Rumple argues that it’s against the fundamental laws of magic, but Zelena points out that this doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Zelena offers to take Rumple with her to go back in time and never give Baelfire up.
At the mayor’s manor, Ghost Cora lunges at Mary Margaret and Regina leaps in front of her and demands answers. She knocks Regina out of the way to get to Mary Margaret again, but Regina recovers quickly and poofs them into the library. She tries to hold Ghost Cora off, but she won’t be able to do it forever.
Flash back to Cora and Prince Leopold walking through the forest. Cora teaches him how to build a fire, and he laments that he has to meet Princess Ava tonight, his betrothed. Cora says he should be able to choose his own fate, and apparently wins that argument, because before you know it, she’s dressed in flashy clothes and has a real gold ring on her finger. The gardener comes back and says he had to know if the commoner marrying Prince Leopold was her. He blackmails her, saying she needs to give him money or he’ll squeal about the bastard child in her belly. And she might have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for that blasted Princess Ava, who overheard everything.
Mary Margaret tries to apologize to Ghost Cora but Regina says she’ll have to go through her. She asks what Cora did to Zelena, but Ghost Cora zaps them both. Mary Margaret has a vision.
Princess Ava had squealed on Cora, so Prince Leopold banishes her for being untrue. Princess Ava promises him a baby pure as snow.
Regina extracts Cora from Mary Margaret and shoves her back through the portal. Emma, Belle, David, and Hook barge in and Belle tells them all Zelena’s planning on going back in time, because she has everything she needs, including “a resilient heart.”
Mary Margaret knows what Zelena wants, now. She wants to go back in time and kill Princess Ava, which means Mary Margaret will never have been born.
Emma says she imagines Regina will quit helping them, but Regina says no, because then Emma would never have been born. Also Henry, possibly not even Regina. Hook is glad time travel plans never work, but David knows the baby is the key. Luckily this means they have time, albeit not much.
Flash back again to Cora giving birth to Zelena. She takes the baby, tucked into a basket, and says she has to give her away, to give herself her best chance. Unlike when Snow White or Emma gave up their babies, which was for the child’s best chance.
At the farmhouse, Rumple flirts with Zelena and then kisses her neck and kisses her and I’m torn because she’s so attractive and he’s so not. However, she catches on quickly and stops Rumple before he can get the dagger tucked in her boot. She says he lost his chance to ride in her TARDIS and sends him back to his cage. Regina and Mary Margaret do some adorable bonding and decide to leave the past behind them. Mary Margaret says she knows Regina feels things deeply, that she’s constantly fighting the darkness, and that she can win this. She can find happiness.
Regina goes to find Robin Hood and he promises to get her heart back.
Then the episode ended and they definitely did not kiss because they are not soulmates. Viva la SwanQueen!
Next week, Aurora comes back and we meet Glinda!
What did you think of “Bleeding Through”?
Here are some of our favorite #queerytales tweets from this week:
Emma is too adorable. But I’d love to see Regina’s reaction to her nonsense. #queerytales
– Sarah Sansolo (@sksansolo) April 21, 2014
WICKED BOOBS. #OUAT #queerytales
– Nic (@njnic23) April 21, 2014
The symbolism of Emma poofing his “hook” away is not lost here #queerytales
– Irish Princess (@StashiaR) April 21, 2014
Regina did you not program horror movies on cable in the curse? We don’t go up the stairs in the haunted house story! #queerytales
– nerdgirl (@nerdgirlwalking) April 21, 2014
Obviously that didn’t work. You forgot “the power of three will set you free” Duh. #queerytales #OUAT
– Diana Rivera (@ThisBeRealTalk) April 21, 2014
Oh look, Emma and Regina are holding hands and Regina’s shirt is open, that’s all I see #queerytales #OnceUponATime
– Catherine (@CMeushaw) April 21, 2014
Emma just got shushed by her wife. They are so freaking adorable. #queerytales #SwanQueen
– Kim Dawson (@kdawson424) April 21, 2014
Go go Gadget color coordination. #queerytales
– Ltd. Fangirl (@Ah_SookieSookie) April 21, 2014
“Envy is just another word for ambition.” “Well, that’s just… not true.” Regina, mayor and an English teacher. A role model. #queerytales
– Chen Drachman (@shokoshik) April 20, 2014
Belle, why are you wearing a turtleneck? You’re over dressed. #queerytales #OUAT
– anh62950 (@anh62950) April 21, 2014
Awww, they’re holding hands over the murder candle. #swanqueen #queerytales
– Marie (@buknerd) April 21, 2014
No medieval slut shaming dude! #queerytales
– nerdgirl (@nerdgirlwalking) April 21, 2014
HAHA. Zelena is green and her father was a gardener. Laughing forever. #greenthumb #OUAT #queerytales
– Nic (@njnic23) April 21, 2014
EW NO! DON’T GO TO ROBIN! GO TO EMMA! #queerytales #OnceUponATime
– Catherine (@CMeushaw) April 21, 2014
