TV

“Once Upon A Time” recap (4.20): The Lily Means “I Dare You to Love Me”

Previously on Once Upon A Time, BabyGay Emma met a girl named Lily and they had an incredibly true adventure of two girls in love, Zelena revealed herself to be both alive and posing as Marian, Regina was forced to choose between Robin Hood and Emma but refused to do so and found a way to keep them both, and Emma killed Cruella de Vil.

A long, long time ago, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice goes to see his boss, who looks like Cloud!Mufasa and Zordon from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The Apprentice confesses that the author is being a terrible writer and making everyone’s story worse than it was, and mentions that he may or may not have shoved two people’s worth of darkness into a tiny human and shipped them off to an untold hell dimension. He assures the Sorcerer that the author is locked between the pages of a book now, forced only to record stories, but the Sorcerer stresses the importance of him never being free to mess with fate again.

Cut to present-day Storybrooke, where the Author is being recruited to do just that. The Author and Gold lower Cruella’s casket into the ground, and Gold says she was a worthy sacrifice for their endgame of turning Emma dark. In fact, it already seems to be working, since Emma is lurking nearby looking like a bonafide psychopath.

Emma goes back to the Charming Loft, pissed. She is seething, but she says it’s with anger and regret, not darkness. She wants to stop Gold and the Author, and she wants to do it now. Maleficent pops by and says she’s heard Emma has a particular set of skills, and while she thinks the whole human-lie-detector thing sounds suspect, she could use her bail bondsperson people-finding skills to find her daughter. Mary Margaret and David are blown away by the fact that the baby survived, but Emma has no time for their emotions and asks Maleficent what she knows about her daughter. Mal says all she knows is that her daughter was banished 30 years ago, was in Minnesota, and was named Lilith by her adoptive parents. Emma can’t believe her ears and rushes off to confirm what she thinks she knows. She finds the baptism announcement in the paper, complete with star-shaped birthmark, and know it’s her Lily.

Flashback Emma, ever in her flannel shirt, is excitedly packing for a camping trip with her foster family. She goes into the garage to get a sleeping bag and hears a noise. Her first instinct is to grab a bat, but luckily she didn’t start blindly swinging, because it was Lily hiding in the corner. She says she’s in trouble and didn’t know where else to go, because once Emma said they’d be friends forever, and Lily is really banking on that kind of hospitality now. When Emma’s foster parents catch them in the garage, Lily lies as easy as breathing, saying she got placed in a foster home nearby and came to surprise her friend.

Present-day Regina is amused at fate’s weirdness, bringing the friend Emma told her about resurfacing, and as Maleficent’s daughter no less.

Regina gets it, she’s been there; she adopted the son of the daughter of the reason she was evil in the first place.

Regina says, since she has to go to New York, and Emma has to find Lily, why don’t they make an adventure of it? It takes a little nudging-actually, no, it takes Regina tells Emma that she needs her-but finally Emma agrees to go on what will henceforth be known as the SwanQueen Road Trip. Regina says they’re going to beat fate together.

Henry says goodbye to his moms, and Hook tells Emma to hold on to something to help her stay on the good path, the way he used her to stay on his. She’s going with Regina, though, so she knows she’ll be just fine. Regina has the Snow Queen’s scroll so they can get back into Storybrooke without a hitch, and Emma has Lily’s last known address, so they’re ready to roll. What’s weird about the address, though, is that it’s from five years ago, and about 30 minutes from where Emma lived at that time. Knowing now that their fates really were intertwined, Emma regrets pushing her away more than ever. Regina asks her what happened, exactly, but Emma just starts the car.

Flashback to dinner with Emma’s foster family, where Lily eyes the chore wheel while passing more lies with the mashed potatoes. She tells the family that her and Emma were meant to be together, and Emma drags Lily into the kitchen so fast she almost dislocates her shoulder. She hisses at her that she can’t just out her to a new family like that, and she certainly can’t lie to them for her. Their fight is interrupted by a news report that shows two suspects in an armed robbery and one of them has Lily’s big beautiful eyes poking out from behind a ski mask.

Present-day Emma finds Lily’s old address and it is in shambles. Regina is horrified; Storybrooke was the best she could come up with for a torturous existence, she had no idea somewhere worse already existed. Emma finds the landlord and asks about Lilith Page, but he said she’s been dead for years, and that she was probably the only one looking for her. Lily was weird, a loner. Emma launches herself at him but Regina pulls her off him just before he gets socked.

Regina gently asks if Emma is okay, in a tone of voice that could have calmed the wildest beast, and looks worriedly after her as she stalks back out to her yellow bug.

Back in Storybrooke, Gold catches up to Will Scarlet and asks him to steal Belle’s heart back from Regina, saying it’s being guarded in the mayor’s office by Maleficent. And by ask I mean he orders him to do it, or else.

Regina asks about Emma’s outburst, but the Savior chalks it up to mourning a friend. Emma feels responsible; Lily got an unfair amount of darkness, darkness that was meant to be shared between them.

Emma almost crashes the car when a wolf trots in front of her car, and for half a second I thought it would transform into Ruby so she could say “JUST KISS ALREADY AND ALSO TAKE ME TO BELLE” but alas, sometimes a wolf is just a wolf. Emma thinks it’s an awfully strange coincidence, but Regina suggests they just need a new tire and some coffee.

Emma orders two coffees and some Advil and is surprised to see a star-shaped birthmark pouring the coffee. Emma looks up, confused, at this girl whose nametag says Starla. First of all, she just learned Lily was dead. Second of all, Regina just pointed out that this would be one hell of a coincidence if there was something or someone important in this particular coffee shop, and third of all, the Lily she knew as a child was Latina and this woman looks pretty white.

Speaking of little Latina Lily, flashback Emma FLIPS OUT on her, but Lily insists that it was her boyfriend’s idea, that she got caught up in it, that somehow everything she does blows up in her face. She asks Emma to get her necklace from her birth mother from her boyfriend’s place and Emma agrees on one condition: Lily leaves for good as soon as she gets back.

Present-day Emma follows Starla outside and calls her Lily, and mentions the store where they met. Lily is surprised it’s Emma, and even more surprised she found her post-mortem. Emma says it was fate, that she knows it sounds insane, but Lily used to say it all the time, that they were drawn together like magnets in this wild and crazy universe. Emma says all the bad stuff in Lily’s life might be indirectly her fault, but Lily says she has a husband and a daughter now and hardly ever thinks of Emma at all anymore.

Regina comes back from the tire shop and says it looks like Emma didn’t ruin Lily’s life after all, but what looks like a mother and daughter from where they stand is actually Lily bribing a girl who is a regular at her diner to forget everything she learned about Stranger Danger and come with her.

Mary Margaret and David go to see Maleficent, saying they forgot to ask for her forgiveness, even though they might as well have murdered her baby that one time. Maleficent says it’s Lilith they’ll have apologize to, and considering she’s been stewing in darkness, alone, for 30 years, who says she’ll be in a forgiving mood when they find her?

Emma had swiped Lily’s address from the restaurant, because her lie detector is having a good day, and she’s determined to help her old friend in a way she didn’t when they were young.

Flashback Emma goes to Lily’s boyfriend’s place and it’s just an empty squatter building. She finds the moon pendant and sneaks out, but when she tries to find Lily again, her foster parents comes in and bust her. They tell her Lily stole all their vacation money and is a wanted criminal and they are not pleased. They accuse her of putting their family in danger, and Emma can feel the exclusivity of their tone, so Emma runs.

Present-day Emma breaks into Lily’s apartment with Regina, where they find a classic murderboard; red string, candid photos, scribbled clues, the words. Lily knows everything, and she wants revenge.

While inside, they hear the yellow buggy start up and drive away. Regina says the scroll is still in the car, so Emma steals a nearby sports car and they zip off on a SwanQueen Car Chase.

In Storybrooke, Gold chats with Maleficent in the doorway of the mayor’s office like a vampire who isn’t invited to come inside. Gold says maybe Lilith can drag Emma down the wrong path like they wanted, that maybe they will-and I quote-“entangle themselves” if they meet again. Maleficent hasn’t decided where she lands on the SwanQueen/StarSwan ship front yet, but before she can start processing her feels, she sees Will Scarlet darting out of the window with Belle’s heart.

During the car chase, Regina tries to reason with Emma, because she sees a glimmer of anger in her eyes that she remembers all too well from her days of being the Evil Queen. But Emma isn’t ready to hear it, and says there are no “heroes” and “villains” in the real world. It’s just hardly ever that simple.

Teenage Emma is sitting at a bus stop when Lily strolls up, looking pretty proud of herself, and telling Emma there’s no need to thank her for setting her free. Emma is dumbfounded; she wanted the boring life or chore wheels and camping trips that Lily was running from. Lily doesn’t understand, because the moment they found out the truth about Emma, they turned on her. (Isn’t this the lesson we learned while Elsa and the Snow Queen were around? Are we recycling attempts at darkness?) Lily tells Emma that her adoptive parents kicked her out because no matter what she did, she was always finding herself in trouble, even when she made good choices. Lily says her whole life is darkness, but when Emma’s around, things seem brighter.

But Emma is done helping Lily. She’s done helping everyone. Emma Swan has decided she’s better off alone.

Grown-up Emma and Regina easily catch up to Lily in the rundown beetle, and Emma pulls a Fast & Furious move to get in front of her. Emma tells Lily she knows Lily found out about everything, and Lily yells that Emma screwed her over when she was a fetus and that her idiot parents ruined her whole damn life for no damn reason! As soon as Lily mentions Emma’s parents, though, she tackles Lily and they start to tussle. But Emma has a gun, so she ends up standing over her long lost friend, pointing the barrel straight at her unfamiliar face.

Lily thinks this is hilarious. She says she’s hard-wired for bad decisions, that of course a gun is pointed at her head, because if there’s a bad thing that could happen, it happens to her. Lily tells Emma to just end it, end it now, but Regina tiptoes closer to be the voice of reason Emma needs right now. Regina says that killing Lily will only make things worse, that it will be playing right into Gold’s hands, and would be very hard to come back from. Trust her, she knows. Regina looks at the other mother of her child and says, “Emma, you’re better than this.” But Emma holds her pose.

And I’m not even going to lie to you, for the length of a heartbeat, with the camera pulled out to reveal only three silhouettes, with the music building then coming to a stop, I actually thought they were going to go there. I could hear the space where the gunshot wanted to be, wanted to ring out and echo down the highway around them. But at the last moment, Emma slowly lowers her gun.

Young Lily is on a bus to Pennsylvania when a man sits down besides her. We know it’s the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but she doesn’t know him from Adam, so she’s understandably wary as he calls her by name and tells her that he has answers as to who she is and why she has never felt totally in control of her own fate. He says he’s partially responsible for this pain, and that he feels enough guilt to try to help her if he can. Starting with the necklace, and who her birth mother is.

Present-day Lily and Emma are sitting together, coming down from the high of the adrenaline rush that comes with almost killing and being killed. Lily asks why Emma didn’t go through with it, why she didn’t kill the Anti-Savior, but Emma doesn’t like when Lily says that.

Regina comes and says they have to get to NYC right now because her leverage over Gold fell out a window, so Emma reaches out her hand and pulls Lily to her feet, saying she’s not going to push her away this time.

In Storybrooke, Will brings Belle her heart. Gold stops in just to say he’s taking a step back, and that he’s leaving her heart in Will’s hands.

In New York, Robin welcomes Regina to his apartment with a surprised hug. Marian is out, so Regina tries to explain that Marian hasn’t been Marian for quite some time now. Robin still doesn’t understand by the time Marian comes back with groceries. Regina starts yelling at her sister, but Robin thinks she’s having a jealous ex-girlfriend rage. But Zelena decides there’s more fun to be had so she uses her necklace to switch back to her true form and suddenly Robin is properly confused. And somehow his properly confused face looks even more confused than his normal face of perpetual confusion.

Lily, too, is confused, and Emma is like, “Oh right that’s magic, and honestly watching someone transform into someone else is going to be nothing compared to how you’ll feel when people start calling themselves by the names of fictional characters you’ve been reading about/watching in movies your whole life. For example, right now in front of us we have Robin Hood, Maid Marian, the Wicked Witch of the West, and the Evil Queen.”

Regina tells Robin to get Roland and let’s go, but Robin says he’s not going anywhere, because Zelena is pregnant.

Which I would like to discuss this for a moment. In this week’s episode of Orphan Black, there was a scene that made me write this sentence in my recap, which I find applicable here, though I’ve had to change the pronoun: The conditions with which he agreed to have sex changed, therefore making previous consent void and requiring new consent. Robin Hood consented to having sex with Maid Marian, but he was tricked into having sex with Zelena. That’s rape. And while I was able to just deem it icky when I thought it was just kissing, if Robin believes she could be pregnant, sex happened.

Which listen, if they want to have a rape storyline to really villainize Zelena, that’s fine-let’s do it, let’s talk about how purely evil what she did was, let’s talk about how super not okay with it everyone should be, let’s make it an open conversation about how men can get raped too, and how rape doesn’t always look like a stranger jumping through the window and forcing themselves on someone. But don’t ignore it and have Robin Hood be like *shrug* it’s okay I still love her because I have honor. And don’t you dare tell me that there are no LGBT characters/relationships on this show because it’s a “family show” ever again. In two episodes there have been two brutal murders and one sexual assault. Having Mulan and Aurora be in love and raising Aurora’s baby together because Prince Philip left Aurora for some bitch named Melissa Hastings wouldn’t even come close to being in that category.

Here’s to hoping they handle this storyline with some decorum. End rant.

What did you think of “Lily”? (The episode as a whole and the character herself.)

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

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button