Once Upon A Time – Heartless

By: Kelly Kearney

The Evil Queen Wants Her “Little Bit More”

This week’s episode of “Once Upon a Time,” revisits an old favorite with a new heart wrenching twist. After her make out session with Gold (Robert Carlyle), the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) tracks Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) down in her dreams only to drag her down memory lane. The Queen tells a story about Snow’s 15^th birthday and a gifted miniature horse that added to the princess’s perfect day. Now that the Evil Queen is back and seems to be holding most of the cards, she wants her perfect day… and maybe a little bit more, too. What’s the Evil Queen’s ideal day? Her heart’s greatest desire? An old favorite of course – the heart of her enemy Snow White. Snow reminds the queen that Regina put a protection spell on the Charming’s shared heart so she couldn’t snatch them from their chests, but the Queen has no intention of taking their hearts. She expects the Charmings to give them to her freely. That’s when the Queen hands Snow a vial of mysterious liquid and tells her she has 24 hours to figure out what the liquid is or the entire town will be destroyed.

After tormenting Snow’s dreams, the gloating Queen heads to Zelena’s (Rebecca Mader) farmhouse to keep her sister apprised of their plan. Zelena notices how smug her evil sister is acting and wonders if Rumple helped put that smile on her face. The Queen evades her jealous sister’s inquiries by saying that Rumple is thankful to her for finding the golden shears and offered his help. “A little give and take,” is what she calls it, but Zelena knows there’s more to it than that and boy is there ever. After last week’s kiss, “give and take” must be Enchanted Forrest speak for “Mattress Mambo” because there’s a lot more going on between these two than a friendly game of quid pro quo.

Flashbacks and True Love

In a flashback, we learn a little more history into the Charming’s true love. When Snow was on the run from the Evil Queen, she made money selling her family’s jewels to the local villagers when she’d pass through. One nobleman (Paul Jarett) recognized Snow as the wanted woman from the Queen’s posters and hired a local bounty hunter to trap her for the ransom. Luckily, Blue (Keegan Connor Tracy) was traveling with her and the two stopped the bounty hunter a/k/a/ the Wood Cutter’s attack taking this as the final sign to get out of Dodge. The wanted princess takes the last of her trinkets and heads out to search for passage to a land called Longborne where she can finally be free of the Queen and her bounty.

While Snow was headed to Longborne her future true love David (Josh Dallas) and his adorable herding dog Wimbly were also headed to Longborne to try and sell his family’s struggling farm. There’s plenty of noblemen in Longborne and the shepherd is hoping he can find a buyer.

A Deathly Drop of Water

In Storybrooke, Team Heroes are trying to determine what’s in the mystery vial. Regina has an idea and sprinkles a drop of the liquid on tree which instantly kills it! It’s exactly what she feared – water from The River of Lost Souls. Rumple must’ve brought it back from the Underworld, which means her other half and her enemy are working together. It seems the Evil Queen has backed the Charmings into a corner – save the town or save themselves. Either way, someone’s going to pay and nobody wants it to be Emma (Jennifer Morrison). The savior’s parents worry that whichever decision they choose will put their daughter one step closer to the death in her visions.

Flashback to David on the road to Longborne when he and Wimbly came upon a local merchant who lost a valuable cup that the dog happened to find. The man’s name was Gabriel (Paul Johansson) and while he appeared friendly, he was anything but. In his merchant cart was the telltale signs of a bounty hunter, chains and all. He convinced the naïve shepherd to travel with him to Longborne because of the dangerous local Briggins that plagued the forest.

A Collective “Ewww”

At Emma’s, the team enlists Blue to help find a way to neutralize the deathly water and the fairy has an idea but doubts its effectiveness. There’s a sapling, sprouted from true love that can trap the Queen but there’s only one problem – they don’t know where it grows. Emma wonders if there isn’t some magical locater spell to find it but Blue reminds her that if the spell worked, Rumple, Zelena and the Queen would know what they were looking for and it would be a race to find it. That’s when Regina reveals a shocking truth about her relationship with the Dark One. There was always a strong sexual chemistry between them and maybe she can distract him and the Queen long enough to find the sapling. Everyone in Emma’s kitchen is shocked and grossed out, but not nearly as bad as Emma. Regina promises nothing ever happened between her and Rumple, but if her plan works they might just defeat her evil half.

Regina sends a raven to deliver a message seemingly from the Evil Queen to meet her at Gold’s shop. The trap is set and the claws come out when Zelena walks in on the two evil lovers in a hot makeout session. I guess she’s never heard the saying “when the pawn shop is rocking, don’t come knocking” because when Zelena figures out she been played she starts turning that familiar shade of green. Of course, Rumple is keen to his former student’s tricks and smells a rat when he sees Zelena’s note that wasn’t written by the Evil Queen. The three villains realize they’ve been had around the same time Regina lifts the blood lock on her vault and prepares to imprison the Queen in her crypt. Emma and Hook offer their assistance to clean the vault out of anything the Queen could use against them.

Extra Memories and hope speeches

Back on the road to Longborne, David realizes Gabriel is bad news a little too late when the bounty hunter drugs him and takes Wilby on a hunt for Snow. Like all great tracking dogs, Wilby finds the princess and Gabriel (the Wood Cutter) chains her up in his merchant cart of horrors.

In Storybrooke, Regina, David and Snow find a secret hatch that leads to the magical sapling where the Evil Queen is waiting to crush it along with any hope of defeating her. Later, Snow and Charming talk about their final fate and about the memories they had when they touched the sapling. They both remembered the merchants cart, but how can that be when they never saw each other? Saw? No. Spark true love sprouting the magic sapling? Absolutely! When Snow tried to pay David for saving her life from Gabriel, the two sparked true love’s magic. They never saw each other’s faces because Snow didn’t want the shepherd to incriminate himself with the Queen.

Over at the vault, Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) gives Emma a hope speech which, quite frankly, if this woman doesn’t know by now that she is the savior born to break curses she should have her head checked. Be that as it may, the pirate does his best to ease Emma’s mind over defeating the Queen.

A Sleeping Curse With A Twist

The episode ends in a dramatic twist when the Charmings hand themselves or should I say hearts, over to the Evil Queen as a sacrifice to save the town. Taking Snow’s heart was the Evil Queen’s dream so when she plucks theirs out only to shove them back in, the Charmings are very confused and that’s when Snow falls to the ground. Another sleeping curse? Not exactly. When Charming goes to wake Snow with true love’s kiss, Snow awakens only to have Charming fall asleep. Regina looks horrified and tells Snow that the Evil Queen put a sleeping curse on her heart and since she shares that with David, only one can be awake while the other is a sleep. Until the curse is broken, the Charmings must face a fate worse than death – living life without each other.

If that’s not bad enough, Zelena lets Belle in on her sister and the Dark One’s “give and take,” forcing Belle (Emilie de Ravin) to give Rumple the final heave hoe from her and their baby’s life. True love has never looked so scarce in Storybrooke and thanks to the Evil Queen and Rumple the savior has quite the job on her hands. Can she find a way to lift the curse on her parent’s heart or will she die before she gets a chance to save the town and her family from the Evil Queen’s “perfect day?”