Once Upon a Time “The Apprentice” 

It all seems too easy. Anna finds the Dark One, learns what her parents learned, and is returned to Arendelle safely. End of story, right? Not so fast. Let’s review what we know: Anna is missing. Elsa was trapped in the magical urn. Anna’s necklace in Gold’s shop is damaged. The Snow Queen knows more than she’s telling. Anna has the box holding the sorcerer’s hat, and the Dark One knows where both she and it were sent. Her necklace and the box have both appeared in Storybrooke, as has the sorcerer’s apprentice, so she should be there somewhere as well. Clearly, much more has happened in Arendelle than we have yet been told, but what?

Hook has gotten himself into some real trouble with the Dark One. He has been like a rudderless ship for quite some time now, particularly since he lost the Jolly Roger. The incident with the hand brings this to light in true fairytale fashion. Mr. Gold agrees to reattach his severed hand, but does so with a warning – the hand carries the darkness of Hook’s old life as a ruthless pirate. Hook finds this to be true as his anger towards Will Scarlet is expressed almost exclusively through left-handed violence. He is expertly played by Gold when he comes sullenly back asking to have the hand removed. Gold elicits the promise of an open-ended deal, and only after removing the hand does he explain that warning was a lie, the darkness lies within Hook himself. Now Hook finds himself once again without a hand, and indebted to Gold for the foreseeable future. He should have known better than to blackmail the Dark One.

The Snow Queen is not in the Storybrooke census. This is a very telling fact. It means she came to town by her own means and of her own choice, and clearly with an agenda. The number of questions this raises is staggering. How did she know where to come? When did she arrive? Why didn’t anyone notice the change? Clearly Robin Hood is a frequent customer of Any Given Sundae so the shop must have been around for quite a while, yet presumably the Snow Queen came in search of Elsa, who is a recent arrival. The real question is why? With Elsa trapped and Anna missing, it would seem as if there couldn’t be much more to be done. The wild card here seems to be Emma. The incident in the woods revealed that the two have a history that Emma can’t remember, and the puddle and ice under her car indicate that she may be the target, not Elsa. So what did she do to incur such wrath? When (and where) did she do it? This relationship holds a lot of potential to pay off in a spectacular fashion, and promises to be a lot of fun to watch it all unfold.

I’m very interested to see where they take the Fantasia storyline. Gold now has access to the sorcerer’s hat, and needs to “charge” it with stolen magic to free himself from the power of the dagger. If only he could do so without damage, but from what happened to the apprentice we know that charging the hat not only steals magic, it also steals lives. One can’t help but wonder what happened to the original sorcerer who created it. Is he by chance trapped inside? Might it have been the apprentice who is responsible? There are so many directions this storyline could take, and having Gold refer to Henry as his apprentice at the shop does not bode well for the future.

Moment of Goodness: Hook dresses down.

Hook is clearly excited to be going on a real date with Emma. Not only does he arrange to get his hand back just to hold her, but he also decides a change of wardrobe is in order. For the first time we see him out of his leather pirate garb, only to see him choose black leather pants with a leather jacket. I guess some habits are hard to break.

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