‘Once Upon A Time’ Recap: Another Murder In Storybrooke

Plus, Emma uses magic again! I like where this is going. I figured that Cora (Barbara Hershey) and Hook (Colin O'Donoghue) arriving in Storybrooke would stir up trouble, but a death on their first day in town? They work fast, and I am impressed. The victim in question was Archie (Raphael Sbarge), who was found "dead" on the Jan. 6 episode of Once Upon A Time after an encounter with Regina (Lana Parrilla) — which actually sounds like a pretty standard encounter with Regina.

By:
Reading Time: 2 minute
January 6, 2013 10:05PM EST
Once Upon A Time Season 2 Episode 10
Image Credit: Courtesy of ABC

With a little help from Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) and her shiny new powers, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) looked into Pongo’s memories and saw Regina choking out his owner out at his apartment. Then Emma tried to bring her into the station, but because she’s kind of a flop sheriff, the whole plan literally went up in smoke. Still, Emma will now be taking over as Henry’s (Jared Gilmore) guardian, so the damage is done.

Speaking of damage, I’m pretty sure Henry and Emma were both scarred for life this week. When they walked in on Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Charming (Josh Dallas) having sex, it took me a minute to fully process the awkwardness of the situation. That’s three generations of traumatization right there. Oh well, at least the visuals were good for the rest of us.

Now for the twist…

The final moments of the episode revealed that not only is Archie not dead, but he’s being held captive on Hook’s invisible boat as part of their plan to take down Rumpelstiltskin. Just to be clear, someone did die, we just don’t know who it was. In fact, Cora doesn’t even know — and she’s the one who killed them!

Can Regina Change Her Wicked Ways?

This week’s peek into fairytale past took us to a super disturbing place: Regina’s public execution. Once is really good at messing with the innocence of beloved childhood characters, but this was kind of extreme. Seriously, who knew Jiminy Cricket got so much enjoyment from watching people die? (That’s dark, JC. Real dark.)

Convinced Regina was still a good person deep down, Snow decided to let her live, only to be stabbed in the hallway moments later. Fortunately Rumpelstiltskin had cast a protection spell, preventing Regina from doing any harm to Snow or Charming in the fairytale world.

So, once again, it sucked to be Regina.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Were you relieved that Archie is alive and (sort of) well? And do you think Regina can ever change? Drop me a comment with your thoughts and theories!

— Andy Swift

More Once Upon A Time on HollywoodLife.com:

  1. ‘Once Upon A Time’ Preview Video: Is Archie Really Dying?
  2. ‘Once Upon A Time’ Pics: Snow & Charming Celebrate Their Reunion
  3. Rose McGowan Joining ‘Once Upon A Time’ As Young Cora