'Once Upon a Time' recap: 'Ruby Slippers'

Last week’s episode covered all the main ‘ships (Snowing, Rumbelle, a little CaptainSwan, a nod to OutlawQueen, and Zelades), with a token to boot!

Snowing

After finding, Ruby, the gang decides to help her find Zelena. Before Snow leaves, she pleads with Charming to send a message to baby Neal. He assures her he will, only to find out that the disgruntled Hades has decided to remove all the level one haunting phone booths. Cruella, who was overseeing their removal, offered “Sheriff Chisel Chin” the opportunity to make one last call if he’d have Henry write her back to life. Yeah, right!

Snow and team catch Zelena before she can leave Underbrooke. They find out that she put Dorothy under a sleeping curse. Regina convinces Zelena to hand over the slippers so that Ruby can use them to try to save Dorothy.

Meanwhile, Charming and Hook decide to swap his name for Snow’s on the tombstone so that she can leave with Ruby and get back to Neal. When Snow finds out, she’s shocked, but in a way grateful. As Snow says goodbye, their theme music begins to play, bringing tears to all our eyes! Thank you, Mark Isham, for that perfect addition to such a bittersweet moment.

In the end, due to Henry’s continued work as the author, Charming was able to have the satisfaction of knowing that Snow made it home!

Rumbelle

Belle feels desperate to find a way to keep her baby from Hades, and so goes to Zelena for help. Zelena jokes around with her about how low she’s sunk to be “drinking with the bookworm,” after which Belle is overcome with a bout of morning sickness. Belle attempts to use it as an opportunity to commiserate with Zelena only to be reminded of how Dark Swan sped up her pregnancy. Realizing that Hades could do the same, Belle became even more desperate. Zelena then gives her the idea to put herself in a sleeping curse, which will basically keep her and her pregnancy frozen in time.

She tells as much to Rumple, who obviously doesn’t approve. Ironically, he was concerned that she couldn’t be woken up without anyone to give her true love’s kiss. That broke my heart. He’s supposed to be her true love, evil or not. Anyway, she told him that after he figured out how to stop Hades, he’d have to get her dad to give her true love’s kiss.

CaptainSwan

The CaptainSwan scenes in this episode overlapped with Snowing’s. Basically, the extent of their onscreen time together consisted of being around when Ruby woke up, and being in the graveyard when Emma tells Snowing that they’ve done enough and it’s time for them to go home, and then in the graveyard again to see Ruby and Charming off. When Emma heard Killian explain how he swapped Snow’s name for Charming’s, Emma gave him a sweet hug. The end.

However, there was a great CaptainCharming moment:

Oh, and right before Snow left, Regina asks her to look in on Roland when she gets back to Storybrooke. It was a nice reference to the OutlawQueen 'ship which we have seen little of late.

KansasWolf ?

The relationship that was developed over probably the shortest amount of time on the show has still not garnered a ‘ship name that’s sticking. Ruby and Dorothy met in Oz, became fast friends, and somehow fell in love while searching for poppies. Dorothy ended up accidentally giving Ruby the nickname “Wolfie” when she was being sarcastic. As their friendship developed over the next minute or two, Ruby forgave her, and said she liked it and wanted to give Dorothy a nickname too. She cleverly came up with “Kansas,” hence the suggested ‘ship name of KansasWolf.

Perhaps it was riding on Ruby wolf’s back that excited Dorothy. Maybe it was Dorothy’s love of her dog Toto that attracted Ruby. Then again, maybe it was just meant to be…true love.

Whatever the reason may be, Ruby and Dorothy fell in love with each other, stereo-typically neither one of them knowing how the other felt. When Ruby decides to tell Dorothy, she finds Dorothy has been left to confront Zelena on her own. Not only can Ruby not find Dorothy, but she can’t even find Zelena to ask her what she did with Dorothy. So, she uses a special tracking spell that will take her to Zelena, hence she ends up in the Underworld.

Once there, she discovers that Dorothy was put under a sleeping curse, and in a desperate effort to figure out how to wake her up, Snow helps her search out Aunt Em. Unfortunately, before they can bottle a kiss from Aunt Em to take back to Dorothy, Hades dispatches of her. That left Ruby feeling helpless, at least until Snow convinces her that she should try kissing Dorothy herself.

With Snow in tow, Ruby clicks her heels back to Oz, kisses Dorothy, and they perhaps live happily ever after. Their story really is left up in the air, Mulan is left behind (so much for MulanRouge), and Once Upon a Time’s LGBT following is left feeling cheated. Just search “ouat token” on Twitter to see what I mean.

Zelades

Hades warns Zelena that Ruby is in town, looking for her. Zelena hints that what she did to Ruby was the worst thing she’s ever done, i.e. putting Dorothy in a sleeping curse. I’m not sure how that’s the worst thing, unless she knew Ruby loved her, in which case she could wake her with true love’s kiss. Anyway, Hades petitions Zelena, who again turns him down.

Later, though, in an interesting turn of events, she goes to see him and give him a chance. That's thanks to Belle’s pep talk about trying to have a happy ending even if you’re afraid.

Only time will tell how her relationship with Hades will turn out. Some fans have suggested that it will be her that brings him down as part of her redemption arc. We shall see. Until then, here’s a sneak preview of tonight’s episode: