Once Upon a Time: Season 4, Episode 16

ONCE UPON A TIME

Season 4, Episode 16

"It's Not Easy Being Green"

Notes:  As usual very little, if any of this, is in chronological order.

We begin with a requisite flashback to Zelena’s childhood in which she is decidedly not green, but can apparently manipulate conveniently timed falling tree branches with her pudgy infant hands.  Some crotchety old geezer and his wife are strolling along when they discover her in a basket, chilling on the side of the road.  The wife, who seems pretty solid, insists that they take the baby and make it theirs.  They’ll call her Zelena.  The guy is clearly reluctant to do this, which is probably not the best foundation for fatherhood, and but the wife just ignores his protests and takes the baby anyway.  So, it’s pretty clear that Zelena is going to grow up in a loving, stable and completely normal household and suffer absolutely no long lasting psychological effects as a result of this.

Our visit to Storybrooke opens with Neal’s burial.  Everyone is looking sad and resolutely tossing dirt onto Neal's shiny coffin.  Emma has that revengy look in her eye, Hook seems genuinely distraught and Henry is still just trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. The whole thing made me sad because Neal was dead, but also because I had sort of forgotten about that and spent the first few seconds in confused silence, trying to figure out who had died. 

 Who died?  Oh, that's right.  Neal.

Oops.  Sorry, Neal.  

I spent the subsequent few seconds wondering how long it would take for Emma to get over Neal’s death before she could get it on with Hook and continued to revisit that thought throughout the episode when either of them were on screen.  

Poor Henry still has no idea what the hell is going on and he wants to know about his father.  Good Guy Hook insists that Emma is going to have to tell him something, because this whole situation is on the insane side and keeping him in the dark more than is necessary is sort of fucked up.  Then, as an excellent opportunity for Hook to bond with Henry, he offers to chat him up about Neal.  This, of course, is an excellent idea because Hook has such extensive experience with comforting emotionally conflicted, semi-bereaved children.  

Also, I have to wonder why Henry hasn’t made a bigger deal out of the fact that this guy is walking around dressed like a pirate 24/7.  It isn’t just that he’s always dressed in a pirate outfit - he’s always wearing the SAME pirate outfit.  I feel like, were I in this situation, I would be more confused by that than anything else.  Sure, my mom is obviously lying to me about why we're in this weird ass town and there may or may not be some serious shit brewing, but why in the actual fuck is this guy STILL wearing that pirate costume?

So, somewhere in there, we got to relive Zelena's early adulthood, which alluded to a terrible fucking childhood that no one could ever have foreseen.  Her dad is a major dick and her mother is... dead?  Maybe?  I was playing a new app on my iPad during that scene, so I spaced out a little and missed where the mother was.  She's obviously not there, though, and the dad makes a big show of telling Zelena how grody she is because she can do magic with her hands and how he never wanted her and she isn't his daughter and how she never once paid for drugs.  So, Zelena fucks off to the Wizard of Oz, who is just a giant silhouette of Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka, and tells him her woes.

Good morning, starshine!  The earth says "hello!"

The Wizard opens up a Floor Portal Screen and begins to show Zelena the back of her mother because Barbara Hershey clearly couldn't be persuaded to film five seconds worth of leaving a helpless baby in the woods to die, and then shows Zelena that she has a younger sister who is training with Rumpelstiltskin.  Zelena loses her shit and starts screaming about how he should be training her and not her stupid, dumb sister, which is a completely legitimate judgment to make based on watching her sister's face on OzVision for about fifteen seconds.  

Benevolently, the Wizard gives her some cool slippers that share the same function with the ruby slippers but are not, in fact, ruby.  I can only assume there were more than one pair of magic traveling slippers, or Warner Brothers drew the line with giving ABC the rights to the ruby slippers.  Either way, that was sort of confusing and unexplained.  The Wizard tells Elphaba Zelena to click her heels together three times and the shoes will take her anywhere she wants to go, so she goes to the Enchanted Forest because fuck her sister.

At some point in here we jump back to Storybrooke and everyone is hanging out in the diner, because what other sets do they really have for everyone to hang out in?  Everyone's talking about how to kill the Wicked Witch when in she strolls and announces to the assembled that Regina is her sister (and their names rhyme, whoo!).

Anyway, Regina is confused because she doesn't remember meeting Zelena in The Lost Year and finding out that she's her sister.  Zelena issues a witch challenge and is all, "Meet me at sundown for an ass beating," and Regina makes some comment about the Wild West, to which Zelena responds with the worst line in the entire episode, which doesn't bear repeating.  Scene.

 "REDACTED BECAUSE THIS WAS A FUCKING STUPID ASS LINE."

So.  Hook's chest hair tells Henry all about Neal, and by all about Neal, I mean literally nothing about Neal.  He further complicates the situation by admitting that Neal was just a kid when he met him, and Henry is like, "Wait, not only do you wear pirate clothes all the time, but you don't age?"  That admission is sort of brushed under the rug... somehow that I missed, and Henry is evidently content to talk about something other than immortal pirates.  Hook says he's going to teach Henry to navigate, which is cute and a little sad, because poor Hook is John McCain out of touch with young people.  Henry says he doesn't want to learn to navigate, you chode, he wants to learn about his dad.  Wasn't that the whole point of this spontaneous, probably a little uncomfortable camping trip?

 If you're not going to change your clothes, at least button up your shirt, for god's sake.

Hook finally gives him something morose and yet uplifting and tells him that Neal was abandoned by his dad, too.  So, even though that's really fucking sad and, on top of that, Neal is dead, Henry smiles because he and his dead stranger father have something in common.

Meanwhile, Regina, having accepted Zelena's challenge, gets a letter that Rumpelstiltskin wrote to her mother about how bad ass her daughter is, which she'd always thought was written about her.  Turns out, it was written about Zelena while she was training with Rumple, before she went all clingy when she found out he was still training Regina, as well.

Saddened by this revelation, Regina goes to the woods to feel sorry for herself and is come upon by Robin Hood, who she was supposed to fall in love with a la Tinkerbell, but didn't because she's an idiot.  They have a sweet, if uncomfortable, intimate moment and I am on board this ship 100%.

In another flashback, Rumple sets up a really weird and confusing trap for Zelena, disguising himself as Regina, who Zelena then attempts to murder out of jealousy.  He tells Zelena that he can't train her anymore, and that Regina gets to cast the curse because, in order to cast it, the caster has to give up the thing they love most.  Which, for Zelena, is evidently Rumple.  Although, I think he's confusing "love" with "psychotic obsession and co-dependence" here, but sure.  As Rumple is, first and foremost, in the business of self-preservation, he tells Zelena to get fucked.

Then he sees her magic shoes and promptly recants the entire thing.  Unfortunately for Rumple, Zelena is SUPER pissed and says no HE can get fucked.  She decides she's going to find a way to turn back time and do everything over again.  Then she goes back to Oz and turns Willy Wonka into a flying monkey.

Back in Storybrooke, the usual group has the brilliant idea that Belle should try to get through to Rumple, despite the fact that Zelena is controlling him with his dagger.  Without The Dark One, everyone figures Regina stands an actual chance against her sister.  Belle goes down into the basement and Rumple tells her to leave, that she can't help him.  Zelena shows up and commands Rumple to tell everyone that he'll murder them all if they try to interfere again.  So, that was basically a huge waste of everyone's time. Thanks, Belle.

Night falls and dozens of innocent townspeople gather in harm's way for the battle between Regina and Zelena.  David has a moment of clarity in which he suggests that everyone get into their houses, but it's too late.  Zelena is already there.  Regina isn't, though, and Zelena figures she's chicken shit, so she harps on about that for a while until Regina finally shows up.  A battle ensues, but not before Regina gets to sucker punch Zelena in the lip.

Zelena goes after Regina's heart, but Regina's mama didn't raise no fool, and she doesn't have it on her, at the moment.  Flustered, Zelena monologues for a second about this not being over, then poofs into green smoke, leaving Regina to recover from being smashed through a window.

 You bitch.  I've dropped houses on people for less.

The End.