Aaaand, we’re back. It’s Once Upon a Time time. They didn’t give the “Previously on OUaT” that was just the preview for the show, so somebody must be awesome there. I know it’s you, Damon Lindelof. We open with Henry in a candy store, and at first it seems like he’s getting a lurve interest, but really the girl and her brother were just using him to steal candy. #Kidsthesedays. Also loving the Lost reference. Apollo bars, anyone? It turns out that the children’s parents were out of work and poor, so they beg Emma not to arrest them. She agrees.

The Evil Queen in OUaT 'True North'

Flashback this lurve interest and her brother, helping their father and travel deep into the forest to gather woods with only a compass to guide them back home. A compass that points to the father. Yeah, I’ll buy it. When they get back from collecting wood, their father has strangely disappeared (called it!). While they’re on a run to find him, the dramatic music starts playing and they stumble right in the path of the queen. The queen orders her guards to sieze Hansel and Gretel. Gretel tries to decapitate a guard with a necklace, which always works, and eventually the queen catches them.

Emma drives them “home” with no charges like the nice sheriff she is, but the kids end up leading her to a fake house. Hans and Grets really live in some run down basement alone, which is less than ideal. The house is abandoned, but Emma shows up and is just like “So you lied…” The sheriff knows her stuff. It turns out all the teachers at Storybrooke are all terrible and didn’t know the kids were homeless, and Emma decides to be herself. Meaning she’ll find their father and refuses to make them go to Boston for the foster home Regina has set them up with. Emma loathed that option. She also loathed the fact she’d have to drive them to Boston.

Flashback, when the Queen is leading them to the house of the blind witch, where she needs Hans and Gretty to get a black satchel of some kind in this witches house. Regina has this whole bitch head roll when she warns the kids to not eat anything in the “strange house”. She’s great. Meanwhile, there is a house made of candy. It seems grosser than the ones I made when I was little. Also more cartoon-like. The children are down for this plan.

In real life, Henry comes in with his super cool fairytale book, saying that the father must be somewhere in the town. Really, how many storybook characters are there? I wonder how big this town is. They should just do DNA tests and modern day stuff. After some questioning from Henry, Emma launches into a story about Henry’s father. The dad seemed like a good man who loved pie at the diner Emma worked out. They “hung out” aka sex. The dad’s life got better and Emma’s got worse and then Emma went to jail. It turned out that the dad died because he was a firefighter. That means no more pie!

Flashback and you can see that Grets clearly runs the show because she hits icing out of Hansel hands. You go girl. She starts to make her way over towards the satchel, while Hansel is clearly a fat bum because he eats the cupcake and the queen wakes up just as theyre escaping.

Good job, Hansel.

Good job, Hans. Clearly if she had a bunch of bones in front of her fireplace something bad is about to happen. The queen says she smells dinner. Probably what that little boy just ate. The witch starts to chase them, and it turns out that the blind witch is actually blind. Also cannibalistic. It’s cool guys. She keeps on repeating this one line, “Gravy of Butter?” She chooses butter. There’s a chase scene, and even though I was flipping back and forth between OUaT and the Golden Globes to see if Ricky Gervais made any offensive jokes, I’m almost positive the kids stuffed that witch right back into the over she was going to put them in. You go Hans!

Hans and Grets travel to the queen to give the satchel, and let me just tell you, I’d watch this whole episode over again to hear the queen say satchel again. It was amusing. There was an apple slash weapon in the bag, which is clearly for Snow White. Though now I’m confused about the previous discussion from a couple of episodes back with Malificent. We’ll see. The queen rewards the two children by inviting them to live with her, and if that was me I’d say yes. I mean, the queen was rhyming. How could you say no to that?! The daughter was not feeling my vibe though, saying that she’d stand by her father through whatever. The queen clearly wanted the kids, so when they said no, she emerged them in some purple smoke. Temper tantrum, basically.

Come to me, smell of previous dinners aka children.

This whole time I was wondering where Mr. Gold was, and now here he is! Emma gives him a necklace from the children’s father for him to identify. While he can’t remember the name, it turns out that Gold keeps records of who buys the necklace which surprise turns out to be from the store. Gold takes out a card and tells Emma that the necklace belongs to Michael Tillman, even though the card was really blank. O0o0o0o0o. Emma goes to visit the father, and while the father says over and over again, Emma keeps on persisting. The guys is basically like I don’t know anything about being a dad I’d rather see them go into foster care. It’s a very rude interaction. I love how this show references sex though, they just say “we hung out” or “we spent time camping together”. Niiiice.

TURNING POINT. It turns out that Emma’s baby daddy isn’t really dead or a hero, so there’s still mystery about that I guess. She’s on her way to leaving Storybrooke when the car “breaks down” It ends with the father taking the kids home, because Emma knew he’d never be able to see the children and then make them go to Boston. Later, Emma is having a heart to heart with Henry when a stranger on a motorcycle rides in, asking where he could find a room. I swear, if they make him Emma’s new love interest after 2 episodes without Grant (aka Hot Sheriff), I’ll cry.

The last flashback shows that the queen also kidnapped the father of Hansel and Gretel.  She questions him on why, if she offered the children everything, they still chose their father over her. Lana Parilla’s acting was flawless in this scene, and it makes me remember why I love the queen so much. Her eyes tear up at this, so confused as to why they “rejected her”. When the dad replies it’s because they are a family, her voice cracks. If we’re following a proper timeline here (with LOST you never know), this should be before her father’s murder, so more mystery. I like it. Regaining her queen-like stature, Regina lets the family be together, if Hansel and Gretel can ever get out of the huge forest she banished them to. Mwahahaha….