Recap / Once Upon a Time S7 E1 "Hyperion Heights"

Season 7, Episode 1:

Hyperion Heights

In flashbacks, Henry leaves Storybrooke in search of his own story; years later in another realm, he encounters a troubled Cinderella, changing the trajectory of his quest forever. When Cinderella's evil step-mother, Lady Tremaine, poses a threat, Henry discovers that following his heart will require him to make more difficult choices than he ever could have imagined. Meanwhile in the present day, a young Lucy finds a disillusioned Henry at his home in Seattle, determined to make her father remember his true self in order to defeat the curse afflicting the fairytale characters of "Hyperion Heights"—including some familiar faces, none of whom remember Henry or vice versa.

Tropes

• Ambiguous Situation: Whether Cinderella's Fairy Godmother was aware of her true motive for going to the ball is unknown.
• Bait-and-Switch: Cinderella makes as if to get on the motorcycle behind Henry...but after a brief conversation (during which she innocently gets him to explain how the "tiny smoke-breathing carriage" works) she punches him and steals it to ride off to the ball by herself.
• Beneath Notice: The server who offers Henry a drink. Just an innocent member of the palace staff, right? Nope.
• Bland-Name Product: Henry's career as a Swyft driver is clearly a reference to Lyft.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: While Regina kept the fairy tale characters in one location, Lady Tremaine is trying to drive them apart from one another.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Victoria warns Roni will regret opposing her, Roni remarks "regrets aren't really my thing." This is a reminder of when Regina was tied in ropes meant to bind a person by regrets but broke free as she regretted nothing she had done.
  • Also see the first Dramatic Irony point below — said claim is exactly what Henry did tell Emma in the pilot, and what she in turn revealed to Mary Margaret after Henry identified her Fairy Tale identity for her.
  • The motorcycle Henry rides through the portal (and has for most of his time onscreen in the other realm) came from August.
  • At the end of the previous season, Hook became a deputy sheriff in Storybrooke, paired up with Emma. Wish Hook is a police detective in Hyperion Heights.
  • This isn't the first time Cinderella's Fairy Godmother has been killed.
• Couch Gag: The title card features the Seattle skyline, complete with the Space Needle.
• Crash-Into Hello: With a motorcycle and a pumpkin carriage, no less.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Henry tells Roni (a.k.a. Regina), "Imagine if I walked in here and told you I was your son." Which he is.
  • After hundreds of years as sworn enemies out to kill each other for Revenge, cursed Gold and Hook are now police partners together. (Although Gold's being a dirty cop while Hook seems to be the only good one in the precinct suggests they're destined to end up at odds again anyway.)
• Evil Is Petty: Lady Tremaine kills the prince simply because he rejected her daughter's overtures... and then blames the death on Cinderella for disobeying her. Though she said his younger brother was interested in her daughter so there is self-interest present.
• Frame-Up: When Cinderella hesitates in her attempt to kill the prince, Lady Tremaine kills him instead and tells the guards that Cinderella did it.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: The first sign to Henry that things are somehow wrong is when he goes to visit the graves of the wife and daughter he remembers dying in a fire... only to find the cemetery he's been visiting has never existed. It's also the first hint that the curse which sent everyone from the "New" Enchanted Forest to Seattle is starting to weaken.
• History Repeats: Henry is basically in the same position that Emma was in during the first season, with Lucy acting much like he did.
• Hope Sprouts Eternal: After Roni refuses to sell her bar to Victoria (and Henry decides to stay in Hyperion Heights), the seeds Lucy planted in the neighborhood garden suddenly grow (hyacinths, her mother's favorite flower).
• I Choose to Stay: Flashback Henry has the opportunity to leave the realm and return home, but upon finding one of Cinderella's slippers, chooses not to.
• In the Back: How Lady Tremaine kills the Prince.
• Like Father, Like Daughter: Just like her dad, Lucy refuses to back down and is determined to get her parents back together and have them remember who they are.
• Mushroom Samba: Literally, where the doctored drink Henry takes from Alice at the ball causes him to go off on a mental journey to a very Wonderland-like mushroom forest to meet Alice as herself.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Despite being cursed, it's clear Hyperion Heights' Hook is having some sort of meaningful reaction to the picture of Emma in Lucy's storybook.
• Mythology Gag:
  • After stealing the wand belonging to Cinderella's fairy godmother, Tremaine says "Bibbdi-Bobbidi-Boo" before turning the fairy into dust.
  • Just like Ashley being a laundress in Storybrooke, Jacinda/Cinderella is a minimum-wage, fast-food worker working for a nasty, abusive boss.
  • The Leitmotif used for this new Cinderella is the same one used for Ella/Ashley, and the music at the ball is the same music used at Ella's wedding dance.
  • Lady Tremaine's powers come from stealing the magic wand of Cinderella's fairy godmother. That is how she got powers in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time.
  • At the ball, Tiana says "eww, frog legs" in the background.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Alice expresses annoyance about only being known for her trip to Wonderland.
• One Degree of Separation: Alice, like nearly everyone else on the show, has met Rumplestiltskin. She even lampshades this to Henry.
  Alice: Don't you know by now your grandpa knows everyone?
• Operation: [Blank]: Henry, keeping this tendency even as an adult, comes up with Operation Glass Slipper.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Henry's (supposed) backstory post new curse, as he explains to Lucy, is that his wife and daughter were killed in a fire which seems to be one of the many reasons he is so reluctant to believe in her. Although Lucy tells him that this is just the curse interfering with his memories of her and Jacinda which is supported by the fact that the graveyard his family are buried in doesn't exist.
• Plot Hole: Lampshaded by Cinderella and Henry both, when he explains how her story is "supposed" to go with the glass slipper, and she retorts it doesn't make any sense: invoked"Do you know how many women have my shoe size?"
• Police Are Useless: All of the cops except Rogers (a.k.a. Captain Hook) refuse to help Henry when his car is stolen.
• Punny Name: Apparently Lady Tremaine is as prone to these as Regina was the first time around, since Hook's identity in Seattle is named Captain Rogers (as in, "Jolly Roger"), Alice's is Tilly (one of the three sisters from the Dormouse's story in Alice in Wonderland), Cinderella's is Jacinda (which both sounds like "Cinderella" and means "hyacinth", her favorite flower), and Rumple's is Weaver (he's known for spinning straw into gold).
• The Reveal: Fairly early on in the episode, it's shown that Hyperion Heights' Alice works for a Mr. Gold who rather than being an intimidating pawnbroker is now willing to get his hands dirty shaking down street toughs (or possibly petty criminals who work for him). Near the end of the episode, he's paired up with Hook's cop persona, revealing him to be a police detective too — and a dirty one.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When Henry tells Cinderella how her story is supposed to go, she scoffs at the idea of her marrying a prince and living happily ever after. Partly because the only prince she knows of is the one who killed her father, and partly because her awful life just generally makes her believe such things could never happen to her. She's right (and this is only made more apparent by her present-day cursed life in Seattle); however, at the same time, so is he because Henry is a prince through bloodline (Snow White) and adoption (Regina), and he's her true love. So her story is still coming true, but with a twist (and not with the person either of them thought it would be).
• Running Gag: In Storybrooke Cinderella's Backstory, her fairy godmother was quite memorably (and instantly) removed from the story by Rumple blasting her to dust. Here, she's somehow been captured and manacled, had her wings cut off while unconscious, and gets turned to dust again (this time with her own wand, something of a Shout-Out to her fate in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time).
• Shout-Out: The scene of Victoria Belfrey arriving at her office and her staff bracing themselves is lifted straight out of The Devil Wears Prada.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: New Fairy Godmother is even more this than the old one, with her only scene being served as an Establishing Character Moment for Lady Tremaine, in which the latter captures and kills her.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Jacinda gives one to Henry after he reveals to Victoria her plan to move to an island away from Hyperion Heights accusing him of only caring about himself.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Henry thinks Cinderella is at the ball to meet the prince and fall in love. He's thrown to discover her plan is to kill the prince for killing her father, and she scoffs at how there's a "happy ending" in this for her.

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