Once Upon A Time – Page 23

By: Kelly Kearney

The path to vengeance

This week’s “Once Upon a Time” brought closure to a Queen who couldn’t love and a Mayor who couldn’t forgive herself for a loveless past. Add to that a pirate’s murderous secret, a familiar green fairy and a young author with the power to change it all and Season Six is coming to a chaotic climax!

We flashback to The Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) doing what she does best; searching for the princess, Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin). Thinking she has the fairest of them all cornered in a villager’s home, she approaches a sleeping figure and tries to rip out her heart, but it is shocked when she pulls back a fist full of straw. The blanketed figure was a hay filled fake and the Queen is anything but pleased. Enter Tinkerbell (Rose McIver) who interrupts her evil tirade at the villagers who are protecting her enemy. Tinkerbell is there to remind the Queen about her mystery man with the lion tattoo, but she is too focused on her heart collection and her revenge on Snow to be bothered to listen to the green fairy. Shockingly, the Queen lets Tinkerbell live but warns her to quit meddling in Her Majesty’s royal love life.

Back in Storybrooke, the Evil Queen has been changed back to her human form from the cobra Gideon (Giles Matthey) magicked her into and she and Robin (Sean Maguire) are having a friendly chat over where they go from here. Robin wants out of the little town and has his heart set on moving to the Big Apple but the Queen says nonsense, he must go back to the Wish-verse from where he came. She offers to help him get back, if he helps her dig. Dig? Dig what?

The Good news and The Bad News

With the Queen and Robin busy plotting, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) is breaking the engagement news to her family. Snow and Henry (Jared Gilmore) are happy for her, although the latter had a feeling Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) was Emma’s happy ending all along. Regina and Zelena (Rebecca Mader) enter and after a congratulatory hug over her best friend and co-mom’s engagement, Regina drops a truth bomb; The Queen is back and she is plotting something.

As death plots go, Robin isn’t the pro his new-found friend the Queen is, but he is great with a shovel so the Queen has him digging for her. What is she looking for? A box containing the golden shears meant to cut the saviors fate. Luckily for Emma, the Queen is more into revenge than she is changing the savior’s fate (at least on this night anyway) and plans on using the shears as a catalyst to once and for all, kill her better half. She wants to take everything from her and not even the thief can change her mind.

Regina and Robin aren’t the only relationship making waves, Hook is feeling guilty over his secrets about Emma’s grandfather, Robert (David Cubitt). The pirate runs into his old friend Captain Nemo (Fara Tahir), who is leaving port with the Nautilus in search of new adventures. Nemo notices his friend is troubled and Hook tells him about David’s father, his engagement and the secret that could destroy his happy ending. Nemo advises Killian to seek forgiveness from Emma and tell her the truth, but things do not seem that easy for the leather clad Hook.

You Will Never Be Happy

Speaking of easy, Henry tries to take the easy way out by using the author’s pen to get rid of the Queen and finally get some peace in the town he calls home. Before he can write his mother’s evil half into non-existence, the evil doppelganger catches him and the two come to an understanding. He’s not writing her out of the story, but he will deliver a note to the Queen’s other half. She leaves Henry with a touching reminder of why nobody is all evil when she tells him, “No matter what, I will always love you.”

Much like Henry who told the Queen she can’t find happiness with revenge, Henry Sr. (Tony Perez) mimics that idea to his evil daughter on her search for Snow White. The elder prince tells her she can’t find happiness with a heart full of vengeance, but if this is what she truly wants he will help her find the Princess Snow. Cut to the present and Regina recognizes the note her evil half gave Henry as Page 23 of the storybook, the story of the Evil Queen’s happy ending that she never got. Regina takes this message as a sign that the vengeful woman has Robin and plans on hurting him to get back her. After a typical argument with Emma over who’s risking their lives to stop the Queen, Regina sets off to play savior.

Back in the Enchanted Forest, Prince Henry is attempting to lead the Queen to her destiny, but he knows she would never go willingly so he lies and uses Snow White as bait. When father and daughter reach their destination, its apparent the swirling portal in front of the Queen is not what she was hoping for. The portal was Tinkerbell’s idea and she convinced Prince Henry to try and get his daughter to go find love with Robin. The Queen has no time for love, she wants revenge. So, she turns Cupid’s arrow from a love to hate, in hopes it will point her to the direction of her arch nemesis. Later, the Queen follows the arrow to her castle where she assumes Snow is hiding. When she gets to her wardrobe the Cupid’s arrow reveals her true hate and it isn’t the fair skinned princess, but the Queen’s own reflection. Her greatest hate lies within her own self.

You’re losing your memory

With Regina and the town gearing up for a fight with the Evil Queen, Emma is involved in a fight of her own – a fight for the truth and the realization her fiancé does not trust her. After his talk with Nemo, Hook decides to trap his memories in a dream catcher, but Emma catches him before he can go through with it. Inside the threaded memory trap, Hook’s past plays out like a movie reel and Emma sees what he’s been hiding. Upset, she gives her engagement ring back and tells Hook if he can’t trust her with the truth than he’s not ready for a lifetime commitment. With ring in hand and his heart on his sleeve, Hook leaves and ponders a trip on the Nautilus with his old friend Nemo. He comes to the conclusion that he is not right for Emma, but maybe a trip under the sea will give him some perspective.

Across town, Regina finds her evil half and Robin, but what’s waiting for her she would have never guessed. The Queen has the shears and admits she plans on cutting the fate that ties their two halves so that she can kill the mayor without incurring her own wrath. The sadistic royal poofs a tied-up Robin to parts unknown and Regina has had just about enough of her evil alter. Tired and at a loss of how to handle her other self, she agrees and allows the Queen to snip the remaining tie to each other. Once their fate is separated, the two start a fight to the death. Regina gets the upper hand and removes the Evil Queens heart. Crushing it would be so easy, but the reformed woman fought long and hard to change. Instead, she tells her other half that no matter how hard she tries, she can never erase the people who love them. Not Henry, not the Charmings, not Robin nor Emma. With that said, Regina chooses love over hate and removes a part of her heart and the Queens. She gives the Queen some of her love and she takes some of the Queen’s darkness and shoves their hearts back in place. Instantly, the Evil Queen feels the love begin to spread and the two hug, finally at peace with themselves and their past.

After the heart melting, heart mending, the not-so-Evil-Queen and Regina sit down for a heart to heart. Robin was sent back to the Wish-verse and the Queen apologizes to her other half for making that hasty decision without her. This truly is a new and improved Queen! Besides a complete attitude change, the new and improved woman was hoping for a location change as well, “…a fresh start,” she says. Who better than to give the Not-So-Evil-Queen her new beginning than her son, Henry the author? After a sweet moment between evil half mother and son, Henry agrees with Regina and writes the Queen a new story, one alongside her true love Wish-verse Robin. It looks like with enough hope, a little bit of faith and whole lot of love, even Evil Queens can get their happy endings.

Hook’s Going Down, Down, Down…

With the Queen gone in search of a fresh start and Storybrooke down one evil villain, Hook thinks maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the town and Emma. Before he boards the Nautilus for parts unknown, he runs into Snow who gives him her trade mark hope speech. She tells him about the Queen and her happy resolution and in the blink of an eye, Hook goes from brooding pirate to hopeful boyfriend. Hook heads to the Nautilus to tell Nemo he won’t be joining him as he plans on fighting for Emma’s forgiveness! Just when the two friends are about to bid goodbye, the submarine starts to sink! Down, down she goes with a trapped Hook and Nemo on board. The captain and his crew didn’t order the ship to sail, it was Gideon! Gideon wants Hook out of the picture so he can kill Emma, take over as savior and finally make The Black Fairy (Jaime Murray) pay.

Can Hook get off the sinking submarine in time to help Emma? Will Emma even want his help since he lied to her about his past? Can the Evil Queen truly change or will she be back to stir up some evil trouble? Find out the answers to thins and more on next week’s “Once Upon a Time.”