Title The Jolly Roger

Two-Sentence Summary In Storybrooke, Hook is enlisted to help Ariel reunite with Prince Eric, but the captain is carrying a dark secret about the prince’s fate and his own quest to return to a pirate’s life during the lost year in the Enchanted Forest. When Ariel is revealed to be a shape-shifted Zelena, Hook is cursed to remove Emma’s magic if he ever kisses her.

Favorite Line “Killian, whatever happened this past year—whatever it is you’re not telling me—I don’t care. I’m tired of living in the past.” (Emma)

My Thoughts “True love isn’t easy,” Prince Charming once said (in Season One’s “What Happened to Frederick,” which was coincidentally written by David H. Goodman, who also penned “The Jolly Roger”). The same can be said of becoming a better person, embracing your true self, and learning to let go of your past. But when has anything easy ever been worthwhile to watch when it comes to character arcs?

Let’s not bury the lead here: This episode hurt. I’m still sad about it more than twelve hours later. But I love that I’m this broken-up about it because it means the writers and the actors did their jobs. If it’s done correctly, I love angst. And by “correctly,” I mean, “brought about with believable choices made by characters acting consistently to what we know about their pasts and their current motivations.” And “The Jolly Roger” was nothing if not consistent in terms of its characterization. I understood every choice made in this episode by its featured players, and that’s all I ask for.

The central theme of this episode tied into what is appearing to be the overarching theme of this half of Season Three: You can’t go back. Zelena wants to literally change the past. Charming wanted to go back to being the “cool grandpa” he was when he taught Henry to swordfight and ride horses. Emma wants to return to the life she and Henry led in New York City. And Hook learned the hard way that you can’t run from the pain of the present by desperately trying to rekindle the past.

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Title It’s Not Easy Being Green

Two-Sentence Summary In Storyrbooke, Zelena’s connection to Regina is revealed, and the half-sisters face one another in a “wicked versus evil” showdown. The roots of Zelena’s envy are shown in flashbacks to her life in Oz, which she left behind when the Wizard helped her get to the Enchanted Forest to train with Rumplestiltskin.

Favorite Line “Didn’t anyone tell you? Black is my color.” (Regina)

My Thoughts Once Upon a Time is at its best when the heroes of the show are united against a compelling, charismatic villain. The second half of Season Two struggled because, let’s face it, Greg and Tamara were anything but compelling villains. The introduction of Robbie Kay’s deliciously devious take on Peter Pan injected some much-needed energy into the start of Season Three, and one of the most pleasant surprises of this half of the third season has been how fabulously fun Rebecca Mader’s Zelena has been.

It’s no secret that some of the show’s best moments feature its villains (or anti-heroes or whatever they would like to be known as) sharing scenes together, chewing the scenery in a way that is both perfectly campy and utterly captivating. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the combinations of Zelena and Rumplestiltskin and Zelena and Regina drove this episode. It’s always fun watching Lana Parrilla and Robert Carlyle have so much fun with their characters, and I can now say the same for Mader.

The Wicked Witch’s origin story wasn’t sympathetic enough to make me want happiness for her despite her wickedness, and I’m happy for that. I understood her, but I still think her envy is rooted in something more pathological than a sympathetic backstory can explain. And that’s okay. I don’t think we’re supposed to feel a lot of sympathy for Zelena. Yes, she had an alcoholic adoptive father and was abandoned by her real mother, but she seemed to live a life of love until her adoptive mother died. Whereas Regina lived with an abusive, literally heartless mother and a father who never seemed to defend her from Cora’s wrath. I know we have the benefit of knowing all the facts Zelena’s envy has blinded her from seeing, but I think Regina is the one who got the worse end of that deal.

What interested me the most about Zelena in this episode was how much more like Cora she was than Regina ever was, despite Regina being the one to grow up with their mother. Both Zelena and Cora grew up poor, and that gave both women a sense of envy and lust for a better life that Regina never had (which is a nice twist on the idea that the original Evil Queen in the Snow White story was driven by her envy of Snow White, and that was never the case on this show). Zelena had more control over her magic than Regina, and I think much of that difference can be attributed to the fact that Regina saw the evil in her mother’s magic and wanted no part of it for many years, while Zelena never had that exposure to dark magic being used to hurt her.

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Title Quiet Minds

Two-Sentence Summary In Storybrooke, Neal joins Emma on the quest to find Rumplestiltskin, a quest he began in the Enchanted Forest during the lost year. Flashbacks reveal how Rumplestiltskin returned, why Zelena has his dagger, and who was prepared to pay the ultimate price for using dark magic.

Favorite Lines
Emma: Go ahead and laugh. I almost married a monster from Oz. It’s hilarious.
Neal: I almost married an evil minion of my grandfather, Peter Pan. So I know what you’re saying.

My Thoughts “All magic comes with a price.”

This has always been one of the core themes of Once Upon a Time. Actions have consequences, and the choices we make have lasting ramifications on not only our lives but the lives of those around us. “Quiet Minds” was an episode about choices—both the good and the bad ones; the smart and the foolish ones; the ones we make and the ones made for us. Yes, it had some confusing magical/supernatural elements, but the moments that stayed with me had nothing to do with special effects or fairytale mythology. What I’ll remember about this episode long after this show is off the air (hopefully many years from now) was the story it told about a group of fairytale characters struggling with the very real and very human choices they’ve made.

In this season’s “Quite a Common Fairy,” we were shown that Regina made a choice to run away from the prospect of a second chance at love and happiness with Robin Hood. Ever since that episode, I’ve been waiting for her to come face-to-face with the consequences of that choice, but I’ll admit that it happened much sooner than I expected.

I still predict that Regina and Robin fell in love during the lost year without her seeing his lion tattoo. They definitely shared more than just that one adventure during their missing year; they were immediately drawn to each other in the same way Snow and Charming were back when they were cursed Mary Margaret and David. The way Regina showed a flicker of recognition after they repeated their dialogue from the beginning of their Enchanted Forest relationship reminded me immediately of Charming knowing that Snow was the only thing that felt right about his life in Storybrooke back when they were cursed. Once Upon a Time always has fun with dramatic irony, and I’m having fun watching it play out with this relationship. Another thing I’m having fun with in terms of this relationship is the chemistry between Sean Maguire and Lana Parrilla. Their scene in the farmhouse was as blatantly driven by sexual tension as any scene in Once Upon a Time’s history.

Parrilla did a superb job of showing that Robin could actually make Regina happy. Her smile when she talked to him about whiskey absolutely melted my heart. But there is still a part of Regina that is afraid to open her heart, which is why she bolted the second she saw his tattoo. However, this Regina isn’t the young woman who ran away from Robin in the pub in the Enchanted Forest. She’s grown so much since then, and she’s become a woman who has made choices—both awful and good—and has finally learned to own up to the consequences of those choices. It doesn’t surprise me that she finally met the man who was destined to make her happy after selflessly giving up her true love—Henry—to pay the price for casting the first curse. Just as casting the curse had a consequence (giving up Henry), so did Regina choosing to undo it (meeting Robin Hood).

At the end of “Quiet Minds,” Regina had to once again own up to the consequences of a choice she made. Watching Robin play with Roland, Regina was watching the life she could have chosen for herself; the happiness that could have been hers had she chosen differently all those years ago. Parrilla broke my heart in those silent moments because you could feel her being drawn to this man whom she believes she’s finally ready to love but has missed her chance to be with. I can’t wait for her to discover that she can still choose to open her heart to him; she can still choose happiness, and it’s not too late.

You could see it written on Parrilla’s face as Regina watched Robin and Roland: She believes she isn’t meant to have a happy ending. That was a running theme in this episode as well: Is it really as simple as “heroes get happy endings and villains don’t,” or is the real world a whole lot less black-and-white?

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