Season 4, Episode 15:
Poor Unfortunate Soul
Hook leverages his complicated history with Ursula to find out what she knows about Gold’s endgame. Gold and the Queens of Darkness torture August for information about the Author as Emma, Mary Margaret and David race to find them. Regina grows concerned for Robin Hood’s safety while she struggles to maintain her cover with the villains. And in a Fairy Tale Land flashback, when a restless young Ursula enlists Hook’s help to run away from home, she soon learns it isn’t wise to trust a pirate.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Poseidon is a real piece of work. He gets better, however, once his motivation is revealed (not just Revenge but how much Ursula's voice reminded him of her mother) and he comes to apologize to her.
- Beware the Nice Ones: What does Elsa, who wouldn't harm a fly if she didn't have to, do to those who worked against her and Anna? Imprison Blackbeard in a bottle on board the Jolly Roger.
- The Bus Came Back: Ariel returned in time to save Hook from drowning. And slaps him for having refused Blackbeard's deal and thus depriving her of Eric.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Ursula certainly lets her father have the rough side of her tongue. And rightfully so.
- Continuity Nod:
- Ariel was accidentally trapped inside the Jolly Roger when the Queen of Arendelle turned it into a toy.
- In the flashbacks, Hook and his crew are working for Pan. Apparently this mainly consists of running errands such as bringing the Lost Boys food, like cakes.
- Hook had traded the Jolly Roger for a magic bean, but Blackbeard got it back, presumably with the money Hans paid him. So it makes sense that after Hans was defeated, Blackbeard would raid Arendelle in retaliation.
- Will had some experience with restoring the size of something that was shrunk. No doubt from his time in Wonderland.
- The Dragon who August met in Hong Kong (and was unceremoniously killed by Tamara) was also looking for the Author. In fact, most of what August knows about the Author and the book was from his research.
- The Blue Fairy's ability to turn August back into a real boy, which Gold could temporarily reverse with a potion.
- Couch Gag: The title card features Ursula.
- Deal with the Devil: Poseidon makes one to Hook: trap his daughter's voice so she will return to him in the sea, and he'll give him the squid ink he needs to trap the Dark One. At first he refuses, since he wouldn't want to deprive Ursula of the last connection to her mother any more than he'd want to lose something of Milah's, but when Poseidon takes away his revenge...
- Deus ex Machina: While it makes perfect sense that Ariel would have saved Blackbeard so as to rescue Eric, and that he would raid Arendelle in retaliation for Elsa taking back the money Hans paid him, the fact that Ariel just happened to be near the Jolly Roger when Elsa used the bottle on it is this—since it not only allows her to rescue Hook from drowning, it gives him the means to bring Poseidon to Ursula via Ariel's portal magic.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Hook manages to embarass and outwit Poseidon, who reminded him moments ago in the same scene that he is a deity. That he, a pirate who sails ships for a living, manages to do this to the god of the sea without suffering any repercussions whatsoever makes this all the more impressive.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: The revelation that Gold is back and tricked Belle into giving him the dagger back clearly isn't going to help him win her back anytime soon.
- Dramatic Irony: Regina's cover as The Mole in the villain group is only maintained by Cruella's mistaken belief that Ursula was said mole.
- Exact Words: When Gold asked August where the door was and he said he didn't know, only to reveal to the heroes later that he did know. The reason his nose didn't grow? At the time he was asked the question, he didn't know...because he didn't know where Henry had hidden the page. The door is on the page.
- Fond Memories That Could Have Been: It's thanks to this trope that Hook is able to convince Poseidon to come back and restore Ursula's voice.
- Foreshadowing:
- Emma's rather fierce and cutthroat declaration that she'd have felt like doing the same thing to Gold that Hook threatened, if he'd done to her what he did to him, startles and upsets Mary Margaret. Emma says it was just a figure of speech, showing she understood where he was coming from, but that he had changed and she'd never do that. But based on Hook's surmise he was still seen as a villain (and thus couldn't get a happy ending) and what Ursula revealed about Emma, and...yeah, Snow has a right to be worried.
- Hook speaking of how easy it is for him to fall into the darkness again, considering what happens next season...*
- Heel–Face Turn: Ursula has hers after getting her singing voice back.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Poseidon believes this because a pirate killed his wife, Ursula's mother. An enforced version comes via Hook thanks to Poseidon's deal.
- Internal Reveal: Regina tells Emma and the heroes that Gold is back in town. Then they go to Belle for the dagger, only for her to tell them that she gave it to Hook. And he tells her that she never gave it to him. Then they realize that Gold disguised himself as Hook so he could get it back.
- It Makes Sense in Context: The hook was the key. Yeah.
- Loophole Abuse: Poseidon tells Ursula that she has to listen to him as long as she lives in "his ocean". So she turns herself into a human and leaves.
- Magic Music/Compelling Voice: Played with. As was true of the Sirens in Greek mythology (but not mermaids), mermaids in OUAT can enchant anyone who listens to their songs. However, the original purpose of this singing is not to lead men to their doom, but to soothe their souls, make them forget their pain, and give them happiness. All Ursula wants (at first) is to do this for people everywhere, whether in Glowerhaven, a lowly tavern, or on the Jolly Roger; it's only because of Poseidon's desire for revenge against the humans who killed his wife that he is forcing her to lure ships onto the rocks. Ironically, by the time she is in the right mindset to want to do this for real, she can't because her voice has been taken away (in fact that's why she would want to do it).
- Mythology Gag:
- The song Ursula sings to the bar patrons (and later to Hook's crew) is "Fathoms Below", the opening song from The Little Mermaid (except with "where Poseidon is king" instead of "where Triton is king").
- Her voice ends up trapped in a seashell, and when released, the tune it sings is the same as Ariel's from the Disney film.
- Poseidon uses the same line to Ursula as Triton did to Ariel ("As long as you live under my ocean...") and also carries the same magical trident.
- Ursula says that Poseidon wants to keep her as his "little mermaid".
- One Wild Mass Guessing about the Disney film that's been around for some time is that Ursula was once a mermaid (and Triton's sister) before becoming the cephalopod we know her as. Here, that is exactly the case, except Ursula is in Ariel's role; the trident is even the source of the transformation.
- Ursula says the same thing after taking the trident here as in the movie, that the sea will "obey my every whim".
- And of course the episode title, to Ursula's Villain Song.
- Named After Somebody Famous: The contradiction between the sea witch, Ursula, and the goddess, Ursula, from "Ariel" is resolved this way—the current villainess is named after the goddess.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Apparently, Elsa has gained the power to turn a real ship into a bottled ship offscreen. Fridge Brilliance: A "ship in a bottle" is very similar to a snow globe, which could be Elsa's new ice power.
- Or it was the bottle that was actually enchanted and Elsa just used it to trap the Jolly Roger.
- No-Sell:
- Hook has Ursula open a portal to bring the Jolly Roger back to Storybrooke, since her happy ending is on it. Too bad the ship is now in a bottle...
- Also, while the shell is on the ship, it can't be used to return Ursula's voice unless the one who originally cast the spell undoes it.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted in order to fix a continuity problem. The goddess Ursula and the sea witch Ursula are two different characters.
- Revealing Skill: Ursula's ability to hear the seashell horn Hook blows reveals she was once a mermaid (since that's the same method Mr. Gold and Regina used to summon Ariel to Neverland) before it's revealed in the flashback.
- Shout-Out: Mary Margaret's use of a frying pan to knock out Cruella is rather familiar.
- Start of Darkness: The flashback was one to Ursula.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Cruella pulls this while everyone is distracted by Ursula's reunion with her father.
- Wham Episode: Ursula regained her happy ending without the help of the Author, Regina had a prophetic dream about herself protecting Robin Hood and asked Emma to find him. The Myth Arc moved forward with the reveal that the Sorcerer trapped the Author inside the book and even he can only give the villains their happy ending if the Savior-Emma was no longer an obstacle. Finally, the lynchpin of Gold's plan was the corruption of Emma.
- Wham Line:August: The Sorcerer trapped the Author behind a door.August: The Author was trapped inside the book.
- While You Were in Diapers: Regina tells Cruella "I was torturing people back when you were still playing with puppies".
- You Can't Fight Fate: Hook believes that as a former villain, he's doomed to lose his happy ending.
