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“Once Upon A Time” recap (4.6): We make a family, yes?

Previously on Once Upon A Time, Elsa from Frozen is searching for Anna from Frozen and accidentally made half of Storybrooke Frozen and then a lady had a frozen ice cream shop and made Marian frozen. Hashtag Once is Frozen.

We open an indeterminate amount of time ago in the Enchanted Forest, where a woman is frantically packing books as the sounds of tumult shake her castle. Guards storm in and try to get her to leave, but she has to save the books…and her daughter. Belle rushes in and says sorry she delayed their escape from certain doom, but there was a book she too wanted to save, a physical reminder of memories she wanted to hold onto. Her mother tells her that’s nice but they’re going to get slaughtered if they don’t skidaddle but it’s too late; the ogres are in the castle.

They hide under a table and the ogre stomps into the room. As the ogre’s mean ol’ face appears with a roar, Belle wakes up in her bed crying out her mother’s name. She rushes out and finds her father, and asks where her mother is, and her father asks her if she really doesn’t remember what happened. The crowd parts and Belle sees her mother’s coffin in the middle of the room.

Flash forward to Storybrooke, where Mr. Gold is putting his Starbox in his safe. Belle comes in and says that Emma has reached out, there’s something important they both need to see. Emma shows them, and the rest of the ever-growing Scooby Gang, the video from her foster home. They brainstorm a little about how Madame Scoops could have gotten to Storybrooke and why, but no one seems to have any viable theories.

David The Useless just gets finished saying they’ve searched everywhere, when Henry suggests they check her ice cream truck. The two Sheriffs, along with every other lifetime citizen of Storybrooke, had no idea such a truck existed.

Belle says she’s going to do some research at the library, for old times’ sake, and Elsa asks if she can go with her, probably because she succeeded in putting Emma and Regina on the path to heal their relationship and doesn’t want to third wheel it again.

Flashback Belle does not take well to the news that she’s missing memories of her mother dying. For some reason, she wants to get this memories back, even though they’re probably traumatizing, and even though she will have to travel to a strange land to talk to strange creatures to do so. Her father tells her that magic comes with a price, but she doesn’t care. He tells her to stay in her room, but she doesn’t listen and heads off to Arendelle anyway; a trait that will one day reward her with a performance by singing and dancing dinnerware.

Meanwhile, still in the flashback, but in Arendelle, Anna and Elsa are reunited after Anna’s quest for answers. Elsa asks what Anna learned, but Anna lies and says she didn’t learn anything, but that she’s waiting on answers, wisely giving herself an out for whenever she does decide to tell the truth. Anna notices that her not-great news didn’t cause a mini indoor blizzard and Elsa proudly says she’s been learning to control her powers with a little help. As if she had been waiting for her cue, Auntie Scoops appears.

Anna’s eyes bug out and she starts mumbling and stammering and Elsa has to tell her to put it back in her pants, this woman is their aunt, Ingrid. Anna has some of the same hangups Elsa did at first, namely that their mother never mentioned having a sister.

Ingrid briefly explains that she was trapped in an urn and demonstrates her snowflake powers, but where this gave Elsa all the answers she needed, it gave Anna more questions. Anna goes to Kristoff to express her suspicions, saying she wants to make sure the woman isn’t an imposter before she just goes in blindly trusting people. Besides, she’s a really good judge of character. Kristoff reminds her of the whole Hans ordeal and Anna says that she is older and wiser now.

Anna says she wants to go off to ask the rock trolls to clear things up, and fills Kristoff in on the version of the truth she told Elsa, lest he open his big mouth with his new best friend. He understands, and offers to help her get supplies, but she says she’ll just swing by Oaken’s on the way.

Unfortunately for pretty much everyone involved, Auntie Ingrid overheard the entire exchange about Anna’s mistrust.

Flash forward to Storybrooke, where Madame Scoops is still lurking about, this time secretly watching Team Charming discover her ice cream truck. Robin Hood chooses this moment to ask Regina if they can talk and Regina snaps that she’s a little busy in case he hadn’t noticed. Emma tells her that she could have been nicer about that, but Regina is all, “How do you expect me to be nice to anyone when I have to watch Captain Guyliner drool all over you?” Emma makes a mental note to make it up to her later and gets back to the task at hand.

Inside the truck, they find a locked freezer. Killian, ironically more handy without his hand, smashes it open with his hook. Inside the freezer is a file full of things about Emma, starting from the newspaper clipping about the day she was found as an infant.

While Team Storybrooke is raiding the ice cream truck, Belle is in the library with Elsa, lying through her teeth and saying she’s never even heard of Arendelle, let alone Anna. After a bit of research, Belle notices a little flurry around Elsa and asks if she’s okay.

Elsa admits that she’s worried; the longer she goes without any clues as to where her sister is, the more hopeless and helpless she feels. Belle tells Elsa that her sister is a smart, plucky, strong-willed girl, surely she’s surviving just fine. Elsa says she doesn’t even know her sister, and Belle says she just knows from Elsa’s stories that surely Anna is a survivor. Belle tells Elsa to keep researching and that she has to take care of something.

Flash back to Belle in Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post and Sauna, asking Oaken if he knows how to get to the rock trolls. Anna comes in for her supplies and overhears Belle’s plight. She offers to take Belle to the rock trolls, since that’s where she was going anyway. Oaken says that they should take a discount sauna together, and I would like a link to that fanfic ASAP please and thank you.

In the present-day Storybrooke Forest, Hook corners Regina and asks her why she’s been avoiding him. Instead of telling the truth (that she wants to get back with Emma) she tells him that she felt bad that she hasn’t been able to find a cure for Marian, and might not ever be able to, so maybe he should fall out of love with her, and the best way to do that is to have zero interaction with her at all, because her eyes, her smirk, her cleavage, her snark, and her voice tend to captivate anyone and everyone.

Across town, Belle runs into Gold’s Shop and starts tearing through everything until she finds an ice pick. She gets a determined look and says, “Don’t worry Anna, I’ll find you.”

Flashback Anna and Belle head to the rock trolls, swapping stories about how Disney killed their mothers before their stories had even truly begun, when they reach a wall and start to climb it. Anna is as adorably awkward and bad at climbing as ever, so her starbox comes tumbling out of her bag. She tells Belle it contains a hat that will strip someone of their magic, and that she stole it from a horrible sorcerer. Anna tells Belle she prays Belle never crosses paths with Rumpelstiltskin, and oh how we all wish her prayers had been answered.

Present-day Gold catches Belle leaving the shop to right a past wrong and she asks him to come with her. When he refuses, she whips out the dagger and asks him again. He says he gave her the dagger because he trusted her not to use it, but she says tough cookies there’s a life at stake here. He says nothing, so she holds up the dagger and tells him to take her to the Snow Queen.

In the Snow Queen’s folder, Emma found papers that say she was in Ingrid’s foster home for six months. Also in the folder are essays and artwork and more that Emma had done over the years, the kind of folder a parent would have for their child. Emma also finds a card she wrote Ingrid, meaning she returned the same feelings. She wonders aloud what would have changed to make Madame Scoops remove these memories entirely, and finds a scroll with Arendelle-ish writing on it.

In Flashback Arendelle, Belle and Anna reach the rock trolls, and Anna calls out for Grand Pabbie, and Belle’s reaction to his appearance is priceless.

Grand Pabbie, of course, knows why Belle is there, because the rock trolls could apparently solve all the world’s problems if anyone just bothered to ask. He makes a stone out of Belle’s repressed memories and tells her to brew a tea with it in the place her mother died. If that doesn’t bring back the trauma, nothing will. Belle is overjoyed and asks how she can repay Anna, but Anna says having a new friend is payment enough. She asks for a little privacy while she asks Grand Pabbie what she came here to ask.

Grand Pabbie, once again, has all the answers. Anna’s mother, Gerda, had two older sisters, Helga and Ingrid. The three girls were close until one day, Helga and Ingrid vanished. The royal family swept it under the rug, and hard. They magically removed the memory of the missing siblings from the memories of everyone in Arendelle. Except the rock trolls, of course, who hadn’t seen the point in breaking their promise not to tell anyone until now. This news makes Anna more worried than ever that Auntie Ingrid is up to no good.

On the way back from the rock trolls, Anna and Belle get caught in a storm, probably caused by her aunt’s bad mood. A gust of wind knocks them both over; Belle drops her memory stone and Anna tumbles off the cliff, and is now holding on for dear life. Stuck between a rock and a help place, Belle chooses rock and goes after her memory stone, telling Anna to hold on. Karma gets her then and there, though, and the stone flies off the cliff and shatters. By the time Belle gets to Anna, it’s too late, and she goes freefalling to the ground below. The Snow Queen appears and steals the starbox, and when Belle tells her to leave Anna alone, Auntie Ingrid says it’s a family matter and swooshes away with her niece.

With Rumple’s help, present-day Belle finds the Snow Queen’s castle and goes in to look for the magic hat. Once inside, Belle hears someone calling her name, and follows it to a covered mirror. She pulls the tarp off and her reflection cheerily waves at her, saying she’s glad Belle found her. Her reflection taunts her for choosing the rock over Anna that day in Arendelle; Belle says that she knows it was a mistake, but her reflection calls her a coward. She used to be a badass chick, going on adventures in the great wide somewhere with a vigilante princess, she even used to be a sexy librarian with an adorable lack of modern culture knowledge and a hot werewolf girlfriend. But who was she now? Now she was just the Dark One’s wife; she was weak. She had two potential beasts she could have paired with her beauty, and she chose wrong.

Rumple comes in to warn her that the Snow Queen is coming, and she’s so riled up from her conversation with her reflection that she tries to stab him. He poofs them into the shop and tries to calm Belle down. She tells him about the mirror, that it said the dagger was fake and that she was weak and she thinks she’s kinda gay. Rumle tells her that the mirror was dark magic, and definitely lying, absolutely not pointing out the hard-to-swallow truths. She confesses that she’s the reason Anna is missing, and says she withheld the information because she didn’t want anyone to know until she could make things right, but I think she probably could have used the “I spent 25 years in an insane asylum I think I’m allowed a slipped memory or two” excuse.

She ends up not listening to her own self and begging Rumple’s forgiveness because the mirror was right, she has become weak.

Flashback Belle returns home to find her father by the fire. When she says she didn’t find what she was looking for, he admits that he had the answers all along. He didn’t tell her what happened to her mother, because her mother died protecting her. He also tells her that the Ogre War has gotten worse, and Belle says that they have to do something. She has heard of a wizard that can help them, but Maurice cuts her off; he knows who she’s talking about it but he doesn’t want to risk it. Belle says she knows magic comes with a price, but she wants to be a hero, since she just had the chance to and failed so hard.

Present-day Rumple goes to see the Snow Queen and says he knows about her dark magic mirror. Madame Scoops says she had no idea Belle would be so “easy to turn” (her words, not mine) and Rumple says he will protect those he cares about. The Snow Queen makes no promises. He pulls out the magic hat from the starbox and says that she better watch her step, because he holds all the leverage, dearie.

In Arendelle, Anna wakes up in a cell. Auntie Ingrid tells her that this is where she belongs, even after Anna says she was never going to use the starbox. She asks Anna about the third sister Grand Pabbie told her about, but Ingrid says some secrets are better left buried, so she was probably buried alive, Alison DiLaurentis style. Anna asks Ingrid what she wants, and her aunt says she just wants a family who will love her for who she is-gay, magical, and cleavagy-and that Anna is the odd woman out now. Ingrid just needs to find someone to take her place.

Present-day Elsa shows up at the sheriff’s station with a book that listed Ingrid as Elsa’s aunt. Hook makes a joke about everyone in this town being related by blood or marriage, just before things get even more twisty: The picture of Helga looks exactly like Emma. Elsa sees the scroll Emma found and reads it, saying that it prophesies a Savior that will become Ingrid’s sister. Belle interrupts the family tree climb to confess her whole Anna story to Elsa, and that the Snow Queen has a magic mirror that’s part of a spell called Shattered Sight, which will turn everyone in town against each other. Emma and Elsa know they’ll be spared, though, because they know Ingrid’s true motive now: She wants her own perfect, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, magical gay family and she will stop at nothing to get it. It’s like Criminal Magical Minds up in here.

What did you think of “Family Business”?

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

 

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