Once Upon a Time Recap: Mad World

Last week I said that I feel like the show has been on a roll lately, and this episode continues in that vein.  I’m not gonna lie, Gasmi; I laughed, got teary-eyed, and was downright creeped out during this episode.  And loved and every second of it!

And before we get started on the cappage, I want to say again how much I love that you all love this show as much as I do.  It makes my day every time I get an e-mail alert that one of you have left a comment, and I can’t wait to hear all the theories you guys have come up with.  Between all us we have to have got some of it right.  Right?  So thank you again for being here and taking the time you do to read the recaps (mine and my fellow cappers) and leave your comments.  Y’all are da bomb!

And now…….on to the show!

Are you ready for a spot of tea, Gasmi?  Well, ready or not, hang on to your hats because we’re heading down the rabbit hole.

As we begin the evening, Mary Margaret is on the run.  Emma and Mr. Gold arrive at the sheriff’s station to find Henry there reading his book.  Henry is all, “Love the plan, mom.”

Huh?

Ooooooooh……okay…..I get it….ixnay on the planyay in front of Goldbay

What the fuck are you talking about?

During this exchange, Gold has gone into the holding area, realized that Mary Margaret has escaped, and calls Emma to join him and to fill her in.  To Henry’s dismay, this was not an Operation Cobra mission, simply a plain old jail break.

Emma is going after Mary Margaret; she can’t let her become a fugitive on top of everything else.  Henry wants to help, but she sends him home.  Gold warns her that if she’s caught helping Mary Margaret, she’ll be in trouble too.  She doesn’t care.

So Emma climbs into her yellow bug and hits the road to search for her momfriend.  Now, we all know she can’t have gone far, what with the curse preventing anyone from leaving, but Emma doesn’t know that and I have to think that she’s PRAYING Mary Margaret didn’t have too much of a headstart on her.

Unfortunately, she’s not really paying too much attention to the road…..

And runs into this guy

Thankfully he’s not dead, but he IS limping, so she insists on driving him, home.  I guess Emma thinks Stranger Danger doesn’t apply to her since she’s the sheriff and all.  And what is it with all the good looking guys in Storybrooke?  Oh wait.  Fairy tale characters; you never do see really ugly dudes in those books unless they’re ogres or trolls.

He introduces himself as Jefferson and walks over to her car.

Over in Fairyland, we join Jefferson running through the forest.  Uh oh!  Who is chasing him?

It’s his daughter, Grace.  They were playing a game of hide and seek.

They’re adorable, but playtime is over; now they have to hunt for mushrooms to sell at the market tomorrow.  Later, they return to their little cottage in the woods to find a carriage parked outside.  Ugh.  Here comes EQ to ruin their day.

Looks like he just threw up in his mouth a little

He tells Grace to hide in the woods while her figures out what EQ is doing there.  Seems they’ve had some dealings with each other before.  Oh!  AND….she calls him Jefferson and he calls her REGINA!!!  They both have the same names in Fairyland as they do in Storybrooke!!!!!!  What could this mean?!?!

No time to think on it; Regina tells him she needs him to get up to his old tricks again to help her out with something.  He’s not interested; it was because of his work that he lost his wife, and he doesn’t want Grace to lose him as well.  Awwwww……he’s sweet.

So now you’re foraging for fungus?

LOL, she may be a bitch, but she always knows just what to say.

She tells him that if he does this one last thing for her, he’ll be able to give Grace the life she deserves.  Oh, that’s why he’s staying, he tells her; you don’t abandon family.

Whaaaaaaat?!?!??!?!

What the fuck is going on?  What does he mean by that?  Obviously they have HISTORY together, but what???  Tell me, TELL ME!!!!!!!

Seriously.  I need to know.

He tells her to get the fuck out, but we all know by now that Regina is a persistent one.  She tells him all she needs is his skills to get her somewhere; somewhere that he has been before.  Do it and she can change his life.

She hands him a paper and he asks what business she could possibly have there.  Something of hers was taken and now it’s there.  She wants it back.  He tells her once more to get someone else to get it.  Okay, fine; she understands.  After all, nothing is more important than family.  Seriously, something is going on with this whole family talk and it is DRIVING ME CRAZY.

Back in Storybrooke, Emma and Jefferson have arrived at this HUGE mansion.

If you think this is big, you should see what’s in my pants!

You ain’t got nothing on me!!

Emma decides to accompany Jefferson indoors, what with him being so frail looking and all.  What?  You don’t think he looks frail?  She must just be a dope then.  Once she sees him safely indoors, he offers her a spot of tea and a map he’s made of the area.  Dopey Emma takes it.  Suddenly she’s feeling a little woozy….”Who are you?” she mutters as she passes out on his nearby couch.

It’s market day back in Fairyland, and Jefferson and Grace are strolling through, looking at the wares when they happen upon an old gypsy woman’s stall.  There is a stuffed white rabbit (LOVE IT) that Grace just adores.

I’m Late!  I’m Late!

The price is too steep for Jefferson, and he tries to haggle with the old woman so that he can get the rabbit for his kid.  No go, the old lady won’t budge.  Wanh, wanh.

They leave, and the old lady returns to her wagon which is sporting a mighty big mirror on the side of it.  If you hadn’t figured it out already, Sidney appearing in the mirror will sure clue you in that the old lady was EQ in disguise.

I’m guessing we’ll see her again.

Sidney thinks it was super mean of her not to let the little girl have the toy.  She disagrees; she just knows that this will provide Jefferson with the motivation he needs to decide to help her.

In Storybrooke, Emma wakes up to find herself bound and gagged.  No worries; Emma’s dated some really kinky guys and she knows just how to get out of this mess.  She smashes her fallen teacup and uses one of the shards to cut her ropes.  Now if only she could get one of the windows to open!  Nope, they’re all nailed (or painted) shut.  Dammit!!!!

What’s that?  There’s a telescope in the room…..that looks right into her office!!!  What the hell?!?  Is he stalking Emma?  She doesn’t take time to ponder the possibilities; she heads out into the hall looking for an escape route.  Jefferson is in another room, sharpening a giant pair of scissors.  Oh no!  He might be planning to cut her hair or something!

We fade from those scissors to another pair, back in Jefferson’s Fairyland cottage.  He’s just finishing up a low rent version of the white rabbit for his daughter.  Watching her sit his attempt down to tea, he makes a decision.  He tells Grace that she’s going to spend the day with neighbors because he’s got some work to do.  Can’t she come along too?  No, no, it’s too dangerous.  But will he promise to come in time for their tea party?

I promise

Uh oh.  I just got a pit in my stomach.  Something tells me that this promise is going to get broken, one way or another.

Once Grace is sent off, Jefferson opens a trunk, pulling out an old hat box.  And he’s off to the palace!

Over in Storybrooke, Emma is NOT in the mood for a new ‘do, so now she REALLY wants to get the fuck out of there.  She tip toes down the hall, but hits a creaky board.  Rut roh.  She ducks into a nearby room to hide….

Ooooooh fuckballs.

Well, at least she doesn’t have to keep looking for Mary Margaret; now she just has to get them outta there.  She unties her momfriend, but Jefferson is waiting for them in the hall.  With a gun.  Emma bluffs that she’s called for backup, but Jefferson knows there’s only one sheriff in town, what with Sheriff McHottiePants dying and all.

He makes Emma tie Mary Margaret up again and then tells Emma he’s got a job for her.

I don’t swallow.

Oh Emma, it’s not that kind of a job.  At least I don’t think it is!

Back in Fairyland, Jefferson and his giant hatbox have arrived at Regina’s palace.  He says he wants her guarantee that if he does what she asks, his daughter will want for nothing.  She gives him her word.  He believes her which is the first indication that he may not be quite right in the head.

He pulls a top hat out of his box and Regina quips “I do so like a man who dresses for the occasion.”  LOLOL.  He places the hat carefully on the floor and then gives it a whirl.    It spins and spins and then starts to emit a purple haze…..kind of like the haze that she used to send Hansel, Gretel, and their dad away.  And then…

They’re off!

In Storybrooke, Emma tells Jefferson that if he hurts Mary Margaret…..so help her…..He’s not going to hurt her; he’s saving her life.  He tells Emma he kidnapped Mary Margaret to keep her from getting hurt when she tries to leave town; he knows she can’t because of the curse.  Emma thinks he must have been talking to Henry lately.  He says maybe if she knew what he knows she wouldn’t ignore those stories in Henry’s book.

Emma wants to know why he’s been spying on her.  Because for the last 28 years he’s been stuck in this house.  That is, until she arrived and started things moving again.  He knows what she refuses to acknowledge.  She is special.  She brought something precious to Storybrooke.  Magic.

Oh crap.  He is crazy and I am so screwed.

She tells him he is insane which might not be the smartest thing to tell a crazy person.  “Because I speak the truth?” he asks her.  No, because he’s talking about magic, she replies.  He’s talking about what he’s seen; maybe she’s the one who’s cuckoo.  What is crazier than seeing but not believing?  That’s what she’s been doing ever since she got her.

THANK YOU!!!

He may be crazy, but he speaks the truth.  He tells her to open her eyes, look around, and wake up.  “Isn’t it about time?”  YES!!!  Thank you x 4,578!!!!!!!!!!!

She asks what he wants.  He wants her to get it to work.  We pan over to a hat sitting on the table as he tells her she is the only one that can do this.  She IS going to get it to work.

Meanwhile, the Hatter and the Queen have reached some sort of Hat Station.  It’s a room filled with door after door after door, all presumably leading to different worlds.

I’m dying to know where they all go.

Regina says she had forgotten how magnificent he is.  He’s not here to relive the past; he is here for his daughter.  They head over to a door that is a giant mirror and Jefferson tells Regina that it’s important that they stick together; the same amount of people that go through have to come back; no more, no less.  It’s the hat’s rule.  She’s got it.  And so, they go through the looking glass, and into Wonderland.  There’s even a hookah smoking caterpillar, “Whoooooo are yooooooooou?”  It asks them.  Hrmph.  They missed a golden opportunity there.  You see, the caterpillar was voiced by Roger Daltry; wouldn’t it have been awesome if he’d broken out into song with that particular question?

Oh well, can’t go back and change it now, can we?  Jefferson says that he HATES Wonderland, and off they go to find what was taken from Regina.

Over in Storybrooke, Jefferson clues Emma into to what he wants.  He wants her to make a hat.  A hat?  Doesn’t he have enough?  Nope, because none of them work; he needs her to make one that works, dammit!!!  She finally puts together who he is, or who he thinks he is, and she tries to reason with him.  She says the stories in Henry’s book are just that, stories.  “The Mad Hatter is in Alice in Wonderland, a BOOK, a book I actually read!”  I think maybe she just saw the Disney movie or she’d realize she got the title wrong.  But whatevs, we get the gist of it.

Jefferson is not to be swayed; stories?  What’s a story?  When she was in high school, did she learn about the civil war?  Wasn’t THAT story in a book as well?  History books are based on history, she tells him.  Yeah, and?  Storybooks are based on what?  Imagination?  He wonders what makes them any less real than the so called history books she’s talking about.

You what the problem is with this world?

He’ll tell ya.  Everyone here wants a magical solution to their problems and yet no one believes in magic.  SO TRUE!!  Now shut up and get the hat to work.  Emma has balls.  She tells him, here’s the thing; this is the real world…..

A real world, he corrects her.  How arrogant of her to think that her world is the only world.  There are infinite more, but you have to open up your mind.  They touch one another, each just as real as the last, all with their own rules.  Some have magic, some don’t.  And some NEED magic.  Like this one.

Now make the fucking hat and get it to work!!!

In Wonderland, Jefferson and Regina have arrived at a giant maze.  A giant maze owned by the Queen of Hearts.  He doesn’t want to go in, and says it wasn’t part of their deal.  But she’s going to go and he can’t leave without her, so he’s not going to let this stop him, right?

Dammit!  Jefferson warns her to stay away from the walls, and then throws a stick at one which promptly gets eaten up by the hedge wall.  She’s got a better idea – the walls should stay away from her.

Talk about burning a path down the middle!

They hurry to the center where there is a vault containing a wall of boxes that look VERY familiar…..

Regina finds the particular box she came for, and they turn to head back through the maze and on their home.  Not so fast!  The Queen of Heart’s guards have arrived!  And they’re off, back through the maze.  As they go, Regina throws up new walls that eat the guards that have the misfortune of running into them.

At last, they make it through safely.  They’ve arrived back at the mirror door, and Regina stops to break off a piece of the mushroom they passed by earlier.  What is she doing, the Hatter wonders.  The food here is weird and they don’t have time for this.  But they DO because she adds the mushroom piece to the box and……

Insta-Daddy!

Hatter realizes that he’s been played for a fool; two came through the hat, only two can leave.  It was Regina’s plan all along to leave him behind in Wonderland.  Say it with me now… What a BITCH.  She tells the Hatter if he TRULY card for his daughter he would have NEVER left her behind in the first place.  He was right; you DON’T abandon family.  Toodle-ooo!

Within seconds of Regina and Daddy’s departure, the Queen’s guards arrive and drag Hatter off to face her.

Or not, since she is heavily veiled.

What the hell?!?!?  Who IS she?!?!?  I have to know!!

We don’t even clearly hear her voice; she’s talking through one of those horn-like things and her Knave is speaking for her to the rest of the assembly.  Jefferson tells her about his helping the Queen to which she replies that SHE is the only Queen, NOT Regina.  OH!  So Regina’s name is the same in both realms as well!!  VERY INTERESTING!!!!

What she really wants to know is how he even GOT to Wonderland.  If he tells her, will she let him go home to his daughter.  “Off with his head!”  Yikes.  They chop off his head.  But he doesn’t die!

He’s just as surprised as we are!

If he wants his body back he’ll answer how he got here.  He spills the beans, telling them about the hat.  Where is the hat now?  Regina has it.  Well, if all he needs is the hat to travel back home, then surely he can make another.  But he can’t; a hat without magic is just a hat.  Huh.  Guess he better figure out how to get it to work, huh?

Damn.  Are all queens bitches or what?!?!?

Off with her head!

Gulp.  Me and my big fat mouth.  Although, I do feel much lighter now….

In Storybrooke Jefferson is BEYOND frustrated as Emma tells her she can’t make it work; it’s impossible.  He HAS to have it!  He can’t live this cursed life anymore!  He tells her the real reason he needs her to make this hat for him: his kid.  You see, Grace is here in Storybrooke as well, but here her name is Paige and she doesn’t remember being his kid.

So yes, he’s cursed, cursed just like everyone else in Storybrooke, having someone he loves ripped away from him.  Emma gets that he thinks if she can get the hat to work he can escape with his kid into the world where she’ll remember him.  Sniff.  What parent wouldn’t do anything to get their kid back?

Ummmm….nevermind.

His story gets to Emma.  It seems as though she might FINALLY be starting to believe!  She says if what he’s telling her is true, then the woman he’s got tied up in the other room (remember Mary Margaret?) is actually HER MOM.  She’d love to believe that more than anything in the world.  Jefferson is soooooo relieved.

Until Emma hits him upside the head.

Damn.  I guess she’s not a believer after all; the Monkees will be so disappointed.

Emma grabs his gun and runs into the other room to rescue Mary Margaret.  But here comes Jefferson!  And he’s got the hat Emma was working on while they were talking.  Fighting ensues and Jefferson comes thiiiiiiiiiis close to shooting Emma, but before he can get off a shot.

Kung Fu Mary Margaret steps in!

She kicks him out the window….and he disappears!!!!  The only thing left is THE HAT!  Holy Crap!  Looks like Emma is made of magic!

The girls are a little shocked by this turn of events, but soon remember that Mary Margaret’s due in court any time now.  They find Emma’s Bug under a tarp and Emma tosses Mary Margaret the keys, saying she’s free to run if she wants to.  BUT.  She really wishes she wouldn’t; telling her that once you start running you can never really stop.

Emma asks that Mary Margaret trust her; trust that she’ll be able to get her out of this and prove her innocence.  She cares about her, she’s family, well, the closest thing to it that Emma has.  Yeah, closer than she thinks.

This touches Mary Margaret, but before we know what she’s decided we cut over to the Sheriff’s office, where Regina has arrived seemingly before Emma since her car is nowhere to be found.  OH NO!!!!!!!

Suck it, biatch.

WOO HOO!!  Looks like Mary Margaret made it back in time after all!  Yipee!  The pissy look on Regina’s face says it all: she totally planted that key counting on Mary Margaret to run and make herself look even guiltier than she did before.  SUCK IT, Regina!!

BUT.  There’s more to this than meets the eye.  Apparently, Gold was in on the plot as well, and Regina is PISSED because he assured her that this little plan would work.  He assures her that even though Mary Margaret chose NOT to run away, in the end she will get the result she was looking for.  So now Gold is working with Regina?!?!?!?

Or IS HE????????

Over at the school, Emma sits outside with Henry and Paige walks by, saying hello.  Emma looks thoughtful for a minute and then asks Henry if she can see his book.  He pull sit out and Emma flips through, landing on a picture of the Hatter that looks vaguely like Jefferson; if you squint and have been drinking Jagermeister shots for several hours.  What?  I’m just guessing that could cause hallucinations ad/or vision impairment.

Emma asks Henry if she can hold onto the book for a bit, and he happily agrees.  Could it be that she’s starting to believe???

Over in Wonderland, the Hatter has his body back, but has clearly lost his marbles.  He’s working away at his latest hat, trying in vain to get it to work.  And as we pan back from him…….

We see he’s been at it for a very, very, long time.

Poor guy.

And there you have it, Gasmi.  What did you think of this episode?  Do you think Emma’s starting to believe?  What about the Hatter?  Where did he go and will he be back?  Ad what the fuck is going on with Gold?  Do you think he’s REALLY working with Regina?!?!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!  I can’t wait til next week!

Until then….

SWAK, PottyMouth

 

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