Season 4, Episode 10:
Shattered Sight
Storybrooke is in a state of chaos with all the residents under the Snow Queen’s Spell of Shattered Sight at each other’s throats. Emma and Elsa race against the clock to free themselves of the ribbons and take down the Snow Queen and her curse. David can only watch when Regina clashes with Mary Margaret in an epic battle. Meanwhile, Gold gathers Belle and Henry as he prepares to leave town forever, and Will Scarlet looks to square his tab with Hook. Kristoff’s thick-headedness leads Anna to a heartwarming discovery.
Tropes
- Advertised Extra: Rebecca Wisocky as Madame Faustina. Big name actor, well-advertised, didn't do much.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Ingrid. Once she finally realizes that not only can she never tear Anna and Elsa apart, but that Anna still loves her despite all she'd done to her, and Gerda still loved her too and was sorry for imprisoning her, she immediately repents...but the only way to end the spell is for her to die. Cue the water works as she gives her blessing to Anna, Elsa, and Emma, thanks them for giving her back her sisters' love, and tells them to take care of their families and loved ones as the precious things they are, all while exploding in a breathtaking shower of light.
- The Atoner: Gerda, later in life. She wrote a note to her daughters instructing them to free Ingrid and release the kingdom's memories of her and Helga.
- Batman Gambit: Emma gets Regina mad so she'll attack her and Elsa, knowing that The Power of Hate will destroy Ingrid's ribbons.
- Berserk Button: "Do NOT wake my baby!"
- Black Humor: The interactions between the cursed residents that aren't dark, twisted, and painful tend to feature this (and some even manage to have both). Kristoff and (uncursed) Anna's come off as more cute than truly awful, Snow and Charming's come off as more of a quarreling couple, and seeing Happy chasing Grumpy with a bow and then ending up tussling with him right on Main Street is far funnier than it should be.
- Brick Joke:
- As soon as she's back in Evil Queen mode, Regina looks at her pantsuit and demands "What am I wearing?" before magically turning it into an evil Pimped-Out Dress. After the spell is broken Regina looks at herself again and again asks, "What am I wearing?"
- In Gold's shop, whilst trying to remove the ribbons, Elsa states that Emma is prickly but not unlikable, causing Emma to ask, "I'm prickly?" in a genuinely surprised fashion. Later, whilst going to get Regina to destroy the ribbons, Emma marches into the vault saying she's going to do something easy for her, "Be prickly."
- Chekhov's Gun: Not only did the scroll the Apprentice gave Ingrid lead her to Emma, it also allowed her to find and enter Storybrooke while it was still under the first Dark Curse. This will become important again two episodes from now.
- Comically Missing the Point: While the cursed Henry was going on about how much he hates Hook, especially now that Hook and Emma are "together", the only thing the pirate latches onto from what Henry said is that Emma apparently describes them as "together."
- Contrived Coincidence: Another one this episode to go with the perfect timing of Elsa rescuing Anna last episode: Anna chances upon the bottle containing a message aimed at the villain who has just enacted a spell that will soon have all of Storybrooke self-destructing. Not only that, since she finds the bottle right near the chest she and Kristoff were in, and it was shown popping out of the water next to it last episode, when Elsa made the wish that saved them, it just so happened to bring the bottle along with the chest. And she wouldn't even have been there to find the bottle if Regina hadn't teleported her and Kristoff back there, as the place closest to "wherever they came from" in town. (The fact Anna and Kristoff were dumped in the vicinity of the king and queen's shipwreck to make such a thing possible is not this, however, since it was invoked deliberately by Hans just to be an asshole.)
- Couch Gag: The title card features a blizzard.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Hook vs. Will Scarlet. Will charges and Hook just sidesteps and slams him into a wall before continuing after Henry.
- Snow has no trouble besting Regina in swordplay.
- Disability Immunity: Having no heart allows one to No-Sell the Spell of Shattered Sight, as Hook finds out.
- Epic Fail:
- Hook tries to capture Henry for Gold... only to slip on marbles Henry had put by the door, allowing Henry to run off.
- Will's "fight" with Hook. It was over in five seconds.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Played straight, then subverted. Sidney happened to be following Emma when she ran into the Snow Queen and snapped a convenient photo (as revealed in episode 5), but then apparently left immediately after and wasn't there to witness Ingrid sucking out Emma's memories with magic. Had he stayed a few seconds longer, he would have high-tailed it back to Regina to report the appearance of an unknown magic user, and the plot in season one would have taken a very different turn.
- Exact Words:
- The episode summary itself. Kristoff's "thick headedness" references Anna hitting him with a bottle, and the "heartwarming discovery" is the note she finds inside.
- Also, the Apprentice's prophecy to Ingrid that she would "find her sister's love." He just didn't say which sister.
- Heel Realization: Ingrid.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ingrid, once she learns the contents of Gerda's letter, recovers her memories of her sisters, and goes right into My God, What Have I Done?.
- I Am a Monster: Ingrid says this when she finally realizes that she uses her power to harm people.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Anna's appeal after she reads Gerda's letter to Ingrid is essentially this—that because Gerda loved her, she does too, and family doesn't give up on each other. At first it seems she failed, but then at last she succeeds.
- Mood Whiplash: The scene of Ingrid's Heroic Sacrifice switches right to everyone being broken free of the curse, a scene which itself involves things like Doc going from trying to strangle Granny to hugging her, Happy and Grumpy ceasing their struggle to laugh about the earlier bow attack, and Regina and Mary Margaret ending their swordfight to instead laugh with David over Regina's Evil Costume Switch.
- Mythology Gag: Dopey trying to catch snow on his tongue after the spell is broken is very much like Sven trying to do the same thing.
- Never Say "Die": Ingrid says that she will have to "destroy" herself, rather than "kill", to end the curse.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A rare example where a villain does this, yet it still counts as this trope instead of the usual. Had Ingrid not risked Emma's life to try and awaken her magic and instead subtly taught her like she did at the fair, the latter wouldn't have run away from her and would have probably eased into her Savior role much quicker. This possibly could have extended to the Storybrooke situation in Season 1, as Ingrid constantly points out how Emma was the Savior at a very early point in the show.
- No-Sell: The curse doesn't affect Hook, along with the already established Elsa, Anna, and Emma, because of Gold having his heart, leaving the spell with nothing to affect. Gold also seems to be immune, as his behavior is apparently unchanged; he did say at the start of the previous episode that the spell brings out the darkness in people's hearts, with the implication (since he threatened to torment Ingrid and her new family for the rest of their lives unless she released him and his loved ones from Storybrooke) that as the Dark One his had already been brought out long ago.*
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Much of the interactions at the sheriff's station are this, even as the things said still have grains of truth to them. Particular note goes to Mary Margaret contrasting her sweet, innocent, Friend to All Living Things self with the fact she had killed before...right to cheerfully admitting she had killed Cora, and lied when she said was sorry for it.
- One-Woman Wail: During Ingrid's Heroic Sacrifice. As is usually the case, it's very effective.
- The Power of Hate: Elsa and Emma push the cursed Regina even further into her hatred of Emma so that the hate will overpower the "love" in Ingrid's ribbons.
- Redemption Equals Death: Ingrid makes a Heroic Sacrifice.
- The Reveal:
- We knew Ingrid had removed Emma's memories of her, but we finally find out why, when and how. Ingrid removed her memories when Emma first turned back up in Storybrooke, still mad about Ingrid trying to get young Emma's magic to activate.
- It's also finally revealed how Ingrid could have been in Storybrooke back in the first season, and why she never aged: the Apprentice's scroll led her there after Emma ran away, and while under the curse she didn't age just like the rest of the Enchanted Forest folk.
- Spanner in the Works: Ingrid never anticipated Anna finding Gerda's letter apologizing not only for trying to suppress Elsa's powers, but for letting her fear of Ingrid's powers outweigh her love for her.
- Tap on the Head: How Anna handles the cursed Kristoff, and with a bottle as well.
- Together in Death: Ingrid's Heroic Sacrifice is accompanied by a scene of her and her sisters as children, running together over a hill.
