Once Upon A Time – Where Bluebirds Fly

By: Kelly Kearney

Somewhere, over the rainbow…

You might have guessed from the title Where Bluebirds Fly was all about our favorite wicked greenie, Zelena (Rebecca Mader). Zelena hasn’t exactly been known to make the best choices and in this episode, that all changes with one unselfish act to save Storybrooke and its savior.

In a flashback to her childhood we find a young and precocious Zelena (Isabelle Blake-Thomas) walking along the yellow brick road where she meets a young boy named Stan (Austin Obiajunwa), who we later find out is the Tin Man from the famous book The Wizard of Oz. The two quickly become friends when the future wicked witch dazzles him with her magic, a skill that the locals consider her a freak for wielding. Being a kid is tough, but being a kid witch with powers your peers don’t understand is far worse. Stan realizes this and defends Zelena from the town bullies, certainly something the young witch is not used to.

Back in Storybrooke, while Zelena is tending to her daughter Robyn, The Black Fairy (Jaime Murray) pops into the farmhouse for a not so friendly visit. The evil woman heard a little rumor that Zelena is magically wicked and tries tempting her to join the dark side. Zelena, whose never been known to scare easily, doesn’t trust The Black Fairy and tells her she’s not afraid of her. Unfortunately for our favorite wicked sister from another mister, she should be and The Black Fairy tells her as much.

With evil lurking around every corner, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) make a little time for romance with a kitchen makeout session that gets awkwardly interrupted by Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her excitement over wedding plans. A meddling mother isn’t the last of their interruptions when Regina (Lana Parrilla) calls with news that Zelena got a visit from The Black Fairy. Everyone is quite versed on Zelena and her back-stabbing ways and nobody wants to take the chance she won’t revert to her wicked self. Thanks to Hook, Team Heroes might have a weapon to stop The Black Fairy before she gets Zelena under her thumb. Hook has the half wand that, if the story is right, can boot the Evil woman from Storybrooke and stop the final battle from coming to fruition. The only problem is it’s only half of a wand and for it to work they need to find the other half.

Save the town or plan a wedding?

While helping Zelena save the town and Emma’s life are all important, they rank second to the pirate and savior’s wedding preparations. Finding the wand will have to wait because the Charmings need a venue to get their daughter hitched.

Across town, Belle’s (Emilie de Ravin) hope for Gideon (Giles Matthey) pays off when she learns his evil doings are not entirely his fault. The Black Fairy has been controlling her son’s heart which means there’s still hope for him to become the handsome hero his mother always hoped he would be. Of course, Blue (Keegan Connor Tracy) is still out cold, laying in the back of Rumple’s (Robert Carlyle) pawn shop with no clue how to snap her out of it when she might be the key to ending this whole thing. Rumple’s on the case, looking for ways to revive the magical woman and that’s when Zelena shows up and asks Belle for a favor. Zelena plans on going after The Black Fairy herself and she is not waiting around for the Charmings to snap out of their wedding planning haze so she asks Belle to look after Robyn. Of course, Belle is happy to do it since she has a lot of time on her hands playing nurse maid to a comatose Blue. Later, Regina stops by Gold’s shop and finds the librarian watching her niece and realizes her sister is going after The Black Fairy, alone. That’s when we flashback to Zelena’s past in Oz, who’s now green and full of sisterly envy. A mystery man approaches the wicked witch and we learn this man is from Zelena’s past. It seems Stan (Alex Desert), the boy who defended the young witch, has been placed under a spell by the Wicked Witch of the North and was hoping Zelena still used her magic for good. The spell turned Stan to tin and now he needs a heart, but Zelena isn’t the kind and misunderstood girl he knew, not any more. She has no interest in helping her old friend without something in return and Stan calls her a coward for not wanting to help. That pushes Zelena to prove him wrong and she heads to the woods in search of his magical crimson heart that will reverse the witch’s spell and turn him back into a man.

Its always a competition to see who’s the best

At the Storybrooke mines, sibling rivalry comes to a head when Regina tracks down her sister and he two get into a fight. Regina loses it and flings her Zelena into a rock wall which causes part of the mine to collapse. Instead of working together to find a way out of their new predicament, the two continue to play the blame game and Regina accuses Zelena of always having to be the best. Of course, Zelena says it’s because she is the best and she will prove it by stopping the Black Fairy and one upping her sister. This need to be the best stems for her past, when we flashback to her search for the Tin Man’s heart. The wicked woman talks about her abandonment issues, thanks to Cora and how she always felt like she wasn’t enough. Her reminiscing gets interrupted when the Cowardly Lion shows up and takes the Tin Man, leaving Zelena ready to fight. Later, we see Zelena and the Tin Man fend off the lion’s attacks and make their way to the crimsons heart only to find out they heart will only work if it sucks out all Zelena’s magic. She assumes her tin can friend set her up and she refuses to help him reverse his spell. She leaves him to rust over and tells him maybe Dorothy will save him.

Back in the mines, the feuding sisters uncover something that might be the key to The Black Fairy’s power; fairy crystals that are growing out of the mine’s wall. What would a dark and powerful woman want with crystals that contain light magic? That’s what Regina wonders when the evil fairy herself shows up with Gideon at her side. The woman magically tosses Regina into a wall and sticks Gideon on her like a watch dog, while Zelena is ready for the fight to end all fights.

While Regina is being bounced around in the mines trying to play hero, the savior is dealing with her mother who is hell bent on getting Emma hitched. Not looking to break the royal bank, Hook wants to be wed on his beloved ship. Snow wants to have the wedding at Granny’s and David (Josh Dallas) just wants to send his little girl to the Enchanted Forest away from her fated battle. In the end, Emma wins out when she tells her parents that she has no plans of rushing their nuptials just to beat fate so they’ll wed when the time is right.

The Ultimate Sacrifice…

Thank goodness the savior comes to her senses because the mother of her son is laying in the town mine while Zelena’s being lured deeper and deeper into The Black Fairy’s trap. The trap shocks Zelena when she magically attacks the wretched woman, only to have her magic turn the fairy crystals into a dark weapon. The Black Fairy counted on Zelena making the wrong choice and, boy, did she ever. After the evil gnat gets what she wants, she poofs the two sisters out of the mine and into another sisterly argument. Regina tells Zelena she did nothing but make things worse by trying to prove she’s better than everyone else. Now the evil woman has what she needs to start the final battle and Regina couldn’t be angrier. She tells her sister to go back to Oz, a place where she can’t hurt any of Regina’s loved ones. Only in Oz, Zelena hurt many people and they wouldn’t be welcoming her home with open arms. There is nothing in Oz for Zelena and she decides to stay and try and fix the problem she created. Like all things magical in Storybrooke, this fix will come with a steep price that only Zelena can pay. To stop The Black Fairy’s new acquired magic, the reformed Wicked Witch must give up her own.

After leaving the Tin Man to rust in the forest, Zelena went back to her castle with the dreaded crimson heart and realized, she is once again, alone. Alone is something Zelena is used to, so it’s a surprise when we find Emma and Regina by her side ready to help. The key to erasing Zelena’s magic was with her all along, the crimson heart and before she erases her magic for good, she pleads with her sister to take care of Robyn should something go wrong. Regina, of course, says yes and Emma buts in to say they both will look after her since that’s what Team Moms do. With that said, Zelena destroys her magic by using the heart and The Black Fairy’s crystal’s go from dark back to light. Halting the evil woman’s progress isn’t the only good deed Zelena does, she tells Emma and Regina that Blue is the key to making Hook’s half wand whole and the three head to Gold’s shop to try and magic her out of her coma. Obviously, Belle is on board with this plan and insists that if Emma and Regina can wake Blue and defeat the black winged gnat, then Gideon’s heart will be his own.

The episode ends with Gideon and the Black Fairy at the town’s magical well. The two watch as the heroes reverse her dark magic and wake Blue, the only person in all the realms that knows why the evil woman gave up her nameless son, Rumpelstiltskin. This information could unravel all the work the evil duo did, to spark the final battle of good versus evil.