Belle plays a pretty important role in this week’s episode of Once Upon a Time, “Family Business.” In the past, she’s only played the pretty face to Rumple’s dark magic, but it turns out she has a secret of her own: she knows where Anna is! There’s a lot of learning this week, which moves the story along, but not much action. Essentially, it’s really all about the Snow Queen and her plan to create the perfect family.
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Belle Goes to Arendelle to Find Answers
Many years ago, after the death of her mother during an ogre attack, Belle wakes up and remembers nothing. She heads to Arendelle from the Enchanted Forest, looking for the rock trolls to restore her memory.
Meanwhile, Anna is also headed to the rock trolls looking for answers. It turns out, after she returned from her trip to the Enchanted Forest, she finds that the Snow Queen, aka Ingrid, has all but moved into the kingdom with Elsa. She tells the pair that she’s their aunt, but Anna isn’t convinced. She seeks answers from Grand Pappie about Ingrid.
Along the way, Anna and Belle bump into each other, and Anna brings her to the trolls. Grand Pappie gives Belle a magic egg that holds all of her memories of her mother. He then tells Anna that Ingrid is, in fact, her aunt. He tells her that her mother actually had two sisters, Ingrid and Helga, who one day went missing. He was summoned to erase the memories of the entire kingdom and get rid of Ingrid and Helga from all record books.
On their way back to their respective homes, a storm is brewing and they get knocked off the cliff. Belle chooses to try and save her memory egg, which falls and shatters. She then tries to help Anna, who falls off the cliff as well. The Snow Queen arrives, takes the magic trinket hat and disappears with Anna.
Back at her kingdom, Belle tells her father she wants to summon Rumplestiltskin to save the village from the ogres. But he doesn’t want to use magic because no good can come of magic.
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Emma Starts to Put The Pieces Together
Still in shock over seeing the video of herself as a teen with the Snow Queen, she seeks the help of her friends to find out more information. They head to the Snow Queen’s ice cream truck, where there’s a file with information about Emma. It turns out the Snow Queen has been tracking Emma since she arrived in Storybrooke as a baby. She also learns that the Snow Queen was her foster mother for six months. She also finds a scroll with the files, so she heads to the library to find Elsa to translate it.
Meanwhile, Elsa has found her family tree, which has Ingrid and Helga on it, which I find strange since they weren’t supposed to be in any records. Anyway, Elsa reads the scroll, which says that “The savior shall become Ingrid’s sister.” And for some reason, perhaps it’s because Emma looks like Helga, the Snow Queen wants Emma as her sister. They realize that the Snow Queen wants Emma and Elsa because they are just like her, with special powers.
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The Snow Queen Just Wants to Be Accepted
The Snow Queen just wants what everyone else wants in life: to be love and accepted. And she will apparently stop at nothing to get that. Back in Arendelle years ago, she holds Anna captive, away from Elsa, because she’s different. The Snow Queen tells Anna that she’s the odd woman out and she will find someone to replace her. However, she won’t reveal what happened to Helga, so I’m wondering if that will come into play.
Back in Storybrooke, Belle seeks out the Snow Queen, looking for answers about Anna’s whereabouts and the magic hat. In her cave, she finds a mirror that can basically destroy someone by messing with their mind. Just when the mirror starts to turn Belle against Rumple, he swoops in and takes her back to the shop. Together, they realize the mirror is all part of the Snow Queen’s plan to destroy Storybrooke and get her family.
Belle goes to warn the others, while Rumple heads back to the cave. He warns the Snow Queen to be careful with his town. She thinks she has a leg up over him; however, when he produces the magic hat, he knows he has leverage over her.
I’m on the fence on whether I liked this week’s episode or not. I liked all the big reveals, but I was disappointed in the lack of action. This Snow Queen storyline is taking over, and all of the other storylines are on the back burner, such as Operation Mongoose and even Marian being frozen. When the heck will she wake up? We all know Robin Hood’s kiss won’t wake her because he loves Regina. But didn’t Will, who was absent this week, say he was looking for her when he showed up in Storybrooke?
And while I’m mentioning him, why is Will really in Storybrooke? Is it Marian or something else? Or maybe he too has something to do with the Snow Queen? That would be quite frustrating.
I do like that Rumple seems to be staying somewhat good for a while. I want to believe he is honestly trying to save Storybrooke when he tries to make a deal with the Snow Queen. But then again, he’s probably trying to hide something, like he always is.
Let’s hope this Elsa/Anna/Emma/Snow Queen business wraps up soon, so Once Upon a Time can get un-Frozen.
Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8pm on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
