OUAT continues to flow away from the traditional fairytale and turn our favourite stories on their heads. Our purple OUAT smoke is rapidly being replaced by green as our newest villain takes to the stage, flying monkey associates in tow, and with everyone still missing their memories of the past year what are we going to do about it?!
Warning: those of a delicate disposition regarding flying simians hold on to your hats… I think they may have rabies…
But not before a flying monkey swoops down to attack her, nearly hurting mini-Robin Hood (a.k.a. his son Roland). She transforms the monkey into a stuffed cuddly little, well, monkey – I don’t remember there being a Toys R Us in Storybrooke for inspiration but being a child of the forest it was likely the most modern present he’d ever received. Robin Hood (Sean Maguire) now feels indebted to her and so accompanies her to the castle tunnels; Regina doesn’t appear too sure.
She proves this by making a sleeping potion – not an end, an eternal middle – to avoid the pain of life without Henry. She fulfils her end of the bargain and brings down the forcefield, but a surprise visitor stops her in her tracks.
Revelations – the Wicked Witch of the West is her older half-sister, Zelina, Cora’s daughter. Brought up in Oz; protégé to Rumplestiltskin. And she has it in big time for the Evil Queen. It’s not easy being green.
One year later, all legends rudely returned to Storybrooke following the NEXT curse, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) approaches Regina in an attempt to solve the puzzle. Why just take a year from their memories? Why send them back at all? Before any theories could be put forward, town crier Grumpy the dwarf (Lee Arenberg) announces that the seven dwarves have become four. And Robin Hood and his Merry Men have lost Little John (Jason Burkart). Bearing in mind that Little John isn’t so little it was fairly obvious when he was abducted by aliens – ahem flying monkeys – when he got too close to the town line.
When Little John is found in the woods with a monkey bite, he is rushed to hospital. We’ll never truly know if it was the general anaesthetic or hospital food that didn’t agree with him, but before we know it he is a flying monkey. Oh dear.
Everyone is struggling with how to act around Henry (Jared Gilmore), accidentally giving him cinnamon, dropping crockery, Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) having to continue with her ‘I was in prison with your Mum’ backstory *unlikely*… Emma and Regina plan a ‘con’ to smoke out the curse-caster with the temptation of a memory potion. When they see movement through the window they rush upstairs, only for the intruder to disappear in a puff of green smoke – Regina’s blood magic spell to trap them didn’t work. Sisters eh?
The Storybrooke newbie, Zelina (Rebecca Mader), has made ties with Mary Margaret through baby talk and advice on crusty yellow baby head rashes. But by night she sneaks out to her garden ‘dungeon’ to pay a ‘friend’ in a cage a visit. For once it is not a flying monkey… it is Rumplestiltskin. Welcome back Robert Carlyle – oh how we have missed you!