Once Upon a Time: Breaking Glass (4x05)

Okay! We're getting somewhere! Let's start with a summary of the flashback, and then get in to what's going on in Storybrooke.

We see Emma as a teenager in 1998. She is trying to steal food from a grocery store, but is nearly caught. Another young girl, Lily, shows up and helps her avoid detection. The two of them buy a bunch of food using a credit card that Lily says she has stolen. They must then run away from a man who is chasing them. Emma reveals her experiences in the foster system, and says that she ran away. She asks Lily if the man chasing her was from social services, and if she too is from the foster system. Lily says yes. The two of them decide to break in to a summer home and stay there. Lily tells Emma that they should always be friends, no matter what happens. At this point, the man who was chasing Lily earlier shows up. Turns out, it's her father. Lily says she's sorry for lying to Emma, but that she really does hate her home life and she wants to run away. Emma can't forgive her for lying, and so she walks away from Lily. Emma is taken back in by social services.

Back in Storybrooke, we see the Snow Queen create an ice monster. At the sheriff's station, Emma and Elsa are continuing their hunt for the Snow Queen, to no avail. Hook stops by to drop off some files. He tells Emma he's going to take Henry sailing, and after kissing her on the cheek, he departs. Will, still in the jail cell, witnesses the whole thing, and laments his situation - all he gets for dinner is a pop tart with a bite already taken out of it. Emma and Elsa look at some pictures in the police files, from back when Regina had Sidney spy on Emma. She sees pictures of herself with Henry, and then she finds a mysterious picture of herself talking to the Snow Queen, which she has no memory of.

This prompts Emma and Elsa to go talk to Regina. Elsa stays in the car while Emma goes to ask Regina about the photo. Regina had just finished asking Sidney where to find the Snow Queen when Emma enters. Regina doesn't know anything about the photo. Besides, she doesn't seem to be inclined to be helpful. Emma offers to help Regina save Marian, but Regina is disdainful, saying that she knows Emma would never really want to help her.

Meanwhile, Elsa sees Anna outside of the car, and she goes to try to find her. Turns out, however, that Anna was never really there - it was all a trick of the Snow Queen. The Snow Queen traps Elsa, saying that she needs Elsa to be afraid in order to get what she wants.

Emma searches for Elsa while Regina uses a compact mirror with Sidney inside to look for the Snow Queen. The two of them run into each other in the woods and Regina grudgingly allows Emma to tag along with her. They are found by the Snow Queen, due to Sidney's betrayal. She uses the ice monster to attack them. Elsa overcomes her fear and is able to come and help. These three women use their combined power to defeat the monster. However, it seems the Snow Queen has what she wants: she got a shard of glass from the mirror Sidney was inside of, after setting Sidney free for his assistance. This shard of glass goes into a larger mirror that the Snow Queen has been creating to further her goals.

Elsa is determined not to give up on Anna. Emma tries to talk to Regina again about their relationship. She says that she once refused to forgive a friend, and that she's regretted it ever since. She thought that Regina had the potential to be her friend, at one point. Regina admits that if nothing else, she doesn't actually want to kill Emma. So, that's good! Hook comes to the station to see Emma later, and sees that she looks upset. She has been thinking a lot about her past. She lets Hook see inside her box of childhood items, and then she puts in a tape. It shows young Emma and Lily laughing and goofing off. Then, a new bit of footage appears - Emma doesn't remember it. It's a few boys playing with her video camera and then - the Snow Queen! She appears to be someone from Emma's past in the foster system!

While all of this has been going on, we also get a brief Mary Margaret/David subplot. The two of them are going on a date, away from the baby, and Mary Margaret is anxious about it. When it appears Will has escaped from his prison cell, the two of them try to track him down. Mary Margaret finds him, but she then believes that the whole thing was set up by David to make her feel more like her old self. She gets Will to "confess" the truth, and then she pardons him. Later, she tries to thank David for setting the whole thing up, and David tells Mary Margaret that he had nothing to do with it. Still, it should be okay - after all, Will didn't do anything worse than break into a library and take a nap.

Whew. That was a really long plot summary. This was one of those episodes where everything that happened was pretty important, and I wanted to make sure I didn't leave out anything essential. Let us start with my complaints.

First of all, there was too much going on here. The episode lacked focus, especially when we switched from Emma's back story to the present day. The link between the two was very tenuous and Emma's past didn't seem to provide much for the immediate concerns of the future - I sort of felt like the whole thing was only in there so we could get the Snow Queen shocker at the end.

Emma and Lily's friendship was... weird. Like, were they in love or something? The whole thing took place in a day or two, right? They became that close that quickly? To the point where Lily would dramatically call out Emma's name while being driven away? It felt like too much, especially if Lily isn't coming back into the story. If they have further plans with her, then maybe it'll be interesting. As it was, I liked the idea behind the plot thread perfectly fine, but I think they took the closeness of their friendship too far.

Okay. Regina. Over the past few episodes I've been praising the show's decision to redeem Regina and not let her fall back into her old ways. And... yeah. I guess she's better. She didn't kill Marian, and is in fact trying to save her. But think about this episode. She tells Emma that she ruined her life. How? By saving an innocent woman that Regina herself was going to wrongly execute. Jeez, Regina, you certainly seem to be changing your ways. And then there's Sidney to consider. She's kept him as a prisoner for years and years, and she treats him cruelly now. No wonder Sidney betrayed her!

Then there's the Snow Queen. What was with the mirror thing? And her ultimate goal is to find a family that loves her? Seriously, is this just Regina 2.0? Why are we rehashing the idea of an evil woman who wants family and is willing to hurt people to get it? Even Zelena was like this, to some extent. Her evil actions were motivated by a need for love in her life. Yeesh.

But now let's switch over to the good stuff. What I just mentioned above about the Snow Queen's motivations just might be a tad more complicated than I've mentioned thus far. In this show, there is such a thing as true love and happy endings. It's sort of implied that nobody will be happy until they've reached their "happy ending," which ordinarily (but not always) comes along with a healthy dose of heterosexual love and marriage. If the Snow Queen, Regina, Zelena, and even possibly Cora and Rumple, are all acting out because they've been denied their happy ending, I could see that as an actually reasonable way to connect this story together. We'll have to see if they draw these connections in the show.

Other things to praise: I actually really loved the David/Mary Margaret subplot. Will doesn't seem to have a lot to do just yet, but he's still likable. I love that Mary Margaret is feeling like her old self again, and that she's learning to let go a bit with baby Neal, while still being the wonderful, nurturing mother we all knew she'd be. Very cute scenes between these two. (The highlight has to be David's Asgard reference, though. So fantastic!)

As much as I question the Lily and Emma plot in some respects, I still loved seeing Emma as a young teen. It was much more believable to cast another actress than to try to convince us that Jennifer Morrison is sixteen (that's a compliment to Jennifer, by the way... she's looking great). I love the idea of Emma being gullible and trusting, and having her trust burned. It helps to explain why she is the way she is - and how she was like that even before what happened with Neal.

There's hope for Regina and Emma yet! I complained above about Regina, but to be honest, I loved the chemistry between Regina and Emma in this episode. The tension of everything that's happened between them is impossible to ignore, and these two stellar actresses do a great job of maintaining that tension while still driving the plot forward. Throughout the whole episode, Regina persists in calling Emma "Miss Swan," until the very end, where she finally calls her "Emma." It's details like this that make their relationship so amazing.

I really love Elsa. She has such a sweetness to her, and her drive to find her sister is really endearing. I hope we can continue to see the developing relationship between Elsa and Emma in the future. This was such a good episode for the ladies! We had Regina, Emma, and Elsa all teaming up against the Snow Queen. We had Mary Margaret getting back to her old self. We had Emma's friendship with Lily. We had Emma and Elsa's budding friendship, Emma and Regina's cautious beginnings towards a better relationship, etc. Awesome!

I've saved the Hook/Emma scenes for last, because I'm such a huge fan of them. We only got a few brief interactions between them here, but we still learned a lot about their relationship. Firstly, we've got Hook doing Emma favors and helping her out (unobtrusively) with her job. He's so supportive! He's also bonding with Henry, which is sweet. Nothing could really get serious between Hook and Emma unless Henry was involved in the picture. I'm glad that the show is acknowledging that. And of course there was the kiss on the cheek! Aww! Nobody could possibly doubt that Hook and Emma have passion between them, but here we got to see the sweet and gentle feelings between them, too.

This is probably a topic for a longer meta on Hook, but I want to mention something here: when we met Hook, he was a bad guy. Not just in the sense that he was working alongside the antagonists, but in that he wasn't a good person. He has a tragic back story, yes, but that should never be a good enough reason to excuse the actions of villains. He assaulted Belle, and had a lot of really icky ideas about consent and appropriate relationships with women.

Now? Hook is always checking in on Emma, seeing how she's doing with their relationship, asking permission for things... it shows that he's really putting effort into being a better person, and not just for Emma. I love it so much. Some highlights of this last scene included the hand-holding, Hook's head resting on Emma's, and how he said "May I have the honor?" in regards to Emma's childhood box. I love that he's curious about her life, but that he asks permission. And that picture of Neal and Emma! Ouch!

Okay, this review is running away without me now. I should wrap it up. This episode felt very cluttered, so it's hard to give it high marks. Still, I loved so many of the individual elements at play here... it's tricky!

7.5/10