Season 1, Episode 9:
True North
Centric Characters: Gretel, Hansel
Previous: Desperate Souls | Next: 7:15 A.M.
The Evil Queen: Tell me why? Hmm. Why did your children refuse me?
The Woodcutter: Because we're a family. And family always finds one another.
The Woodcutter: Because we're a family. And family always finds one another.
Ava Zimmer: Did you find them?
Emma Swan: Who?
Ava Zimmer: Your parents.
Emma Swan: No...but I'm going to help you find yours.
Emma Swan: Who?
Ava Zimmer: Your parents.
Emma Swan: No...but I'm going to help you find yours.
At the pharmacy in Storybrooke, Henry meets Ava and Nicholas Zimmer, who frame him for theft under the pretense of trying to be friends.
FLASHBACK! In the Enchanted Forest, a woodcutter has his daughter Gretel* and son Hansel* collect kindling while he chops wood, giving them a compass so they won't get lost. Somehow, they do get lost and run into a carriage transporting the Evil Queen.
The pharmacist is convinced that Henry was trying to steal, but Regina knows better and takes Henry home while Emma takes care of the Zimmers. She finds out that their parents are super poor and can't pay phone bills, and they were stealing to help support their family.
FLASHBACK! The children try to escape the Queen, but she can teleport with her magic so they don't get far. Impressed by their bravery, the Queen tells them she will find their father in exchange for them completing a task.
Emma drives Ava and Nicholas home and tells them that she always knows when she's being lied to before asking if everything is okay at home. They confirm and Emma lets them go. Once she's out of sight, the Zimmers sneak around the house to a storeroom where they really live. But Emma shows up, having known they were lying, and Ava confesses that they're orphans. Emma takes them to her and Mary Margaret's apartment and tells Mary Margaret that she won't let the kids go into the foster system as she herself was in it for sixteen years and passed between abusive families. Since records show that their mother is deceased, Emma decides to track down their father. Emma goes to the town record hall, only to discover that Regina has collected all the documents on the Zimmers' father. Emma confronts Regina who plans to put the kids in separate homes in Boston.
FLASHBACK! The Queen takes Hansel and Gretel deep into the forest, and tells them they are to infiltrate the home of the Blind Witch, who has something the Queen needs to defeat a powerful enemy which she can't go to get herself because of protection spells which conveniently don't work on children. She tells them to wait until the Witch is asleep at night, and warns them to not eat anything, showing them the Witch's house is made of gingerbread.
Henry insists that Ava and Nicholas' father lives in Storybrooke because no one can ever leave, and Emma is the only outsider who's ever come in. Henry asks about his own father, and Emma tells him that he was a fireman who always came to a diner she worked at, and when she learned she was pregnant with his child tried to contact him, but discovered that he had died saving people from a fire. Henry asks if she has something of his to remember him, and Emma gets an idea of how to find the Zimmers' father. Emma shows Ava and Nicholas her baby blanket, telling them it's the only thing she has from her parents and she's held onto it her whole life, then asks if they have something similar. They give her a compass.
FLASHBACK! Gretel and Hansel sneak into the Blind Witch's house after dark, and see her sleeping in a chair before the fireplace. Gretel quickly finds and collects the satchel containing the item the Queen needs, but Hansel eats a cupcake not even one minute after his sister reminded him of the Queen's warning. The Witch wakes up and traps the children in the house as they see a pile of human bones near the fireplace.
Blind Witch: I smell dinner!
Emma goes to Mr. Gold for information on the compass and its owner. Turns out he sold it once, and reads from his record that it belongs to one Michael Tillman. Emma leaves, and the camera shows that the record is blank. Emma finds Tillman (the woodcutter), who runs a repair garage, and despite her best guilt trip he declines to take in the children. Emma meets Mary Margaret to fill her in, revealing that the story she told Henry about his father was a complete fabrication, and Regina shows up to force Emma to take the kids to Boston.
FLASHBACK! The Blind Witch locks Hansel and Gretel in a cage as she prepares to cook them. Gretel comes up with a plan for Hansel to do as the Witch has chosen him to eat first, but he's a wimp and can't do it so Gretel goes with the Witch who thinks she has Hansel. Gretel swipes the Witch's key and throws it to Hansel, who lets himself out and tries to hit the Witch with a cane. This distracts her enough to let Gretel free herself, and they push the Witch onto the baking sheet and slide her into the oven, locking the door shut before escaping with the satchel. The Queen, watching through the Magic Mirror, casts a fireball into the oven to bake the Witch. The children arrive at the Queen's palace and discover that the satchel held an apple. The Queen tells them that their father abandoned them and that she wants them to live in her palace as a reward for being the first children she's sent to the Blind Witch's house who returned alive. Gretel rejects the Queen's offer and insists that they'll find their father without her help, and she angrily teleports them away.
Emma relents and decides to take Ava and Nicholas to Boston, but her car breaks down at the town line. She decides to call Tillman.
FLASHBACK! The Queen speaks with her latest prisoner, Hansel and Gretel's father, who tells her that the children refused her offer because family is more important and they will always find each other. She decides to release him, knowing that he can't find his children as she transported them to the inescapable Infinite Forest.
Emma speaks with Tillman, telling him she faked the car trouble so he could see his children, and explains her experience reuniting with Henry. He decides to take in the children after all. Later, Emma talks with Mary Margaret about the latest events and the conversation turns to Emma's search for her own parents. Emma mentions that in Henry's theory, Mary Margaret is her mother, which they chuckle at. Mary Margaret sees Emma's blanket, and examines it close after she leaves for "some air". In her car, Emma goes through her file about herself, and Henry brings her pumpkin pie, as she mentioned his father wished Emma's diner sold it. As they talk, a stranger pulls up on a motorcycle and asks if there's anywhere to stay in town.
Tropes
- Adaptational Heroism: Hansel and Gretel's mother. In the original tale, she convinced the father to abandon them. Here she's been dead a while and the father never actually abandons them; he's captured by the Queen so she can manipulate the kids.
- Big Brother Instinct: Ava/Gretel is this towards Nicholas/Hansel.
- Couch Gag: The title card features the Blind Witch's house.
- Death by Adaptation: The Wicked Stepmother is Adapted Out and Hansel and Gretel's mother has been dead for years.
- Death of a Child: Hansel and Gretel survive - but the Blind Witch actively tries to kill them. There are also lots of small skeletons shown beside her - implying that she regularly eats children.
- Don't Split Us Up: A big plot point. Emma mentions how rare it is to convince a family to adopt two grown children. Nicholas and Ava would inevitably be sent to separate homes - one for girls and one for boys.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Regina is left confused over why Hansel and Gretel insist on leaving to find their father rather than accepting her offer to live with her in luxury, enough that she drags their father in front of her just to ask him.
- Faking Engine Trouble: After their father, a mechanic, refuses to care for them, Emma must drive Ava and Nicholas to Boston where they will enter the foster care system. As they leave Storybrooke, Emma fakes engine trouble as an excuse to call their father out for one final chance to change his mind.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: This is only clear on a rewatch, but at the end of the episode, Emma is looking at her file with the newspaper article about her being found as a baby by a seven-year-old boy, on the side of a highway. And who should drive into Storybrooke on his motorcycle just a short time after this?
- Frameup: Ava strikes up a conversation with Henry at the drugstore so that her brother can hide the items they've shoplifted in his backpack; presumably this was so no one would see them leaving the store with them, but as the druggist catches them it ends up making Henry look like a thief instead.
- Happy Ending: One of the first unqualified examples of this happening in the show, when Emma succeeds in reuniting Ava and Nicholas with their fathernote . Lampshaded by Henry. And since they are never seen after this, we can only assume they're still quite happy together after the breaking of the curse at season's end.
- Hot Witch: The Blind Witch is surprisingly attractive.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The Blind Witch eats children.
- Idiot Ball: Based on what we see on screen, this is the biggest reason for Hansel eating the Blind Witch's treats, unless there is some sort of magical temptation compulsion on them; if so, he is still the only one of the kids susceptible, which doesn't say much for his willpower.
- The Load: Hansel is portrayed this way.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never confirmed whether or not Emma's car actually did break down at the town line (as a result of the curse) - or she pretended so she would have an excuse to call a mechanic. Also, right before he (their father) arrives, their broken compass suddenly starts working again and points to the approaching towtruck.
- Mythology Gag: Played with. Just like in the fairy tale, Gretel tricks the Blind Witch into thinking she's Hansel, and they end up shoving her into her own oven—but it's Regina, watching in her mirror, who then actually sets her on fire.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: Henry informs Emma that before she came to town, no strangers ever came and no one ever left Storybrooke. This ends up subverted when August shows up at the end of the episode, further proof that Emma really is changing things.*
- Pet the Dog: Yet again, Gold gives Emma something (the name of Ava and Nicholas's father), with no strings attached other than asking her forgiveness. Like the previous episode, this is yet another sign of the soft spot he has for children and families that have been torn apart or separated, due to his own Backstory.
- Plucky Girl: Gretel. Regina even lampshades it by saying she has a strong heart.
- The Reveal: The magical artifact the Blind Witch had stolen, which Regina wanted back? An apple. The apple. (How she got it is left unexplained, but her association with food would explain why she'd want it.) This, like Regina's meeting with Maleficent in "The Thing You Love Most", establishes not only the backstory on the various magical items and spells the Evil Queen has used, but also her relationships, both positive and negative, with other witches and magic users in the Enchanted Forest.
- Reveal Shot: The pan out as Hansel and Gretel set off through the forest to find their father, showing by its size just how hopeless their quest will be.
- Schmuck Banquet: The Blind Witch's house is made of gingerbread and full of cakes and sweets. One taste wakes the witch up and alerts her that there are children in the house.
- Shout-Out: The food alerting the Blind Witch to the presence of children in her house is a reference to The Pale Man, who sits by his table until someone comes to eat his food, then he wakes up and devours them.
- Mary Margaret jokingly says to Emma - after she tells her that Henry thinks they are mother and daughter - "you do have my chin". It's a big reference to the well-documented similarity between the two actresses.
- The Stinger: At the end of the episode, a stranger comes to town and, after confirming he's in Storybrooke asks for a place to stay. Considering Henry had told Emma no one ever comes to Storybrooke and she's the first stranger to stay there, the two of them are understandably shocked.
- Tragic Keepsake: The compass. In the Enchanted Forest it's a gift from their father that helps the twins find their way back home/to him, but it gets broken thanks to the Queen's Black Knights; Gretel hangs onto it anyway in hopes of their family still being reunited. In Storybrooke it's even more this, since their memories are of their mother giving it to them before she died, as a memento of the man she met on a camping trip; it's via this that Emma is able to find the man (with Gold's help), and it's proof that the twins he never knew about are really his.
