No, you're thinking of stepmothers.  Stepmothers are evil.  Adoptive mothers are only evil when they fall into the stepmother bucket.

I was the Beetle who went on his travels.

I'm not even sure it was clear to me that it was the last number until the Tom/Julia "oh dear god why aren't they clapping?" exchange.  It just didn't feel like the end.  Yeah, she died, but maybe they should like call her ex-husbands to let them know and they could sing about how she was their star or something.

Yeah, the show's not great, but it's serviceable.  And it's an actual high fantasy show on network TV.  (I believe you all when you tell me Game of Thrones blows it away, but I sadly can't afford cable/HBO right now).  It's certainly light years ahead of some of the crap SciFi used to put out, when they bothered to…

One thing I will say for the fairy attack plan is that castles were not designed to withstand airborne attacks.  There's a reason we stopped building them (or functional equivalents) once we developed planes, hot air balloons, etc.

I want to say he taught her how to do it.

More like Frederick's of Hollywood.

Let's just assume he picked it up at Mr. Gold's shop at some point.

At least it wasn't from old episodes of L&O:SVU.

Emma:  "I'm ready.  Show me the big picture."

And presumably he kept his family's stuff, if for no other reason than to remember them by.

@avclub-15bdba7cd9655f1c60a10e1a05e69a7b:disqus I seem to remember (though I might be wrong, and there's no way I'm going to go look it up) that Emma said Henry's father was a few years older.  That would mesh with the timeline if he were Bael.

Just like many a cardinal of yore…

That had to have been the absolute worst bit of musical theatre I've ever seen.

It would make sense if the character were from Boston or elsewhere in New England (or, hell, the Canadian Maritimes), but now living in NY.  He would really be a Bruins fan, but would have gotten into the Rangers because they were the local team.

I also got a slight PB vibe, but assumed they weren't going to go that direction since it's neither public domain nor owned by Disney.

This is true, except the evidence wouldn't be excluded from Mary Margaret's trial, only from a potential trial of Regina.  In that light, the ridiculousness of the situation is a little alleviated.

Was going to make the same point about Twelve.  It's a pretty solid cover album, though a few of the tracks are uninventive.

@avclub-fa5b8744a34319c7c9f360b7cc4eb503:disqus Well, Emma doesn't *know* about it definitively, but former Sheriff (um, Grant?) told her, "Regina has my heart in a box in the crypt on the edge of town."  Sure, they didn't find anything in the crypt, but I would probably make the mental connection if someone suddenly…

Emma just has to get her mack on with everyone in town.