ONCE UPON A TIME: The One That Got Away (S5: Ep 16 Recap)

Who knew the Lord of the Underworld was just another dumb schmuck looking for love in all the wrong places?

Also this week on Once, the characters finally simultaneously remember all the plot-inconvenient babies they left languishing at home for half a season.

Henry becomes a “tortured artist,” because that’s not a cliché or anything. And Ghosting . . . it’s not just the thing you do to significant others who you are too cowardly to dump in person, anymore.

Let’s review, shall we?

Because, Apparently, the Only Brain in Oz Belongs To The Guy Made of Straw

Scariest scarecrow EVER!

In Oz’ past, Zelena needs a brain for her time travel spell. So, she has her flying monkeys kidnap the (quite honestly, super creepy looking) Bad CGI Scarecrow, in an attempt to take his. I don’t know about you guys, but if I was looking for a single brain that embodied “wisdom” I wouldn’t choose the one owned by the guy whose sole function in life is to stand around looking vaguely intimidating to birds. Then again, maybe the IQs in Oz as a whole, simply aren’t that high. I mean, think about it, these are folks who can’t comprehend directions that are any more complicated than “follow the yellow brick road.”

Anywhoo, a bizarrely bad-ass looking Dorothy returns to Oz with Toto in tow to rescue her creepy CGI friend and his brain, which is shared by all of the citizens of Oz! (Talk about precious cargo!)

Of course, Toto does all the rescuing, because everyone knows that dogs are way smarter than brainless Oz residents!

This brick road was white, before I got here and did my thing on it!

Zelena is super pissed about her lost brain (mainly because now she can’t remember all the ingredients for her time travel spell, or the color of the road she must follow to collect them). Then, Hades comes by, and informs her that he wants a time travel spell too, and would be happy to help Zelena make hers.

As it turns out, Hades and Zelena have a whole bunch in common. They both have older siblings who, at least as far as they are concerned, got better lives than they did, and it’s turned them both into tremendous assholes. They both want to use the time travel spell to change the past so that they get “the good stuff” instead of their siblings, in the hopes that this will make them slightly less assholey.

In order to track down Dorothy and the Scarecrow, Hades and Zelena go for a ride on her bike together, and it makes them both SUPER HORNY.

I totally get this from Zelena’s perspective. I mean, when the only boys in your neighborhood are smelly flying monkeys, flamboyantly dressed, probably mostly gay, munchkins, an extra large tin can, and a lion with zilch sex appeal, you are going to be pretty lonely. As for Hades, I’m not quite seeing the appeal. I mean, by definition the Underworld is filled with LITERALLY Hot People.

And Zelena? The woman who has no brain, and who can’t shower ever, because doing so would literally be the death of her? Let’s just say that’s not a Match.com profile that’s getting many hits.

“I’m excellent at sweeping floors though!”

Hades lets it slip that True Loves’ Kiss can bring him back his heart and make him, like, human or something. This way, he can leave the Underworld forever and become just another dude. He insists this is something in which he has interest. But, if I were him, I’d stick to the Devil I know. After all, down there, Hades is Lord of the Underworld and has magic. Up on Earth, he has no marketable skills and would probably end up being Lord of McDonalds’ or something . . .

Hades and Zelena almost suck face, but end up putting it on pause, so that Zelena can easily freeze Dorothy and take the Scarecrow’s brain from him. Crap. All dressed up and no brain to go. How’s that girl ever going to get back to Kansas?

Back at Zelena’s house, Hades sort of/ kind of proposes to her. “Time travel / schmime travel. Let’s screw so I can share one brain with you in Oz forever!”

But Zelena isn’t falling for that crap. She thinks Hades is playing her, so he can make the time travel spell himself, and leave her home in Oz with all the brainless morons. And so the Wicked Witch of the West runs away from the Lord of the Underworld without giving him the kiss he’s waited literally an eternity to receive. Do you think it’s possible for a tongue to get blue balls?

#Ghostedbyfairytalecharacters

Back in the underworld, Henry is pissed and super broody because no one appreciates his art, which is basically the equivalent of a C-plot / filler episode on this show. Henry’s lame story is about how his grandparents finally remember they have a fairly newborn baby at home after abandoning the kid for over a month. (Hey, that’s 27 years and 11 months sooner than it took them to remember Baby Emma, so PROGRESS!)

“Boo! Scared you didn’t I, baby? This is apparently the way I show my motherly love.”

The blind witch lady at Granny’s diner tells the professional absentee parents that while they can’t see their baby boy, they can still “scare the sh*t out of him / haunt him / scar him for life” by calling him on Hell’s Telephone and haunting his ass. “This is an excellent idea!” Snow White exclaims. “What child wouldn’t want to hear strange disembodied voices calling out to them in the middle of the night, while they try to sleep, because that isn’t at all disturbing or frightening to a young person.”

On second thought, maybe it’s for the best that Snow and Charming are never around to actually raise their kids #badparentingchoices . . .

Henry’s story ends with Baby Neal being all happy that he got to be “ghosted” by his parents . . .but bummed that when he pooped, the “ghosts” refused to change his diaper, and he had to sit in his crap for the rest of the night . ..

Oh, Baby, Baby, how was I supposed to know?

That something wasn’t right here. Oh, baby, baby, I shouldn’t have let you gooooo . . .And now you’re out of . . .

Oops, I did it again. Lost myself in the lyrics. Back to the Babies of Storybrooke!

Last week on Once, Rumpel became Hades’ bitch, in order to prevent Hades from taking his not-yet-born baby from Belle’s womb. This week Rumpel begins his bitch work by opening up a portal in Storybrooke so even more characters can join this fabulous Underworld rager that’s been going on these past few weeks.

Back in Storybrooke, Belle’s been helping the Blue Fairy to take care of all of the main character’s abandoned children, because, let’s face it, there’s nothing much else to do in town, seeing as how she’s already read all the books with no words in them from the town’s Library for Illiterates. Upon arrival, Belle is surprised when the Blue Fairy doesn’t know which bottle to feed one of the babies. (This doesn’t surprise me at all, because the Blue Fairy is the Absolute Worst, so, of course, she’d suck at bottles too.)

Then, it turns out that the Blue Fairy is actually Zelena posing as the Blue Fairy to steal back her own baby from Regina and Robin Hood, who abandoned it. A scuffle ensues, just as a Portal to Hell conveniently opens up right on the floor of the Nunnery. (Ouch! Sacrilege much?)

Belle grabs Zelena’s baby and heads straight to Hell, which may seem like a strange choice to some, but when faced with an eternity in Hell or an eternity stuck hanging out with the Blue Fairy, Hell seems like a way better deal. Zelena jumps into the portal after her child, leaving Baby Neal alone with the Blue Fairy, the former of whom is undoubtedly thinking “Hey, wait for me! Oh crap, abandoned again! And still no one has fed me or changed my diaper in a month!”

Upon arriving in Hell, Zelena worries that Hades might have brought her and her baby here to seek vengeance on her for dumping his ass all those years ago. Belle, on the other hand, figures that Rumpel was merely summoning her for an Underworld Booty call and is pleased as punch. She runs off to the library to meet up with him, because Library Sex in Hell is super sexy. Plus, since people in Hell are probably more literate than people in Storybrooke, some of the books may have real words in them.

At the library Rumpel shares some bad news for Belle, “I only brought you to Hell by accident,” followed by some good news, “You are preggars,” and some more bad news, “But I bargained our baby away to the Lord of the Underworld,” and still more bad news, “P.S. I’m the Dark One, and I’m always kind of going to be an awful sociopath who murders people, so I hope you likely real bad boys.”

It’s a lot of information for Belle to take in at once. Fortunately, it looks like she’s going to rot in here for the rest of eternity, so she has plenty of time to mull it all over!

Babes in the Woods

Because they clearly have not been paying attention to the show for the past five seasons, when Zelena reunites with the rest of the Once crew, she is easily able to manipulate them into thinking she will cooperate with them, only to screw them over and steal her baby from them.

Speaking of Zelena and Hood’s baby? Did I mention that Robin Hood never got around to naming her, because he claims that he doesn’t “know” her yet? This . . . even though the kid has a full set of teeth and looks to be over a year old. Zelena suggests the kid be named Pistachio, which would make her fit right in with all those weird-named celebrity kids, and would be way better than the “Hey You with The Dirty Diaper,” which is how she’s been referred to thus far in life.

Even though she’s weirdly enough, become, by default, the best parent in this episode, Zelena begins to question her parental duties when the use of her evil magic scars her baby. (How’s that for a metaphor?) What’s worse, since Zelena fears Hades’ wrath, she’s forced to hide out alone in a cabin in Hell, where she has to take care of her kid by herself, and she still doesn’t even known which bottle to use to feed her.

This time, when the Oncer’s find Zelena, she’s ready to give up the child so that she’ll have a better future with her dad who left her for dead to rescue someone’s boyfriend, and who still refers to her as “What’s her name?”

Speaking of Robin Hood, remember how he still has another kid? The cute one who likes ice cream, and is probably in his mid-twenties by now? What the heck happened to that guy?

Strangers in the Night

At the end of the episode, Zelena finally meets up with Hades, and, contrary to being pissed at her for dumping his ass, the guy actually designed the entire concept of the Underworld in her honor. Now, Zelena can have a crappy red-hued knockoff of the land her sister created!

“Geez! If I knew you still wanted to jump my bones and weren’t trying to kill me, I probably wouldn’t given up my kid so fast to the folks who couldn’t even be bothered to name her,” Zelena admits.

“So, we’ll murder them all, and get your baby back together. It will be just like old times,” Hades insists.

“Nah, thanks, but I think I need to ride solo, at least for now,” Zelena admits tearfully. “The truth of the matter is, I have kind of low self-esteem, due to the whole Green Face Thing. And I feel like your True Love after knowing me for twenty minutes came about too fast. So, it’s more likely that you’re playing me once again, because you are this season’s Big Bad.”

“Fair enough,” responds Hades. “I’ll wait for you, anyway. It’s not like I exactly have ladies knocking down my door. It’s the creepy CGI Hair thing. Ladies find it a turn off. I’m not sure why. Probably because it burns their nipples off when we are fooling around . . .”

And that was Once in a nutshell. Next week, Gaston emerges in the Underworld to pay tribute to what, in my opinion, is most underrated, unintentionally homoerotic, Disney song ever . .

 

See you then!

Cross posted at Happy Nice Time People.com