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“Once Upon A Time” recap (3.19): Check the Closet

Previously on Once Upon A Time, everyone ended up back in Storybrooke with a year missing from their memories, and Zelena set out to turn back time; a plan which involves stealing courage, brains, a heart, and a baby.

We open in the Enchanted Forest, with a hooded figure riding a horse urgently towards Castle Charming. In said castle, Evil Cleavage is out in full force.

Regina is NOT PLEASED because the Charmings want to gather together the entire Enchanted Forest together to announce the pregnancy. The hooded figure turns out to be Belle, who comes to tell them about Rumple absorbing Neal and Zelena having the dagger. Aurora takes this opportunity to say maybe Snow should not mention her baby. Partially because she doesn’t want anyone to steal her pregnancy thunder, but mostly because Zelena mentioned something about stealing her baby once it was born.

As a thank you for squealing, Zelena flies in and turns Aurora and her Prince into flying monkeys. Zelena fondles Snow White’s belly and says she’ll get her, my pretty, and her little babe, too.

The Fairytale Characters of the Round Table reminisce about the last time someone wanted Snow White’s baby, which causes Robin Hood to wonder aloud why Regina is there at all. Regina nearly throws a tantrum, reminding him that she’s helping. While they’re on the subject, she doesn’t trust him, either. They bicker like children on a playground.

In present-day Storybrooke, Regina and Robin Hood are doing the opposite of bickering. Regina asks Robin what he sees in her, and, I mean, he has EYES, so… Robin Hood then asks what we’ve all been wondering: If she doesn’t have a heart, how can she feel anything? She says she can still feel, just not as deeply as she can with it.

Henry walks in on them making out and Regina gets all embarrassed and is glad for the first time that he doesn’t know she’s his mother.

Regina walks into the Team Charming meeting, looking smitten. Emma wonders who the hell is getting Regina to smile like that besides her.

Not impressed.The topic of the agenda today: How did Zelena cast a curse that requires sacrificing the thing she loves the most when she doesn’t love a damn thing?

The only solution they can think of is that they need their memories back. They all look to Emma, the Savior. Emma has no idea what they want her to do-she already believes in magic, AND she tried kissing Henry. Regina realizes that it’s not Emma who needs to believe in magic this time, it’s Henry! And the key to getting Henry to believe is in the storybook that started it all. If only they could find it…

Somewhere across town, Zelena has Hook “The Handless Wonder” in the trunk of her car. She makes it a little more clear that kissing Emma was not a suggestion she gave him last time they spoke, but an order. If he doesn’t do it soon, Zelena is going to start killing people, starting with Henry.

Flash back to the missing year, where Robin Hood saves Regina from a booby trap in the castle Zelena is squatting in. Instead of thanking him, Regina snaps at him, because being back in the Enchanted Forest, Regina is slipping back into Evil Queen mode the same way I slip into Angsty Teenager mode when I spend too long at my parents’ house.

Eventually, Team Charming finds Rumpelstiltskin in his cage, back to his delightfully insane self due to overcrowding in his brain. Belle uses True Love to get him to tell them how to stop Zelena. He does it in rhymes and riddles but he tells them. They have to use light magic, and they have to find Glinda the Good Witch, who has been banished to the Dark Forest.

Present-day, Team Charming is trying to figure out where to find the storybook. They call Gold’s shop, but Belle can’t find it there. Mary Margaret says a book “can’t just disappear” but my mess of a room and I would beg to differ. Regina suggests looking in a closet because of course she does.

As they tear off for the Charming Loft, Henry stops them mid-step. He is sick of being brushed off and demands answers. Emma puts on her Mom hat and “because I said so”s him into submission. He asks for her keys under the guise of losing his, but as soon as they’re gone, he tries to break into the yellow buggy. Hook catches him and asks him if he was keen on dying today. Henry says he was just going to drive, after exactly one poorly-executed lesson, to the nearest bus station in a town that is unfamiliar to him, and Hook suggests perhaps they try something different instead.

At the Charming Loft, everyone is rooting around in Mary Margaret’s things looking for the book. It’s really too bad no one in the room had any magic, or they could have done a simple summoning spell. Emma checks a trunk full of winter stuff to no avail, but then when Mary Margaret checks the same trunk, the book is there.

Regina wants to read about Zelena to find out whose heart she could have crushed to cast the Storybrooke curse. While she does that, Mary Margaret asks Emma why she didn’t see the gigantic book that was taking up half the trunk. Emma says she probably didn’t see it because she didn’t want to see it. She has a full on reality check, where she wonders (not for the first time) if Henry getting his memory back is the best thing. At this point, she knows it has to happen to save everyone, but she’s not loving the idea.

Back in the missing year, Regina, Snow White, and Prince Charming are on their way to find Glinda when Charming stops to pick Snow White a snowbell flower. Regina doesn’t care if they’re dancing daffodils from Wonderland, now is not the time for mushy crap. They stumble across a door in the middle of the forest, and Snow figures out the riddle. She steps through and, since her heart is pure, she disappears. Charming follows suit. Regina rolls her eyes and marches through, but she just comes out the other side in the same forest. She literally stomps back through and slams the door.

Snow and Charming find Glinda on the other side of the door, who was banished to a snowy wilderness, but looks no worse for wear.

No, seriously, can we see more of her? Please?Glinda says only good witches can come through the door, and Snow White says, “Why,I’m not a witch at all.” Glinda says, “I know, I say that to all the girls.” She also says she knew Zelena once, their paths did cross. But Zelena gave into the dark magic and nothing Glinda could do could bring her down. She tells the Uncharmings that Zelena’s magic resides in the giant green brooch she wears all the time out in the open, and that only light magic can stop her. Snow knows this means it’s all up to Emma, and it’s her that decides to re-enact the curse, to get back to her daughter.

When they get back to Regina, she refuses to agree to this plan. The thing she loves most now is Henry, and she’s not sacrificing him. They talk in circles for a while until Charming says that Snow White has to be the one to cast the curse. He has to be the one to die. Snow is not loving this plan and says they’ll find another way. They always do.

In present-day Storybrooke, Emma figures out that Henry is missing. Regina wants to use a locator spell, but Emma uses the magic of technology to track his cell phone.

Meanwhile, at the docks, Hook and Smee are chatting with Henry about boats and Peter Pan (the story not his creepster great-grandfather who body snatched him) when they are attacked by flying monkeys. It’s snowing pretty hard, and the CGI budget is pretty much capped, so all Henry can see anyway are dark wings in the sky.

More monkeys come and Hook starts shooting at them, but he runs out of bullets. Luckily, Team Charming arrives just in time, Emma with her gun and Regina with her fireballs. They vaporize a good half-dozen of them, and I’m hoping Aurora wasn’t one of them.

When the monkeys are finally gone, Henry looks at Emma like, what the HELL is going on here? Emma apologizes for all the lying and the secrets and asks him if he trusts her. He says he does, so she asks him to believe in magic. He’s a little confused as to why his badass bail-bondsperson mother is suddenly talking about magic, but he really does trust her, so he takes the storybook from her. As soon as he touches it, all of his memories come flooding back.

He looks at Emma and says, “Mom” knowingly. He then looks at Regina and exclaims, “Mom!” because he finally remembers.

I love this little modern family.Regina leads Henry over to Emma so she can kiss him, but just before Emma can break the curse, Auntie Zelena poofs him into her arms. Worried moms are worried.

Maybe you should hold hands! This is scary stuff! But before Zelena can finish choking him to death, Emma makes her very best DOING MAGIC face and zaps her with a dose of light magic.

Magic is hard.Zelena storms away, not unlike her sister, and Henry rushes to an unconscious Regina.

Flash back to the missing year, where Charming is still insisting they kill him to cast the curse. Regina warns him that it won’t exactly tickle and rips his heart right out. He and Snow say their tearful goodbyes and she crushes his heart to dust over the potion, setting the curse into motion.

In present-day Storybrooke, Regina comes to and is so happy to see that Henry is okay that she kisses him on the forehead. A woosh and a flash and the curse is broken! The missing year has been found! They start with the important thing: Zelena’s weakness is light magic, and Emma is light magic, therefore Emma is Zelena’s weakness. Second most important thing is that it was Snow that cast the curse. Emma asks how that’s possible if they’re both still alive.

Flash back to the curse-casting, and Snow White has an idea, a last ditch effort to save her True Love. She asks to split her heart in two. She believes there’s enough love in it to keep Charming, her, and her baby alive. Regina doesn’t think it will work, but she tries it anyway. And sure enough, Charming comes to just before the curse starts bubbling.

In Storybrooke, Henry is telling Regina everything about Manhattan and his life in New York. He also asks about the man she was kissing as if it somehow didn’t scar him for life. When Regina says his name is Robin Hood, and Robin himself comes strolling in, Henry is quite delighted by this, because Robin Hood is a pretty awesome fairytale. (And that’s all I’ll give him.)

Meanwhile, Emma asks Hook what Zelena meant by saying it was his fault she was going after Henry. Hook tells her about the kissing curse and Emma is rightfully angry. She says he should have told her about the curse, should have let her make her own choices.

There’s one more thing the needs clearing up (well, one more thing for today). Snow says she didn’t send the message and the memory potion to Hook. But that was only Hook’s best guess, so if it wasn’t her, they have no idea who sent it.

But this flashback does. After Zelena mixed a helping of a forgetting potion into Snow White’s curse, she made a memory-saver for herself.

Oh, to be that bottle. She also gives some to Rumple, and leaves him with the decision whether or not to take it. It won’t affect her either way, she’ll still have the dagger. Rumple equates memories with pain, so he’s about to take it, but then Neal leaps out of his skin, sends the potion off to Hook so he can get it to Emma, then falls back into Rumple.

In the Storybrooke cemetery, Henry re-mourns his father, now that he has all of his memories back. He asks Emma if it was a hard decision, to come back to Storybrooke, and she said, “Not after I remembered Regina’s face.” Just kidding. I wish. She said she knew it was what Henry would have wanted. Operation Cobra is still a go.

Operation Beanie is my favorite.But Operation Cobra will have to wait a minute, because Mary Margaret’s baby is employing Operation Get Me Outta Here. Which is exciting because, based on the way they’ve been talking about this baby, it’s going to be a unicorn mermaid with fairy wings, but less exciting because it shortens their timeline against Zelena signficantly.

Next week, Team Charming finds a secret weapon in a little girl from Kansas.

What did you think of “A Curious Thing”?

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

                         

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