Once Upon A Time -- Hansel and Gretel
Gretel should have left Hansel in the woods
Maybe Hansel was really Pinocchio because he'd make a perfect boy made of wood. Let's just say Gretel was the ventriloquist and Hansel was her dummy.
H&G are in the woods with their father, the Woodcutter, when they go off to gather wood for him. The Woodcutter gives them a compass to find their way back. When they come back, Daddy is gone. They unfortunately meet up with Regina's evil Fairy Tale Land counterpart Evil, and let me tell you in this episode she earns that's name. Although, maybe she's more of a sociopath.
She tells H&G if they go into the Blind Witches House and retrieve what's in the black sachel for her, she'll help them find their. Let's just say, if you're going to make a deal with someone, make it Rumpelstiltskin. The dude keeps his end of the deal, even though he makes you pay a high price. Evil basically gets what she wants from you then gives you the finger.
Evil warns the children not to eat anything in the house.She doesn't really explain why. I'm guessing if you eat something of The Blind Witch's she gets to eat you. Something like tit for tat.
Anyway, H&G sneak into TBW's house and she's fast asleep. Before turning her back to get the satchel, Gretel reminds Hansel not to eat anything, but what does the little doofus do once her back is turned? Why he stuffs a cupcake down his throat and that awakes TBW. It's like you took a bite of TBW by biting into one of her sweet confections. And she's ready to take a bite out of Hansel.
H&G get locked into a cage while TBW decides how she's going to serve Hansel. Gretel comes up with a plan to escape, but, of course, Hansel is totally useless again. So Gretel pretends to be Hansel and gets the key to the cage and throws it to Hansel. TBW may be blind but she isn't stupid and cottons on to the ruse and catches Hansel. H&G join forces and push her into her oven. Gretel grabs the satchel and away they run. Evil enters and burns TBW alive.
Gretel gets a little of the treatment Dorothy got when she returned to the Wizard with The Wicked Witch of the West's broom, expecting him to deliver on his end of the bargain. Evil tells H&G their Daddy abandoned them in the woods and doesn't want them. She offers to let them live in her castle with her. Hansel's all like, "Wow, I can live in a castle? Daddy who?" But Gretel has faith in her father and doesn't believe what Evil is selling her. It probably didn't help Evil's case to reveal they weren't the first children she sent in there, who weren't as lucky as H&G.
Gretel makes the mistake of basically giving Evil the finger so she envelops the children in black smoke and they awake in the forest with their father's compass to find them. As it turns out, Evil kidnapped the Woodcutter and set this whole thing up. She tells him he won't find his children until they can find each other and sends him off in black smoke, as well, but obviously makes sure it's not in the same place as the children are.
So what was in the satchel that Evil wanted so badly? It's the poisoned apples she intends to trick Snow into eating.
In present day Storybrooke, Hansel and Gretel are now Ava and Nikolas. Ava slips some food they've shoplifted into Henry's bag and he gets in trouble for shoplifting. Regina shows up and says it's obvious it was Ava and Nikolas. Did anyone ever mention Evil Regina is very petty? Seems she's still holding a grudge because Gretel refused to live with her in her castle. She's insistent that Emma take them to a foster home in Boston.
Ava and Nikolas remind Emma of herself, so she sets out to find their father so they don't get put in the system the way she was. Unfortunately, Michael Tillman doesn't want to take responsibility for them. So it seems Regina is going to get her way. However, Henry figures out who they are: Hansel and Gretel and warns that can't leave Storybrooke and if they try something bad will happen to them.
We'll never know if Henry was right of if Evil's claim that children aren't affected by magic, as Emma gives Michael one last time to cowboy up and when he sees his children for the first time [since the woods] he does. Curses, Regina, foiled again!
According to Henry strangers don't come to Storybrooke. That Emma is the first one. That is until a stranger comes riding down Main Street on his motorcycle. My first thought was that he was Henry's father. Henry had asked about his father and Emma had lied to Henry that his father was a firefighter who died saving a family. However, when Emma saw his face she didn't recognize him. Maybe since Emma has started writing some of the wrongs Regina has done Storybrooke is becoming accessible to the real world.
