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“Once Upon A Time” recap (4.21): Mother of Dragons

Previously on Once Upon A Time, Regina’s mother killed her first love, Maleficent found out her daughter is alive and was Emma’s childhood friend, Zelena posed as Marian to get impregnated by Robin Hood to ruin Regina’s life, and all of a sudden everyone became obsessed with Happy Endings and Heroes vs. Villains and other things that were previously subtle nuances of the show but now is being shouted across town lines.

We begin a long, long time ago (or three months ago; you never know with this show) in the Enchanted Forest, where the Evil Queen is on a rampage. She finds people getting married on her property and rips the groom’s heart out. (Literally, not just because of her Evil Cleavage.) She might have put it back, but her father mentioned she might be overreacting because of what day it is and this pisses her off enough to kill the groom.

She leaves her father carriage-less and goes to Daniel’s grave, where she’s furious to find Cora, out of the looking glass and into Regina’s personal circle of hell.

Present-day, Robin Hood and Regina are trying to process everything that just happened. Robin is most concerned about poor Roland; if this doesn’t give the kid mommy issues, nothing will. Regina suggests a forgetting potion, so the kid will think he’s five when he’s seven, but at least he won’t remember all the time he spent with his fake mother. Regina feels bad about all this, since Zelena’s #1 motivation in life is making Regina miserable, but Robin Hood says she didn’t necessarily succeed. Things are just…complicated right now. Regina feels stupid for ever feeling hopeful, for ever thinking she can be happy, no strings attached.

Emma and Lily look through Neal’s old things and Lily asks about him; Emma says he was a lot of things, but it doesn’t matter what, because he’s dead now.

When Zelena is almost amused about the time she killed him, Emma launches at her but Zelena pretends to feel her baby kick to keep her at bay. Before Emma can turn her into a flying monkey, Regina storms in and tells everyone to pack up, they’re going to Storybrooke. Now.

In Storybrooke, Hook trots into Granny’s and sidles into a booth with Gold and the Author. He gloats that Emma’s on her way back and isn’t evil at all, which means Hook will get his happy ending and Gold won’t, because he needs Emma’s dark blood for the ink to work.

Gold is getting desperate, his heart fading fast, so he poofs himself and the Author off to make a plan.

When the crew arrives from New York, everyone is waiting in the streets of Storybrooke, Maleficent looking the most excited/expectant.

When Lily gets out of the car, she almost launches herself right at Mary Margaret and David, but unfortunately Emma steers her past them to meet her mother instead. Emma introduces Lily to Maleficent, Maleficent to her long lost daughter. Lily looks almost shy, a little outside her usual range of cold indifference to white-hot anger. Maleficent is overjoyed.

Flashback to Regina yelling at Cora for showing up at Daniel’s grave on Daniel’s death’s anniversary. Cora tells Regina that she’s proud of who Regina has become while she was in Wonderland. Regina has beauty, strength, and power; all she needs now is love. Regina thought her mother believed love was a weakness but Cora knows better now. Cora says she met Tinkerbelle (who is looking a little pale these days) who told her about Regina’s soulmate. Cora wants to help Regina find him. With absolutely no ulterior motive. Nope, just pure motherly love here.

In Storybrooke, Regina slaps a magic-blocking cuff on Zelena and tosses her in Lacey’s insane asylum. They’re both using the giddy sarcastic voices of someone who thinks they’ve won. Zelena knows the baby inside her means they’re connected forever.

Regina asks why she’s so damn cocky and Zelena says she knows Robin Hood could never love someone who murdered his baby mama because he’s honorable to a fault. But Regina isn’t afraid of her wicked sister and seals her in with magic.

Regina goes to Gold’s shop and finds him looking rather sickly. Regina knows his heart is dying, but also knows the Dark One can’t die; Gold says that Rumpelstiltskin still can, and the Dark One without a host will not be pretty. But all Regina needs is her happy ending, then she won’t care about the Dark One and his dealings. He shows her the quill and suggests they work together, but she plucks it from his weak grasp, grabs the Author, and poofs away with a “Goodbye, dearie.”

In long-ago times, Cora goes into a pub and meets the Sheriff of Nottingham, who tells her the man she seeks is an annoying nogoodnik named Robin Hood who’s married anyway. The Sheriff offers to help her, for a price, and Cora is delighted by his wickedness.

The Author explains to Regina that the energy of Emma’s potential for darkness has to charge the ink for it to work, but Emma’s not dark, so they’re stuck. The Author says she’s his favorite character he’s written about, so he hopes she can figure it out, he’d love to write her a happy ending. Regina shows him the page of her and Robin’s alternate future and the Author agrees that, while strange and inexplicable, it does seem to suggest happiness is possible, that someone is looking out for her.

Regina is annoyed the Author’s general unhelpfulness but she already has an idea of how to make that magic ink work.

Cut to Lily, she who technically currently harbors all of Emma’s potential for darkness. Subtle. Lily’s eating at the diner with Maleficent, who calls her daughter beautiful. In response, Lily asks when they’re going to skin Mary Margaret and David alive. Maleficent doesn’t care about revenge, though. She just wants to make up for lost time with her daughter. Lily is PISSED. They better be killing the two idiots! Maleficent says they can be happy instead of angry, but Lily would like both, please. She calls Mal a pushover and mocks her, “What’d they do, rub your belly? Give you a dragon treat?”

Maleficent promises she did everything she could, but Lily’s a grown-up; she doesn’t need mothering. She didn’t come here for the kind and maternal Angelina Jolie version of Maleficent. She came here for the classic, fire-breathing dragon, name-calling, spell-casting Maleficent from the classic tale. She just needed a firebreathing dragon bitch. Maleficent begs her to wait, but Lily storms off.

Maleficent goes to see Mary Margaret and David; they’ve successfully gotten a stubborn runaway to forgive them for abandoning her. Besides, they owe her one. So they agree to help Maleficent get Lily to stick around.

Regina finds Lily before the Charming duo do. Lily tells her to ‘shove off’ and Regina instantly knows what Emma saw in her. It seems the Savior has a type.

Instead of shoving off, Regina sits down.

Flashback to Regina getting her hair brushed and Cora storming in, saying she found Regina’s soulmate and he’s on his way.

For some ridiculous reason, she changes Regina from her badass queen of darkness look to some froofy blue dress, but Regina seems happy. In walks the Sheriff of Nottingham, dressed up like Robin Hood, flouncing his new tattoo around like a flag.

On their date, Regina talks about her stable boy, and the Sheriff says she’s traded up, that he can be her strong arms so she can be weak and feminine. Regina is offended that her supposed soulmate is a creep and then realizes his tattoo is a magic tattoo not a real one. She turns it into a tiny CGI lion and lets it attack the Sheriff while she questions him. She finds out that Cora put him up to this because she wanted Regina to have a child.

Present-day Regina chats with Lily and finds out that all Lily wants to kill Mary Margaret and David. Regina finds this delightful; partially because that was her goal for a while, and also because she can see the darkness in this girl. But she knows part of it was meant for Emma.

And since she happens to be in the market for some savior darkness, she slices Lily’s hand with a knife and dips the knife into the ink, causing it to glow. What Regina doesn’t notice, however, is that it also made Lily’s eyes glow, like a hungry wolf. Or, you know, a dragon.

Mary Margaret, David and Maleficent try to find Lily but instead they find a dragon. Maleficent watches in wonder as her dragon princess flies away.

Flashback Cora finds Regina sulking in her lair, darker than ever, her feelings tucked in tight like the hair in her bun. Cora tells Regina her soulmate is a loser with a stupid face, but Regina says that’s not her bloody decision! And besides, she knows Cora isn’t interested in her happiness anyway.

Present-day Regina goes to visit her sister and brings the Author with her. She wanted Zelena to witness her getting her happy ending, to watch her write her own story. Zelena’s not afraid; she’s here to replace Regina. But Zelena shows the first glimpse of worry on her manic face when she realizes she doesn’t know the extent of the Author’s powers.

Across town, Hook gives Emma a pep talk about her parents. She’s still pissed they lied; they didn’t have to, she’s a sucker for a good redemption story (*cough* Regina *cough*). But Hook says they were just trying to make her proud.

In the forest, Maleficent is worried about Lily, because you need to be taught how to fly. Sure enough, her and the Charmings find Lily’s dragon crashed in a clearing. Maleficent struts right for her, because fire cannot kill a dragon, but Mary Margaret scurries after her because she’s dumb. Sure enough, Mary Margaret gets tail-whipped and hits her head on a rock, and Lily flies away.

Mary Margaret is not dead, but not doing so hot, when Emma runs in, crying out for her mother. She heals the external wounds with her magic and Mary Margaret apologizes again. Emma says she needs to stop punishing them, because Hook told her so, and that just because she lied and made a terrible decision or seventy doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, just an idiotic one. She’s been sad without her mother, so she forgives her.

Maleficent finds her dragon daughter in a swirl of purple smoke and fire and Lily shrinks down to human form, looking a little shaken and a lot confused. Maleficent tries to give her the little rattle she saved all this time, but she knows Lily’s too old to make up for all the things she missed. Lily just doesn’t understand where the mother of dragons was, instead she found a kind, gentle woman who wants a relationship; and relationships don’t tend to work out well for Lily. Fire breathing rampages are more her style. But Maleficent doesn’t mind a little darkness; she’s had plenty of it in her day. She asks Lily to stay, at least for a week, for some lessons on how to be a badass dragon bitch.

In the asylum, Zelena thinks she’s mad because Zelena’s having a child, but Regina has Henry, she’s all good in the kids department. But it won’t matter; Zelena won’t be pregnant soon, because Zelena won’t exist soon. Zelena thinks she’s bluffing, because how would Robin Hood and his Honor feel? But it’s not killing, it’s erasing, and not even Regina will remember it happened by the time it’s over. Zelena says she never met their mother, but she from what she heard, Regina is being very Cora-like right now.

Regina considers this. She remembers when Cora told her that Snow White was going to take her throne away. But Regina didn’t care about that; she didn’t want Cora to rule, so she made a potion to destroy her ability to have children. Cora calls her stupid, but Regina takes the potion to spite her. It doesn’t feel awesome, and as she’s doubled over in pain, Cora drops the only piece of motherly advice she gave worth listening to: “The only one standing in the way of your happiness is you.”

Present day Regina relays this lesson to Zelena. When Robin Hood walks in, Zelena huffs, and I quote, “Another woman defining her happiness relative to the love of a man. It’s sad, really.” And just like that, Once Upon A Time became Glee-levels of meta and self-aware and thereby making all the terrible things they’ve done worse. If you know you’re doing something wrong, don’t make an “evil” character point it out. Just fix it. Next week is Lily going to be like, “Weird, how are there no people of color or queer people in this whole town?”

Anyway, Regina insists her happiness is a feeling of being home, and Robin Hood is just part of it. Regina tells the Author he doesn’t have to write anything after all, but he’s not exactly famous for his upstanding citizenship, so he scribbles something and disappears. The paper he left behind reveals he went to find Gold.

Gold, barely able to move at this point, gives the Author an empty book titled Heroes and Villains, and says it’s time for the Villains to win. The Author sets out writing, starting, of course, with, “Once upon a time…”

What did you think of “Mother”? This weekend is the two-hour season finale! Leave your hopes/dreams/wishes/pleadings in the comments!

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

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