It was way longer than 28 years, too. The sexual slave thing started right after he had a change of heart about killing her. I think we're supposed to assume a few years passed between that and the start of the curse, because we have Snow meeting Red, somehow leaving Red and becoming a badass thief type, meeting…

I don't like the Hook character, but I could happily watch an entire episode of him wandering around NYC like a loon and having the New Yorkers not even bat an eye. Hilarious.

He played little Pinocchio in the flashback last season and was perfectly fine. If we MUST have this de-aging development, I wish we could get rid of Henry and have this cute red-headed kid fulfill our 'small child on a family show' quota.

Me, too. I find it strange that they did't learn from the problems with Heroes. On that show, they stopped having any normal people (even Mohinder got a power). So it just became this super insular thing. This show would benefit by having more regular people to contrast the magic stuff. Tamara could have been a great…

At first I thought that, too, but I think he was just saying, "You and your grandmother" in terms of naming the people in the photograph, and that he remembers that specific photograph from Hong Kong. I don't think the grandmother has anything to do with anything… though you never know down the road.

Far and away the best thing about this episode was the preview showing Tom Ellis as (I think?) Robin Hood. So gloriously beautiful. But it just reinforces the fact that whoever casts men for this show only has one type. They all look the same. August, Graham, Philip, Hook, Red's two boyfriends in the flashback, Tom…

I feel like he was using his kids to cover up the fact that his Once Upon a Time stint was terrible. Not any blame on him, as a lot of the guest stars are actually fantastic actors who have done great work on other shows. There must be something bizarre going on with the direction going on that show. It systematically…

It's the first thing I looked up when I first heard about the concept of Youtube. It is the greatest thing ever. Rudy! And Cliff's faces.

I was actually really distracted by his mouth. It was distinctly NOT glittery in a way that seems really different from previous episodes. I could also see where the glitter stopped a little too short of his hairline. Looked like a sloppy job. But I wonder if Carlyle asked to not have glittery lip gloss because it was…

Numbers is one of the absolute best. It was a pure adventure quest on-island, and also had the first genuinely amusing flashback. Recipe for greatness.

What a beautiful, lovely article! I'm going to bookmark this one.

The idea of Ruby babysitting Belle in the hospital just makes me hysterical for more Red Whale. That ship is basically the only dynamic I'm deeply invested in right now, since I doubt Jefferson or August are going to be major players in the show going forward, due to actor commitments.

I have been desperately waiting for Season 3 of Dawson's Creek in TV Club Classic. :(

I think part of the problem was that it was set up to need to accomplish WAAAY too many things at once. lyka is completely correct that the scene with Rumple & August last year was so powerful. But that was because it was set up as only being about one thing: Rumple (thinking he was) reuniting with his son. So it…

Ooooh! That would be a good explanation. Because yeah, his desperation to get out of the library made no sense and was distracting. Also, I'm sure loads of people in the town were illiterate back home, but the curse gave them reading knowledge along with knowing how to drive a car. But Hook has no curse personality.

Neal is so obviously Peter Pan.

The season opener with Michael Raymond James walking around by himself was filmed in New York, but I'm pretty sure this episode wasn't.

The points about now necessary (or not necessary) realism is were really interesting. I'd love it if AV Club did a more in-depth article about "realism in sci-fi." It's a thing that's always coming up and the arguments for and against are really interesting. There are some people who say in sci-fi, you get one 'gimme'…

God, I hate that kid. Like, he KNOWS Rumpel could never have taken a plane. They don't have planes in the Enchanted Forest, and no one was able to leave Storybrooke until right now. So either Henry is mentally deficient not to be able to answer that question without asking, or he is consciously being a dick.

Regina's rights to Henry are something I see brought up a lot, but I don't know if it's that clear-cut. We don't know much about the actual adoption or exactly how entwined Storybrooke used to be our world.