SPOILER ALERT! THIS EPISODE CONTAINS COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF CGI!
This week on Once Upon a Time, Snow White goes to the prom with a freaky fish lady.
So, Snow White jumps into the sea to escape Regina’s men and then Ariel the mermaid saves her from drowning. They become fast friends.
It turns out that Ariel fell in love at first sight with the human Prince Eric, but she’s afraid that they can never be together on account of the whole being a mermaid that must live in water thing.
Why is it that every female character on this has to have a backstory that’s all about true love and trying to have a “happily ever after”? Are they not allowed to deviate from the Disney movie formula?
In this universe Ursula is a goddess, instead of a witch, and once a year at the highest possible tide, she grants mermaids the ability to transform their fins into legs. It just so happens that the highest tide coincides with Prince Eric’s Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, so Ariel takes this opportunity to go to the dance and meet with Eric.
It turns out that Eric is madly in love with Ariel as well. Eric is leaving the next day to explore the world and he invites Ariel to join him, but, OH NO! Ariel’s legs with have reverted to fins by then.
It’s interesting to not that Eric says that one of the places he is going to visit is Agrabah and at that exact moment there is a woman in blue with her midriff showing, just like Princess Jasmine. I also wonder if they are just namedropping Agrabah, or is this is going to connect to Jafar and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland eventually?
Back in the present-day Neverland, Rumpelstiltskin is still just kind of hanging around and being a nutbar by himself, that is, until Peter Pan shows up again to try and demoralize him. Peter Pan tells Rumpelstiltskin that he should give up on trying to save Henry, because Rumpelstiltskin will die in the process and that he should go home to Belle and start a new family with her, because she “looks fertile”. Ick. Ick. Ick. No, Lost Boys should never comment on a woman’s fetility. It grosses me out. How does Peter Pan know anything about Belle or Rumpelstiltskin’s life in Storybrooke, anyway?
And then the hallucination Belle shows up and is all like, “Yeah, Rumple, you should listen to Pan. I’m hella fertile. Your current family sucks anyway.”
Regina interrupts and reveals that the hallucination Belle was really Peter Pan’s shadow the whole time. That’s a bit gross. Didn’t Rumpelstiltskin and hallucination Belle kiss at some point? This means that Pan’s shadows has probably been relaying everything that Rumpelstilskin has been saying, you know, via charades or something, and that ain’t good.
I also wonder what Rumpelstiltskin’s shadow has been up to. We haven’t seen it since he cut it off. Can Rumpelstiltskin’s shadow shapeshift like Peter Pans? What happened to the shadow that we saw Pan tear out of Greg Mendell?
Anyway, Regina convinces Rumpelstiltskin that they should join forces, because wandering around in circles in the jungle with the Charmings has gotten really, really annoying. They need to rescue Henry and go do something more interesting.
Back to the fishy mermaid story of lovey dovey. Regina has been spying on Snow White and Ariel and she devises yet another plan to kill Snow White that will of course not work. We already know that Snow White survives to the present, so there is never any tension in these stories about her and Regina’s past.
Anyway, Regina disguises herself as Ursula so that she can trick Ariel into joining her in her evil plan, also because it’s just too fun to look that fabulous and ham it up.
Regina gives Ariel a magical bracelet to put on Snow White that gives Ariel legs and changes Snow White’s legs into fins, unfortunately, since Snow White has no idea how use fins, this leaves her helpless. Snow White is completely at Regina’s mercy now, but instead of killing Snow White right away, which would be the smart thing to do, Regina drags it out and gives Ariel enough time to grab a fork to stab her with.
Ariel takes the bracelet off Snow White, which means that she loses her legs and won’t be able to go on the journey with Eric. Snow White convinces Ariel to tell Eric about her fishiness, because, who knows? Maybe Eric is into that kind of thing. Regina steals Ariel’s voice at the last second though, so she will never be able to tell Eric the truth.
Fast forward to present day, Regina returns Ariel’s voice to her and says that will give Ariel legs and reunite her with Eric, if she does a favour for her. You see mermaids can travel between realms (the Hell?) and they need a magical doohickey from Mr. Gold’s store in Storybrooke. Yay! We’re going back to Storybrooke!
So, mermaids can just spontaneously open portals between worlds or something? That’s really dang useful. You’d figure that Regina or Rumpelstiltskin would have captured one and be keeping it in a tank in their basement for emergencies.
So, what have the Charmings and Captain Hook been doing this whole time?
Well, it turns out that Captain Hook really is a good guy and he tells them right away that Neal is alive and in Neverland, even though this means that he’ll have to stop macking on Emma. Emma says that the only reason she kissed Hook was because she was bored or something and she likes messing with people’s emotions.
Neal is in the middle of a magical pit that can only be crossed if everyone reveals a dark secret they’ve been hiding. That evil, evil Peter Pan, making everyone tell the truth. Who does he think he is?
So, everyone’s deep dark secret:
- Hook kissed Emma and he’s was afraid to admit that this means he’s moved on from his dead love, Milah.
- Mary Margaret is upset because she isn’t really getting that mother-daughter experience that she wanted with Emma and when they get home to Storybrooke, she want’s to start over again with a new baby.
- We already know David’s secret. He can’t leave Neverland because he had his dreamshade poisoning cured by the magic spring, so he can’t have a baby with Margaret in Storybrooke.
- And Emma’s secret is that she was hoping that Neal really was dead, because she was afraid of facing all the hurt that Neal caused her. Emma is just in general really bad at dealing with emotions
So, after Neal and Emma are back together, he tells her that he’ll never stop fighting for her, except he totally did already. Doesn’t he remember how he fell in love with Tamara and got engaged to her?
Hey, we never found out who was in that other cage from last week. Bleh. I hate waiting.