Fans of Once Upon a Time, prepare to grieve the potential loss of one of the show’s power couples.
Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) are under threats from the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) that could change the fate of their relationship.
The episode opens on a dark, windy night. Snow is laying in bed. She’s startled and she is transported to an eerie forest where she sees someone lurking in the shadows. The Evil Queen comes up to Snow and says she is going to take Snow and Charming’s hearts. Snow tells the Evil Queen she can’t take their hearts because Regina put a protection spell on them the minute she came into town. The Evil Queen says she is not going to take them — Charming and Snow are going to hand them over. The Evil Queen places a potion in her hands, and Snow asks what it is. The Evil Queen responds, “Something terrible. You have 12 hours to figure it out.”
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In the past, young Snow has tried to sell family heirlooms to passerby. At this point in the narrative, she is living in the forest to hide from the Evil Queen. The guy who buys the heirloom from her suspects she is the person the Evil Queen is looking for, but somehow Snow is able to leave with a little bit of money. The scene cuts to the countryside, where Charming is at his house talking to his mother. His mother is thinking about selling the farm because they aren’t making money. Meanwhile, Snow is walking through the forest and the Blue Fairy (Keegan Connor Tracy) is talking to her. Snow is tearing down “Wanted” posters with her face on them when the Woodcutter — a bounty hunter — comes after her with an axe. The Blue Fairy and Snow manage to shoo the hunter away. Feeling defeated, Snow decides to leave the land she grew up in and seek refuge in the allied nation of Longbourn. The scene cuts back to Charming who is also going to Longbourn to find a buyer for the farm. I have a feeling their paths are going to cross.
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In Storybrooke, Charming, Snow, Emma (Jennifer Morrison), Regina (Lana Parrilla), Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and Henry (Jared Gilmore) are all trying to find out what is in the potion bottle. Regina thinks she knows what it is, so she walks over to a plant and pours the contents onto the plant. All of the leaves fall off, and the plant dies. Regina tells everyone that it is water from the River of Lost Souls. Somehow, she figures out Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) brought the water back from the Underworld and gave it to the Evil Queen. “If you don’t give her your hearts, she can destroy the whole town,” Regina tells Charming and Snow.
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In the past, Charming is traveling through a forest when his dog leads him to a merchant’s wagon. The merchant (Paul Johansson) comes up behind Charming. The merchant finds Charming’s dog to be very handsome. Charming tells the merchant they are heading to Longbourn and, coincidentally, so is the merchant. I don’t know if it’s the fact that Johansson played Dan Scott in One Tree Hill or that he just so happens to be going to the same place, but I don’t trust this guy. Before they leave, the guy opens the back of his wagon, and the Woodcutter’s uniform is in the back.
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Back in Storybrooke, everyone is trying to find a way to neutralize the water from the River of Lost Souls. The Blue Fairy comes in and says there might be a way to imprison the Evil Queen. They need to find a sapling, which is the first product of true love. There’s a catch though — the magic they will use to find the sapling will be visible to everyone, including the Evil Queen, Rumple and Zelena (Rebecca Mader). Regina comes up with an idea and tells everyone there was always “chemistry” between Rumple and the Evil Queen. She wants to use this to her advantage, so she sends a note to Zelena that says to meet her at Rumple’s shop signed by the Evil Queen. Zelena goes to the shop, and she hears a noise coming from the back of the shop. She walks back to find the Evil Queen and Rumple making out. Zelena is furious because the Evil Queen said there was nothing between them. Zelena goes to leave when the Evil Queen stops her. Zelena is literally turning green with envy when Rumple realizes they’ve been played.
In the past, the Woodcutter and Charming are walking through the forest. The Woodcutter offers Charming a drink, but the Woodcutter spiked it with a potion to knock him out. The Woodcutter then uses Charming’s dog to find Snow. The camera cuts to Snow, who is walking through the forest. The dog comes running up to Snow, who is happy to see the dog, that is, until the Woodcutter comes up behind her.
At the docks, the Blue Fairy casts a spell that projects a beacon of light on the location of the sapling. Regina, Charming and Snow head out to find the tree while everyone else prepares for a fight. On their journey, Regina finds a trapdoor that leads to a tunnel.
In the past, when the Woodcutter locks Snow in his wagon, Charming’s dog wakes him up and leads him to Snow. Snow tells him to go before he is killed, but Charming finds a boulder to break the lock on the wagon.
Snow and Charming come across the sapling in the tunnel. When they touch it, their love story flashes before their eyes. Snow believes the sapling is used to show people’s own true love. Charming lovingly responds, “As if we needed reminding.” The sweet moment is interrupted by the Evil Queen, who uses magic to take the sapling from the couple. When she has it in her hands, she mercilessly breaks it in half. If they don’t find out how to prevent the Evil Queen destroying the town, they have to meet the Evil Queen in the cemetery and give her their hearts.
While talking in their apartment, Snow and Charming realize there were some discrepancies in their visions. The way they are talking suggests they might have a solution to the problem. This leads to another flashback. Charming is still trying to break the lock on the wagon before the Woodcutter returns, but it’s too late. The Woodcutter and Charming get into a fight. Amid the fighting, the Woodcutter busts a hole in the wagon, and Snow is able to grab hold of the Woodcutter’s axe so Charming can stab him. Charming gets the keys from the Woodcutter and tries to let Snow out of the wagon, but Snow tells him to stop. She’s afraid that if he sees her face, the Evil Queen will come after him. They have a long conversation about their problems, and Snow offers Charming the money she got from selling her belongings. When their hands touch, a small bit of magic falls to the ground, and a sapling emerges from the soil. The most beautiful part about this is Snow and Charming had no idea that was the first time they met until they saw the vision.
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In the cemetery, Snow and Charming show up just in time. They tell Regina to lift the protection spell so the Evil Queen can take their hearts. When the Evil Queen takes their hearts, she almost cries tears of joy. While holding the beating hearts in her hands, she tells everyone she has a better plan. She shoves their hearts back into their chests, and Snow falls to the ground. The Evil Queen put her in a sleeping curse. Charming is confused because the only thing needed to wake up from a sleeping curse is true love’s kiss. The Evil Queen has a twist, though — she transports Snow to an unknown location and says to Charming, “You say you always find her. Well, start looking, shepard.”
In the final scene of the episode, everyone is running around town trying to find Snow. Charming thinks she is in the woods, so he drives to where he thinks she is. While running through the forest, he finds her. He kisses Snow, and she wakes up, but Charming falls to the ground. Regina figures out what the Evil Queen did — she put a sleeping curse on their hearts. Snow and Charming shared a heart. When the Evil Queen killed Charming a few seasons ago, Snow split her heart in two and put it in Charming. The two are a product of true love, and they share a heart. As long as the curse is in effect, the two can never be awake at the same time.
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I’ve been waiting for something significant to happen the past few weeks of Once Upon a Time, and it finally happened. Because Snow and Charming are under the same curse, the show will be altered dramatically. The good guys are down at least one person until they find a solution to the problem. In order for this plot twist to be successful, the curse needs to carry into the next few episodes. There will be nothing to draw people in if the problem is solved too quickly, which is what happened when Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyll died. When they died, a plot line that could have been used to add drama ceased to exist. The show needs to slow down a little bit and prolong finding solutions to the problems, and this newfound twist could be the thing Once Upon a Time needs to stay alive.
Rating: ⅘
