Once Upon A Time – The Other Shoe

By: Kelly Kearney

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

When the episode opens we find Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin), Charming (Josh Dallas) and Regina (Lana Parrilla) preparing to bribe Hyde (Sam Witwer) with the Mayor’s famous lasagna. Unbeknownst to them, the Evil Queen got there first with her own bribery dinner and even spruced up the doctor’s drab surroundings. Hyde’s not talking and the trio have bigger things to worry about than cold lasagna, the Evil Queen is plotting something but what could it be?

At Granny’s, Hook (Colin O’Donoghue), Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Henry (Jared Gilmore) are going through the list of visitors from the Land of Untold Stories when Ashley (Jessy Schram) walks in with her daughter and offers to look after any children that may have come over with this new curse. Ashley (aka Ella aka Cinderella) hands her toddler over to Hook and starts going through the list of newcomers to see where she can help. At the counter, Emma looks on while Hook plays with the little girl and her face reads like a mix of emotions. These visions the savior is keeping from everyone can mean only one thing; the happy family that Ashley has is something the savior can never give Hook. Emma heads to Archie’s (Raphael Sbarge) where the doctor tries to help her unravel the issues of her fate.

While Emma’s clocking in hours on Archie’s couch, we see a flashback of Ashley’s life where Prince Thomas (Tim Phillips) sends his Footman Jacob (Max Lloyd-Jones) to deliver an invitation to the royal ball. Lady Tremaine (Lisa Banes), Ella’s evil step-mother, makes it clear that Ella isn’t going anywhere and her sister Clorinda (Mekenna Melvin) throws Ella’s only suitable ball gown that was left to her by her mother into the furnace. Ella, now nicknamed Cinder-Ella from the cinders on the dress, finds a magical key that will lead her to a new land and away from her wicked step mother and step sisters.

Flash forward and Sean (aka Prince Thomas) stops Emma outside Archie’s office with some bad news; Ashely’ gone to find her sister and she took his shot gun with her! Clorinda must’ve come over with the others who’ve paused their stories and Thomas is afraid Ashley wants to kill her. Emma heads off to find her and soon Hook and Henry come along for the adventure.

What is Normalcy?

Regina is becoming desperate to find something to stop Hyde or her evil half and she’s starting to doubt they’ll find it. Snow tells her to think like the Evil Queen and Regina remembers, “If you want to tear a family apart look for the cracks that are already there.” The mayor heads home to have a few words with Zelena (Rebecca Mader) who is most certainly the current crack in her family. Snow seems as frustrated as Regina and confides in Charming that she misses her cursed life. She wants normalcy and decides she’s going back to teaching.

While Snow’s planning to turn Storybrooke back to its safe and normal cursed days, we flashback to another of Snow’s favorite hobbies; matchmaking. Thanks to her fairy godfather Rumple (Robert Carlyle), Ella goes to the Prince’s ball where the two meet and immediately fall for each other – that is until she sees her Prince give Clorinda a red rose. Ella’s evil stepmother rubs it in even more when she tells Ella the Prince would never choose a servant over her beautiful Clorinda. Upset and assuming Lady Tremaine was right, Ella flees the ball leaving her glass slipper behind. Once she’s back in her drab servant outfit, Ella remembers the magical key and before she steps though the door and pauses her story, Clorinda stops her with some shocking news. The prince is searching for the owner of the glass slipper to ask for their hand in marriage. That’s not all, Clorinda’s found love too and it’s not with Ella’s Prince, but with his footman Jacob! She and Jacob are running away together and plans to meet him tonight. Ella knows her step-mother will hunt the two love birds down so she offers Clorinda the magical key to escape and find her happy ending.

Back in Storybrooke, David confronts a lonely Rumple over his father’s coin and, thanks to the Evil Queen, questions the vague possibility his father didn’t die in a drunken cart accident. Of course, with every favor from Rumple ends in a deal. Charming agrees to make it after Rumple tells him his father’s death was no accident, he was murdered. For the information, Rumple has Charming deliver a tape of poems to Belle (Emilie de Ravin) for their son.

Magic On The Fritz

Apparently ever since Emma started having those shaky visions, her magic has been on the fritz. She can’t easily summon it and that’s fairly obvious when Ashley holds her, Hook and Henry at gun point. Ashley doesn’t want to hurt them, but she needs to find her sister and apologize so can’t have the three of them in her way. I guess Cinderella isn’t as innocent as they all thought. Emma tries to magically stop her, but she can’t summon her vibe so the Princess gets away.

While Ashley’s dealing with sister problems, Regina heads to the mansion to find out if Zelena’s had contact with the Evil Queen. It’s quite clear she has when Regina sees her mother’s rattle in baby Robyn’s bed. The two sisters argue, but in the end it’s Regina who feels guilty for separating herself from the Queen and allowing her to run amok in Storybrooke. Little does the mayor know just how much trouble her other half has been brewing, but Emma, Henry and Hook find out first hand when all three get a visit from the Queen herself. The Queen taunts Emma and promises that once she’s removed from the game, all the other pieces on chess board will fall right behind her. It’s an eerie foreshadowing of the savior’s death and the end of her family as she knows it. The Queen magically poofs all three away from their search for Ashley and Emma can’t help but wonder if the Queen want’s Ashley’s story to play out.

When Ashley finally finds her sister in a barn she appears to be hurt but it’s all a trick. Clorinda is livid that Ashley stole her happy ending. In another flashback, Lady Tremaine found out about the Prince’s search for the other glass slipper and Ella thought the marriage would finally appease her. It didn’t and in the process, Ella spilled the secret about her sister and the footman. Lady Tremaine forced her to give up their location then locked Ella away so the Prince couldn’t find her. Thanks to Snow’s animal whispering skills, Ella’s mouse Gus leads the Prince and Snow to Ella and the two kiss and he proposes. Of course, Clorinda wasn’t nearly as lucky because when her mother found the young lovers are ready to run off together, she clocked Jacob over the head, opened the door with the magical key she swiped from her step-daughter and forced Clorinda to go with her to the Land of Untold Stories.

Back in the Storybrooke barn, Lady Tremaine shows up to help Clorinda enact their revenge. The evil stepmother stabs Ashley and that’s when the savior and crew show up. Unfortunately, Emma cannot get her magic mojo flowing, that is until Henry tells her he believes in her, which sparks her healing powers to save Ashley from certain death.

As the episode ends, Charming lies to Snow about seeking revenge for his father’s death. Snow asks him to burn the evidence Rumple gave him and concentrate on raising Neal in a normal setting rather than surrounded by vengeance. Charming agrees, but then pockets the evidence and hides it from his wife. At the asylum, things are about to heat up when the Evil Queen breaks Hyde out of jail and the two get ready to unleash their wrath on Storybrooke. Can Emma and the town stop the Evil Queen and Hyde before all of their untold stories play out? Will Emma’s magic disappear altogether? Can Snow recapture her happier cursed days before their world got turned upside down? Find out next week on “Once Upon a Time.”