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“Once Upon a Time” recap (4.10): Calm Before the Storm

Previously on Once Upon A Time, Ingrid froze Anna and Kristoff after tricking Anna into trapping Elsa in the magical urn, Gold stole Hook’s heart as part of his mission to get divorced from the Dark One’s dagger, and Madame Scoops cast the Spell of Shattered Sight so she can shake things up and have Elsa and Emma all to herself.

In Storybrooke Forest, Madame Scoops is watching the Spell of Shattered Heterosexuality-er, I mean Sight wash over the land. Gold shows up beside her, and compliments her on a job well done.

The spell will hit at sundown and will bring out the darkness in everyone so they will tear each other limb from limb like rabid wolves. Gold knows that there’s a way to pick and choose who is affected by this curse, since he’s sure Emma and Elsa will be spared, and threatens her into putting Belle and Henry under the same shatter-proof umbrella.

Every growing Team Charming uses binoculars to check out the spell cloud rolling in, conveniently visible and moving at a controlled pace. Regina calculates its ETA as sundown and Emma has a simple plan: Get the hell out of dodge before sundown. Of course, it would never be that easy, and the ice wall is still standing strong along the border of Storybrooke. David decides to try to climb it, but as soon as he strikes it with his ice pick, it sprouts new icy stalagmites sprout up like new heads on a decapitated hydra.

In the new ice rubble, Elsa finds Anna’s necklace buried in the snow, and takes it as a good sign. Regina rolls her eyes and fears this “hope” thing is spreading like a disease. Emma runs with it and starts giving people tasks. She wisely puts her parents in charge of the one thing they probably can’t mess up: telling people to get as far from their loved ones as possible. Hook is to see if they can escape by boat. Regina is going to warn Robin Hood and his Merry Men (still sans Mulan) and plans on taking Henry with him, but Emma protests. Elsa points out that Emma and her are immune to the spell, but Regina points out that this means the blondes are the Ice Queen’s main focus. This wins her custody of Henry for the duration of the episode.

Emma and Elsa go to visit Belle, who is still not allowed to come out and play, but has been at least useful in her captivity. She found a possible vaccine for the Spell of Shattered Sight, but it would require someone who has already been through it. Conveniently, Anna has been under and survived the curse. Inconveniently, they still have no idea where she is. Elsa cheerfully holds out Anna’s necklace; she is already a professional at using a locator spell, so she now knows how to find her sister.

Now that they’re closer to actually finding her, Emma points out what we thought they all forgot: Emma was time traveling when she accidentally brought the urn back to Storybrooke; 30 years will have passed for Anna during what felt like a few weeks (days? months?) to Elsa. Elsa doesn’t care if her sister is a 90-year-old grandmother, she just wants Anna back.

In Arendelle, Anna and Kristoff melt and realize that the urn is gone, which means Elsa is gone. She finds some golden straw on the ground, since apparently Rumpelstiltskin is new at the whole “don’t leave clues behind” thing, and knows the Dark One is involved somehow. Before they can say Rumpelstiltskin three times, the door bursts open and Hans and his brothers stroll in, singing of treason and claiming that he’s the rightful king now. Kristoff and Anna offer their arms for handcuffs but as soon as the brutes are an arm’s length away, they start kicking ass and taking names.

They eventually best Hans and his crew and run off.

Back in Storybrooke, Gold tells his heart-puppet what he wants him to do before the curse hits: Go to Granny’s and use the magic hat to suck up all the fairies’ powers so he will have enough power to divorce the dagger and flee town. He’s to do this as soon as Gold gets Belle out of the diner, and Hook knows that this means there will be no cure for the rest of Storybrooke. Hook doesn’t like the sound of it, but knows he has no choice but to comply.

Across town, Elsa and Emma follow Anna’s necklace like a compass and it leads them to the library. She’s confused, since she’s already been in this library, but Emma tells her that this library/clocktower combo also has a secret underground mine cave thing going on. They follow the necklace down a few tunnels until they come to a wall. Elsa is ready to snow-blast it open, but Emma is still paying for making her girlfriend jealous from the last time they were trapped in a cave together, huddling together for warmth. Emma says they have to find a better, safer way.

In Arendelle, Anna tells Kristoff that their options are to find the evil wizard and demand her sister back, or find a probably-evil pirate and buy a Wishing Star to will her sister back. Kristoff chooses pirate and they go off to meet Blackbeard, who pretends to make a deal with them for the Wishing Star. However, the whole thing was a trap, and Hans shows up, laughing his cocky laugh and telling Anna that there’s nothing she can do to stop him, even though she is technically acting Queen.

Grumpy tells Team Charming that the dwarves can hi-ho through the wall in the mine, but it will take a few hours; hours, Regina points out, they don’t have.

David tells them that the fairies can make the antidote from Anna’s necklace, but they would have to destroy it, thus taking away Elsa’s only way to find her sister. Regina doesn’t think this is a difficult decision: Let a woman she doesn’t know stay lost or save a whole town from going all Hunger Games on each other? While the Evil Queen may have delighted at the thought of the latter option, Regina is ready to hand the necklace over. Emma wants to be able to shout, “Just this once, everybody lives!” at the end of this battle, but Regina tells her to save the roleplaying for the bedroom and reminds her that to be a good hero you first have to be a great leader. Emma knows what she has to do and goes to tell Elsa what they had decided. Elsa nods in understanding, hands over the pouch, and slips out the door before anyone realizes she still has the necklace.

Emma brings the pouch to the diner, but when the Blue Fairy empties it into her hand, pebbles fall out. Regina scoffs and says she should know better than to trust blondes, because the whole thing with Ice Swan making magic together really grinds her gears. Belle says it’s too late, that even if they went back to find Elsa and get the necklace, they wouldn’t have enough time to make the antidote before the spell arrived. Regina makes a sassy remark about blind faith and cockeyed optimism, but not even Mary Margaret can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, which actually throws Regina for a bit of a loop. Emma decides to go help Elsa look for Anna, since they’re out of options.

Either Emma uses her magic to teleport or Elsa got lost on the way, because Emma finds Elsa just as she’s about to burst through the wall, despite her epic head start. Unable or unwilling to stop her, Emma watches as Elsa ice blasts the wall down, and on the other side, inexplicably, is a beach. An empty beach. An Anna-less beach. Emma assures her that magic isn’t always perfect, and Elsa starts to let herself worry about the fate of her sister.

Anna and Kristoff, cuffed by Hans, find out from Blackbeard that Anna and Elsa’s parents had the Wishing Star all along; when Anna wonders aloud why they didn’t use it to wish Elsa’s powers away, Blackbeard says that it only works for people with pure hearts, because of course it does. And I don’t know much about the former King of Arendelle besides his flawed “conceal don’t feel” method of dealing with emotions, but I sure know that Gerta has a splotch or two on her heart. Hans mocks them for their poorness, but Anna and Kristoff are as cheeky as ever, even in the face of death. Hans and Blackbeard put them in a trunk, and during the Villain Monologue, Hans mentions that Anna’s search for her sister was futile anyway, they had all been frozen for thirty years. They shove the trunk overboard, and it lands on the bottom of the ocean, right next to Gerta’s message in a bottle.

At the bottom of the ocean, water slowly filling their trunk, Kristoff uses a nail to break free of his ropes and starts to untie Anna. She starts saying her vows because if she’s going to die she wants to do it with her husband, but Kristoff promises they won’t die down there. Meanwhile I have FitzSimmons PTSD flashbacks.

On the shores of Storybrooke’s mystery beach, the light goes out on Anna’s necklace, and Elsa officially starts to mourn her sister. She doesn’t care about the curse anymore, she will welcome the vicious attacks, because she failed her darling Anna and she’ll never know what happened to her.

Elsa whispers her apologies into the necklace and gains some of her resolve back; until the day she is murdered by a mob with torches and pitchforks, she will not give up hope. She just wishes she had her sister with her now. As soon as she utters this wish, the necklace starts to glow. Elsa and Emma are knocked over by a blinding flash of light.

Anna and Kristoff’s trunk flashes out of the ocean, and when they tumble out, Anna sees her sister standing on the beach. Anna and Elsa run to each other, yelling and beaming and overjoyed, talking over each other in excitement. Emma interrupts the family reunion by saying they have to get Anna to the fairies to stop the spell and Anna looks at her like, “A) I don’t know you and B) I don’t have magic so C) what the hell are you talking about?”

Elsa says she has one important thing she has to do before they go, and if she wasn’t related to Anna she surely would have planted one on her, but instead they go for the totally appropriate sisterly hug.

At Granny’s, Gold sneaks Belle out and off to safety, which is Hook’s cue to use the magic hat to absorb the powers of all the fairies in the diner.

Unaware that they are too little too late, Emma and Elsa lead Anna and Kristoff to Granny’s, trying to give them the Cliff’s Notes version of the season so far on the way. Anna is trying to pay attention but can’t help but be distracted by the “funny-looking” world her sister is leading her through.

When they get to Granny’s, they see it in ruins, and know they’re too late. Now that they have no cure for the spell, there’s only one thing left to do: Batten down the hatches and prepare for the worst.

Gold locks Belle away and she is un-phased because this has been a recurring theme of her life. Hook returns with the hatbox, having done what the Dark One commanded, but Gold isn’t ready to set him free yet. He’ll do that tomorrow. And by set him free I mean kill him.

At the Sheriff”s Station, David reunites with his old pal Kristoff and his lovely bride, Joan. Anna smiles sheepishly but is back to her old self when she questions how Mary Margaret is Emma’s mother if they look about the same age. Emma says she’ll draw her a family tree after the hiatus, but for now they have some apocalypse prep to tend to.

But her parents have been busy while she was out; they already have a plan. They hand her the keys to the jail cells and tell her to lock everyone up. They are 100% confident that Emma will pull through on her Savior duties. They just have to make sure they can’t hurt each other, so they’ll make themselves as safe as a werewolf during the full moon (Ruuuuubyyyyyy) and wait for the storm to pass.

Mary Margaret gives Emma baby Neal and once again assures Emma and Elsa that they’ll be alright, because they’re special. Elsa is a little jealous, and tells Emma she’s lucky to have such great parents, which proves how seriously deprived of decent parent figures she was. With everyone behind lock and key, Anna is ready for another adventure. She’s first on my list for my Apocalypse Team, because she’s resourceful AND plucky.

Regina locks Henry in her old office and promises him that he’ll be safe, but he’s not worried about it. He’s as sure as his grandparents that Emma and Elsa will fix this, and Regina knows some things must be nature not nurture, because she’s not nearly so confident. She tells him that she loves him, hoping it won’t be the last time, before sealing the room with a spell.

She then goes to her vault and seals herself in with a similar spell, though unless she put like a 24-hour timer on it that not even she can break, there’s not much she can do to stop herself once the darkness settles in.

As the Spell of Shattered Sight finally arrives in Storybrooke, the Snow Queen is still hanging out in the forest, reveling in her own magic.

The sky shatters and everyone has GLASS IN THEIR HAIR and since they all look directly up at the falling shards of glass, they also have GLASS IN THEIR EYES. With a crack, the darkness sets in, and the dopey looks David and Mary Margaret were exchanging a moment ago turn into angry glares.

Some mushy stuff happens between the two idiots right before the spell hits, but this is what I wrote in my recap notes: “David and Mary Margaret are so cocky about their love making them immune to all this, I can’t wait to see them fight with each other next week.” It’s going to be mayhem and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited. Also: Return of the Evil Queen (read: Evil Cleavage)!

What did you think of “Fall”?

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