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“Once Upon a Time” recap (4.19): De Vil’s in the Details

Previously on Once Upon A Time, the Author was released from his book jail and David and Mary Margaret realized they knew him from that one time they tried to kill a baby, and Regina found out Rumpelstiltskin wanted to turn Emma dark and Regina vowed to protect the Savior’s heart.

We begin with a little blonde girl running through the forest away from an angry dalmatian. Another one appears in her path and she finds herself surrounded. A woman arrives and calls off the dogs, demanding the girl to come home. It turns out this woman is her mother, and she intends on making a few changes now that little Cruella’s father is gone. She intends to lock her in her room like a dog in a cage.

Present day Cruella is confronted by Maleficent, who demands to know what happened to her child, since Cruella had lead her to believe the baby didn’t survive the trip from the Enchanted Forest. Cruella says oh yes I forgot to mention I sort of left your baby in the woods to die. Cruella and Ursula kept the dragon egg, which conveniently and randomly enough is the explanation for why they still look the same age after 30 years, but they left the kid. Angry, Maleficent turns into a dragon, and Cruella immediately puts her to sleep. Because apparently in the unspecified number of years they’ve known each other, that’s never happened before, not even as a joke. Cruella says she’s finally going to get her moment in the sun, now that the author is in Storybrooke.

Emma is fighting with her parents about them being horrible people when Regina comes in, exasperated. She tells Emma she’ll tell her about her horrible day later in bed, but for now she has to go to New York because Maid Marian has actually been Zelena all this time and for some reason she feels the need to save Robin Hood. (I would have felt better if she had said ‘and Roland’ at least once.) As for Gold, she has a plan for him.

Regina goes to Gold’s shop and warns Belle that Rumple is up to his old tricks again. Belle asks how she can help and Regina knows just the thing.

The Author tells Gold that his name is Isaac and Gold tells him of his plan to turn the Savior dark. When the Author asks why on earth he would want to do that, he says it will make everything else he wants fall into place. The Author weirdly sniffs Cruella’s coat and before he can spin a story about not knowing everyone from his stories, Rumple poofs away.

He poofed because Belle was calling for him by saying his name three times. She asks him what he’s up to, and he rips out his own heart and shows her how it’s mostly black now. There’s only a tiny glimmer of red left, and only the Author can fix it. Belle gives him a sob story about worrying that she threw out the chipped cup too soon, and Rumple kisses her. But then Belle says Will is a better kisser and calls him pathetic.

Rumple is confused because Belle would never talk to him that way, and then Regina skips out of the woods with Belle’s heart in her hand, enjoying being quasi-evil for the greater good. She sends Belle away and uses her heart as leverage, saying she’s about to go to New York to find Zelena, and Rumple better not try anything, because the second he crosses her, Belle’s heart is going to be crushed.

Cruella goes into Gold’s cabin and greets Isaac like she’s known him quite some time. She growls at him and demands he give back what she took, even threatens him with her dogs, but Isaac isn’t afraid, he knows he can’t hurt him. She appreciates his confidence, and tries the purring attempt instead. When that doesn’t work either, she threatens to skin him and leaves.

A young Cruella is in her hidey hole, listening to a song, when an old familiar tune starts to play.

Her mother bursts in and takes her radio away, demanding she stay in her room and obey the rules.

Isaac shows up at the door looking for a story, and Cruella’s mother is the best dog trainer there ever was. He notices portraits on the wall and she says they are of her late husbands and tells him to go write his own story instead of poaching them. On his way out the door, Cruella gets his attention from her window. Somehow, despite being stories away, she had heard the whole conversation and says she has a story for him if only he’ll break her out.

In Storybrooke, Henry sees Pongo on the sidewalk and talks to him like he’s people. When Pongo runs off, Henry follows him, but it was a trap laid by Cruella, and the boy is kidnapped. Who let him wander off on his own, I’ll never know. (Henry, not Pongo.)

Young Cruella is sitting in her room when she hears a rock hit her window. She looks out and sees a key on the windowsill, and uses it to sneak out. She asks Isaac to take her somewhere loud in his cool car, so they go to a flappers club. Cruella tells him her story, about how she has been locked away so she wouldn’t tell anyone that her mother killed her husbands. Cruella’s song comes on and she asks him to dance, happy to be free.

Emma doesn’t want Regina to go alone to New York, but Regina says this is something she has to do alone. Emma is worried that Regina won’t be able to properly defend herself, and says if she won’t take Emma with her, at least take her gun.

Regina asks why Emma isn’t mad at her, but Emma knows Regina was trying to help. Both of their phones go off at the same time and they receive a video message from Henry and Cruella; kill the author, or Henry becomes a satchel. Cruella might be evil, but she knows Henry has two mommies.

Rumple returns to his cabin and tells Isaac he knows he knew Cruella, and says Cruella kidnapped Henry, and demands to know what the Author wrote about Cruella. Isaac smirks his mischievous smirk and hands Rumple the page.

Flashback Cruella and Isaac dance out the last song. She kisses him on the cheek and he decides he doesn’t want the night to end, so he says he wants to show her something. He pulls out his magic quill and ink and admits he doesn’t collect stories for a local paper, but across realms. For example, in a different realm, Cruella’s name is Lady Jayne and she’s a vampire hunter. This realm in particular is located “out of time” because even the Authors of this show don’t know what their timeline looks like. Isaac says he can do more than just collect stories though…he can manipulate them. He proves it by writing her a necklace and a pair of earrings to match. She wants to try but he warns her not to spill the ink which means in about ten minutes someone will. He wants to run away with her, so he uses his quill to give Cruella the power to control animals so she can face her mother.

He gives her his car and she gives him a perfumed napkin in return.

In present-day Storybrooke, David recognizes the tree behind Henry in the video and knows where they are. Regina is ready to turn Cruella into a raincoat, and doesn’t know why everyone looks at her like it’s a ridiculous proposition, since it’s Emma’s heart they’re trying to protect, not hers. Literally she says that. That she’s protecting Emma’s heart. Emma passes out assignments, giving herself one that does not involve either of her parents, because she still doesn’t’ trust them and she’s not afraid to say it.

In the forest, Regina tells Emma to get over it, and Emma says she’s not likely to take forgiveness advice to someone who wreaked havoc on an entire realm because a ten year old messed up. Hook is like, “I’m the worst though, so why do you keep me around?” and she’s like “You give good eyeliner tips and also at least you never pretended to be good.” She says Regina didn’t either; what made Mary Margaret and David’s betrayal worse is that they were parading with their smug holier-than-thou attitudes when they had once kidnapped and almost murdered a baby.

There’s a part in Kate Millett‘s book Flying (which I admit I haven’t read, but it was quoted in Alison Bechdel‘s Fun Home) that goes like this: “She frankly wants to be heroic. ‘Admit it, you do too,’ she says. I do sometimes. Not now. Now it just seems deluded. Because she has said it out loud.” The first thing I thought about was Mary Margaret and David. Calling yourself a hero doesn’t a hero make.

Regina tells Emma that Mary Margaret and David have been trying to make up for their mistake for a long time, but Emma isn’t ready to make nice.

Meanwhile, also in the woods, Cruella is playing Angry Birds and getting frustrated because they’re the first animals she’s come across in a long time that won’t do her bidding. While she’s distracted, Henry finds a conveniently located shard of glass and escapes his bonds. Cruella sends Pongo after him.

Flashback to Cruella’s mother having her dogs track Cruella’s scent to Isaac’s hotel room. He tells her he knows her secret, but Mama de Vil says it was Cruella who killed her own father, and her second and third husband, too. When Mama leaves, Isaac doesn’t believe her, until he realizes his quill and ink are gone.

Cruella finds her mother and uses her new power to teach her mother’s dogs to kill and turns the animals back on their owner.

Present-day Henry runs from Pongo shouting for help, and his two Moms and Hook split up to find him. Emma gets to him first and finds Cruella and Henry standing on the edge of a cliff. Cruella holds the gun to Henry’s head and warns Emma not to come any closer or she’ll shoot.

Flashback Cruella is working maniacally on her sewing machine when Isaac shows up. He cautiously asks where her mother is, and Cruella says she’s dead, and the dogs are, too. She holds up her trademark dalmatian-patterned coat. She tells Isaac that some people fight the darkness, but some people dive into it like it’s a cold pool on a hot summer’s day.

Isaac spots his quill and ink and sprints over to it, but Cruella grabs it, too, and it spills all over her. It stains her hair black and white, thickens her eyebrows and permanently stains her eyelids.

I think also what it did was bring her true character to the surface, because even her voice is harder now. With the bit of ink he still has, Isaac writes something on a small piece of paper, rendering her unable to pull the trigger of her gun.

Present-day, in Gold’s cabin, Rumple realizes that what Isaac had written was that Cruella cannot take a life, so Henry’s in no real danger. But she doesn’t know that, so Emma is likely about to kill Cruella, because she has no idea, she’s defenseless.

Emma threatens Cruella on the cliffside, and Cruella thinks she’s bluffing, but Emma uses her magic to send that fur-loving lady right over the edge. Mary Margaret and David show up too late, Cruella is hella dead and Emma is looking not so great.

Though if killing the woman with a gun to her son’s head turns Emma’s heart dark, after all the absurd things everyone on this show has done, I’m going to probably go dark myself.

What did you think of “Sympathy for the De Vil”?

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

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