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Recap / Once Upon a Time S3 E5 "Good Form"

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Season 3, Episode 5:

Good Form

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/05_good_form.jpg

With the deadly Dreamshade coursing through David’s body and he close to death, Hook takes him on one last journey to find a sextant that could help them decipher a map that would lead them off Neverland.

Meanwhile, in the Fairy Tale Land that was, Killian Jones – aka Hook – and his brother, Captain Liam, sail off under orders of the King to find a powerful indigenous plant in an uncharted land that could help heal any injury.

Tropes

  • The Atoner: Hook saves Prince Charming's life and claims to have done so to try to be a good man again. Pan isn't buying it.
  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Regina takes the heart of a Lost Boy to give the heroes a mole in Pan's camp. Snow White is aghast at this, but Emma allows it, seeing it as necessary to give Henry a message of hope.
  • Big Damn Kiss: Between Emma and Hook, after he saves David's life.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The King whom the Jones Brothers serve under in the Navy. They believe him to be an honorable man, until they find out what Dreamshade really is, and promptly are ready to expose him.
  • Cliffhanger: Not only has Pan revealed to Hook that Neal is alive, leaving him with the choice of telling the others and losing his chance at romance with Emma or not doing so and risking they'll find out later that he lied, but at the end Pan and the Lost Boys put Neal in a cage next to one holding another unknown prisoner...
  • Couch Gag: The title card features the Jewel of the Realm.
  • Deal with the Devil: Pan offers Hook a chance to run away home happily with Emma, all he has to do is kill Charming. Hook, trying to become The Atoner, doesn't take it.
  • Enlightened Self-Interest: Played with. David and Pan both accuse Hook of this in different forms, that the only reason he is helping in the rescue of Henry is to get close to Emma, and that he will do whatever it takes to survive, respectively. In the end Hook does not take Pan's deal, risks his life against the dreamshade, and gets the magic water to save David's life. He claims after doing so that he didn't do it for David—implying it was indeed to get in both his and Emma's good books, with the reward of a First Kiss after David tells an edited version of what happened to give the pirate the credit he was due. But the flashbacks seem to suggest he also did it for himself, to make up for having goaded and then lost his brother by ensuring another family doesn't lose a loved one.
  • Face–Heel Turn: The crew of the Jewel of the Realm, under Killian's direction, perform this to become pirates. The suddenness of it suggests either extreme loyalty to Liam—whose death can be plausibly laid at the king's feet for both lying about the dreamshade's true nature and sending them after it in the first place—or past cruelties and injustices in the kingdom, making this simply the last straw.
  • Honor Among Thieves: Invoked by Killian when declaring that the crew will become pirates.
  • Lying to Protect Your Feelings: David has been doing this for some time, keeping the Dreamshade poisoning from everyone so they can focus on saving Henry instead of futilely trying to save his life. After Hook tricks him into a cure, David then switches to Half-Truth mode (stating Hook saved him from dreamshade, but in different and more recent circumstances to imply he was never poisoned) for the same reason—to keep his family from knowing the magic waters mean now he can't leave Neverland.
  • Meaningful Rename: After Killian and the rest of the crew's mutiny, the Jewel of the Realm of course becomes the Jolly Roger (complete with lowering the kingdom's flag and the raising of the pirate flag of the same name).
  • Motivational Lie: It turns out the trip up Dead Man's Peak to reclaim the sextant was this; not only is the sextant not there (presumably it's still back hidden on the Jolly Roger somewhere, and can't decode the map), but Hook deliberately dropped his brother's military insignia as the excuse to tell the story and get David to insist they go after it—because he knew he'd never do anything to distract from Henry's rescue even if it would save himself, and so he made up the story about the sextant being able to help them escape, all so he could get David to the magic spring that could cure him.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Killian's constant references to bad form are straight out of the original Peter Pan book.
    • A literal one in the form of Pegasus, the winged horse from Greek mythology, whose feathers are used to make a sail that enables the Jones brothers' ship to fly. (And this in turn is also a reference to the Disney animated movie, wherein pixie dust enables Hook's ship to fly the Darlings home from Neverland.)
  • Never My Fault: When Henry starts apologizing to the Lost Boy whose face he cut, Pan interjects and tells him that Lost Boys never have to apologize and thus never have to take responsibility for their actions.
  • Out-of-Character Moment: Pan had a good day when the Jones brothers arrived on his shores. He told them about dreamshade's true qualities and gave them honest directions to the plant. Liam, Killian's elder brother and captain, refused to listen to the warning. When Liam started succumbing to the poison, Pan offered a cure and warned a heavy price would be paid - then conveniently disappeared and failed to explain what the price was, indicating that he may have just been screwing with them all along and most likely suspected they wouldn't believe anything he told them.
  • Paper Cutting: Henry does this to a Lost Boy in a sword fight.
  • Power at a Price: The waters of Neverland can heal any injury or poison and grant immortality... but only if you stay in Neverland. If you leave, you die.
  • Pragmatic Hero: Emma, realizing they need to get a message to Henry and that her and Snow's attempts to appeal to the captured Lost Boy's better nature are not working, allows Regina to take his heart, even to the point of holding her mother back from stopping Regina. Interestingly, after Snow warns In-Universe of the price if they succeed in saving Henry but fall into darkness doing it, Regina immediately points out that's why she's there to take the risks, not them...and after the plan works and they give Henry hope through the mirror message, Snow apologizes and admits there are times when different methods might be called for.
  • Protagonist Journey to Villain: After Henry engages a Lost Boy in a sword fight while the rest egg him on, it becomes clear fairly quickly that he is starting to enjoy it, and ends up cutting the boy's face. Although he's immediately remorseful, Pan's reprimand very much suggests he wishes Henry to fulfill this trope (at least to the point of becoming another loyal Lost Boy so he will help Pan achieve his ultimate goal), and it's now a race against time for the heroes to prevent Henry from doing so.
  • Rousing Speech: Killian gives one of these to his crew.
  • Shout-Out: As you wish.
  • Start of Darkness: This time for Captain Jones/Hook. We discover that he and his brother who was the original captain sailed to Neverland on orders from their King to find a magical cure-all plant that turns out to be a very deadly Universal Poison. His brother tries the poison to prove that the King wasn't lying about its purpose and dies. This sends Jones into a Heroic BSoD and a Face–Heel Turn (yet he sees it as a Heel–Face Turn) where he chooses to become a lawless pirate along with his crew.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Hook. He was a genuinely good man before becoming a selfish pirate.
  • Villain Has a Point: Pan did warn the Jones brothers about the dreamshade and what it really does and what the real intentions of the King they served really were all along.
  • What You Are in the Dark: Pan inflicts it on Hook to interrupt his Heel–Face Turn. Will he risk his own romance with Emma, which for the first time seems like a definite possibility, or hide the fact that Neal is alive from her?

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