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“Once Upon A Time” SnapCap (5.12): Go to hell. Literally.

Hi there, and welcome back to the Once Upon A Time recaps. Just to warn you, things are going to look a little different around here from now on, and I would like to tell you why: I’m sick of this show’s queerbaiting. They promised us an LGBT relationship this season, and it hasn’t happened yet. They’re still patting themselves on the back for Mulan “coming out” two seasons ago, even though the scene was so vague that half the straight people I talk to STILL think she was trying to admit her feelings for Philip, not Aurora. (Which, granted, is also on them. But the fact they’re even able to rationalize the gay away is a problem.)

And don’t even get me started on SwanQueen. When they realized so many people shipped them so much, and they realized that their own story was feeding into that, they panicked and forced love interests on them both and hardly ever let them leave their sides, which was a disservice to the fierce female characters they once were, and highly unnecessary. Even if they were never going to go there with Emma and Regina, they didn’t have to force them apart so aggressively and have both of their storylines suddenly revolve around men when they were doing just fine before.

That said, there are still a lot of SwanQueen fans out there, and I don’t want to do them a disservice by ignoring that entirely. So until we see what this supposed LGBT storyline is, I’ll be doing little SnapCaps like this to check in on the Storybrooke Squad. But I won’t be giving it the full recap treatment until then. The show doesn’t deserve it, not anymore.

Let’s start at the very beginning.

Synopsis:

In this episode, Team Charming goes to the underworld to save Hook for reasons I will never understand. On the way to the Underworld, Emma sees Neal, because he’s not in limbo, where she’s going. He tries to warn her that this is a terrible storyline idea, but she has no say in the matter, so she has to go on.

The Underworld looks like Storybrooke because of course that’s what hell looks like, and there they see souls they’ve lost before, including Cora. Cora tries to blackmail Regina into abandoning her friends and leaving the Underworld ASAP, but she doesn’t bite. Gold finds the magic potion Merida used and brings it to Emma, who tries to use it to ghost-skype Hook but the reception is crappy. Regina uses the rest of the potion herself and has a father/daughter reunion. He tells her to be a good friend and not worry about what Cora threatens. She does, and her father goes into the light to a better place. This gives Mary Margaret the notion that if Henry Mills the First can be saved, all of the lost souls down here can be saved, so it’s her fault we’re spending half a season here.

In flashbacks, we see the Evil Queen tearing the Enchanted Forest apart for her birthday. She sticks her fingers in a girl’s pie, almost kills Snow White but fails because her father wouldn’t let her, so she puts her father in a box. Regina’s father accidentally brings Cora from Wonderland, and Regina eventually gets Cora back to Wonderland for good, but she takes Papa Mills with her.

Underground Storybrooke ends with Cora going to see a man down below the city who turns her into a peasant as punishment and has glowing blue fire hair, meaning he’s definitely Hades. Also, something that will likely come up again: Every tick of the clocktower means a soul has been saved, as Regina found out from saving her father.

And get excited, because it seems this awful Kelvin Instagram filter is how this show is going to distinguish Underworld!Storybrooke from Storybrooke, despite that being entirely unnecessary, and really inconvenient for screencapping.

Okay, now some tallies!

First, how many times how many times they interacted directly with each other, not addressing the group.

SwanQueen Sound Bytes: 3

  1. When Regina explains her mother’s threat to Team Charming, Emma tells her to get on the boat to safety.
  1. While trying to summon Hook, Regina warns her that the spell is too unsteady, and Hook can’t hear her. This one was my favorite because of the way she said Emma’s name, full of breathy empathy.
  1. After the spell fails, Emma pulls Regina aside to beg her to take Henry and herself to safety.

This next section is any time Regina and Emma were in the same frame without anyone else in the way.

SwanQueen Screen Time: 1

This happened when Emma tells Regina to save herself and Regina reluctantly agrees.

There was a shot in the beginning that was almost the two of them, when they cut from Emma to Regina because Regina agrees with Emma (!), but it was disqualified because there’s a blurry Henry head in the background, too.

I thought we might want a log of any Evil Queen outfits, if applicable…

Evil Cleavage: 3

This one will speak for itself…

Dumbest thing one of the Two Idiots did

Mary Margaret described Hook’s physical appearance to a blind woman while trying to find him. The woman literally sniffed her to identify her, and her eyes are visibly non-functional, so I’m not sure why Mary Margaret went the “brown hair, hook for a hand” approach instead of “smarmy British accent, smells like seawater and self-importance.” But then again, they’re not called The Two Idiots for nothing.

And I don’t know how many episodes this will be necessary, but I thought I’d highlight some of the special guest stars of this episode, lost souls we found down in Storybrooke.

Special guests

And the best cameo of all:

Not pictured, but also in the episode: Sydney Glass, OG Henry Mills, Peter Pan, and the CGI version of Jiminy Cricket.

Of course, we have to highlight Regina’s best line:

Sassgina

Evil Queen Regina stuck her finger in a peasant girl’s pie, licked her finger, and hissed, “Blueberry? Not bad. But I prefer apple.”

Mulan sightings

  1. Nada. Zip. Zilch. It seems like they’re going to be in the Underworld for a while, so I have a feeling we’ll have to wait for this one. Also no Ruby. I’m hoping they come sweeping in as full-fledged girlfriends sometime very soon.

I’m thinking some of these categories will change week to week, but some might be staples. What do you think? Is this a good compromise? I want us to have a space to be able to come together and talk about this show, but I don’t to help them pat themselves on the back, they do that just fine on their own. The show already got renewed for a sixth season, to theoretically they could develop a fully-realized queer relationship and carry it on for more than an episode or two. The question is will they?

Oh, and of course, your #queerytales tweets will carry over from the old recap format, because reading your tweets is usually more fun than watching the actual show. So here are some of our favorites from this week:

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