My Thoughts On: Once Upon a Time S03E09 “Save Henry”


I really liked this episode, but, at the same time, I thought that it added a bunch of confusing elements.

a screencap of emma (played by jennifer morrison) and regina (played by lana parrilla) over an unconscious henry (played by jared s. gilmore)
Henry, always being so dramatic.

Hey, Henry isn’t dead (Boo.), but he will be soon, if they don’t retrieve his heart from Pan.

And the lesson here is never to give your heart to anyone, especially if it’s literally.

a screencap of rumpelstiltskin (played by robert carlyle) imprisoned
There’s no toilet in there…

Back in the past Enchanted Forest, after Regina had cast the Dark Curse, she goes to Rumpelstiltskin to gloat. I’m not sure how this scene actually had time to happen, because, if I recall correctly, the curse cloud spread very quickly throughout the land and this scene is a couple of minutes long. Whatever. Regina and Rumpelstiltskin are always fun together, so let’s roll with it.

Rumpelstiltskin tells Regina that she shouldn’t be gloating, because, since she killed her own father, there is now a hole in her heart, and, one day, she’ll need to seek out his help to fill it. Regina is all like, “Nuh-uh! My revenge is absolute! I’ve got everything I could ever want!”

a screencap of regina (played by lana parrilla) fawning over a baby henry (playe by some baby-guy)
He was cute, before he could talk.

Well, lo and behold, it turns out that being the mayor of a cruddy podunk town isn’t enough to make Regina happy. In fact, the last time she could remember being really happy, was when she was hanging out with the young Owen Flynn (too bad he grew up to be such a butt). Regina decides she wants to adopt a baby. Personally, I think that she should have just made a baby with sexy, sexy Sheriff Graham, but I guess a literally heartless man might not make a good father.

But it will take a minimum of two years to adopt a baby and Regina wants one NOW. Indeed, she does end up seeking out Rumpelstiltskin’s help, only he’s just Mr. Gold here, because the curse altered his memory. Regina plays right into his hands.

Mr. Gold finds Regina a baby, which she names “Henry” after her father. Baby Henry is defective, though. He won’t stop crying. Regina gets paranoid about the actual origin’s of the baby, so she calls up Sidney Glass (I think Giancarlo Esposito actually phoned-in his performance of being on a phone hehe) and asks him to look up Henry’s birth parents and just when Regina finally gets Henry to stop crying, Sidney sends her information that points to the Saviour being Henry’s birth mother. Regina must return Henry to the adoption agency, or risk the Saviour coming to Storybrooke to retrieve the child.

And I’ve gotten confused about the rules of Storybrooke again. No one can enter or leave, but they can telephone people outside of the town and use the internet, apparently. There’s also the whole bit about time being stopped, although the residents of Storybrooke don’t notice because their memories are all wonky, wouldn’t the people they know in the outside world get confused because of it?

a screencap of john (played by matt kane) and michael (played by james immekus)
Hipsters can’t adopt.

Regina is unable to give up Henry. She loves him too much. This is bad news for the other family that the agency had lined-up, who just so happen to be John and Michael Darling, which doesn’t make any sort of sense. Apart from them probably not being adequate adoption candidates, the picture that Peter Pan had of Henry is him as an 11-year-old, not a baby. But, really, why didn’t they try to steal the baby from Regina? They would just open a portal to Neverland right after. It’s not like they’d get caught.

Come to Boston, where they’ll give a baby to anyone, even two brothers in their twenties.

Unable to cope with her fear of the Saviour coming and being a mother at the same time, Regina drinks a potion to wipe her memories.

So, bother Regina and Rumpelstiltskin had no memories of their past lives? Doesn’t that contradict a lot of the events of season 1? I had this theory back then that neither Regina or Rumpelstiltskin actually had their old memories, but they had read Henry’s book and guessed who they were in their past lives. It couldn’t have been that, could it?

a screencap of felix (played by parker croft)

In the present, Regina and Emma interrogate the Lost Boys about Pan’s location and Felix is being a butt, as usual. Emma decides to offer to be a mother to all 40 of the Lost Boy, you know, because she’s uber good at being a mother and stuff, but, hey, the Lost Boys take the bait and tell her that Peter Pan is hanging out at his Thinking Tree.

Felix alon remains resolute in his loyalty to Pan, though. He doesn’t need a mother, anyhow. He’s about like, what, 30?

a screencap of regina (played by lana parrilla), emma (played by jennifer morrison) and snow white (played by ginnifer goodwin) trapped by vines
Their favourite superheroine is Wonder Woman.

Oh no! Think Thinking Tree was a trap! It has vines that get tighter the more regrets you have.

Neverland, the place where the malevolent fauna will force you into expository dialogue.

Snow White regrets abandoning Emma and Emma regrets continually letting Henry down, but what does Regina regret?

a screencap of regina (played by lana parrilla) retrieving henry's heart from pan while emma (played by jennifer morrison) and snow white (played by ginnifer goodwin) look on shocked
Regina doing what she does best.

REGINA REGRETS NOTHING! All of her horrible actions just led her to her greatest happiness: her son. She’s a better mother than both those whiners. WHAM! She rips her son’s her out of Pan’s chest.

Everyone returns to the ship, Regina returns Henry’s heart to his chest and casts a spell on him to prevent his heart from being taken ever again, which, really, she should have done years ago, what with heart removal being everyone’s favourite pastime in this universe.

And then something happens that made no sense to me. Peter Pan switches his Shadow with Henry’s right he gets sucked into Pandora’s box. Apparently, this was like switching souls, because Pan is in control of Henry’s body now, but, up until this point, we’ve seen Shadows act like autonomous entities and we’ve seen people talk to them like they were actual people themselves. We still don’t even know where Rumpelstiltskin’s Shadow went and he doesn’t seem like an empty shell without it.

I hope this doesn’t mean that Pan, as Henry, is going to convince them to turn around and go back to Neverland. We really need to get out of there.