Season 4 Episode 13:
Unforgiven
Snow and Charming seek to prevent Cruella and Ursula from resurrecting Maleficent, in order to protect their own Dark Secret. Meanwhile, in the Enchanted Forest that was, Snow and Charming ally with the Queens of Darkness to find a way to prevent Regina from casting the Dark Curse.
Tropes
- Armor-Piercing Question: Angered by Regina's vicious interrogation of Pinocchio, Marco asks her "After ruining everyone else's happy ending, what makes you think you deserve one of your own?"
- Back from the Dead: Maleficent is back.
- Batman Gambit: Cruella, Ursula and Gold know exactly how to trick the Charmings into being in the right place to use them to raise Maleficent—by making them think, via the item they stole from Gold's shop, that they were going to use it for a resurrection spell, they get Snow and David to rush to the mines under the library so as to dispose of Maleficent's ashes before they can be used...because what they need to raise her is actually Snow and David's blood.
- Blood Magic: How Maleficent is returned to life, by the blood of "those who wronged her most."
- Broken Pedestal: Snow is desperate to prevent this from happening with Emma.
- Catapult Nightmare: Snow has one at the start of the episode, of Maleficent appearing in the nursery and taking little Neal.
- Cerebus Call-Back: The totem that Cruella and Ursula used to trick the Charmings into going down into the mines, seemingly insignificant in this episode, is later revealed to be a rattle for the baby that Maleficent lost.
- Children Are Innocent: Oh so very much averted. Turns out unborn children have the potential to fall into great darkness, which precludes them from automatically being considered heroic.
- Continuity Nod: As might be expected in an episode about resurrecting a character involved in several backstories, as well as events in Storybrooke and just before the curse was cast.
- When the Queens come to Snow and Charming for help, it is right after Regina stole the Dark Curse scroll from Maleficent, as shown in "The Thing You Love Most."
- Also, when Snow and Charming come back to find everyone in their castle asleep, it is right after their honeymoon as seen in "The New Neverland"; this explains why Snow is once again gung-ho about finding a way to stop Regina.
- In the present day, when Snow and David need to get to Maleficent's ashes before Cruella and Ursula do, they get to the caverns beneath the library by entering through the mines—because this same area is where Regina had kept the failsafe hidden in the glass coffin, and part of the coffin was revealed to be in the mines back in "That Still, Small Voice."
- Not only do we get to see Maleficent as her dragon self again when she is raised, she initially appears as the undead shade Hook, Greg, and Tamara fought back in Season 2. Later when the Charmings tell Emma and Hook Maleficent is back, they each reference their past knowledge of when they had last seen/faced her.
- Additionally, the subplot involving the book, Henry, and Pinocchio makes a number of references to the first two seasons, ranging from Henry knowing that August put his story in the book to get Emma to believe, to August having been turned back into Pinocchio by the Blue Fairy after Tamara killed him, to Geppetto having lied about the wardrobe tree so as to send Pinocchio through with baby Emma. Additionally, Regina mentions August's time in Phuket, Emma's friendship with August is used to try and jog Pinocchio's memory, and when Marco gives Regina August's satchel, it's still on the back of his motorcycle.
- Couch Gag: The title card features Maleficent in her dragon form.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: David and Snow realize that they could have avoided Maleficent's resurrection if they had sought out help instead of going to great lengths to keep their secret.
- Cruel Mercy: Maleficent won't kill the Charmings for what they did to her. She wants them to suffer.
- Dark Secret:
- Whatever Snow and Charming did to prevent Emma from turning to evil, they caused Maleficent to lose her own child.
- Hook has one of his own involving Ursula.
- Dirty Business: Unsurprisingly, Maleficent is willing to do whatever it takes to get the group to the Tree of Wisdom, while Snow and Charming are not. Subverted in the end, however (but still played with), when Snow eventually proves she will do whatever it takes to achieve a goal, right down to sacrificing Maleficent's baby...but only to ensure her own child will be a hero (and, of course, to be able to break the Dark Curse).
- Enemy Mine: Snow and Charming working with the Queens to try and stop the Dark Curse, which is a threat to them all. Maleficent attempts a second one when she reveals to Snow that she is pregnant. This one is defied by Snow.
- Foregone Conclusion: Since it was long ago established that Regina cast the Dark Curse, and since it was the Blue Fairy who told the Charmings about the tree Geppetto made into the wardrobe (and Rumple who told them their child would be the Savior), the quest to find the Tree of Wisdom for answers was doomed from the start. Though why it failed is incredibly important.
- Irony: Snow and David give Emma a fake speech to throw her off the scent while they go to find Maleficent's ashes. As a result Emma learns An Aesop about seeing the best in people. And when they're prepared to tell Emma the truth, their overhearing her speech about how she looks up to them for being honourable causes them to lie to her again to preserve her image of them.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope:
- Regina, desperate to find the Author and frustrated by Pinocchio's inability to remember anything from when he was August, comes close to going back to her villainous ways when she starts to threaten him, causing Marco to understandably call her out and demand she come nowhere near his son. Subverted, however, when she realizes her mistake and later makes a genuine apology to Marco...which is then rewarded by him giving her the materials August used to repair the storybook.
- In another sense, the entire episode shows something like this happen to Snow and Charming, where they are so determined to keep Emma from learning what they did to Maleficent that they continually lie and take rash actions that only make things worse—resulting both in the very resurrection they were trying to prevent and them tarnishing their heroic status. And from how the past flashbacks reveal Snow was willing to do anything to ensure Emma would be a hero, as well as The Reveal that doing this cost Maleficent her baby, it seems the present-day jumping and slipping is only an extension of what was begun before the Dark Curse was even cast.
- Mama Bear:
- Snow. She didn't want Emma to fall into darkness, so she sacrificed Maleficent's baby for the sake of her own.
- Regina also references the trope, albeit in her own villainous way, when she apologizes to Marco: "If anyone had treated Henry the way I did your son, well...I would have done a lot worse than just yelling at them."
- The Mole: Snow asks Regina to become a spy for the Queens of Darkness and find out what they are planning.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Not the usual sort, since she's in human form when the reveal is made, but this otherwise describes Maleficent (who was called the "beast" of the castle by Charming).
- No Man of Woman Born: Done with the Tree of Wisdom. Only the purest can approach the Tree for answers. So when Snow and Charming approach it for an answer on how to stop Regina's curse, it doesn't answer them. Turns out it's because Snow's pregnant with Emma. As the Child of True Love, she has the potential for great goodness...or great darkness, so this precludes the Charmings from using the Tree.
- Only the Pure of Heart: The Tree of Wisdom only allows the greatest heroes to touch a magic rock and ask it questions. Subverted when Charming and Snow cannot do so (ironic, when they were the ones who would not countenance the dark deeds Maleficent was willing to do to get them there); double subverted when it turns out the reason they couldn't touch it was their unborn child who had potential for great darkness; then triple subverted when, in order to keep Emma pure and heroic, Snow was apparently willing to sacrifice Maleficent's child.
- Shapeshifter Swan Song: Inverted—when Maleficent is resurrected from her ashes, she first appears as the undead shade Hook (and Greg and Tamara) fought back in Season 2, then her dragon form, and finally her human form. So she is both going through all the forms the viewer has seen her in, but in reverse order, and she is doing so while coming back to life rather than as she is dying.
- Villain Ball: Maleficent turns into her dragon form and kills three guards who won't let them cross the bridge to get to the Tree of Knowledge. She never thought to just fly everyone across in dragon form?
- Villain Has a Point: Well, Snow is the hero, but the narrative presents her as being in the wrong for refusing to work with Maleficent. The latter had been unrelentingly evil up until this point - even murdering three innocent guards rather than find another way across the bridge. Aurora had also been under a sleeping curse for years at this point. It makes sense that Snow would be reluctant to work with her.
- Wham Episode: Maleficent is back from the dead, Belle has seemingly moved on with Will Scarlett, and Snow's dark secret is that because of her Maleficent lost her baby...which was done to stop Emma from falling into darkness.
- Wham Line:Snow White: Because of us...Maleficent lost her child.
- Wham Shot:
- Maleficent, teary-eyed, holding her baby's rattle.
- Also the page Henry finds among August's things, depicting a door and labeled "Author?"
