Once Upon a Time Season 2 Spring Hiatus Catch Up

SPOILER ALERT! Oh, man, you would just not believe how many spoilers that this post has. It’s just so many spoilers.

Oi, did you miss an episode of season 2 of Once Upon a Time? Well, now is a good time for you to catch up, because there are no new episodes until April 21st, and, luckily for you, I’ve compiled this handy-dandy catch up guide with important plot points from each episode.

All episode titles link to posts that I wrote about that episode and character names link to the tag archive for that character.

Table of Contents:

  1. Broken
  2. We Are Both
  3. Lady of the Lake
  4. The Crocodile
  5. The Doctor
  6. Tallahassee
  7. Child of the Moon
  8. Into the Deep
  9. Queen of Hearts
  10. The Cricket Game
  11. The Outsider
  12. In the Name of the Brother
  13. Tiny
  14. Manhattan
  15. The Queen is Dead
  16. The Miller’s Daughter
  17. Welcome to Storybrooke
  18. Selfless, Brave and True

S02E01 Broken

S02E02 We Are Both

  • The people of Storybrooke, having newly regained the memories of their past lives, must come to grips with essentially being two people at once.
  • Grumpy pushes Sneezy across the townline which makes Sneezy lose his fairy tale memories, leaving him with just his memories of being Mr. Clark.
  • David searches for a way to open a portal to the Enchanted Forest to retrieve Emma and Snow White.
  • In the past, Regina uses a magic looking glass that Rumpelstiltskin gave her to trap her mother, Cora, in Wonderland.
  • It is revealed that Rumpelstiltskin is the one that originally taught Regina how to use magic, specifically, dark magic.
  • Regina rediscovers how to use magic in Storybrooke, but changes her mind on using it to make Henry love her, because it would not be a real love.
  • Meanwhile, in the present-day Enchanted Forest, Mulan and Aurora have taken Emma and Snow White prisoner.

S02E03 Lady of the Lake

  • Sir Lancelot is introduced.
  • In the past Enchanted Forest, Snow White is kidnapped by King George who poisons her so that she cannot have a child.
  • King George’s men also shoot Prince Charming’s mother with a poison arrow.
  • Snow White, Lancelot, Prince Charming and his mother all travel Lake Nostos for a cure, but there is only enough water left there to heal one person.
  • Prince Charming’s mother pretends to drink the healing water and Lancelot secretly puts the healing water in Snow White’s goblet.
  • Prince Charming’s mother sacrifices her life to cure Snow White and lives just long enough to see Snow White and Prince Charming get married, which was her dearest wish.
  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Snow White and Emma are trapped in a prison with Cora.
  • Lancelot, having recognized Snow White from their past dealing frees them from the prison and they go off in search of the wardrobe that brought Emma to our world.
  • They find the wardrobe, but it turns out that Lancelot was really Cora in disguise and they have to destroy the wardrobe to keep her from getting her hands on it.
  • In Storybrooke, Jefferson is reunited with his daughter and David has trouble dealing with his new job of taking care of Henry.

S02E04 The Crocodile

  • This is the first appearance of Captain Hook, Smee and Rumpelstiltskin’s wife, Milah.
  • In the past Enchanted Forest, Milah ran off with the pirate, Killian Jones, and Rumpelstiltskin crushed Milah’s heart and cut off Killian’s hand in retaliation, making Killian into Captain Hook and Rumpelstiltskin into the crocodile (metaphorically?).
  • In Storybrooke, Moe attempts to get his daughter, Belle, over the townline to erase her memories of her love for Rumpelstiltskin, but Rumpelstiltskin saves her at the last second.
  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Cora shows a bottle of the ashes from the wardrobe to Captain Hook and they start hatching a plan to get to Storybrooke.

S02E05 The Doctor

S02E06 Tallahassee

  • This is the first appearance of Anton the giant.
  • In the past, Emma is a thief and she falls in love with a fellow thief named “Neal Cassidy“.
  • August Booth meets alone with Neal and convinces him that Emma, in order to fulfill her special destiny, must be rehabilitated from her life of crime and he convinces Neal to rat Emma out for a crime that she didn’t commit so that she will be thrown in jail, because jail will straighten her out or something.
  • Emma finds out that she is pregnant in jail.
  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Emma climbs the the beanstalk, retrieves the magic compass, decides to spare the giant’s life and leaves Captain Hook chained up in the giant’s castle.
  • Aurora has been having nightmares ever since she was woken from the sleeping curse.
  • Henry is also having nightmares after coming out of his sleeping curse

S02E07 Child of the Moon

  • In the past Enchanted Forest, while on the run from the Evil Queen, Red gets split up from Snow White and runs into her mother who Granny said was dead.
  • Red’s mother and her wolf pack teach Red how to control her wolf form.
  • Snow White finds Red, but accidentally leads some of the Evil Queen’s men to the wolves’ lair and they kill one of the pack.
  • Red’s mother believes the death is Snow White’s fault and wants Red to kill her. Red and her mother fight instead and the mother is accidentally killed in the process.
  • In Storybrooke, the dwarves have found fairy dust and they think that it can be used to fix Jefferson’s hat.
  • Albert Spencer frames Ruby for the murder of Billy and uses the the resultant distraction to steal Jefferson’s hat and destroy it.
  • Aurora and Henry meet in their nightmares.

S02E08 Into the Deep

  • In the present-day Enchanted Forest, Cora raises an undead army of the people that she stole hearts from.
  • Henry meets with Aurora in the nightmare zone.
  • David ends up trapped in the sleeping curse.

S02E09 Queen of Hearts

S02E10 The Cricket Game

S02E11 The Outsider

S02E12 In the Name of the Brother

S02E13 Tiny

S02E14 Manhattan

S02E15 The Queen is Dead

S02E16 The Miller’s Daughter

S02E17 Welcome to Storybrooke

S02E18 Selfless, Brave and True

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E18 “Selfless, Brave and True”

WARNING SPOILERS! IF YOU DON’T LIKE SPOILERS, THEN YOU SHOULD PROBABLY STAY OFF OF THE INTERNET!

Well, kids, get ready for the 11th hour plotline gamechanger.

Forget about Sneezy losing his memory.

Forget about Mulan and Princess Aurora trying to return Prince Philip’s soul to his body.

Forget about Dr. Frankenstein trying find his lost brother.

I’m willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that the remaining episodes in season 2 revolve around the surrounding world encroaching on Storybrooke.

August Booth (played by eion bailey) on a bed beside isra (played by dianne doan)
Prostitute or girlfriend? Place your bets!

The episode opens in Phuket, Thailand. August Booth is in bed with a Thai woman named Isra. For some reason I feel that it is significant that they bothered to name the woman who August is with in this scene, even though this is the only time we see her in the entire episode. It just feels like one of those little tidbits that they put in that later becomes significant in retrospect. So, anyway, start guessing which fairy tale character Isra really is.

So, including Isra, August has been getting all up into some naughty things and, since August is really Pinocchio, we all know where this is leading…

adult wooden puppet august booth (played by eion bailey and CGI)
LITTLE WOODEN BOY!

UGH. Why did they have to make wooden puppet August look so creepy? Also, I don’t like the way that his mouth moves like a real person’s mouth. I think that puppet August should have a hinged mouth like a marionette, complete with clacking noise when it closes.

August, just like the viewers, is disgusted by his hideous wooden form, but, rather than do good deeds in order to become a real boy again, August decides to try to find an easier way out. Queue an ultra convenient bilingual person that overhears August’s plight and tells him about a mysterious man call “The Dragon” that has magical powers and can cure August of his gross woodiness. Along the way, he encounters Tamara, Neal Cassidy’s future fiancee, because everyone, everyone on this has to have a mysterious past.

Tamara, while not from a magical world herself, is intensely interested in finding magic in the world, and, what’s more, keeping that magic all for herself. Tamara obtains a magic potion from The Dragon and then has it analysed with SCIENCE!

tamara (played by sonequa martin-green) holds up a vial full of magic
THIS VIAL IS PERPLEXING!

“I tested this vial with ALL OF THE SCIENCE and I found out that it isn’t composed of SCIENCE. It is made of SOMETHING ELSE. Mayhaps it be magic?”

Note that all these tests that Tamara performed on the vial apparently only took a couple of hours.

Then, instead of trying to get more magic from The Dragon, she decides to taser him to death, because he knows too much, or something.

tamara (played by sonequa martin-green) tasers the dragon (played by tzi ma)
This isn’t even my final form! BLEH! *dead*

Tamara is the worst, because she murdered The Dragon before we could see his final form. I guess there was only enough in money in this episode’s budget for one creepy-ass CGI critter.

Tamara then somehow follows August to New York, where he meets with Neal Cassidy and then she decides to trick Neal into becoming engaged with her, or something, so she can steal the magic from Storybrooke. It doesn’t make much sense.

August decides to try to stop Tamara from stealing the magic from Storybrooke, because apparently, yes, the entire town can be threaten by a lone woman with no special powers, but she tasers him to death. He was made of wood. Wood doesn’t conduct electricity that well. How could a taser kill him? BAH!

Apparently, it’s the thought that counts and just trying to save Storybrooke is enough of a good deed. The Blue Fairy appears out of nowhere and changes August Booth into a real boy, not a real man, mind you, a real boy with none of August’s adult memories, and, thus, no memories of Tamara. That buys time for the writers to stall a confrontation with her for a few more episodes. How convenient.

Also, part of her evil plan somehow involves having sex with Greg Mendell/Owen Flynn behind Neal’s back. You know what would be nice? It it would nice if this show could have just one female antagonist that doesn’t use sex to manipulate people.

adult wooden puppet august booth changes into human pinocchio (played by jakob davies)
LITTLE HUMAN BOY!

Well, sorry August fangirls and August/Emma fanshippers, August has, effectively, been killed off, but it’s probably for the best that the 7-year-old version of August doesn’t remember what he got up to in Thailand. Still, I hope that Isra comes to Storybrooke looking for an adult August and instead is greeted by a little kid.

a photo of tamara and her grandmother
Gram-Gram

One last thing, it’s mentioned in this episode that the most important person in Tamara’s life is her grandmother.

Who is Tamara’s grandmother? Tamara had to have learned about magic from somewhere, it must have been from her grandmother. I’m willing to bet that Tamara’s mother is Wendy Darling from Peter Pan, because they’ve been foreshadowing a visit to Neverland all season. They’ve also foreshadowed that Neal Cassidy may very well have been Peter Pan, which would mean that Neal would have been romantically involved with both Tamara and her grandmother. It’s so icky that the writers probably went there.

And, if anyone tells me that Tamara’s grandmother can’t be Wendy Darling because she is black, well, they already have Scottish actor Robert Carlyle playing the German character Rumpelstiltskin, so shut up. Also, you’re racist and should go have yourself a sit in The Naughty Corner.

august booth (played by eion bailey) shows off his sweet kung-fu moves
I don’t know karate, but I know crazy!

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E17 “Welcome to Storybrooke”

TRIGGER WARNING! If you are sensitive to spoilers and you haven’t seen the seventeenth episode of the second season of Once Upon a Time,”Welcome to Storybrooke”, then you might not want to view this post without consulting your support team first.

Being a good single  mom, having a fulfilling day job and crushing your enemies beneath your feet, can a woman have it all? Regina seems to think so.

This episode is all about having your cake and eating it too.

Although, through the use of magic, I believe that an “infinity cake” is probably possible…

owen flynn (played by benjamin james stockham) and his father, kurt flynn (played by john pyper-ferguson) bond around a campfire
Here, kid, have a dealie.

Meet Owen Flynn and Kurt Flynn. They’re two “normies” from the real world that are about to feel the full brunt of Regina’s reactive attachment disorder.

the crotch of sheriff graham (played by jamie dornan)
I’d know that crotch anywhere!

Part of this episode takes place in the early days of Storybrooke, just after the curse was cast, so, of course, they break out their secret sexy weapon…

the face of sheriff graham (played by jamie dornan)
Skinny hipster tie…

It’s Sheriff Tight-Pants… Er, Sheriff Hipster… Er, I mean, Sheriff Sexy… Whoops! No, it’s Sheriff Graham!

Methinks that the writers are really regretting killing-off Sheriff Graham. All the ladies love him! I mean, look at him, standing there with his face and junk. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE!?

Look at that skinny tie! It’s amazing!

Mary margaret (played by ginnifer goodwin) can't get out of be because she is too sad
ANGST COMA

Anyhoo, Mary Margret has to stay in bed for the rest of her life, because she just feels so bad after the whole “killing Cora” thing. She murdered millions of henchmen as Snow White and didn’t care at all! Snow White’s black and white morality apparently only applies to main characters. Actually, in this entire show, it’s only he lives of the main characters that matter.

Later on in this episode, Regina pulls out Mary’s heart and we see that it has a black spot, because apparently that’s what happens to your heart when you trick a person into killing their own mother. Methinks Mary, in upcoming episodes, is going to do as many good deeds as possible, in order to erase the darkness from her heart and finally become a real boy.

She should just seek out Mother Superior and repent to God. That would be faster.

*ASIDE* Why are all the fairies still dressed up as nuns? You’d figure that magic and such would be incompatible with the Catholic belief system.

regina mills (played by lana parrilla) and owen flynn (played by benjamin james stockham) look into an oven
Shove the kid inside! You know you want to.

Regina falls absolutely in love with Owen Flynn. I don’t know why, though. The kid spends the entire episode being an obnoxious butt.

She’s so in love with him that she attempts to steal the damn kid away from his father, but it doesn’t work out so well. Owen Flynn manages to escape Storybrooke, leaving his father behind.

We haven’t seen or heard anything about Kurt Flynn until this episode. Where has Kurt been this whole time? Is he in Regina’s vault? Several characters saw him and his son. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned anything about it? It will probably be handwaved away with “the cursed messed up everyone’s memories”. Magic makes covering up plotholes too easy.

neal cassidy (played by michael raymond james) gives his son henry played by jared s. gilmore) a sundae
Unmoved by the delicious bribe.

Neal Cassidy tries to use ice cream to bribe Henry into leaving Storybrooke. Henry decides that he’d rather stay and try to blow up all the magic instead. Luckily Regina shows up just in time to tell Henry that “You can’t just blow up all your problems, son”. Screw that, explosions always solve everything! Why the dwarves of Storybrooke are just leaving their dynamite unattended,  in a world where everyone is trying to kill eachother, I will never know.

At the end of the episode, we find out that Greg Mendell is really Owen Flynn, because, on this show, everyone has to have at least two identities, even people from the real world. Soon, we’re going to find out that Henry is really one of the sugar plum fairies from Fantasia

Anyway, Greg Mendell/Owen Flynn is back in Storybrooke to find his father, who will now, presumably, be around the same age as him and, oh, how there will be angst and drama because of it. There are only 5 episodes left in this season and I doubt that this plotline will be resolved in that time. I dislike when they shoehorn in 11th hour plotlines so that they will have something to carry over into the next season.

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E16 “The Miller’s Daughter”

WARNING! This post contains spoilers for the sixteenth episode of the second season of Once Upon a Time, The Miller’s Daughter. If you haven’t seen that episode, then don’t read this post, lest you be spoiled for all time. Also, I may get a little blue this time round.

This episode made me feel dirty and not in a fun way. It was more of a “why is this network TV show turning all softcore-porny” dirty.

This episode seemed like 12 hours of a creepy imp hardcore macking on Rose McGowan. That’s because that’s what it was. Robert Carlyle’s sexual aura bent time and turned an hour show into 12 hours. This has been proven by finest hobo physicists in the field of hobo physics.

rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) kissing a young cora (played by rose mcgowan)
First he was like…
rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) kissing a young cora (played by rose mcgowan) again
Then he was like…
rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) kissing a young cora (played by rose mcgowan) yet again
And then the fangirls grabbed their torches and pitchforks and marched on the ABC studios.

I don’t think Robert Carlyle was even acting here. I think this was for real. This wasn’t family-friendly. But, hey, you get the chance to get kinda nasty with Rose McGowan, you take it.

Er… So, anyway, I guess I should walk about the plot and stuff.

  • Cora was a miller’s daughter
  • Eva, Snow White’s mom, was mean to Cora because of Cora’s low social standing
  • Rumpelstiltskin helps Cora learn magic through the power of hot making out
  • Cora becomes a duchess or something

Remember how I said that I didn’t think that Rumpelstiltskin was Regina’s father? I think that this episode confirms that. See, Cora and Rumpelstiltskin’s deal was that their first child together would belong to Rumpelstiltskin, but Cora decides to end her relationship with Rumpelstiltskin and marry Henry. Also, if Regina was Rumpelstiltskin’s daughter, he’d have power over her, right? He can’t seem to control Regina at all.

Of course, we’ve seen shapeshifting on this show. Rumpelstiltskin could have just made himself look like Henry and… Doesn’t it count as rape by fraud if you use your magic powers to make a person think that you’re someone you’re not? We need a magic lawyer to sort these things out. Anyway, if he did shapeshift into Henry, then it would be possible for Regina to be his daughter.

Oh, wait, wasn’t it implied in a first season episode that Jefferson was Regina’s half-brother? Maybe, Regina is the child of Cora and Henry, and, Jefferson is the child of Cora and Rumpelstiltskin. It would explain why Jefferson was working for Rumpelstiltskin.

The family trees on this show are already pretty complicated. Would the writer’s want to complicate them even further?

Also, I wish that there weren’t two character’s named “Henry” on  this show. A couple of those above paragraphs are really gross, if you’re thinking about the wrong Henry.

I need to go have myself a lie-down. I’m getting weird.

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E15 “The Queen is Dead”

WARNING! WARNING! This post contains spoilers for episode fifteen of season two of Once Upon a Time, The Queen is Dead. Stop reading now, if you haven’t seen the episode. (I don’t actually care if people get spoiled or not. I just like making these annoying disclaimers!)

I actually liked this episode quite a bit. The one thing that I did find irksome was Queen Eva, while wearing a dress that must have been encrusted with enough diamonds to buy a small country, giving a young Snow White a lecture about how everyone is equal.

queen eva (played by rena sofer) wearing a red dress covered in way too many diamonds
Seriously, how do you even wash this thing?

They thing I always like to remember when I’m being told by a work of fiction to root for royalty, is that all their stuff is paid for by taxing their subjects. So, this dress, with its insane amount of jewels, was paid for with money that could have gone to improving sanitation or building a school or any number of public works projects that would have improved the lives of the entire kingdom and not just the queen. Anyone that wastes their people’s money on expensive clothing, lavish balls, multiple castles, tapestries and all the other gaudy royal accoutrements can’t be  a good person in my book.

And they can’t say everyone is equal when they became the leader of a country through nepotism, or, if you will, Divine Right. The system of government in Fairy Tale Land is extremely unfair and often the leaders it produces are unfit for ruling. Being the child of a good ruler doesn’t mean that you will be a good ruler… or maybe it does because of magic and true love and fairy farts. What do I know?

Anyhoo…

DEMOCRACY FOR FAIRY TALE LAND!

Seriously, the characters in Storybrooke have now experienced what it’s like to live in a free democratic society. I don’t know why so many of them seem to want to back to a land filled with autocracies and monarchies.

johanna (played by lesley nicol) trying on snow white's tiara
Enjoy that crown, Johanna, you’re never going to be seen again after this episode!

Actually, I just remembered one other thing that bothered me about this episode, they introduced yet another new character, Johanna, only to have her die in the very same episode. This is like the 20th time that they’ve done this. I think they have to find more uses for existing characters and stop murdering so many guest stars.

My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S02E14 “Manhattan”

This post contains spoilers for the fourteenth episode of the second season of Once Upon a Time, Manhattan. If you haven’t watched this episode yet, then you might not want to read this.

Hey, the plot actually progressed in this episode.

I am really tired of the stupid kid.

Anyway, here are some things we discovered in this episode.

  • Rumpelstiltskin busted his own leg
  • Baelfire is Neal Cassidy
  • Henry can’t stay in another room for more than 2 minutes
  • Emma is a “no fate but what we make” type of guy