After an excruciating two-week wait, “Once Upon a Time” was back this week. And to be honest, this episode left a little to be desired. It felt like a little bit of a filler episode to stick in right before the winter finale. Regardless even an off week for OUAT is better than a good week for a lot of shows, so let’s get into it…

Storybrooke

After Henry starts communicating with Aurora in his fiery dream of horrors, Regina learns that her own mommy dearest is alive and kicking, and trying to get to Storybrooke. This leads to Regina interrupting the weirdest date of all time between Rumple and Belle to tell him about it. Okay, time out here. Does anyone else think Rumple and Belle have absolutely no chemistry? They literally have nothing to talk about so he tells her, “Condiments are the magic in this world!” Okay writers…

Rumple is assured he could defeat Cora if she crossed over, but in the interest of protecting Belle he’d rather her not get to Storybrooke. This is when he tells Henry to tell Aurora about magical squid ink that can stun Cora, and how there is still a supply of it in his old Fairytale Land prison cell. Did anyone else catch his flippant reference to mermaids and think that this ink might have come from Ursula from The Little Mermaid? I sincerely hope we see that world.

Henry goes back into the dream, but fails to tell Aurora about the ink and suffers some nasty burns in the process. David and Regina then agree that Henry can’t go back there, and David says he’ll go under the sleeping curse. But what doesn’t make sense is that Henry goes to that hell-like dimension whenever he sleeps anyways, so why not just let him keep doing it instead of putting David under a sleeping curse where he’s essentially useless?

Using a spindle to curse David “the old fashioned way,” the prince knocked right out and found his way to the fiery room…

Fairytale Land of the Present

This week we were treated to the return of one of my absolute favorite new characters: Captain Hook. He makes his way down the beanstalk finally only to be confronted by a majorly pissed Cora. She serves him up a consequence worse than death: he’s not getting a ticket back to Storybrooke with her. Hook then tries to seduce her into teaming back up with him, but to no avail. How that woman resisted him I will never know.

Cora then decides to try and get the compass back by essentially sending zombies after Emma and the gang, but it’s kind of a pointless plot piece? They really served no purpose except kidnapping the ever-boring Aurora.

Eventually Hook shows up and frees her, asking her to send a message to Emma that their deal is still on and he should have trusted her basically. This is when my heart exploded because I ship Emma and Hook so hard (if you don’t know what the term “ship” means either I’m way too invested in TV or you’re not invested enough.)

With Aurora still gone, though, Snow decides to travel to the fiery room herself via some poppy seeds, Wizard of Oz-style. There she unexpectedly sees David and they have an ‘I’ll always find you’ moment and David spills the beans about the A.K.A., leading them on yet ANOTHER scavenger hunt. This show and its MacGuffins.

In the last few minutes Aurora finds her way back to the gang and tells them Hook let her go because of Emma, and because he might care for her. BUT, we find out Cora is pulling the strings on this one because Hook has brought her Auroras heart. I’m doubtful Hook pulled it out himself since he isn’t magical; but I have a feeling that she may have been without her heart for quite some time and he happened to have found it.

Questions

How did Hook come to possess Aurora’s heart?

Who is Hook’s allegiance too?!

When did Henry start looking less like a 10-year-old and more like a teenager?

Alexa Hoyle can be reached at [email protected].