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Once Upon a Time Recap: “The Thing You Love the Most”

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by Tracy Ladd:

Once Upon a Time Recap: “The Thing You Love the Most”
Original Air Date (ABC): Sunday October 30, 2011
Season 1 Episode 2

Last week OUaT enchanted viewers with its pilot episode.  I’ll admit I was among the smitten but I had two questions.  Could it hold up to a second viewing, and would I still be just as intrigued with the second episode.  The answer to both is yes.  This week we go back and forth between Storybrooke and fairy tale land, and we get a glimpse into Regina’s/Evil Queen back story.

The episode starts with the town waking up and various people notice that the clock tower is working again.  It seems that with the chimes comes a sense of hope for the small town.  Regina still had Henry’s book and was flipping through it until she notices that the are several missing pages at the end.  She confronts Henry about this and he plays off the fact that it’s an old book, claims innocence and asks why she cares.  She responds by saying that she cares because he thinks she’s an evil queen.  She says she’s his mother, to which he replies “No, you’re not.”  Ouch…that has to hurt.  Seems that EQ doesn’t have any memory of who or what she was, but the essence of evil is still there.

Over at Granny’s place, Emma gets a knock at her door to find Regina there, bearing a basket-full of apples.  Regina gives Emma some history about her prized honey-crisp apples and tells her they’re a peace-offering.  Flash over to fairy tale land and EQ is giving her “I’ll destroy all of your happiness” speech then disappears and heads back to her own digs.  After tearing into her butler and pretty much ignoring the magic mirror, she heads to the Forbidden Castle to retrieve the ultimate dark curse.

It turns out the EQ traded the dark curse for the sleeping curse that she used on Snow White, and since that didn’t really work out so well, she wants the other one back.  EQ sits down with her BFF, Maleficent, to appeal to her good nature and get the curse back.  Maleficent even knows how bad this curse is and refuses to give up the goods.  A cat-fight ensues, and EQ eventually gets the curse back and heads back to her own fortress of doom.  I love love love that they cast Kristin Bauer (Pam from True Blood) as Maleficent.  She was perfect!  However, the special effects during the cat-fight were a little shaky at best.  It’s a minor complaint, but I really hope their CGI improves.

EQ gathers the worst of the worst to perform the ceremony to unleash the curse and after going through all the broo-ha-ha of getting a lock of hair from each of them, and taking the heart of her prized steed, EQ is ridiculed by an evil little elf when the curse doesn’t work.  As he stands and points, laughing at her, she zaps him and turns him to stone.  His future in Storybrooke is that of a garden gnome, in Regina’s back yard.  I did find that to be quite amusing.

Regina fawns over her beloved apple tree again when Sidney (aka the Magic Mirror), the local paper’s editor arrives and proudly shows Regina the paper’s front page photo of Emma’s mug shot.  Regina however, is disappointed that he hasn’t gotten any real info on her aside from the fact that she gave birth to Henry in Phoenix.  Regina then hurls a threat, telling him that she throws away things that are of no value.  Take that as a hint Sidney!

Emma is toodling about town on the verge of eating one of Regina’s apples but getting distracted each time.  She ends up at the diner and just when she’s about to take a bite, a cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon arrives compliments of someone else.  Emma thinks it’s from the Sheriff, so she approaches him, but no, it’s from Henry.   Henry knows she likes her hot chocolate that way, because he does to.  He wants her to walk him to school, so she does.  They talk about the book and Henry says he tore out the last several pages because Regina can’t know that Emma is Snow White’s daughter.  He tells her that he’s got a plan to break the curse and he’s calling it Operation Cobra.  Emma tries once again to take a bite of her apple but Henry grabs it, telling her not to eat it and tosses it aside.  Once they arrive at the school, Emma has a chat with Mary Margaret who confesses that Henry thinks she’s Snow White.  Emma is a bit shocked and when Mary Margaret asks who she’s supposed to be, says that she’s not in the book.

Emma heads to see Henry’s therapist and he concedes to giving her Henry’s file to read over.  But it’s all a set up by Regina because once she’s back in her room, the hottie sheriff shows up to arrest her.  It’s all a ploy so that Regina can go to Henry’s class and tell him that she was arrested and that she’s a con-woman and a bad person.  Henry doesn’t buy it however and blows her off.

At the jail, the sheriff is processing Emma when Henry and Mary Margaret show up to bail her out.  Next we see Emma wielding a chainsaw and taking it to Regina’s apple tree.  After Regina has told Emma countless times that she’s not to be crossed, this time it’s Emma’s turn.

Back in fairy tale land, EQ is bemoaning the failure of her curse.  Her butler tries to tell her that perhaps that’s not the best road to travel, but she’s determined because Snow White’s existence mocks her.  She heads to see ole Rumpelstiltskin to find out why the curse didn’t work.  He tells her that she needs to take the heart of the one thing she truly loves, and that the heart of her horse wasn’t enough of a sacrifice.  He also tells her that in this new world he wants comfort and that if he ever comes to her she must heed his request so long as he says please.  She agrees because he’s not supposed to remember anything anyway so what does she have to lose.

Emma’s back in her room when Granny knocks on the door telling her that she’s going to have to vacate because of the “No Felons” law that was just enforced.  Regina is still mourning her tree and picking up the apples as she tells the sheriff that she wants Emma arrested for destroying public property.  The Sheriff doesn’t really want to play this game, but Regina threatens him anyway.  He tells her that he’ll do what she wants, but the only one who’s going to get hurt is Henry.

Emma heads to her VW to find a boot on the tire and gets a phone call from Regina asking her to come by.  As they sit in Regina’s office (one that looks like the end result of a Trading Spaces episode) Emma tells her that she’s not there to take Henry away, she just wants to make sure he’s ok and that the whole fairy tale obsession is crazy.  Henry hears this and takes off.  It’s another set up by Regina, she knew that Henry would hear Emma.

In fairy tale land EQ is hashing it out with her butler.  He tells her that she can start anew and to just let this whole vendetta with Snow White go.  But EQ has tasted the bitter tang of revenge and tells her butler that she needs the heart of the one thing that she loves.  He knows it’s him.  She responds by saying “Daddy, I don’t know what to do.”  Ah-ha!  He tries to talk her down, but to no avail.  He tells her he knows she can be happy, and she replies, “just not here.”  Then she stabs him as she apologizes to him.

Emma heads over to Mary Margaret’s house to pay her back the bail money.  The two bond over a cup of, you got it…hot chocolate laced with cinnamon, and Emma tells Mary that she’s leaving because she doesn’t want to make things worse for Henry.  Mary tells her that reason alone is why she should stay.

Henry is at his therapist appointment when Emma storms in telling him that she read the final few pages and the only way to beat the evil queen is to make her believe that they’re non believers.  He thinks her plan is brilliant.  Emma then throws the final pages into the fire so that Regina will never find out what happens in the story or who Emma really is.

In FTL, EQ is firing up her curse engine and once she throws in the heart of her father, this massive cloud appears.  Once it’s all said and done, she lays a black rose on his grave with a marker that says “Henry, Beloved Father”.  So that’s where Henry’s name came from!

Regina is still fawning over her tree when Mr. Gold shows up.  She brags to him about getting Emma to finally leave town but he steals her thunder by telling her that he just saw her walking down the street with Henry in tow.  He offers her help, for a price of course.  She replies that she’s not in the business of making deals with him anymore and accuses him of making all of this happen.  She asks him who this Emma Swan is, but he tells her that she already knows.  She demands an answer and he tells her that he’s not going to tell her, then follows with “I suggest you excuse me…..please.”  That please really did the trick because she looked almost shocked and frozen.  Mr. Gold then takes a bite of the apple and walks away.

This episode was a bit of a pissing contest between Emma and Regina and it’s only the beginning.  Who is the Sheriff supposed to be?  Any ideas?  I love seeing the new characters show up and next week it looks like we’ll get more of Snow White’s story.  Just what exactly did she do to EQ?  And will Prince Charming come out of his coma in Storybrooke?  Stay tuned next week for more!

DarkMedia contributor Tracy Ladd has been writing about film since her days on the her high school newspaper. Even though she took a decade or two off to explore other things, she’s back to doing what she loves. She also bakes, can knit a pretty nifty scarf and makes lightsaber sounds with her knitting needles. Or chopsticks. Especially with the lightsaber chopsticks.

You can find her on Facebook, on Twitter @ReelGoddess, and on her website The Reel Goddess.

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