Once Upon A Time: “The Jolly Roger” (S3Ep17)

I feel like every couple of weeks Once Upon A Time is giving us a ridiculous SwanQueen episode just to keep all of the fans that are totally over the show’s undying straightness happy. This was one of those episodes. There was so much SwanQueen, but there was also a good twist and and a minor character’s return.

We start in the Enchanted Forest after the curse that ended 3a. Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and some other pirates are trying to steal enough gold and eventually steal back the Jolly Roger. They go to the one tavern and Hook goes outside to be a player or something. I don’t know, I only started paying attention once he was attacked by Ariel (Joanna Gracia Swisher). She says he is going to pay for killing Eric.

Anyway to more important things, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) is wearing a vest over a plaid shirt and helping her dad assemble furniture.

a.k.a the gayest thing Emma has ever done

Regina thens comes over and says she hasn’t seen Zelena (Rebecca Mader). Emma asks her to start teaching her how to do magic again so they can defeat Zelena together. Regina tells Emma she needs to commit to a magical way of life with her. Emma agrees, because of course, and Regina tells her to meet her in an hour.

I just want to make like crazy magic with you

Emma tells her parents she is going to drop Henry (Jared Gilmore) off with Hook because 12-year-old boys find metro-sexual pirates fun and unCharming grandparents boring. No joke, trying to be cool grandparents is really Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Charming’s (Josh Dallas) story line this episode.

Smee is getting all pissed at Hook because he won’t tell them what happened during the year they don’t remember, but he seems to remember most of it. Smee wants to know if he got the Jolly Roger back. But, Hook doesn’t have time to answer because Emma has put him on babysitting duty after he tells her she has magic inside her and just needs to be taught how to let it out. Hook tells her that trying to return to your old life after getting your memory back isn’t possible.

Meanwhile, Snowing is having a beach side walk under and umbrella, because ugh. Anyway they run into Ariel, who has washed up on shore. She has been searching and swimming between realms looking for Eric. Back in the Enchanted Forest, she is convinced that Hook took Eric, but he didn’t. It was just someone who has his ship.

Back in Storybrooke, Regina has taken Emma into her family vault to start her magic lessons. Most of the Hook stuff in this episode was boring, but these parts made the rest great. Regina sounds all jealous when she says of course Hook brought Emma back. Emma denies any feelings for him. She acts like an idiot and Regina makes fun of her the whole timw, just like every good SwanQueen fanfic.

Now kiss!

Emma says she doesn’t think Regina’s nice teaching methods are going to work because this can’t be how Rumple taught her. Regina said it wasn’t he had more of a learn to swim or drown method and she decides to try it out on Emma. She transports her to a rope bridge and starts slowly tearing it down while yelling things at Emma like “no more hand holding” and “it’s inside you”. Oh, this show. Regina takes the bridge completely out, but Emma fells with it. Regina looks heartbroken at the thought that she might have just killed Emma.

Nothing gay going on here, move along

Emma saves herself, but Regina is slightly disappointed that she didn’t kiss her after that Emma has so much potential and hasn’t been using it.

Then some stuff happened with Hook and Ariel in the Enchanted Forest with him saying he will help her find Eric. He is doing the same in Storybrooke, only because Charming asked him to. But, amiss all this SwanQueen the only important part is this:

How every looks before they hug their platonic friends

To be honest, I paid very little attention to the rest of the scenes with Hook and Ariel until the big twist. I spent most of their scenes trying to convince my straight friend that Belle and Ariel are a thing. Thank you person in #queerytales who told me Little Beauty is their ship name. They find Eric’s cloak or something and use it to track him. But, it just leads them to the ocean and dives to the bottom. Other stuff happens in the Enchanted Forest and Hook is being a butthead to Ariel. In Storybrooke, he apologies for being a butt to her though she doesn’t remember that he was. Then in an actually good twist (which might not be so great thinking about it now because the show has done with twice with Cora) Ariel turns out to be a shaping-shift Zelena.

Surprise, bitch

Zelena decided to use Hook’s guilt about being a dick to Ariel and not helping her find Eric against him to figure out who his true love is. Sadly, it’s not Helena Peabody, but Emma. But, I wasn’t too upset by that because Zelena then curses him so that if he kisses Emma her magic will disappear. You know that magic she has been doing with Regina.

Hook goes to tell his boyfriend what happened but instead finds Emma and Regina alone at her parents’ place.  Hook lies to them and says Ariel just went to go find Eric, who was shipwrecked on Hangman’s Island off the coast of the Enchanted Forest. That part is actually turn and Ariel has been there the whole time. Regina makes Emma use a mirror to spy on them so then have no reason to believe Hook is lying. But, he is still nervous about what they will see. Regina seems to enjoy that.

But, sadly Emma thinks Hook helped Ariel find Eric and Regina is not so happy about that. As much as I was annoyed by Emma being all gooey over Hook’s kindness, I did love that this scene seemed be to placing Regina and Hook at different points of Emma’s love triangle. If only the show was doing that on purpose.

You stay back there, Hook

But who cares about the love triangle being an accident, because Snow and Charming come home with Henry and then invite Emma and Reigna (!) to dinner. They finally invited her to dinner!

SwanQueen Family!

I loved the majority of this episode, which usually means next week is going to suck. Apparently the gang is going to have to bring Cora (looks like Rose McGown, not Barbra Hershey) back to live to help them. Hopefully, it’s good.