Need some help remembering everything from Once Upon a Time season 4? From Frozen to Cruella we have you covered!
Remember the Snow Queen’s ribbons? How about Ursula’s dad, King Triton, paying Storybrooke a visit? So much happened during Once Upon a Time‘s fourth season it is daunting to think about! Scroll through the ultimate, gif-filled refresher, before Once Upon a Time season 5 premieres this Sunday.
Part 1: A chilling tale
Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Sven, Hans, and even Oaken made their way into the Once Upon a Time narrative in the first half of season 4. Elsa finds herself in Storybrooke after a mysterious vase makes it back through the portal with Emma, Hook, and Marian. Flashbacks show Anna and Kristoff preparing for their wedding, but Anna will never be ready to walk down the aisle until she knows the truth behind her parents’ death.
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On her journey for answers she crosses paths with David and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice and is tasked to kill the latter by Rumpelstiltskin. She gets away with simply turning him into a mouse and takes off with the Sorcerer’s hat.
Emma and Hook’s relationship makes moves this season and while chasing ice monsters is pretty nerve-wracking, what happens when your love basically asks you if you want to “Netflix and Chill?”
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Ingrid, also known as the Snow Queen and aunt to Anna and Elsa, has a twisted past that makes some other flashbacks tame. An accidental mishap that resulted in the death of her sister led Anna and Elsa’s mother to trap Ingrid in an enchanted urn and wipe away the kingdom’s memories of her existence. Ingrid was accidentally released when Hans attempted to trap Elsa many years later in the same urn. After freezing the entire kingdom, and tricking Anna into trapping Elsa, Ingrid heads to see Rumpelstiltskin and learns that she can rebuild her sisterly bond with a girl named Emma and her trapped niece.
After ruining her first attempt to get close to Emma, Ingrid travels to Storybrooke and disguises herself as an ice cream vendor, waiting for Emma to arrive. With Elsa and Emma now in Storybrooke, Ingrid unleashes her plan to bond them forever with some cursed ribbons from her childhood.
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We also met Lily, another foster child who seems unnaturally drawn to danger and trouble. She not only gets Emma in plenty of trouble, but understands that something larger is at work between them. But we’ll get to that once the Queens of Darkness make their way into the picture.
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The spell of shattered sight is the first smoke monster to bring some humor rather than devastation. As shards of glass enter the eyes of everyone, Henry, Mary Margaret, David, Kristoff and Regina all reveal the darker sides of their personalities.
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To no one’s surprise, Mr. Gold had a hand in every plan. Hoping to gain enough power to break himself apart from the dagger for good, Gold uses Hook as his pawn for the entire season, holding his heart hostage and forcing him to do his bidding. But for every good intention he held at the opening of the season, Gold found himself on the wrong side of the dagger. Belle finally took a stand against him and pushed him out of Storybrooke, banished to a land without magic and no way to return.
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Part 2: Penning a deal with the De Vil
Maleficent, Ursula, and Cruella hold all the power over Rumpelstiltskin when Once Upon a Time makes its winter debut. Resurrecting the dragon from the ashes, Maleficent appears in Storybrooke once more with some unfinished maternal business to attend to. Regina decides it is in everyone’s best interest if she goes on a covert operation to infiltrate the Queen’s plans.
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A few backstories unfold. Ursula left her father King Triton after he told her that her voice was used to lure ships into the rocks and destroy the human crews. When her plan to run away is thwarted by Hook, she steals her father’s trident and transforms herself into the sea witch. A reunion with Triton sets her back on the straight and narrow and she leaves Storybrooke after first bringing back the Jolly Roger for Hook.
Cruella fell for the charms of the Author in her realm many, many years ago. As a child locked away by a mother who trained dalmatians to kill her husbands, Cruella received a bit of magic from the Author that would allow her to control any animal. But after a run in with the remaining ink in the Author’s quill, she turns into the true De Vil. Emma, unable to control her magic, accidentally sends Cruella to her death.
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Maleficent’s daughter turns out to be Lily, Emma’s childhood friend. Always suspicious of why her life is riddled with Darkness, Snow and Charming reveal that they used a spell to take all the darkness out of Emma and transfer it to Lily in the Enchanted Forest. The result led Maleficent to give her daughter over to a realm where she would be safe from the dark magic — the real world. Their reunion is nothing short of complicated as Lily decides to stick around and find her biological dragon father.
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Issac Heller, better known to our heroes and villains as The Author, finally made his debut. His assignment was to travel between the realms and document everything that was going on into the storybooks. He abuses the power of the magic quill, often times embellishing the stories. Tired of writing other people’s stories, Issac makes his way to Storybrooke where he tries to recover the magical ink from one person’s darkness, in this case Lily’s blood, that will give him the power to begin writing again. Issac writes himself out of the magical world and into the real one as the best-selling author of Heroes and Villains.
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In the role-reversal season finale, Storybrooke’s characters are acting as their counterparts. Snow is the evil queen, David is dead, yet his twin brother lives, Hook is a coward, and Regina is trying to redeem her good name. Henry enters the Enchanted Forest for the first time and soon finds a way to free Emma and find a way to rewrite the story.
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As Emma tries to fight past Hook’s death and Regina watches as Zelena and Robin wed, achieving happiness seems impossible. Regina sacrifices herself to save Emma and Henry and it is her blood that fuels the quill to undo what Issac has written. Henry takes the quill and becomes Once Upon a Time‘s new Author.
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But everything in Storybrooke is not back to normal. As the town celebrates the return of the status quo, Gold lies dying in his pawn shop. The Apprentice attempts to remove the darkness from his heart and trap it inside the Sorcerer’s hat. But that type of Darkness will not be contained. It tries to seek out the darkest soul and settles on Regina. Emma refuses to watch Regina lose another shot at her happy ending and sacrifices herself to the dagger.