Recap / Once Upon a Time S6 E7 "Heartless"

Season 6, Episode 7:

Heartless

The Evil Queen strikes at David and Snow, who are also feeling the effects of secrets of their pasts, and unless they can obtain a magical sapling, they will need to give up their hearts if they want to save Storybrooke. In the Enchanted Forest of years past, Snow White, on the run from the Evil Queen, finds herself also trying to evade the villainous bounty hunter, the Woodcutter, only to cross paths for the first time with David, who has plans to sell the family farm.

Tropes

• Arc Words: "Knowing someone believes in you means you won't ever be alone."
• Brain Bleach: The rest of the gang when Regina talks of how the Evil Queen might be with Gold as she and Rumple had chemistry. Henry looks ready to run out of the room. Even Regina herself looks deeply uncomfortable and apologetic.
• The Bus Came Back: The Blue Fairy returns.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The 'merchant' David meets on the road to Longbourn just happens to be the Woodcutter, without his concealing helmet. (You would think this would make David suspicious of traveling merchants later, when he and Snow meet the Author...)
• Continuity Nod:
  • The Evil Queen snarks that "Sleeping Snow is my favorite Snow."
  • Snow's words to Blue in the flashback, "Home is where your family is", are also words Snow told David back in Season 2's "Tiny."
  • When she sees the Evil Queen and Gold together, Zelena immediately starts going green with envy.
  • When the heroes are planning what to do with the Evil Queen if they can get hold of the sapling, Regina says they can hold her in her vault—and that this will work because, after she was able to get into it with Zelena back in the second episode, she removed the Blood Magic on all the locks.
  • The trapdoor happens to be at the same spot the amnesiac David was found when the Curse first hit (and where he returned to after waking up and escaping the hospital back in "Snow Falls").
  • Hook shows Emma very familiar pages of the storybook showing the path of her parents and herself to show how she's the product of true love (the same thing Gold told her back in season 2).
  • Touching the sapling causes Snow and David to remember numerous flashes of their pasts.
  • The magic the Evil Queen got from Gold to threaten the town with was water from the River of Lost Souls that he brought back with him from the Underworld.
  • As soon as she knew the Evil Queen was around, Regina put the same protection spell on Snow and Charming's hearts as she did on Henry's in Season 3.
  • Gold tries to excuse what he's doing by saying it's out of love for his son. Belle counters he doesn't get to use that excuse anymore (like he did with Baelfire for so long).
  • Charming hurries through the woods looking for Snow, finds her sleeping in a glass coffin, kisses her, and a wave of True Love magic is released before she wakes up. Just like how it all began.
• Contrived Coincidence: Aside from the series of them which allows David to save Snow without either of them knowing who the other was, there's the fact David needs to go and sell the family farm at the same time Snow is fleeing the kingdom with the Woodcutter on her trail, and thus all three of them are going to the same place—Longbourn.
• Couch Gag: The title card features Wilby.
• Curse: A particularly cruel variation: because Snow and Charming share the same heart, they also share the Sleeping Curse the Evil Queen put on it. So while either can wake the other with True Love's Kiss, the one doing the kissing will then fall asleep instead...so they can never be together.
• Face Death with Dignity: After being inspired by the sapling to realize how true and powerful their love is and has always been—even before they knew each other—Snow and Charming go to give up their hearts to the Evil Queen to save the town.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Variation; Snow and Charming haven't forgotten they met before, they just didn't know who each other was when they met—because Snow, afraid of the danger to Charming if he knew who she was, refuses to let him see her face when he rescues her from the Woodcutter.
• Guile Hero: Regina proves herself to be one this episode—using the fact she and the Evil Queen share the same handwriting, she's able to write a note to lure Zelena to the pawn shop so she can witness Gold and the Evil Queen making out. This not only distracts them so they almost don't find out about the sapling, it pays dividends in Zelena revealing about the Shears to Belle.
• Hope Spot: David kisses Snow and it seems to awaken her...then David falls asleep as they now share the curse.
• Hope Springs Eternal: The sapling born from the spark of True Love, since it reminds Snow and Charming of their best memories together and thus galvanizes them to stand up against the Evil Queen. It's even literally this, since as Lancelot's benediction at Snow and Charming's wedding reminds us, their love was blessed to be eternal. And of course it's not just any sapling, but one actually created by their love specifically.
• Internal Reveal: After the previous episode subverted it, this one plays it straight—thanks to Regina's note, Zelena finds out the Evil Queen and Gold are romantically involved, and reacts badly to this being kept secret. Also, she tells Belle about it, but her angry reaction is to the Shears, not the cheating.
• Ironic Echo: The Evil Queen uses the Charming family motto of "I Will Find You" to taunt David, sending Snow's sleeping form elsewhere and implying he won't like what he discovers when he does find her.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Played with. After Snow causes the Woodcutter to lose his axe, the Blue Fairy becomes full-sized, picks up the axe, and is prepared to attack him with it. We never get to see her actually do it (and calling Blue's dress finery is...questionable), but it's clear she was totally willing to do so. Also unusual in seeing this from a magical fairy.
• Loophole Abuse: We were told before that once someone has been placed under the Sleeping Curse once, they are immune to it (thus explaining why Henry, Charming, and Snow were all still awake when Maleficent put everyone in town to sleep, since Henry was cursed at the end of the first season, Charming in the first half of the second). However, the Evil Queen is able to curse Snow and Charming again—because this time rather than the curse coming through an apple or a spindle, she curses their shared heart directly.
• Never My Fault: Belle makes it very clear that what Gold has planned with the Shears is not the right way to fix things with his son, and that the only way he can ever have his love (or hers) is if he becomes worthy of it—meaning that until such a day comes, it's his own fault if he can't have the family he wants. But who does he blame for this? Zelena, for telling Belle about the Shears.
• Origins Episode: Of a sort. We find out how Snow became a bandit—a combination of inspiration from David, realizing how resourceful she was, wanting revenge on the noble who sold her out to the Woodcutter, and no longer having money for passage thanks to giving it to David to save his farm. We also learn about Ruth and David being close to losing their farm, something which even with the money Snow gives him sets up for them being under Bo Peep's thrall later on.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Belle delivers a scathing one to Gold.
  Belle: That's worse than being evil. That's... That's just being too weak to be good.
• Remember the New Guy?: David's shepherd dog, Wilby, never seen before now, and apparently included only so the Woodcutter could steal him from David so as to use him to track down Snow.
• Retcon:
  • It turns out David and Snow's real first meeting was when David was still a farmer and Snow on the run but they never actually saw each other face to face.
  • Prior to being the head of the Council of Good, the Blue Fairy was apparently Snow White's fairy godmother, or at least personally assisting her in her quest for freedom, thus explaining how she got involved in the fight against Regina in the first place. Although this does also fit in with Johanna's information that the Blue Fairy had a special interest in protecting and aiding Eva's family.
• The Reveal: Snow and Charming met before, long ago—and true to form it involved both a rescue and Snow being inspired to be a better, stronger person by realizing what she had inside all along.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • To demonstrate what the Evil Queen's potion can do, Regina uses it on a tree, foreshadowing the Hope Springs Eternal plot of the sapling.
  • The Evil Queen speaks of Leopold having trained a miniature pony to bow to young Snow as a symbol of both how she resented the love Snow received from everyone and that Snow received more than she felt was fair.
  • The brooch Leopold gave Eva, and which she treasured, was also given to Regina who didn't care about it at all (because, of course, she never really loved him or wanted to marry him). And it's what Snow sells to get the money to flee the kingdom.
  • The Evil Queen has the final confrontation (where she plans to kill everyone if Snow and Charming don't comply) play out in the cemetery, because "it's a great place for endings."
• Shout-Out:
  • Charming's sheep dog is named Wilby.
  • Some of the Evil Queen's words when she is taunting Snow and Charming paraphrase Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."
• Spanner in the Works: Zelena. Already suspicious of Gold and the Evil Queen's alliance (and probably remembering how close she herself had once been to Rumple), the confirmation she receives thanks to Regina's trick leads her to spill the beans to Belle—not just about their dalliance, but about the Shears of Destiny and what Gold wants to do with them.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: Regina engineers one on the villains by revealing Gold and the Evil Queen's romance to Zelena. Subverted in that even once the truth comes out, Zelena does not make up with the Evil Queen—in fact she instead reveals critical information to Belle.