This week on Once Upon a Time, we were treated to not one, but two back-to-back episodes. Last week on the series, we got to see Roni wake up and now she’s having to keep her identity a secret from Henry, her own son.
The episode titled ‘Eloise Gardner’ begins many years ago in the Wish Realm where Snow White manages to defeat the Evil Queen and the curse was never cast. Hook is on his way to seek revenge when he runs into Rapunzel and gives him an idea to imprison his own Dark One with the same flower the imprisoned her and insists she helps him.
On his quest, a giant gnome attacks Hook on his search for the magic flower, and after some swift manoeuvring and the Power of Song, Hook snags the flower and destroy the gnome.He then makes the decision to be the good guy and heads back to save Rapunzel.
In Seattle, Rogers continues his investigation of the murdered tattoo man, until Rumple warns Rogers to not dig too deep. Jacinda and Henry celebrate the food truck while Roni suggests Jacinda works for her as this will allow Roni to keep an eye on the budding romance. She later thinks of ways to keep Jacinda and Henry apart and says social services wouldn’t like to see a single mother at a new job with a new boyfriend. Ivy then keeps an eye on Lucy since she’s so determined to get Henry and her mother together.
Rogers then meets up with Alice who looks at his notes and suggests the girl ran away instead of being kidnapped. Meanwhile, Victoria is trying to figure out who’s been visiting the creepy lady and discovers it to be Ivy on the video footage. She’s interrupted by Rumple, who explains he’s having trouble throwing Hook off the Eloise Gardner case and she says to get it done or she’ll take care of him. Permanently. She then confronts the weird lady (who might actually be Rapunzel…) on working with Ivy and warns her that she doesn’t want to follow through with the plan.
Rogers admits to Henry the reason Eloise went missing is because he was drunk and didn’t do his job properly. To make matters worse, Alice brings new information and it turns out Eloise is now dead. Rogers is upset and turns to drinking, but realises he isn’t convinced and looks at the drawing to realise it is fresh enough to smear. He confronts Rumple, but he says he can’t explain and that he’s keeping the secret to protect Rogers. Instead, Rogers goes to talk to Ivy because he can’t leave it alone.
Henry head to Roni’s to chat to her about Jacinda working there and he’s excited because he believes she’s being a good person. Jacinda is then forced to blow off Henry to work, but really just wants to make sure she gets custody of Lucy.
In the Wish Realm, Hook returns to Rapunzel, which leads to some action for the pair and leaves the flower vulnerable. And guess what? It turns out Rapunzel is the creepy witch and she offers to help Hook get his own revenge, but he turns down the offer in return for this baby whom he names Alice.
Back in Hyperion Heights, Rogers confronts Victoria and ends up breaking in to find the lady who is actually Eloise Gardner. For once, I agree with Rumple because setting her free is not a good idea.
He then speaks to Alice about her lies as he’s only disappointed (guess who’s totally acting like a dad?). Victoria is arrested, but she knows Ivy is awake and tells her she doesn’t understand what she’s released into the world. This also means Lucy isn’t in the custody of Victoria and should be free to live with Jacinda, but she isn’t (what?) and then admitted into the system.
‘Pretty In Blue’, the second episode, begins in the Enchanted Forest where Alice and Hook reunite, but can’t be near each other because of Hook’s sick heart. Alice is convinced they’ve been cured, but when she goes to hug him, that’s not the case. She then jumps into a portal to Wonderland where Henry and Cinderella chase after her.
The pair then go looking for Alice, but get caught in a White Rabbit trap and while Henry’s reaching for his sword to free them, they almost kiss…but not yet. It turns out that Cinderella wanted to come back to Wonderland for more reasons than just Alice as she’s come back for her mother, who abandoned her when she was younger. She must tackle an infinite maze to discover what happened to her father when he came to Wonderland.
In Hyperion Heights, after the release of Eloise Gardner, mayhem has ensued. Henry and Ivy’s friendship continues to blossom, except Regina tells her to stay away from him, but Ivy isn’t concerned as she’s busy working with Eloise. At Roni’s, Nick shows up and happens to be the lawyer who is going to help Jacinda get Lucy back plus he’s also Lucy’s dad. (Yeah, I’m shocked too!). Lucy is with Henry trying to figure out who Nick is while Nick cancels plans to have a fancy dinner with Jacinda.
At the police station, Regina seeks out Rumple and apologises to Hook for what’s happened to him regarding Alice. Eloise wants to find Anastasia’s coffin because they’re going to wake her up, and to quote Ivy, she’s going “to take back everything that is mine.”
Back in Wonderland, Cinderella stumbles upon the Tea Party scene, and at the head of the table is Alice. To Cinderella’s surprise, she discovers her mother’s necklace and Alice admits she knew her, but they were attacked by a Jabberwocky. Although Alice slayed it, she was the only one to survive and Cinderella’s mother also had a poisoned heart, which is why she stayed away. Alice came back to cure the poison heart, but she made a mistake and went to Drizella who seemed more interested in poisoning hearts than curing them. Her next target happens to be Henry. As she puts the knife to Henry’s heart, Cinderella punches Drizella. In that moment, she shows Henry that her parents’ necklaces are glowing, and they finally share their first kiss.
In Hyperion Heights, Henry works on the food truck while Jacinda is on her date. When they return, Henry passes the keys to Jacinda and leaves, but she chases him down to explain everything as she signed away her parental rights to Lucy a while back and messed everything up. Henry insists that he’s not the best man to help and that maybe she should go with Nick.
Back at Roni’s, Regina calls Rumple out for being awake and he claims innocence. Regina says she needs an ally, but he’s not interested until she says it’s the wrong move because Belle wouldn’t want this. He stops in his tracks and turns around only to say, “Who’s Belle?”—Cue the tears.
In the Enchanted Forest, the team makes it back to an ailing Hook to explain everything until they’re interrupted. It turns out the only person who has known Nick longer than Cinderella is Henry. Nick is just the identity of Jack in Hyperion Heights, and he and Henry go way back in the Enchanted Forest.
We get a little bit of a hopeful ending in Hyperion Heights where Lucy gets to go home with Jacinda even if she has to meet her father: Nick (this story is just getting more and more confusing). However, Henry is wasted at Roni’s in the middle of the day so Regina takes the opportunity to discuss her plans with him. Apparently, they are going to head to San Francisco to go get help from someone who may be their only hope. Road trip!
In the final moments, Rogers finds Alice to discuss what happened with Eloise and offers her a chess set as a gift for a truce. He wants to be a good man and they decide to have a weekly game together. We wrap up the night with Drizella and Eloise having found the coffin with Anastasia in it. But upon opening it, Anastasia is missing, which means everything with Victoria isn’t over yet.
Overall Thoughts?
These episodes were a little intense, but we finally got some answers even if it was a slightly confusing. I never would have seen Rapunzel as Gothel/Eloise ever, that was insane plus the father-daughter relationship between Alice and Rogers could be seen from a long way away.
What did you think of ‘Eloise Gardner/Pretty in Blue’? Was any of it really shocking for you? Sound off in the comments below!
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