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“Once Upon A Time” recap (5.5): Dream Team

Previously on Once Upon A Time, a mysterious stranger told a young Emma never to pull swords from stones, Storybrooke Arthur made his squire kill himself, Camelot Arthur put a spell on his wife and the Charmings, and Emma decided she was going to train Gold into the hero she needs to extract Excalibur and reunite it with the Dagger.

We begin our story a long, long time ago in Camelot. Young Emma’s mysterious stranger finds the Dark One and commands them (it was unclear who the Dark One was at that point, due to a gold mask, but I’m sure that’s not the last we see of that particular Dark One) to stop using the Dagger. The Stranger says the Dark One destroyed the only woman he ever loved, and raises the Dagger to stab the figure, but hesitates in a way that makes me wonder if the Dark One was in fact that very same woman. The Dark One uses his hesitation to their advantage and takes the dagger, scoops up a tear off the Stranger’s face, and promptly turns him into a tree. So the Stranger was Merlin.

In a more recent version of Camelot, Emma is watching all of this unfold through a dreamcatcher, things finally starting to fall into place.

In the forest of Camelot, Regina is leading Mary Margaret and David to where she hid the dagger, still unsure giving it to Arthur is a good idea. The Charmings insist it’s fine, because they’re a good judge of character. Like the time they sent their baby through a magic tree portal with only another child to take care of her. Or the time they hired the literal Wicked Witch to be their nanny. Or the time-you get the picture. Understandably, knowing how bad it would be for Emma if the Dagger falls into the wrong hands, Regina is hesitant to hand it over.

Emma shows up right before Regina can hand it over and freezes her parents. Regina is alarmed she’s using magic all willy nilly, but Emma brushes off her concern and tells Regina about Arthur’s plan to make a big bad sword that will kill Merlin. Emma promises she’s telling the truth, and Regina is more apt to trust her than her parents, so she’s on board.

Emma wants to use her dark magic to get Merlin out of the tree, but Regina REALLY doesn’t think that’s a good idea. Regina reminds her that she knows firsthand how addicting dark magic can be, but Emma says she’s not her. (But it’s literally the kindest, gentlest way someone’s ever said, “I’m not you.”)

In present-day Storybrooke, Team Charming tries to figure out how the Squire disappeared, so they figured he must have had the magic bean after all and portaled home. Guinevere says obviously everyone is desperate to get home, so they need to cheer their people up. Henry suggests a dance, and David and Hook immediately assume it’s about a girl, because of course they do. Hook even goes so far as to offer to give him tips, but Regina says, “Over your dead body.” Which I’m so stealing.

On the way out of the Sheriff’s office, Regina starts to grill the Charmings about this “girl” they speak of, but Belle runs into them to tell them Gold is missing.

But we know where he is! He’s currently in Emma’s basement. Gold tries to bond with her, ex-Dark One to Dark One, but she says she’s stronger than he was, and won’t make the same mistakes. But Gold insists that she’ll still lose everyone she loves at the rate she’s going. Emma ignores him and calls out Merida, ordering her to train him.

Merida thinks she can fight through the spell, but Emma gives her heart a squeeze and Merida realizes that she’s going to have to be more clever than brave to get out of this bind.

After poofing them to the woods, Emma and her weird tulle train of darkness go to a den of dreamcatchers.

Then she weeps because she realizes these trinkets might soon be her only friends.

In Camelot, Regina demands to know how Emma knew her parents were under a spell, and Emma confesses that the dreamcatcher told her. Regina knows how dreamcatchers work, but Emma says this one was different. The memory just came to her, she didn’t even have to wave it in front of a person. But Emma says it gave her the answer to how to help Merlin, because she saw how Merlin was trapped: With a broken hearted tear. Regina catches on and says they just need another lost love tear to break the spell. So off they go to make some bitches cry.

Elsewhere in Camelot, Henry and Violet are flirting in the barn, but when Violet steps out to put a saddle away, her father bursts in and tells Henry he’s not good enough for his daughter. Also, Henry said he’s 13. This will be important later. Anyway, Henry runs away from the barn, wondering if he’s right, that violet needs a Camelot knight, not a Storybrooke “writer.”

Present-day Henry finds Violet moping about, and finds out that she won’t go to the dance until her lost horse is found. Taking after Uncle Killian, he decides that he has to help her find her horse; not for her, not for the horse, but because he wants to go to the dance with her.

Henry goes to Emma for help, saying that he needs her help to give someone their happy ending, just like old times. Emma knows that a teenager finding a missing pet isn’t exactly happily ever after, but she’s desperate for mother/son bonding, so she’s in.

Meanwhile, in the forest, Merida tries to make a warrior out of Gold by giving him a walking stick and a sword and telling him to woman up.

Merida is merciless, not taking any of his excuses. She’s not doing this for him, she’s doing it for her; she wants to save herself, her brothers, and her kingdom, and turning this lump of coal into a sharp diamond is the only way she’ll be able to do that. Obviously the drill sergeant approach isn’t working, though, so Merida decides to find another way to motivate him. She doesn’t want to hear him whining while she figures it out though, so she knocks him out before she ventures back into town.

Flashback to Camelot. Henry is practicing with a sword when his moms walk up.

When they find out Henry is trying to be a knight for Violet, Regina and Emma tell him to be himself, that being different is good, that you have to be true to yourself, that love is love. They talk about their first lost loves, and look lovingly at each other, finally on the same page when it comes to parenting their child. This gives Henry an idea, so he runs off, and the conversation gives Regina an idea. The tear they need can be hers.

They go back to the castle, and Emma says, “This is going to be intense. Last chance to back out,” and Regina responds, “I can take it.” Now, if this was fanfiction, the tear they needed for the antidote would be happy tears to counteract the sad tear from the original spell, and Emma and Regina would have touching, meaningful sex and magical energy exchange that would result in Regina crying her first happy tear.

Alas, this is real life, so instead they settle in to watch Regina’s most heartbreaking memory.

The flashback shows that whole horrible scene again; Cora telling Regina and Daniel she gives them their blessing, Cora pulling Daniel aside from some motherly advice, Cora stabbing him in the gut right in front of Regina. Emma never realized how this went down and is overwhelmed with empathy. She looks up to see Regina is crying and wipes her tear…with a vial. Emma apologizes to Regina for underestimating how hard her life had been before they met her.

In Storybrooke, while Henry is distracting Emma, Regina & Co. go to Emma’s house to break in. Belle suggests that the spell on the house probably wouldn’t include Henry, so Regina poofs Henry’s scarf to herself and uses it as a potholder to open the front door. She thanks Henry, even though it was poor Belle’s one cool moment all season.

In Camelot, Henry sets up a dinner date for him and Violet at Granny’s. It’s a super cute date, where he introduces her to the magic of carbonation, and everything is cute up until the point she realizes he’s actively courting her. She says she doesn’t feel the same way, and all of Henry’s teenage dreams come crashing down around him.

Flash forward to Merida in Storybrooke, rifling around the town, finding the Storybrooke Storybook, learning everything she can about Rumpelstiltskin, then going to Gold’s shop and getting what she needs from the cupboard.

Emma leads Henry to Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’s place, because of course she does. Luckily, he’s making his weekly pumpkin delivery to Georgie Porgie’s Pudding & Pie Shoppe, so he misses all the action in front of his house, which is Violet’s horse showing up, Emma spooking him, then Henry talking him down and leading him away.

Regina leads her crew to Emma’s basement, where they find the sword in the stone and realize the pattern is the same as the Dark One’s Dagger. Hook is ready to grab it, but Regina regretfully stops him, saying he might be somewhat useful so maybe don’t die just yet. Regina gets a text from Henry saying Emma is on her way back, and they start to scurry. Luckily for them, Emma doesn’t use her magic to poof home, so they have time to run upstairs (despite Regina’s similar ability to poof in an instant), where Hook is distracted by a box. Typical. He opens the box and sees a big ol’ dreamcatcher, and Regina knows exactly what this means.

She knows now how Emma stole all of their memories.

In Camelot, SwanQueen uses teamwork to make the dream work and whips up a potion to save Merlin. But when they add Regina’s tear, they realizes it’s not going to work. Since Regina is starting to heal from the heartbreak, her tear about her mother murdering her long-term, steady boyfriend in cold blood right in front of her is not strong enough to finish the potion.

But don’t worry, somehow a 13-year-old being rejected on a first quasi-date with a girl he met less than a week ago IS in fact strong enough. Which makes me think the spell didn’t need a tear of lost love, it needed a manpain tear.Anyway, Regina collects the tear, but Arthur shows up before she can add it to the potion. Regina puts herself between the evil king and her family, and whips up a fireball as a direction. She backhands Emma the tear tissue, and she throws it into the potion. This time, huge swirls of light and dark magic go through Emma and shoot out her hands, and she points it toward the Merlin Tree.

When it’s done, it knocks everyone over except Emma, and the tree turns back into Merlin. He’s been waiting for her, and he’s proud of her for fulfilling her destiny. He’s not proud of Arthur though, the boy who would be king, who has disappointed him in every respect.

In Storybrooke, despite having other things to worry about, they have a carnival. I’m wondering how much magic was used to create this carnival, because Storybrooke isn’t THAT big, and I’ve never seen a sign printer or a tent builder anywhere around.

Sitting at a picnic table, and looking/sounding very out of place amongst the hustle and bustle of the fair, Arthur tells Team Charming that, once intact, Excalibur can destroy either all light or all dark magic. Mary Margaret is still frustrated, unable to put together how the daughter she left in Camelot, the one fighting against her darkness with all her might, turned into the leather-clad woman traipsing about Storybrooke now.

Just then, Henry rides Violet’s horse down the street, presenting it to Violet, and becoming the hero he had hoped he would be back in Camelot. Even his father is happy, glad her daughter met a boy who is so good to her. She kisses him on the cheek, and all is well.

Meanwhile, Merida has not given up her mission, and hands a sword to a newly conscious Gold.

Merida has decided to give Gold something to fight for, and dangles Chip in front of Gold’s face, telling him to fight her for it. This works, and threatening Belle gives Gold the fire he needs for Merida to forge him, and surprise! She’s actually training him to be strong enough to fight Emma. Clever girl.

Regina and Robin look at the big dreamcatcher they stole from Emma’s house and consider trying to get it to tell them what happened, but Regina doesn’t love the idea of going against Emma’s wishes; she obviously took their memories for a reason. What if that reason was good? But she decides she can’t take the risk, the memories might hold something that will help her help Emma, so they watch the memory. But it’s not their memories, it’s Emma’s own, and in it, Emma goes to the stable to intersect Violet on her way to her date with Henry. Emma rips out her heart and tells her to break Henry’s.

Regina hears a noise behind her and realizes that Henry was behind her, and he saw the whole memory.

In Camelot, Merlin un-brainwashes Mary Margaret and David, and says he can save Emma from the darkness, but there is a caveat. She has to want it, too. Unlike all the dark magic that people like Zelena and Arthur used, light magic won’t manipulate others’ free will. It’s why the Genie wouldn’t do love spells.

In the here and now, Dark Swan goes to visit Henry at Regina’s house, but Regina is pissed that Emma is keeping her in the dark. Regina was holding onto so much hope that Emma was still Emma deep down, she was still seeing the good in her; but was she blinded by love? Regina whips out the dreamcatcher and asks for an explanation.

Regina knows Emma let the horse out to win Henry’s favor, and thinks it’s funny that for once, Regina is the good one. Regina points out the similarities between what Emma is doing and what Cora did, which makes Emma wince a little.

In her frustration, Emma lets it slip that they freed Merlin in Camelot, which confuses Regina even more as to why Emma ended up so dark and twisty. Emma demands again to see Henry, but Regina just says, “Goodbye, Miss Swan.”

When Emma looks up to Henry’s room to see him peering out, he closes the curtains on her, so she stalks off, furious.

What did you think of “Dreamcatcher?”

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

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