Welcome to Storybrooke (217)

[GateWorld]

ONCE UPON A TIME - SEASON TWO WELCOME TO STORYBROOKE EPISODE NUMBER - 217 Thirty years in the past the Evil Queen basks in her curse's success, but soon finds a father and son who have wandered into Storybrooke after it suddenly appeared near their camp site. In the present day, Regina plots to take revenge on Mary Margaret, and Henry takes matters into his own hands. VISIT THE EPISODE GUIDE >>

[hedwig]

Very interesting episode.

Try as I might to have a little sympathy for Regina, I'm finding I can't find a shred of sympathy for her. She's causing all of her own problems, and blaming them all on other people. Plus, she tried to steal somebody else's kid and was likely going to dispose of his father in some way (maybe by doing the same thing to him that she did to Belle). That's beyond despicable.

And I hope Snow doesn't continue to sit around and mope. That could get boring really fast. And I can't believe she'd subject the family that she fought for and did what she did, only to die (which, of course, she hasn't) and cause them even more anguish and pain. This isn't just about what she did; it's about how it will affect her entire family if she continues along this path.

I want to know what became of the boy's father, since the Sheriff arrested him at the border of Storybrook and that's the last we see or hear of him ... for now.

I hate to say it, but I'm getting a tad tired of Henry and all his begging and whining about everybody and how perfect they are supposed to be to fit his image of how things should be. I have to keep reminding myself that he's just a kid, but even so he's starting to bug me.

I liked Mr. Gold in this episode. He tried to remove himself from the situation, but maybe family means more to him than he thinks, since he stayed with Snow (to protect her) while the others went looking for Henry.

It will be very interesting to see what comes of Mary Margaret's predicament. Maybe she should seek daily counseling with Dr. Hopper about her emotional troubles.

[Skydiver]

I wonder if the one thing regina left out...yeah, doing dark things can turn your heart dark....but like the grinch doing good things can help you atone and banish that darkness. Snow's moping is what's making it worse.

And yeah, Henry needs to grow up a bit. with what he's seen and knows he seems kinda backwards in his knowledge. I would like to see the others doing a bit more than just being there.

[majorsal]

i really enjoyed the ep!!

with that much time on my fave character (regina), how could i not enjoy it?

it's funny in a weird way with hedwig saying she doesn't feel sympathy for regina, whereas i feel more with her than anyone else. i do know, though, that's she's done bad things for sure, but she's trying to pull herself out of the dark but just doesn't know how.

henry *needed* to stay with regina when she burnt the curse parchment, but as usual, he goes back to the others. i know he's just a kid and doesn't understand, but still.

i figured out (before the end reveal) that the car accident guy was the grown up kid from the beginning of the ep (i can't remember his name). now we have to find out what happened to his dad.

loved the end scene with regina and snow!! it also perfectly set up why regina won't be setting up to kill snow, b/c she feels snow's inner torture will punish her more.

sometime down the line, when the series is going to end, i hope to see a scene between regina and snow where they're able to finally, truly forgive each other. it's mostly regina that needs to let go of the hate and dark, but i think snow is going to go through some darkness herself, so we'll see where that takes their relationship.

a question: at the beginning, we saw that ppl were repeating themselves, but was that *because* of the curse specifically? we saw slight variations, though, but i'm still wondering if regina altered something to make everyone stop repeating themselves.

[Skydiver]

I think the kid's name was Owen

[majorsal]

thanks, sky.

i kind of think snow is overeating on this 'i helped kill cora', in only that cora was going to kill them all, so she saved her friends and family. i can see her feeling guilty about tricking regina more, but... not enough to go to regina and tell her to kill her!

i know she was also just wanting the blood feud to finally end and thought 'this' would end it, but as another poster said, this would make her fam/friends miserable, and then prob set them off on getting regina.

btw, i was thinking that regina was going to take out her own heart. i'd watched the coming attractions for this ep, and thought a twist would happen and that it would be regina removing her own heart (like her mom did to not feel things). it didn't happen, obviously, but that would have been a good twist.

[rkgardner2003]

I am getting tired quickly of Snow's despair. She did do something terrible, but she did it to save the lives of many people. I'm not sure if it's the fact that Cora is dead or the fact that she so horribly deceived Regina that is making her so distraught....hopefully she figures out the good outweighs the dark.

If the boys Dad is still in Storybrooke, would he have aged?

[Inquisitor]

I am getting tired quickly of Snow's despair. She did do something terrible, but she did it to save the lives of many people. I'm not sure if it's the fact that Cora is dead or the fact that she so horribly deceived Regina that is making her so distraught....hopefully she figures out the good outweighs the dark.

If the boys Dad is still in Storybrooke, would he have aged?

I don't think so. I think the real question is though, how did Mr Gold arrange for Henry to make his way to Storybrooke if no one outside knew it was there, and he couldn't leave without magic?

[jeri]

Regina really needs therapy. She is her own worst enemy. Even Gold was trying to tell her this. But some people do that, bang their heads against a wall over and over. I wonder what it will take to get her to see clearly?

Mr. Gold has a good heart despite being the Dark One, and I think he is trying hard to keep up his tough guy image.

Skydiver's idea about the heart is something I wondered too. It seems plausible, no one is beyond redemption, really. I see the disembodied hearts as a metaphor for our real struggles with good vs. evil. So I say yes, one could make the blackness go away with the right "change of heart". There would be no reason to live in the world if we couldn't hope to improve.

I liked and laughed at Regina's Groundhog days. It didn't take long for it to annoy her, did it? I'm sure she will put some kind of magic in play to make things change day to day. Can't wait to see how Henry was brought to SB.

I think Henry is acting like a typical 11yr. old would. It's that age where one minute they are the voice of reason and the next they are throwing tantrums. Kids see problems in a black and white way. It's hard for them to understand all the various reason and psychosis why adults do things the way they do. And this situation is some kind of unreal amount of stress for a kid. Caught between his mom Regina and his birth family and on top of that, they are fairy tale characters with magic murderous tendencies! I'm wondering how this kid is going to grow up without being totally nuts.

And speaking of psychosis, the definition is: "a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality." That's exactly what Regina is, psychotic!

Oh, and Snow will get through this a wiser and more mature person. I think of her as a naive sort. No one can be pure and good always, they would not be human. She is in the middle of a huge life lesson now. I think the amount of time that is passing in these last few episodes is only a few days or week, so we are seeing the minute by minute version of Snow's grief process. She is grieving for her loss of innocence. She needs to get humble and admit she is one of us, flawed.

[Mrja84]

I don't think so. I think the real question is though, how did Mr Gold arrange for Henry to make his way to Storybrooke if no one outside knew it was there, and he couldn't leave without magic?

I think the question is if he indeed forgot his identity (as some argue, though I disagree), then how does anyone in storybrooke have contact with the outside world if they cannot make contact? That means Regina had to either wait for someone else to come and convince them to help her or she uses Orrin's dad to do it years later...

The curse was enacted in 1983 and Henry is an 11 year old (correct?), then that means Regina had years before she eventually "got" him

[jeri]

You know when I watched Regina asking Gold if he could fix the repeating days, then she says "you don't know" meaning he doesn't remember, I got the feeling by something in the way he looked that just maybe he did and he chose to conceal his memory. If he did, I don't blame him for wanting to take a few years off of his battle with Regina. Maybe it was a bit of a vacation for him.

[hedwig]

I don't think so. I think the real question is though, how did Mr Gold arrange for Henry to make his way to Storybrooke if no one outside knew it was there, and he couldn't leave without magic?

How do we know it was Mr. Gold who arranged for Henry to be adopted by Regina? Is there something in one of the episodes that suggests this?

[rkgardner2003]

How do we know it was Mr. Gold who arranged for Henry to be adopted by Regina? Is there something in one of the episodes that suggests this?

I can't remember the episode, but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that Gold helped Regina with the adoption.

[Mrja84]

I can't remember the episode, but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that Gold helped Regina with the adoption.

That's true in early season 1, Regina and Gold talked about him getting a kid for her to adopt.

[Skydiver]

he was plotting?

so the kid woke up her heart and made her 'soft', if Gold wanted to defuse the black hearted evil, he'd keep her heart open and loving with a kid and keep her distracted from being the evil queen...and maybe keep her from noticing him plotting and planning to get back home so he could kick her tush.