********SPOILERS********
This week’s episode, “True North,” starts with Henry in a store reading a comic book when Ava, a little girl from school, introduces herself to him. She asks if Henry wants to hang out with her and her brother, Nicolas, but when they go to leave the store the clerk stops them. He accuses Henry of stealing; turns out the two kids stole candy and planted it on poor Henry.
(Need to catch up? Check our our past Once Upon a Time Recaps:
Episode 1| Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8)
We go to a flashback and a man is chopping a tree, the man is Hansel and Gretel’s father. The kids ask to help, so he hands his compass to Gretel and asks that they pick up kindling, but to return to him when they are done. After a while of collecting, it starts getting dark, so they go back to where they left their father, but he’s gone. They hear a noise, so they set off to find him, but it’s the Evil Queen (EQ) and her guards asking what they are doing in her forest. (For the record, it’s no wonder Emma has such a horrible wardrobe, EQ/Regina steals the show with her wicked costumes. That hat was to die for!)
Back in the present, the store owner is telling Regina that Henry stole from him. She asks what he stole and once she hearts it’s candy, she denies it, saying Henry doesn’t eat candy and it must have been Ava and Nicolas. Emma walks in (she’s the sheriff after all) and asks what happened. It seems Ava and Nicolas gave the clerk a phone number for their parents that didn’t work. Emma asks them why; Ava steps up and says that they couldn’t pay the phone bill so the phone was disconnected. I totally Aww!ed there. Hmph, I’m a sucker it seems.
Flashback again, Hansel and Gretel tell the EQ that they lost their father somewhere in the woods, EQ doesn’t care and has her guards seize them. The kids take off but EQ does some spell and captures them. She says she will help them find their father if they do a favor for her (RUN KIDS RUN).
Meanwhile, Emma takes the kids home, but once they are out of the car, they hop a fence and end up in the basement of a vacant house. Emma catches them, and they tell her that they have no father and their mother has died, so she takes them to her house. Emma asks Mary Margaret about them, but she says while she’s seen them, she’s never seen their parents. Emma wants to look for their father, but Mary Margaret says it’s a bad idea. Emma doesn’t want them to have to go into social services because she’s been there.
Emma ends up in the records’ office trying to find the kids’ birth records. But Regina has already beat her there and called social services. She tells Emma that they need to be driven to foster care in Boston where they will be separated.
In flashback land, EQ takes Hansel and Gretel to the home of the blind witch. She tells the kids that they have to get a leather satchel for her, and then she will help them find their father. But she gives them a warning: They can enter the house after dark (no adults can enter because of a spell) and under no circumstances are they to eat anything in the witch’s house. When they get to the home, they see it is made entirely out of sweets.
At the Sheriff’s office, Henry comes in and tells Emma that Ava and Nicolas are really Hansel and Gretel. That their father can’t be far as no one can leave Storybrooke. Henry then asks Emma to tell him about his birth father. Emma says she was really young, just out of foster care when she met his father while she was working in a diner. He was a fireman and when Emma found out she was pregnant, she tried to find him, but discovered he’d died saving people in a fire. He was a hero, but then she ended up in jail. Later on, Emma is with Mary Margaret and pulls out her baby blanket to show the kids, it’s the only thing she has from her birth parents. She asks the kids if they have anything of their birth father’s and Ava pulls out the compass. Emma sets off to find their father.
Flashback, Hansel and Gretel sneak into the house, which was amazing and I would have licked the walls if given the chance, thank you very much. Gretel reminds her little brother NOT to eat or lick a thing. The blind witch is asleep in front of a fire, but when Gretel goes to grab the satchel, she wakes up. Hansel can’t seem to follow directions well and ate a cupcake (yeah, you know I’d have done it too). When the witch wakes up, we see a ton of bones and skulls in front of her. She creeped me right out when she said “I smell dinner.” *shudder*
Emma visits Rumpelstiskin to ask him about the compass, and he tells her he was the one who had sold it. He promises to give Emma the buyer’s information, but only after she forgives him. She bargains with “How about I’ll tolerate you,” and he pulls out a card and tells Emma the dad’s name. When Emma leaves, we find out the receipt was blank. Sneaky sneaky Mr Stiltskin!
Emma goes to a garage and finds the kids’ father, he says that it’s impossible that he only had sex once with the kid’s mother. Umm, hello buddy, REALLY? That’s your excuse? Pfft. Emma shows him the watch that went missing around the time the kids were conceived, but he refuses to believe they are his and tells Emma he is sorry but he can’t take the twins. Emma tells Mary Margaret what happened, and Regina interrupts to tell Emma that she has to have the kids in Boston by that evening. Again, can I please have her wardrobe?
Back at the blind witch’s house, she has the kids locked up in a cage ready to cook them. But she has a dilemma—butter or gravy. I’m gonna go with butter, I am a Paula Deen fan, after all. The kids end up getting her keys and Hansel runs off, only to get witch magicked all the way back. Somehow they shove the witch in the oven and take off with the satchel (yeah, I’d remember the satchel?!). EQ is watching in her magic mirror and sets fire to the oven—butter wins!
Hansel and Gretel return to EQ’s palace with the satchel, which EQ has waited a long time for. Inside is a red apple, which she says is a weapon for an enemy that thinks she’s safe. EQ tells the kids that their father abandoned them in the woods, but because they were the only kids not to succumb to the lickage of the witch’s house, she’d like them to stay with her. She will give them everything their hearts desire, but they refuse, saying they will find their father with or without her. EQ casts a spell on them and they disappear.
Back in present time Storybrooke, Emma sets out to drive the kids to Boston. Henry tries to convince her not to go, because something terrible will happen if the kids leave. But she sets off anyway, only to have to call for help when she gets engine trouble in the woods.
Back to past time Storybrooke, EQ is watching Snow White in her mirror when her guards bring in a prisoner: Hansel and Gretel’s father. She had him all along. She says that the kids are gone, but she has a question for him. She promised his kids anything their hearts could want, told them he abandoned them, but still they refused her. Why? He says family always finds one another, so she says fine, release him. Good luck finding them.
Meanwhile, Hansel and Gretel wake up in a forest and set off to find their father….but the forest is MASSIVE. Yep, good luck with that kids.
Present for the rest of this recap!
In the back of Emma’s cruiser, the kids’ compass starts to work and points behind them. Their father has come with a tow-truck. Emma faked the car issue and wanted to give him one last chance to see the children. Once he see’s them, he’s all in. Yeah, that’s believable, but hey it’s a HEA right?
Emma returns home and tells Mary Margaret what happened, and says she wonders what it would feel like to find her parents. She also tells her that she lied to Henry about his father, that he wasn’t a hero at all. Whoa, who IS the baby daddy? She ends up telling Mary Margaret that Henry thinks Mary Margaret is Snow White, thus she is Emma’s mom. Mary Margaret takes it pretty well and makes a joke about it, but when Emma leaves she sees her baby blanket and sniffs it. Okay, creepy much?
Outside in her car, Emma is reading her file of when she was found as a kid. Henry shows up with pie (Emma told him his father loved pumpkin pie). Emma says she wants to talk to him about his father but chickens out and tells him that she is happy that she told him about his father. Then a motorcycle pulls up, the rider parks and climbs off all clad in black leather. Rowr! It’s a hottie! He says he is new in town and needs somewhere to stay, so Emma tells him about the inn and says that strangers don’t come to Storybrooke. When he walks away, Emma says “I didn’t get your name.” His response? “Because I didn’t give it to you.”
At first I thought he might be Henry’s dad, but Emma didn’t seem to recognize him. So my question for all of you, who is this man and does he make up for the death of the hottie sheriff?
Natasha Carty reviews Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy on her website Wicked Little Pixie and lives in Toronto, Canada, with her cat, Seamus.
