Once Upon a Time: New York City Serenade (3x12)

Yay! We're back from hiatus! And we have an episode with lots of Hook! My dreams have all come true. Let's take a look.

Emma is in New York with Henry, and she's been dating a guy named Walsh for the past eight months. Walsh proposes, but Emma is unable to make a decision right away. Henry encourages her to do what makes her happy. Emma is preoccupied with something else going on in her life - Hook turns up again after showing up at her door and kissing her. He tells her to go to a specific address to prove what he's been saying about her parents. Emma goes to the address and finds out that it's Neal's apartment. She sees a camera in the apartment with Henry's name on it. Emma confronts Hook, who continually insists that her family is in mortal danger and she has to save them. He offers her a potion that will restore her memories, but Emma instead gets him arrested for assault.

However, when Emma gets the pictures on Henry's camera developed, she sees pictures of the two of them together in a place called Storybrooke. She pays Hook's bail and drinks the potion, thus causing her to remember everything. Back at Emma's apartment, Walsh turns up. Emma has to refuse his proposal, because she doesn't want to draw him in to her crazy life. Walsh doesn't take the news so well - in fact, he gets angry at her for mixing things up and reveals that he has been a flying monkey the whole time. Emma is forced to beat him off of her. She now knows that she can never truly escape her destiny as the Savior.

Emma, Hook, and Henry (who still doesn't remember everything) travel to Storybrooke, which has been returned, apparently by another curse. Nobody is really sure what's going on, though. Emma shows up at her parent's house, and is relieved and surprised that David and Mary Margaret remember her. What they don't remember, however, is what happened during the past year. The last thing they remember is saying goodbye to her. Mary Margaret is very pregnant, though!

We do get to see some of what happened in the Fairy Tale land, though... the group shows up near Phillip and a pregnant Aurora. Phillip and Aurora are happy to see everyone, and the group start off towards Regina's castle. Regina and Snow plan on presenting a united front to help calm everyone down. Once the group rides away on horses, Phillip and Aurora have a hushed conversation about what to do - apparently there's some evil "her" that they feel compelled to tell about the arrival of Snow and the others. They are nervous that if they keep their mouths shut, "She" will take it out on their unborn child.

Hook decides to leave the group and hunt down the Jolly Roger. On the way to the castle, Snow catches Regina burying her heart in the woods, overcome with grief about losing Henry. Snow convinces her to keep her heart in her chest, because things will get better. Regina takes Snow's advice. Just then, they are set upon by a flying monkey! Regina is unable to hold it off with her magic, but Robin Hood manages to drive it off with his arrows. The group join up with Robin Hood and his men.

When they arrive at Regina's castle, they see that it has a charm around it, which prevents them from entering. Regina angrily declares that they will find away to take back what's theirs. Robin offers them sanctuary for the time being. During the journey, Neal and Belle talk about Rumplestiltskin. They want to go back to Rumple's castle and see if they can find the dagger. They have hope that he's not really gone.

In the last moments, we see the Wicked Witch of the West take some of Regina's blood from the flying monkey that attacked her. She adds it to some kind of potion, and clearly has some sinister - if yet unknown - plans.

Whew. That's a lot of stuff. I didn't realize this episode was so plot heavy until I had to write down everything that happened. But... honestly? That's a good thing! Unlike some other shows that feel very exposition-heavy and spend more time explaining than actually doing, in this episode of Once Upon a Time, we really got the ball rolling on the second half of the season. First, however, let me list the elements that didn't do it for me.

- Henry as the "wise child" trope. It was just painfully obvious in this episode, what with all of Henry's sage talks with his mom about Walsh. That's not how kids talk, and it really annoyed me.

- Walsh. Is a flying monkey. That was just... I don't know. Painfully stupid. I knew from the second we saw him that he was going to be a relatively disposable bad guy, so I felt like we were just going through the motions until the "surprise" reveal.

- Hook only has enough memory-restoring potion for one dose. Laaaaaazy. They could have tried a tiny bit harder to come up with a good excuse as to why Henry can't know the truth, too.

So yeah, the episode did have its problems... but I still loved it over all! Let's talk about the good stuff.

- Hook! Hook! Hook! Hook and Emma making eyes at each other! Hook being jealous of Emma and Walsh, and being relieved to see her with her memories back. All of his funny little misunderstandings with the modern world... calling prison a "brig" and discussing the horrors of bologna. I think my favorite bit was when Henry asked him why he was dressed like that, and Hook responds, indignant: "Why are you dressed like that?"

- Emma being a bad ass on her own. One thing this show does really well is that it lets Emma be the protagonist. Really the protagonist. She has flaws, sure, but she is also legitimately strong, and can take care of herself in tricky situations. She beats back Walsh the flying monkey without anyone's help. Hook only shows up after she's already taken care of the problem.

- Neal and Belle? Are you two up to something? We know that there's a new curse, and everyone's back to Storybrooke again. Obviously at this point I'm going to assume that the Wicked Witch did it. But Neal, we know how desperate you are to find Emma and Henry again, and Belle, is there anything you wouldn't do to get Rumple back? I love the suggestion that they might do something sneaky or wrong to get what they want.

- Robin Hood! Already seeing the sparks fly between him and Regina. The queen and the outlaw. So cute. Related to this, I'm really loving how the development of Snow and Regina's relationship is going. Their little talk in the woods when Regina was trying to bury her heart was really touching. I love the fact that they're trying to get the castle back together. Regina even calls it "our castle." Woo!

- Emma is already reunited with her parents! I'll admit, I was expecting to have to wait a lot longer, but I'm glad that's not the case. This whole thing with the new curse is interesting, and not at all what I would have expected. I can honestly say I don't know where the story's going, so that's nice.

- The Wicked Witch! Why does she need Regina's blood? I've got so many questions... this is shaping up to be a very interesting second half of the season!

8/10