When Once Upon A Time returned on March 9, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Henry (Jared S. Gilmore) were living a blissful, memory-free life in New York City, as the rest of the fairytale gang returned to the Enchanted Forest. Of course, everything quickly went very, very wrong!
Oh Hook (Colin O’Donoghue), you handsome rapscallion.
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Emma had been living a blissful life as a not-quite single mom in Manhattan for a solid year before Hook returned with some fishy news — basically, that none of Emma’s memories were real, and her real family was in danger in some town with a silly name. Emma, of course, didn’t believe anything he had to say — that is, until a visit to Neal’s (Michael Raymond-James) old apartment revealed that father and son had been reunited in the past, so Hook was definitely telling the truth about Emma and Henry’s past.
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Unfortunately, in order to remember what that something was, Emma had to drink from a vial of extremely suspicious looking liquid. At first she said no — and even sent Hook to the slammer for bothering her — but the Neal visit was enough to change her mind, so by the end of the night, Emma had remembered everything.
As for Henry and the rest of the cast? Not so much. Conveniently, Hook only brought a single shot of memory serum, so now Henry — once the truest, most annoying believer of them all — is the only one in the cast who doesn’t know about or believe in fairy tales. Should be interesting!
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that Emma nearly became engaged to former Popular star (slash ’90s relic) Christopher Gorham, until he was revealed to be one of the Wicked Witch’s seriously grotesque and intensely creepy flying monkeys! Regina (Lana Parrilla), take note — you’re never going to defeat the Wicked Witch if you stick to lame henchmen like your magic mirror. When it comes to spreading sheer terror across several realms, these flying monkeys clearly take the cake.
When Hook came to see Emma, it was because he’d received a mysterious message about a new danger coming to Storybrooke. Who sent this message, and for what reason? Well, that’s yet to be revealed, but I’d put money on the fact that the sender didn’t have 100 percent pure intentions.
Still, it’s undeniable that the gang is in trouble and needs Emma’s help — because, realistically, everyone needs Emma’s help if they want to get things done on this show.
The fairytale gang returned to the Enchanted Forest — and lived there for a year — but by the time Emma caught up with them with her regained memories in tow, they’d been cursed back to Storybrooke with the memories of their time in the Enchanted Forest (their latest time in Forest; not all of the stuff they forgot in the first curse) completely wiped out. They only knew it had been a full year because of Snow’s (Ginnifer Goodwin) massive belly — that’s right, Emma is going to be a sister! And Henry is going to be a… nephew? To a baby? Gotta love the timelines on this show; and poor Henry’s now-normal mind is going to blow to smithereens when he learns about his crazy history.
So to recap, we know that the Wicked Witch (newcomer Rebecca Mader from Lost) was responsible for the curse, but her reasoning (other than “revenge!”) is still a giant question mark. One of her monkey lackeys extracted some of Regina’s blood to set off the curse — which can’t mean anything but trouble for our favorite Evil Queen — and she has completely taken over Regina and Snow’s land as the former royal family suffers from memory-loss back in Maine.
What possibly could have happened over that crucial year that was important enough for the Wicked Witch to need it to be forgotten? Did it have something to do with what Sleeping Beauty knows, or even with Regina’s hinted-at red-hot romance with Robin Hood (Sean Maguire)? So much crazy; so little time!
What did you think of the episode, Once-lers? Are you excited for what’s next? Any theories on who this Wicked Witch might be, and how she might know Regina? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
— Shaunna Murphy
Follow @ShaunnaLMurphy
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