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“Once Upon A Time” recap (5.1): ‘Tis a Silly Place

Hello and welcome back! Last time we saw our wacky fairytale friends, Emma had jumped into a cloud of darkness and became The Dark One in a backwoods effort to save the world. And by the world, I mean Regina. Let’s just dive right into Season 5, yeah?

We open in Minneapolis, 1989. A tiny blonde in her signature plaid shirt is taken to a movie theatre-to see The Sword in the Stone, of course-where she immediately snatches a bar of candy out of a woman’s bag. A man sits down next to her and says simply, “Don’t,” and calls her Emma. She starts to apologize for stealing the candy but that’s not what he’s talking about. He says that bad things will happen if she, in particular, gives in to her badness, and that someday she’ll get a chance to remove Excalibur from its stone and that she should, under no circumstances, do so. Don’t worry about the fact that this warning is coming years too soon. He disappears and leaves young Emma even more confused than the higitus figitus on the movie screen.

Cut to men on horses dressed like they’re in Monty Python hunting for the holy grail. But it’s Arthur and his men, including Lancelot, looking for Excalibur. A knight is already there who wants the sword for himself, and tries to pull it out despite everyone warning him that the prophecy said it was only Arthur that could pull it out. The dude does it anyway, and immediately explodes. Lancelot offers Arthur up to the stone, but Arthur trusts the prophecy, so he struts right up to the sword and gives it a good yank. It comes out easily for him, as predicted, meaning he’s the next king of Camelot. But they notice the end of the sword is missing – and it has the same pattern as the Dark One’s dagger.

Speaking of that dagger, flash forward to present day, where it lies on the ground in Storybrooke, newly inscribed with the name Emma Swan.

Emma’s family is standing around, dumbfounded at what they just saw. Regina is worried about her; Mary Margaret says Emma is still good, and Regina wants to believe that, but, in her words, “It’s not like she ran off on a unicorn.” She got sucked into a vortex of doom. Hook tries to use the dagger to call her back, but nothing happens. Regina calls him “Guyliner” and tells him that if he can’t summon her, that means Emma’s not in this world. And sure enough, she’s right. Emma and a brand new cloak emerges from the darkness in the Enchanted Forest.

Before Emma can get her bearings, Rumple shows up, shiny and spritely, not the old dying man she last saw. But he’s not really Rumple, he’s just the voice of the Dark One, evil personified, and it just so happens that she is imagining him in Rumple’s form. He’s there to act as her sort of evil godfather and guide her on her path to darkness. Emma doesn’t want that, though. She knows the path to darkness will only lead her to hurting the people she loves, so instead she wants to find Merlin, because she thinks he can fix her before she becomes truly dark.

In Storybrooke, Team Charming goes to see the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, who gives them a wand that contains all the light magic. If it’s wielded by someone with dark magic, it will rip a hole in the space/time continuum and create a portal between realms. The Apprentice dies, and Regina picks up the wand and starts waving it around…to no avail.

Hook tells her Regina’s too good now, and she throws a few insults in his face to prove otherwise. He says she’s got fire but not darkness; and ironically, it’s Emma’s fault Regina can’t come save her. Just the fact that Regina wants to save Emma so badly is making her incapable of saving her. Oh the humanity! Hook says they need someone…wicked. Regina is 1000% against this plan, but it’s the only way to save Emma, so she takes them to her sister.

In the Enchanted Forest, Emma finds a man selling his wares on a cart, and asks him the way to Camelot. When he tries to charge her money she doesn’t have for the information, she accidentally ends up using her magic to choke him in her frustration. Rumple reappears and asks her how she liked her first taste of darkness.

Belle, meanwhile, hasn’t left Rumple’s side, despite all the shenanigans. The Blue Fairy tells her that if she wants to be in this season at all, she should probably go with Team Charming to save Emma. Belle is worried about Rumple, but Blue gives her a rose in a jar and says that as long as the rose has petals, Rumple is alive. It seems a little awkward-sized-I think a magic mirror would have been easier to carry-but it’s a cute tieback to the movie.

The other Rumple, the imaginary one, gets Emma to ask him for help. He tells her to picture a place and next thing she knows, she’s there in a blink. She hadn’t realized the help would come in the form of magic and is pissed he tricked her. But in the middle of her tirade, she notices something blue and glowing-a will o’ the wisp.

She follows it, and soon runs into someone else following it, too. Someone who thinks Emma is a witch. Someone named Merida.

Emma explains that she has dark magic against her will, and Merida understands what that’s like. She tells Emma she should be glad she’s not a bear. Merida offers to fight Emma for the wisp, hand-to-hand, magic and bow free, but Emma doesn’t want to fight her. Merida says here’s the thing about wisps, if you bring one back to their home, they’ll help you. So, she thinks maybe if she brings this wisp back, she can get her answer, then gives the wisp to Emma, they’ll help her, too.

In Storybrooke, Regina takes Team Charming to see Zelena in the insane asylum, where her sister is there being smiley and wild-eyed, claiming to be powerless because of the cuff, claiming to be willing to help. But in order for it to work, they need to take the cuff off Zelena, and they need something of Emma’s. So they go off to consider their options.

Hook finds Henry and asks him to rewrite what happened to Emma, and Henry says that would have made plots even thinner than they already are, so he broke it. Hook says he has an idea to save one of Henry’s mothers, but his other mother won’t like it.

Merida and Emma tramp through the forest, and Merida explains her reason for being: It’s been a few years since the events of the movie Brave, and her father has since passed and she became queen. However, some of the factions of her kingdom have changed their mind and don’t want her to be queen anymore, so they kidnapped her brother, who are still pretty young. Merida says she’ll go to war for the right to rule, but first she needs the wisp to tell her where her brothers are.

As she’s declaring war on the nation, she almost passes out on her feet, so Emma forces her to make camp, and she reluctantly agrees.

But the evil voice in her head won’t let Emma sleep, and she fights with him about whether or not she should steal the wisp for herself. Unfortunately for Emma, even though Rumple’s voice is in her head, her responses to him weren’t, and Merida overheard everything her crazy new friend said.

Meanwhile, Henry and Hook break into the insane asylum and sneak into Zelena’s room. Hook uses some heart-ripping potion on his hook, but Zelena was tutored by Rumple and is related to Cora and Regina…she has her heart under lock and key. She giggles, CUTS OFF HER OWN HAND, and once she’s free of the magic-suppressing cuff, she magics it back on and poofs away. Hook and Henry, a crackpot team if there ever was one, failed their mission spectacularly.

And Regina. is. PISSED.

Hook accuses Regina of not trying hard enough to save Emma, and before can explain that she’s working smarter, Mary Margaret tells them they have to all work together, like Emma would have wanted.

In the Charming Loft, Robin Hood comes downstairs from tucking Roland in and Regina tells him that Zelena escaped and they have to run away together. He kisses her, but this time knows it’s Zelena posing as his girlfriend right away. Fool me once, and all that jazz. By the time Team Charming storms out to find her, she has Robin Hood captive at the end of her knife. She says she’ll trade Robin for the wand, because she wants to make a portal and fly over the rainbow, where at least there the people sang songs about her wickedness instead of locking her up.

Mary Margaret and Charming, STILL NOT TRUSTING HER even after all this time, beg Regina not to make the trade, but Regina does. But as soon as Zelena creates the portal, Regina slaps the anti-magic cuff on her sister. No thanks to the Two Idiots, Captain Guyliner, or Constipation Face over here, they now have a portal to get to Emma.

Speak of the (soon-to-be) devil, come morning, Emma goes to wake up Merida, and finds only a very beautiful cape left behind. In her panic, she asks her Evil Godfather what the Hill of Stones looks like, and teleports there. She gets there too late though, and Merida has already asks the wisps to find her brothers. Merida’s more annoyed than surprised that Emma caught up with her, quite sick of her crazy. Rumple starts whispering in her ear that she should just kill the redhead and take her wisp, and Emma looks just desperate enough that she might do it.

Merida starts loosing arrows at Emma, but Emma catches them in her hand like some kind of Regina.

In Storybrooke, the portal starts to take the form of a twister, causing Granny to start battening down the hatches. But Regina already has what they need-Emma’s baby blanket. She would have grabbed the yellow bug but it wouldn’t fit through the doorway. But she mentioned it, lest you forget that she knows everything Emma holds dear. They use the blanket to change the direction of the portal, and before they know it, the wind begins to hitch, the diner to pitch. And away they go.

In the forest, Rumple eventually says “kill her” enough times in a row that Emma rips out Merida’s heart. But before she can squish it, Team Charming arrives. They start to talk her down, reminding her of all the good she’s done, how she’s taught people that they’re more than just villains or heroes, and that she’s more than this darkness inside her. Emma eventually hears them over Rumple’s voice and shoves Merida’s heart back in her chest, much to everyone’s relief. Her Evil Godfather is even gone for now.

Emma and Merida make up, and Merida even thanks her for showing her her own darkness; she had been planning a slaughter, but now maybe she’ll show her brothers’ kidnappers mercy.

Emma looks at her ragtag bunch of saviors and points out that maybe bringing an infant wasn’t the best plan they ever had, but nothing would have stopped them from coming to help. Emma doesn’t want to be in control of the dagger, so she gives it to the one person she knows loves her enough to not abuse the power, but also to destroy her before she hurts the ones she loves: Regina.

The Team takes Emma to the Diner, and she’s surprised to see not only the building, but also Granny, Belle, and a handful of dwarves. Before they can decide what to do next, they hear the sound of coconuts clacking together. It’s King Arthur and his knights of the round table; Merlin had prophesied their coming before he disappeared…and that they would be the ones to find him.

They go to Arthur’s castle, and even though it’s low-budget CGI, it looks a bit like that classic Disney castle. They open the big front door and head in for the next adventure and the first thing they see is…

Storybrooke.

They appear there in a flash, startling the crap out of some leftover dwarves, dressed like they just came back from a Renaissance Fair. It turns out they’ve been in Camelot for six weeks but SURPRISE, SURPRISE they don’t remember anything. I don’t know why they couldn’t have jumped ahead six weeks and just kept US in the dark and used flashbacks to fill us in instead of REUSING the memory loss thing, but whatever.

Anyway, Emma is there with them, but she looks hella terrifying.

The darkness is in her and stronger than ever; she proves it by turning Sneezy to stone. She says there’s no more savior here anymore. Regina is ready to do what Emma asked her what felt like two minutes ago, but when she reaches for the Dark One’s dagger, she realizes she doesn’t have it anymore.

Emma looks at these people she once called her loved ones and declares, “I am the Dark One.”

Dun dun duuuuuun.

What did you think of “The Dark Swan?” Are you excited about Merida?

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

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

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