Charming tells Hook that just because he is a pirate doesn’t mean he can nab Emma’s booty for himself. Hook looks sad because he wasn’t always an unwashed angsty pirate, OR maybe it’s because he wants to push Charming up against a tree and kiss his stupid princely face. But actually, it’s because way too many Pegasuses were murdered in the making of this episode, and Hook still feels responsible.
Yes, that’s right. Hook was once even gayer than he is now, as a lieutenant who pronounced his position as leftenant, and liked to speak very closely to the faces of his seamen, and steered a SHIP MADE FROM PEGASUS FEATHERS. Jesus fucking Christ, I wish I was kidding. He and his brother have a gay old time being nice to each other and the rest of the crew, but naughty naughty! Looks like someone’s packing a big vessel that needs confiscating. It’s dry week on this ship, so empty out that rum and make room for something a little more filling, boys.
Ah yes, those were more innocent times. A time of bangs and washed hairs and trading guy tips with your big brother when you weren’t banging the first mate like a gong. But that time is over, and now Hook has to drag Charming off “to collect vines” so he can get him alone and shirtless without the ladies watching.
Actually Charming and Hook conveniently find Hook’s brother’s military tags (LOOOLLL WAT) and that prompts Hook to send them on a side mission, since Charming reveals that he’s basically decided he’s going to die anyway, leaving everyone else to the mission at hand? Wow such brave good hero wow good father husband thank so much. Hook gets to see Charming’s badly CGI-d wound but real-as-fuck abs. This overwhelms him, and they head back to camp so Charming can say his weird goodbyes. Not everyone is that bothered by the boys deciding to strike out on their own.
The girls’ plan is to set a hoisted net trap for a Lost Boy and use him to find a way to Pan. I’m going to be frank and say that this is one of the more half-assed plans I’ve heard on the show, but given the fact that this is Once Upon A Suspended Disbelief, it works. Snow goes Katniss on these bitches, and they catch themselves a Lost Boy. Regina seductively offers it candy, because Regina’s default setting is Neighborhood MILF.
Emma decides the rough approach is the best one, but Snow doesn’t like this because kindness and birds and nice things! Regina says they should tear the heart out of the kid, and Snow SUPER doesn’t like this, because Snow is morally opposed to everything Regina says and does. Emma sides with Regina (!) because she says they need to save “our son” (!!!) thus acknowledging that Henry is Regina’s AND Emma’s son (!!!!!!!!!). Snow is 100% not okay with this, but Regina has no fucks to give and Emma restrains Snow to let Regina do her bad thang.
For those of you pretending to wonder what’s happening with the boys, I don’t care either, but they’ve climbed Brokeback Mountain with only a few minor obstacles. One of these obstacles is Pan showing up and telling Hook he should kill Charming because Pan gets off on that kind of thing. Another obstacle is Hook remembering when he and his brother arrived in Neverland to acquire the magical elixir of life that turned out to be a life-destroying poison for his big brother. Hook turns up the Brand New on his iPod, and weeps into Charming’s shoulder while masturbating softly.
Snow does not support these new developments at all, but let’s talk about that Gay as Fuck Wide-Legged Hunch, Emma!
Now that Regina has ripped out the kid’s heart, they can control him. They’re going to send him into Neverland Ranch to get a message to Henry via magical compact mirror because Regina is the Ultimate Femme Goddess. Or Sailor Neptune to Emma’s Sailor Uranus, I will let you decide.
This all leads to the best scene in the episode, which is Regina, Emma, and Princess Cockblock compact-skyping with Henry. Because despite the fact that this show likes to talk a good game about how adoption is invalid in the face of biology and families can only be formed from mommies and daddies making genetically linked offspring, they go and pull this card. Traditional family structures: -1, Swan Queen Gay Agenda: 1000000.
Up on Brokeback Mountain, Hook is giving Charming a second chance by getting him to drink from the magical healing waterfall that was the whole secret reason they got up here in the first place. Hook remembers that when he used the same waterfall to save his brother, Pan had told him that magic comes at a price. Later, the brother chokes to death at dinner, which seems like a major price to pay and also super wasteful? Maybe by magical price, it should be something along the lines of his pinky finger falls off, or everywhere he goes from now on, a group of Jenny Schecter fans will follow him, trying to make invalid arguments. I feel like if death is the price you pay for saving yourself from death, magic is about as effective as BoltBus wifi. Charming drinks the magical healing waterfall water, and Hook tells him he can never leave Neverland. Charming thinks maybe they could just stay up on Brokeback Mountain forever, and then they buttfuck in the tent. JK, they go back to the camp so they can make out with girls!
Snow decides she’s really concerned about the purity of Emma’s soul, which I guess means she’s late to that party. Regina says she’ll do all the dark and corrupting things so that Emma won’t have to, which is kind of a massive sacrifice, nbd. If these two were a boy and a girl, the powers that be would be making you WEEP over that scene, by the way. They’d be milking the sweet teats of Regina’s sacrifice until you couldn’t think of the word “darkness” without curling up in a ball and sobbing. But alas, it gets a passing moment, and we’re onto more important things. Like heterosexuality!
The aforementioned making out with girls thing? It happens, and it’s awkward. Charming and Snow make out for fucking ever, and Emma kisses Hook in what was surely a confusing experience for them both. Regina pulls out her iPad and searches through her CrashPad downloads for a way to kill time.
We learn via flashback that the death of Hook’s brother prompted him to be like, okay crew, fuck your families and your established lives at home, we’re all going to become pirates because everything is pointless and sad. And weirdly, they seemed to be okay with it? In the present, Pan tells Hook he’s got Baelfire and another mysterious person locked up in cages, so if he wants to drop that little factoid on Emma, that’d be a real groovy test of character. By the by, if that becomes a canon love triangle, I will light my hair on fire and upload it to Twitter, no homo.
Let’s talk about the previews for next week, though, HOLY SHIT. The previews for next week make two important points:
1. Regina is Ursula. Which is kind of a massive cop-out, but Lana Parrilla could play the role of Jar Jar Binks (a character technically now acquired by Disney) and I’d be okay with it.
2. Ariel is in the cage, right? I hope they put some water in there so they don’t open it up later to find last week’s sushi.
