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“Once Upon A Time” recap: A Royal Flush (2.15)

Previously on Once Upon A Time, Cora and Regina ditched Hook to find the Dark One’s dagger, there was an awkward family reunion in Manhattan and a creepy seer told Rumplestiltskin that a boy would be his undoing.

We open in the Enchanted Forest, where a Young Snow is getting ready for her birthday with her (stunning) mother. The Queen tells Snow that she is going to receive a tiara that has been passed down in their family, but they walk in on a cheerful-looking servant trying it on for size. Pint-sized Snow is sassy, telling Johanna the Maid that she is too lowly for such fine headwear. Snow’s mother, however, is awesome and tells her she’s being brat. She tells Snow that there’s nothing more important than being good and kind and that a good queen respects her subjects. As soon as her point is made, the Good Queen collapses.

In present-day Storybrooke, Mary Margaret finds a birthday present waiting for her on the kitchen table. She’s confused, since no one but Charming knows when her birthday is, and he insists it’s not from him. She’s even more confused when she tears into the package without reading the card and finds her tiara. Snow finally opens the card and it reads, “Thinking of you today.” and is signed by Johanna, which sends Ms. Blanchard scurrying off to find her.

Charming heads to the police station, where he is promptly bonked on the head by Captain Eyeliner himself, who retrieves his hook from the very unlocked desk. Meanwhile, Mary Margaret finds Johanna planting a garden to honor Snow’s mother. Appropriately enough, this little garden consists solely of Snowdrops.

Cut to Regina shoveling in the woods in killer boots. I think it’s funny that Cora, magically cloaked as Regina, can leave a magical pirate ship, magically cloaked to be invisible, to magically kill a miscellaneous unknown person magically cloaked as Dr. Hopper, but still needs a shovel (and a dutiful daughter) to dig a hole in the ground. But I’m not complaining. Regina should be though, because Cora is being very unhelpful as they realize, six feet later, that it’s possible Hook had lied to them while decoding the map.

Mary Margaret overhears Cora and Regina plotting to find the dagger and runs to tell her husband everything. They agree that Cora becoming the Dark One is not any more appealing than Cora controlling the Dark One, but Snow has an idea that will hopefully save the day. Down in Manhattan, Neal and Henry are getting pizza while Emma and Mr. Gold chat outside in what has now changed from an Awkward Family Reunion to an Awkward Family Vacation, apparently. Gold points out that it’s obvious Emma wants a second chance with Neal, but Emma denies it and asks why he thinks that. He just raises an eyebrow and is like, “Possibly because every thought and feeling you ever have scrolls across your face like a news ticker.”

As it turns out, Mary Margaret’s idea was to trick Regina into meeting her at Granny’s. Snow has her hands neatly and firmly folded as she confronts the mayor about her evil deeds. She offers her another last chance to redeem herself, to choose good over evil. Regina is perched on the edge of her seat, clearly not intending to stay long. She offers the possibility that she’s been good all this time. She says, in what might be my favorite quote of the season, “I was always the queen, it was you who added ‘evil’ to my name.” However, much like Elphaba in Wicked, she is owning the title she was given, and even throws in a dig about Snow not knowing much about having a mother before storming out.

Speaking of Snow’s mother, we now flash back to the lovely queen lying in a gown, looking as beautiful as ever. That is, until she starts coughing like Satine from Moulin Rouge.

Johanna pulls Young Snow aside and tells her that there is one thing that could possibly save her mother — magic. She instructs Young Snow to wish upon the blue star, saying the magic will only work if her heart is true. Off to the woods our little Snow goes, trying to figure out just which blue star she’s supposed to wish on, when the Blue Fairy finds her. Honestly, this didn’t seem too weird, since I trust things blindly and also because Pinocchio wasn’t specifically looking for her when she appeared to him, but maybe I shouldn’t have because I don’t remember the Blue Fairy having cleavage that would make Tinkerbell blush. The Fairy says that, while evading death is a magic darker than she tends to deal, there is a candle that can save Snow’s mother — the only catch is, Snow would have to choose a person to die in her mother’s place. Snow’s hope is shattered, because her mother was JUST telling her this morning to be nice and whatever, so she probably shouldn’t be murdering people already.

Back in present-day New York, Henry is leading his army of adults back to Neal’s apartment to get his camera for a museum trip, as if everything is hunky-dory back in Storybrooke. The boys head upstairs while Emma and Gold stay in the lobby because they’re over all of this. Suddenly, Hook storms in, knocks Emma aside and stabs Rumpelstiltskin right in the chest, taking a moment to hiss, “tick tock” into his ear before releasing his bloody hook. Emma hits him over the head and Neal rushes back downstairs to see what the commotion is. Baelfire knows Hook, sees his father injured and instinctively calls him “Papa.”

They manage to get him upstairs, but Gold is oozing something awful and immediately blames Henry for this, to which I say FINALLY. Conveniently enough, though he won’t say exactly why, Neal can sail a pirate ship, so they can steal the USS Invisible for the journey back to Storybrooke. When Emma outwardly wonders why, Neal points out that he spent time in other worlds before arriving in our reality, otherwise he’d be a few hundred years old. Still kind of hoping he’s a Lost Boy, possibly even Peter Pan. But maybe that’s just me.

Emma finally reads her texts and realizes that ish is going DOWN in Storybrooke. I assume she then sticks her finger into Gold’s gaping flesh wound, because I’m not sure how else she managed to get him to tell her where his dagger was, but sure enough, The Two Idiots find it hidden ever-so-cleverly behind the minute-hand of the clock in the center of town.

Back in Fairytale Land, Young Snow tells her mother about her choice to not kill someone in her stead, and her mother tells her that she’s proud of her for fighting darkness and choosing good, something she would do over and over again for all of eternity. As if she momentarily saw this future for her daughter and found peace, the Good Queen falls into an endless sleep. Young Snow dons her mourning gown and tiara and goes to be a beacon of hope and light for her people, starting by placing a snowdrop on her mother’s lifeless body. (Okay that all sounded very dramatic, but GUYS. This part was REALLY SAD.) Back in Storybrooke’s bell tower, Cora and Regina appear out of thin (purple) air and thus begins the battle of the Charmings vs. the Evil Regals. After a little back-and-forth, Cora summons Johanna, and Regina promptly rips her heart out. Snow tries to reason with Cora, but as the Pretty Little Liars know, it’s impossible to reason with crazy. Between realizing that it wasn’t actually the Blue Fairy that visited her that night in the forest, but Cora herself, and also that Cora had poisoned her mother in the first place, poor Mary Margaret is at her wit’s end. Regina is increasing the drama of the situation by periodically squeezing Johanna’s heart and Mrs. Patmore probably wishes she was back at Downton Abbey right about now. Snow gives up the dagger to save her dear old friend, but Cora wants to prove her point that it’s not good or evil that wins, but power, so she chucks the poor maid out the window.

Finally back in her office, Regina confronts her mother about not knowing Cora killed Snow’s mother to make her queen. Upon realizing this, Regina also figures out that Cora had set up the very pretense under which she had met — and saved — Young Snow. Cora asks her, like a mother or a therapist, how knowing this affects her at all, but Regina, like a daughter or someone in therapy, dodges the question. She’s mostly concerned with how they’re going to kill anyone without Henry knowing it was them if the Charmings know they have the dagger. Cora, as usual, is less concerned.

Back in the Big Apple, Neal leads Emma to the car his “friend” let them borrow. Emma is trying to figure out exactly what that means when a VERY attractive woman strolls on up. She is introduced to Emma (and to us) as Tamara, Neal’s fiancĂ©. I’m over here racking my brain trying to figure out what Tamara could symbolize in Fairytale Land, but then I realize they’re usually more clever than that with their code names and that it’s entirely possible that Neal, upon settling down in the US of A, found himself an old-fashioned, non-magical, human girlfriend. Which. Boring.

In Storybrooke, Snow is having a bit of a nervous breakdown/identity crisis and tells her loyal hubby that she’s getting a little sick of the Goody Two-Shoes game. She has spent her whole life being good, but look where it got her. Look how many people she cared about that died anyway. Charming tries to comfort her with tales of glory and justice, but she doesn’t care about justice anymore. She’s not handing out any more second chances. She’s through being pure. Snow White is going to kill Cora.

Next week on Once Upon A Time, someone is going to die. Who it will be and at whose hand is anyone’s guess.

What did you think of “The Queen Is Dead”? I think that the only thing sadder than all the death and betrayal in this episode was the devastating lack of Ruby.

Check out some of our favorite #SwanQueen tweets from this week!

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