Season 3, Episode 6:
Ariel
Back in the Enchanted Forest that was, when Ariel saves Snow White from drowning in the ocean's depths, Snow returns the favor by helping her new friend get acquainted with Prince Eric, with whom she has fallen madly in love.
Meanwhile, Emma, Mary Margaret, David and Hook attempt to save Neal, who is imprisoned in one of Pan's encampments, and Regina and Mr. Gold begrudgingly team up to find a way to take down Pan.
Tropes
- Adaptational Badass: Ursula goes from a sea witch to a goddess who can even cow one of the greatest magic users in the world.
- Subverted later on, when we find out that there's two Ursulas (and the sea witch was named after the goddess).
- Aesop Amnesia: In the Season 2 finale, Regina expressed regret that everyone saw her as the Evil Queen. Now's she's more than willing to embrace that title. Presumably this is either because she feels (like Gold) she needs her darker side to bring down Pan and save Henry, or because after watching the others "flounder about" she once again has concluded "look what being good gets you."
- Arbitrary Skepticism: For some reason, Ursula the sea godess is a myth in the Enchanted Forest. Justified, by the characters In-Universe as she hasn't been seen for over a thousand years.
- Cliffhanger: Regina summons Ariel and gives her back her voice, the bracelet that will let her have legs, and the promise she can be with her prince again, if she will help them retrieve the item they need to stop Pan, because it and Eric are in the same place: Storybrooke.
- Combat Tentacles: As per Disney tradition. The mermaid Ursula gave them to herself in her image.
- Continuity Nod: Regina is unable to use her magic on someone moving underwater, as shown in the season premiere.
- Couch Gag: The title card features Ariel.
- Dark Secret: In order to rescue Baelfire from a cave, Emma, Snow, Charming and Hook all have to divulge their deepest darkest secrets to make a magical bridge appear to cross a chasm to reach him.
- Hook reveals that Emma makes him feel like he can move on from the loss of his first love, even though Emma loves Baelfire.
- Snow White reveals that she wants to have a second child with Charming to experience parenthood in the way they never got to with Emma.
- Charming reveals that he will die if he tries to leave Neverland because of the magic waters sustaining him that only work in Neverland.
- Emma reveals to Baelfire that she had hoped he really did die because seeing him again would bring back all the pain that comes with loving him.
- Decomposite Character: Ursula's role as an antagonist for Ariel is given to Regina when she impersonates the goddess, and her role as sea witch is given to the mermaid who shares her name.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Pan confronts Rumpelstiltskin again and offers him an egg in a basket and the chance to leave Neverland to be with Belle...all he has to do is forget about Baelfire and Henry and save his own skin.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: One of Regina's Black Knights actually uses this on Snow regarding her chances in escaping. Snow answers with a Blunt "Yes".
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Regina is a mild one, when trying to teach Emma to use her magic to create a camp fire. Notably she tells Emma to focus on anger to create the fire, in contrast to the brief tutorial Rumple gave Emma in "The Miller's Daughter" where he encouraged her to use more positive emotions to cast the protection spell.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Ursula is the first deity we see on the show - Poseidon, Hades and Zeus would later appear. The latter three all have humanoid appearances, save for Hades turning on the flaming hair a couple of times, while Ursula has her octopus tentacles.
- Evil Is Petty: Regina takes away Ariel's voice just as she was going to tell Eric the truth - purely because she helped Snow escape.
- God Guise: Regina impersonates Ursula, who is apparently a benevolent deity, in order to trick Ariel. The real Ursula who was presumed to be a myth even by mermaids turns out to be very real and is very displeased at this.
- Kick the Dog: Regina taking away Ariel's voice at the end was just cruel. Pan not only twisting the knife regarding Rumple ever forgiving his own father but also suggesting he replace Neal by having a new child with "fertile" Belle is damned low.
- Large Ham: In-universe, Regina as Ursula, with Lana Parilla doing her best Pat Carroll impression.
- Living Statue: Ursula possesses a bronze statue of herself to have a little chat with Regina.
- Love at First Sight: So far, the only case of it in the series is the meeting between Ariel and Eric, who fall in love at a glance. Eric has been dreaming of Ariel ever since she rescued him, and seems to believe their meeting is fate. It's actually worked into a plot point that Ariel is afraid Eric won't accept her as a mermaid - as he hasn't had time to really get to know her.
- Mythology Gag: The Ariel flashback is full of little gags. Like a reference to Agrabah. Or her being a collector, or the dance being called "Under the Sea", or Regina/Ursula saying she could be "part of his [Eric's] world"... Heck, even the way Ursula!Regina pronounces "Ariel" is the same as Sebastian's "Arr-ee-al."
- Nice Guy: When offering Ariel to come travel the world with him, Prince Eric is careful not to pressure her or create a Questionable Consent situation due to his royal rank.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Regina tells Rumpelstiltskin that he doesn't have to worry at dying by Pan's hand because she claims the right to kill him in the end.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: They are able to travel between worlds, and are able to grow legs during Ursula's festival.
- Prince Charming: Prince Eric establishes himself as a very polite and courteous royal in the few scenes he has with Ariel.
- Real After All: Everyone, from the mermaids to the people of Eric’s kingdom to Regina, assumes the goddess Ursula is just a myth. Regina is shocked to find out otherwise, to say the least.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: If Ursula is really a powerful sea-goddess, why couldn't she have given Ariel back her voice? She knew what Regina did.*
- The Reveal: The Belle who has been comforting Rumple all this time is actually Pan's Shadow. Although the fact she was urging him to go back to Storybrooke with her by taking her hand (implying flight, the way the Shadow travels to and from Neverland) and there have a child with him (something she had never expressed before this but which Pan had in fact just suggested) were some subtle clues something wasn't quite right.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Eric seems fairly active; he was on a ship the first time he met Ariel and plans to travel the world.
- Satellite Love Interest: Eric gets very little characterization beyond being Ariel's prince.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Regina, fed up with the lack of progress in getting Henry back, decides to strike it out on her own when the others decide to rescue Neal, which she thinks is a waste of time, even though they need him to read his star map so they can leave Neverland once they get Henry back.
- Shattering the Illusion: The illusion of Belle returns and proves to have been Pan's Shadow all along playing tricks on Rumpelstiltskin. Regina exposes the trick by choking the fake Belle into reverting to Pan's shadow form.
- Take a Third Option: Regina and Rumpelstilskin formulate a plan to trap Pan in a Fate Worse than Death using a magical MacGuffin that Rumple left back in Storybrooke. Regina convinces Ariel to do the job of going to retrieve it.
- Truer to the Text: Ursula being a benevolent sea goddess is actually closer in line to the original The Little Mermaid - where the sea witch was a neutral entity who just did what the mermaid asked after explaining the price.
- Villain Decay: Regina invokes this about Rumpelstiltskin and herself, considering all they have been doing is skulking around Neverland wasting time. She reminds him that he is The Freaking Dark One and she is The Evil Queen; both of them are the most powerful magic users in the entire world and should start acting like it.
- You Have Failed Me: Regina pulls this on a guard who left Snow White for dead.
