Once Upon A Time -- The Curse

I still can't decide if Regina and Mr. Gold know the truth or if they don't. Sometimes it seems like Regina knows who she really is, and other times she doesn't. It's actually very good that it's keeping you wondering. Gold aka Rumpelstiltskin does seem to know something. He had a very distinct reaction to the name Emma and he was the one who acquired Emma's child for Regina.

This episodes Fairy Tale Land flashback featured the Evil Queen, henceforth called Evil. It shows what happens after Evil disappeared from Snow and Charming's wedding in a puff of black smoke. She went home determined to enact the curse, but was reminded by the Magic Mirror that she had traded the curse away to Maleficent for the sleeping spell she put on Snow.

It seems in this version of the Snow White tale, Snow isn't the innocent victim of Evil all because she can't tolerate the fact Snow is considered to be prettier than she is. I don't think that would really work in this tale, because Evil is actually prettier than Snow. Apparently, Snow did something to cost Evil her happiness and Evil can't tolerate the idea of Snow being happy when her happiness has been taken away from her. I think Maleficent said something about Evil was supposed to be married at the same time Snow was? You don't suppose Evil was supposed to marry Charming and that's why she enacted the sleeping spell on her? Oh, God, not another triangle.

Anyway, Maleficent doesn't want to give up the curse, even to her good friend, Evil. So the girls decide to fight for it. Evil wins by trying to harm Maleficent's beloved animal and Evil gets the best of her when she moves to protect it. Taking the curse from Maleficent's scepter, Evil returns home.

Demanding locks of hair from the most evil creatures in the kingdom and using her beloved steeds heart as ingredients, Evil enacts the curse, only it doesn't work. She turns a troll that laughs at her failure into a statue, that is sitting in Regina's garden in Storybrooke. Wanting to know what went wrong, she goes to Rumpelstiltskin.

Rump is definitely playing both sides of the street, as he doesn't disclose everything he discussed with Snow and Charming. He doesn't tell Regina that Snow and Charming's chlid will be named, Emma. Rump tells Evil she has to use the heart of the person she loves most, but she claims the person she loves most has been taken from her. Rump points out there is still one more person she still loves and its their heart that has to be used to enact the curse. He also extracts a promise from Evil that in this new world she must give him anything he asks for and she agrees.

Going home, Evil tells her manservant and father, Henry, what she has to do to enact the curse. He tries to get her not to go through with it saying they both can still be happy. She agrees as she cuts his heart out. Once she adds his heart to her list of ingredients, the curse is on.

In Storybrooke Regina is reading Henry's Once Upon A Time book and discovers pages have been torn out. Henry tore them out, but claims to Regina the book was like that when he got it. Regina is also not pleased to hear the clock chiming in the time square indicating that time has become unfrozen at long last. Regina pays Emma a visit with a basket full of red ruby apples so tempting you just want to take a bite out of them. She advises Emma to leave town. Emma, if you remember the tale of Snow White, then don't eat those apples.

The Magic Mirror is no longer trapped in his mirror, but running a local newspaper called The Mirror. His name is Sydney.

Regina manipulates Emma into going to see Henry's psychiatrist, Dr. Hopper. Hopper aka Jiminy Cricket, surprisingly hands over Henry's file to her. Once Emma leaves, Hopper calls Regina, who in turn calls the police to inform the sheriff that Emma threatened Hopper and stole Henry's file. The sheriff arrives and arrests Emma for theft.

Emma doesn't spend too much time cooling her heels in the clink, when Henry and Mary-Margaret show up and bail her out. Emma seems shaken when Mary-Margaret reveals Henry thinks she's Snow White, which would mean that she's Emma's mother.

When Emma returns back to the Bed and Breakfast she's informed that she has to leave. She also finds a wheel locking device on her car. Emma fires back by going after Regina's apple tree with chainsaw. Regina comes out and stops her from completely destroying it, but Emma warns her if she keeps pushing her, she'll push right back.

Regina wants Emma arrested, again, this time for vandalizing her apple tree. He doesn't want to do it. When he suggests she think of what this feud may be doing to Henry, it seems Regina has seconds thoughts, as she invites Emma to her office, presumably to make peace with her. Only she sets Emma up again, when Henry walks in just as Emma is saying his story is crazy and he runs off.

It seems Regina is finally going to get what she wants, when Emma tells Mary-Margaret she's going to leave Storybrooke for Henry's own good. When MM asks Emma if she doesn't look after Henry's best interests who will, it convinces Emma to stay. She tells Henry that she was just saying what she did to Regina because she's the Evil Queen and she can't know about their plans, and then burns the pages of the Once Upon A Time book so Regina will never be able to see them.

Gold comes to visit Regina. He tells her he saw Emma and Henry walking down the street. Regina accuses him of wanting Emma to come to town. She also questions why he picked Henry when she sent him out to acquire a child for her. It seems the answer is to eventually bring Emma to Storybrooke and break Regina's curse and set them all free, but the question is why? Gold seems to have everything he wants in Storybrooke. He owns the town. So why would he want to go back to being Rumpelstiltskin?