Recap / Once Upon a Time S7 E8 Pretty in Blue

Season 7, Episode 8:

Pretty in Blue

In an attempt to prevent a distressed Alice from running away, Henry and Ella follow her into Wonderland. Once there, Henry realizes that Ella has a surprising connection to this strange world. In Hyperion Heights, Jacinda reconnects with an old friend in a last ditch effort to regain custody of Lucy, but her decision to enlist outside help could put a strain on her burgeoning relationship with Henry.

Tropes

• Batman Gambit: In backstory, Drizella lies to Alice that she has cured the poison on Hook's heart, so that as soon as she finds out they still can't be together, she'll go running back to Wonderland—all so she can follow her and be able to access the mushroom she needs to poison Henry's heart too, so that his true love with Cinderella won't be able to undo her curse.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Henry and Ella share one in Wonderland.
• Call-Back: After Nick is revealed to be Lucy's father (at least in Hyperion Heights), Lucy explains to Henry that Nick's role with him and Jacinda is as "Kathryn Nolan" (i.e. the third side of a Love Triangle engineered to keep two true loves apart), referencing Abigail/Kathryn and how Regina used her in Storybrooke to separate Snow White and Charming. When Henry suggests he might be "the Kathryn", Lucy says "nobody wants to be the Kathryn", referencing both "the other woman" and Kathryn/Abigail's status as invokedThe Scrappy to some of the viewership.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When introducing Alice to Ella, Henry calls her "Alice from Wonderland", only to tack on "And other places" when she glares at him, referencing their first meeting.
  • When Henry and Ella get caught in a net, he notes similarities to when Snow and Charming first met.
  • The musical Leitmotif used for the first Jack in "Tiny" plays softly when Jack is introduced to the resistance by Henry.
• Couch Gag: The title card features Wonderland's giant mushrooms.
• Crazy-Prepared: Turns out that Victoria wasn't completely out of tricks as, once Gothel and Ivy find Anastasia's coffin, they discover she hid her body somewhere else.
• Driven by Envy: Ivy, much like Victoria, is working with Gothel to revive Anastasia; however, she is doing it so she can absorb her sister's latent magic, believing that she can "finally get what's mine."
• Drowning My Sorrows: Henry, after he and Jacinda decide not to hook up quite yet.
• Genre Savvy: Regina deduces that Weaver is awake because "[he's] always awake." As Rumplestiltskin is the invokedMagnificent Bastard Chessmaster, she is, of course, one hundred percent right, though he doesn't admit it.
• I Know You Know I Know: Weaver and Regina have a conversation like this, where she attempts to get him to reveal he has his memories as Rumple back and he feigns ignorance.
• Just Between You and Me: Defied by Ivy when Regina asks why she is working with Gothel, mocking her for thinking she was going to do a "supervillain monologue" and leaves the bar.
• Kick the Dog: Drizella making Alice think she's been cured of the curse keeping her and her father apart, as part of her Batman Gambit.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • When Henry tells Ella about the Charmings' Catchphrase of "I'll always find you", she asks how often they got separated that they required it as a motto.
    Henry: You'd be surprised.
  • Also, when Regina confronts Weaver, trying to get him to admit he remembers who he is, she comments that he's awake because "[he's] always awake."
• Mama Bear: Regina threatens Ivy with a baseball bat and is very annoyed at the fact that her son is hammered off his mind.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Aside from the hedge maze, the tea party, the Jabberwock, and the need for size-changing to get into Wonderland, the cottage Ella and Henry run toward in their search for Alice very much resembles depictions of the White Rabbit's house—and when they're caught in the net, Henry even calls it a "White Rabbit trap". Meanwhile in Hyperion Heights, Nick and Jacinda go out to eat at a swanky restaurant called "Walrus and Company" where the signature dish is...oysters.
  • Regina throws away the cake Eloise gave Hook, saying that too much sugar can kill. This might be a reference to the original story of Peter Pan, in which Captain Hook tries to kill the lost boys with a poisoned cake, only to be foiled when Wendy throws it away out of concern that it is "too damp and rich" for them.
• Orbital Kiss: Henry and Ella, just like his grandparents.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Ella's mother abandoned her and her father and ran away to Wonderland. But it turns out this was to try and find a cure to a curse that prevented her from touching her husband without one of them dying.
  • Jacinda willingly signed custody of Lucy over to Victoria because she felt she didn't deserve to raise her (and because Victoria made her believe she would never win against her in court).
• Shout-Out: When running into his friend Jack, he and Henry recreate Han and Lando's meeting in The Empire Strikes Back as an inside joke. Fitting, as depending on the story Jack has as much of a scoundrel reputation as Lando.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • The broken locket, which Jacinda's parents used to find each other and which glowed with the power of their love. After her mother fled to Wonderland, the locket eventually stopped glowing, indicating as far as she and her father knew that her mother had stopped loving him. In actuality it was because she died.
  • To continue with the Chess Motif, after running back to Wonderland due to finding out the poison had not been cured, Alice sends a chess piece back with Henry and Jacinda to give to Hook: the white knight he gave her, because that's what he had always promised to be for her, with the message that she didn't need it to remind her any more of that because she knew he'd find a way for them to be together again. Meanwhile in Hyperion Heights, after making up with her over Weaver's machinations, Rogers gives Tilly a chess set (to go with the rook she had given him to carry as Hook), and the first piece she takes out is a white knight.
• The Unreveal: After "Wake Up Call" revealed that if the new curse is broken, Regina will lose those she loves, this episode and the Curse of the Poisoned Heart provides the likely explanation—that Drizella poisoned Henry's heart, so that if he kisses Jacinda, thus breaking the curse and restoring their memories and true love, the poison would kill Henry. But just before she was about to poison him, Ella intervenes, and immediately after this Drizella is banished through a mirror and Ella and Henry are able to kiss without mishap. Thus it is left still unrevealed just why breaking the curse will hurt those Regina loves.
• Wham Shot: Ivy and Gothel open Anastasia's casket, only to find her body missing.