Recap: ONCE UPON A TIME Untold Stories Arrived

Episode 601 “The Savior”
Written by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz
Directed by Eagle Egilsson

In this episode of Once Upon A Time, there were a crashed dirigible, untold stories, violent hallucinations, and a trip into dream land.

A new season of Once Upon A Time, a brand new peril. This time, it’s Mr. Hyde (Sam Witwer). It seems the Dark One (Robert Carlyle) has given him Storybrooke in exchange for information on how to bring Belle (Emilie de Ravin) back from her spell-induced sleep. And what should arrive into town? A sailing ship flying as a dirigible from the Land of Untold Stories. And as Hyde warned everyone — as he proved himself to be immune to the magic of both Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Regina (Lana Parrilla) — there are few things as dangerous as untold stories and those who don’t want them to be told.

Searching through the wreckage of the downed ship, Dr. Jekyll (Hank Harris) figured he could use the technology to devise something to stop Hyde. Our intrepid heroes then confronted Hyde to capture him. Emma, who was supposed to shock him, froze up when she got a montage in her head of a sword battle. She came to in the nick of time (as it normally happens, like stopping a bomb at one second) and shot Hyde with lightning from a device she was holding, and the others put handcuffs on him that he apparently couldn’t escape from … because of fairy tale technology.

So Emma ended up consulting with him about her flashes of swordplay and her shaky hand. Hyde told her to follow the red bird. When she followed the bird, it led her to a girl in the woods who was simply an “Oracle” (Jordyn Ashley Olson). According to her, Emma comes from a long line of Saviors. One of which was in the opening scene, namely Aladdin (Deniz Akdeniz). He was unable to stand up to Jafar (Oded Fehr), who had the flying carpet and a force choke that would make Darth Vader envious. So Emma comes from a long line of Saviors just as she was also part of a long line of Dark Ones. I’m pretty sure that’s unique. Anyway, the Oracle showed her the full vision without the montage. It’s a prediction of the future where she will be killed in a sword fight. According to Hyde, where there is a Savior, there is a villain that will be the death of that Savior. A Savior can never have a happily ever after.

Our other intrepid heroes went to find the untold stories that crossed over into Storybrooke. Snow (Gennifer Goodwin) deduced that they were afraid and offered them food and aid at Granny’s Diner. They ended up taking her up on the offer.

In exchange for Storybrooke, Rumple got a map to the castle of Morpheus. Inside there, he would find sand that would put him into Belle’s dream in order to wake her up. Inside her dream, he was met by Morpheus (Giles Matthey) who gave him one hour to save her or lose her forever. And he saw that she was dreaming about his own castle. It was darker in the dream than it was in real life. And she saw Rumple as the Beast. In her dreams, she was the slave girl of a brutal Rumpelstiltskin. So Rumple was determined to make her relive the moment when she fell in love with him to get her out of the sleep. A Victrola played the theme to Beauty and the Beast and they danced. The place regained its color. And Belle remembered what was real and all the lies Rumple told her.

Then Morpheus revealed who he really was. It was their unborn son who was using Rumple to make sure Belle would never fall for his deceptions again. He then woke her up with true love’s kiss on her forehead. When Belle woke up, she went back to Storybrooke with Rumple, but refused to make a home with him.

Zelena (Rebecca Mader) and Regina had another falling out. Zelena had a feather from one of Robin Hood’s arrows but lost it. Regina took it personally. Henry told her that he still holds out hope that Robin might still exist. After all, Hades, like all villains, will lie to get what they want. He persuaded her to have faith. Finally, she came to terms with it, but not before Zelena met up with Regina’s other half, the Evil Queen.

Altogether, it was a great start to the new season. Sure, the on again/off again relationship between Belle and Rumpelstiltskin is starting to get a bit old. But that’s a minor issue overall. As for the arrival of all the “untold stories”, it almost seems as if the series was coming to an end soon and the writers were looking for any way to use every idea they could. But we’ll see where they’re going with this one. And it was great to see Archie back, even if it was just for one quick scene. Let’s just hope they can keep up the momentum the first episode set up.

Once Upon a Time airs Sunday nights at 8/7c on ABC.