Revised timeline following "The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree"

Was Emma's superpower broken this week? Surely there was something Sydney said to her that would have tripped her lie detector? Like, oh, say, the bit about Regina having tampered with the brakes on her squad car?

Anyway, not much to add to the timeline this week, but might as well put it in there anyway...

1. Rumpelstiltskin kills the Dark One and acquires magic and power.
2. Rumpelstiltskin makes a deal with Jimminy and gives him turn-people-into-scary-ass-dolls potion. Said potion is accidentally used on Gepetto's parents; the Blue Fairy turns Jimminy into an immortal cricket and he becomes Gepetto's best friend.
3. Rumpelstiltskin makes a deal with James' parents to take one of their twins as a son for Mean King in exchange for a farm
4. The Evil Queen has love and loses it because of Snow White not being able to keep a secret (possibly Snow's father is responsible as well)
5. The Evil Queen marries Snow White's father
6. Snow White's father finds the genie, frees him, and takes him back to his palace for yuks
7. The Evil Queen fools the genie into thinking she loves him, and (with her father's help) gets him to murder Snow White's father for her.
8. The genie finds out the Evil Queen is a lying liar who lies, and wishes himself into every mirror she looks into.
9. Snow White realises that the Evil Queen is out to get her (since she seemed to be perfectly trusting of the Evil Queen earlier when she was mourning her dad, but knows the Evil Queen wants to kill her not too long after when the Huntsman takes her into the woods)
10. The Evil Queen tells the Huntsman to kill Snow White; instead, he MacGyvers a help-summoning whistle for her and lets her go
11. (This one might have happened before the Huntsman took Snow into the woods, but given that there was a vengeance associated with Snow White using the powder that we didn't see when she was writing the letter to the Evil Queen before the Hutnsman caught up with her in the woods, I would guess it happens at this stage of the story instead:) Snow White somehow acquires magic insect powder
12. Snow White starts living rough in the woods and stealing gold and whatnot. At some point (either before or after her exile to the forest), Snow somehow helps Red Riding Hood "when no one else would" and they become friends. At some point after Snow White starts roughing it, Red seems to regularly bring helpful supplies to Snow White.
13. James' twin brother is killed trying to impress Midas.
14. Rumpelstiltskin makes a deal with Mean King to get James for him to replace the dead twin.
15. Presumably around this time, Mean King tells Rumpelstiltskin the location of Cinderella's fairy godmother as payment for getting James for him. At some point thereafter, Rumpelstiltskin poofs said fairy godmother, takes control of her wand, and gets Cinderella to agree to giving him her first-born son in exchange for prettying her up and getting her to the ball.
16. James kills a dragon and gets engaged to Abigail
17. James sees his mother for the last time and gets her lucky ring to give to his future wife
18. As James is making his way back from Midas' kingdom to his own, Snow ambushes his carriage and makes off with his mother's special ring. After a series of madcap adventures together, during which she uses up her insect powder, she gives him back his ring and they go their separate ways.
19. Snow White and James can't stop thinking about each other.
20. Snow White gets a forgetfulness potion from Rumpelstiltskin in exchange for some strands of her hair.
21. James sends Snow White her a letter by dove professing his love.
22. The Evil Queen kidnaps Hansel and Gretel's father and sends Hansel and Gretel to the blind witch's house to steal the poisoned apple
23. Hansel and Gretel deliver the apple to the Evil Queen and she offers to adopt them as her children. They refuse, and she casts them out into the forest.
24. Snow White shows up at Mean King's palace and is captured, meeting Grumpy in a dungeon. Stealthy breaks them out and is killed trying to escape. Snow White saves Grumpy and meets with Mean King. Mean King tells Snow White to tell James she doesn't love him, and lets her in on the fact that James is not really his son. Snow accordingly breaks James' heart and leaves the castle.
25. The seven dwarves meet up with Snow as she leaves the castle and convince her not to use the forgetfulness potion immediately. This scene is viewed by the Evil Queen in her magic mirror.
26. The Evil Queen speaks to Hansel and Gretel's father and discovers that the secret of their happiness is the bond of being a family
27. For some reason, James decides Snow White does love him after all and calls off the wedding to Abigail without getting killed by Mean King. (There's a story to that in itself, I'm sure.) Snow White, however, has already taken the forgetfulness potion.
28. At some point, the forgetfulness potion is reversed
29. Snow White is poisoned by the Evil Queen, put into a coffin, and is brought back to life by a kiss from James
30. Snow White and James get married (she would have been given his mother's ring by this time); during the wedding, the Evil Queen threatens everyone with the curse
31. Cinderella and Thomas get married
32. Snow White gets pregnant
33. Cinderella gets pregnant
34. (This might have happened before Snow White and/or Cinderella got pregnant, or after Rumpelstiltskin is captured, it's not clear:) The Evil Queen steals the curse back from her buddy Maleficent and tries it with no effect
35. Cinderella, Thomas, and James conspire to imprison Rumpelstiltskin; Thomas disappears
36. While pregnant, Snow freaks out about the Evil Queen's threat; she and James visit Rumpelstiltskin and find out that their daughter will be the saviour in exchange for telling Rumpelstiltskin the baby's name, and then plans begin to send Snow away from the curse via an enchanted tree wardrobe
37. The Evil Queen visits Rumpelstiltskin to find out why his curse is a dud and, in exchange for a promise of being rich post-curse and the Evil Queen having to do anything he asks if he says please, he tells her that she needs to sacrifice the thing she loves most; she also discovers that the curse can be undone by Snow's baby
38. The Evil Queen offs her dad
39. The Evil Queen successfully enacts the curse as Snow White is in labour
40. Emma is born; James sends her to safety via the enchanted tree wardrobe
41. The Evil Queen arrives at James' palace, although not in time to grab the baby, and laughs maniacally as the curse takes effect
42. Everyone in the fairy tale world is sent to Storybrook and time stops for them
43. Around age 18, Emma gets knocked up with Henry. The father is likely a married man.
44. At some point during the pregnancy, Emma is sent to jail.
45. Henry is born in jail. Emma decides to give him up for adoption. At the same time, Regina decides she wants to adopt a baby. Rumplestiltskin is the gobetween and somehow acquires Emma's baby for Regina in exchange for an unknown favour from Regina.
46. Over the next ten years, Henry is presumably the only person in storybrook who ages, since he was a baby when he got there and a ten-year-old ten years later. Given that Cinderella's pregnancy never advances in the 28 years when Storybrook time is frozen, and given that Hansel and Gretel are the same age they were when Emma comes to town as they were when the curse took effect, none of the Storybrook people can have children during the time freeze, nor would the Storybrook children ever age. This would probably be very conclusive proof for Henry that things are majorly effed up in his home town; why he never points this out to Emma or anyone as proof that he's not delusional is beyond me.

Sussing things out

Questions

• Where did Snow get the insect powder? She didn't even hear of Rumpelstiltskin until after she'd had her adventure with James and used up the powder, so it must have come from somewhere else. How she acquired it is probably going to be an interesting little plot point.
• Why did Regina want to adopt a baby? Especially if (as was implied in the pilot) she doesn't even love him? I suspect the answer to that will give us big insight into what she's all about. In the Hansel and Gretel episode, she got very emotional (for her) when the twins' father told her about the importance of family. I suspect adopting Henry was her trying to get back whatever she lost (family?) because of Snow.
• One of the ingredients for the curse was hair from the most evil hearts in all the land (or something like that). However, Rumpelstiltskin was not one of the evil creatures gathered around the fire when EQ first tried to enact the curse. Can we infer from this that Rumpelstiltskin is not actually evil?
• Is Emma going to have to die to fully reverse the curse?

Timeline

1. Rumpelstiltskin kills the Dark One and acquires magic and power.
2. Rumpelstiltskin makes a deal with Jimminy and gives him turn-people-into-scary-ass-dolls potion. Said potion is accidentally used on Gepetto's parents; the Blue Fairy turns Jimminy into an immortal cricket and he becomes Gepetto's best friend.
3. Rumpelstiltskin makes a deal with James' parents to take one of their twins as a son for Mean King in exchange for a farm
4. The Evil Queen has love and loses it because of Snow White not being able to keep a secret (possibly Snow's father is responsible as well)
5. The Evil Queen marries Snow White's father
6. The Evil Queen kills Snow White's father
7. Snow White realises that the Evil Queen is out to get her (since she seemed to be perfectly trusting of the Evil Queen earlier when she was mourning her dad, but knows the Evil Queen wants to kill her not too long after when the Huntsman takes her into the woods)
8. The Evil Queen tells the Huntsman to kill Snow White; instead, he MacGyvers a help-summoning whistle for her and lets her go
9. (This one might have happened before the Huntsman took Snow into the woods, but given that there was a vengeance associated with Snow White using the powder that we didn't see when she was writing the letter to the Evil Queen before the Hutnsman caught up with her in the woods, I would guess it happens at this stage of the story instead:) Snow White somehow acquires magic insect powder
10. Snow White starts living rough in the woods and stealing gold and whatnot. At some point (either before or after her exile to the forest), Snow somehow helps Red Riding Hood "when no one else would" and they become friends. At some point after Snow White starts roughing it, Red seems to regularly bring helpful supplies to Snow White.
11. James' twin brother is killed trying to impress Midas.
12. Rumpelstiltskin makes a deal with Mean King to get James for him to replace the dead twin.
13. Presumably around this time, Mean King tells Rumpelstiltskin the location of Cinderella's fairy godmother as payment for getting James for him. At some point thereafter, Rumpelstiltskin poofs said fairy godmother, takes control of her wand, and gets Cinderella to agree to giving him her first-born son in exchange for prettying her up and getting her to the ball.
14. James kills a dragon and gets engaged to Abigail
15. James sees his mother for the last time and gets her lucky ring to give to his future wife
16. As James is making his way back from Midas' kingdom to his own, Snow ambushes his carriage and makes off with his mother's special ring. After a series of madcap adventures together, during which she uses up her insect powder, she gives him back his ring and they go their separate ways.
17. Snow White and James can't stop thinking about each other.
18. Snow White gets a forgetfulness potion from Rumpelstiltskin in exchange for some strands of her hair.
19. James sends Snow White her a letter by dove professing his love.
20. The Evil Queen kidnaps Hansel and Gretel's father and sends Hansel and Gretel to the blind witch's house to steal the poisoned apple
21. Hansel and Gretel deliver the apple to the Evil Queen and she offers to adopt them as her children. They refuse, and she casts them out into the forest.
22. Snow White shows up at Mean King's palace and is captured, meeting Grumpy in a dungeon. Stealthy breaks them out and is killed trying to escape. Snow White saves Grumpy and meets with Mean King. Mean King tells Snow White to tell James she doesn't love him, and lets her in on the fact that James is not really his son. Snow accordingly breaks James' heart and leaves the castle.
23. The seven dwarves meet up with Snow as she leaves the castle and convince her not to use the forgetfulness potion immediately. This scene is viewed by the Evil Queen in her magic mirror.
24. The Evil Queen speaks to Hansel and Gretel's father and discovers that the secret of their happiness is the bond of being a family
25. For some reason, James decides Snow White does love him after all and calls off the wedding to Abigail without getting killed by Mean King. (There's a story to that in itself, I'm sure.) Snow White, however, has already taken the forgetfulness potion.
26. At some point, the forgetfulness potion is reversed
27. Snow White is poisoned by the Evil Queen, put into a coffin, and is brought back to life by a kiss from James
28. Snow White and James get married (she would have been given his mother's ring by this time); during the wedding, the Evil Queen threatens everyone with the curse
29. Cinderella and Thomas get married
30. Snow White gets pregnant
31. Cinderella gets pregnant
32. (This might have happened before Snow White and/or Cinderella got pregnant, or after Rumpelstiltskin is captured, it's not clear:) The Evil Queen steals the curse back from her buddy Maleficent and tries it with no effect
33. Cinderella, Thomas, and James conspire to imprison Rumpelstiltskin; Thomas disappears
34. While pregnant, Snow freaks out about the Evil Queen's threat; she and James visit Rumpelstiltskin and find out that their daughter will be the saviour in exchange for telling Rumpelstiltskin the baby's name, and then plans begin to send Snow away from the curse via an enchanted tree wardrobe
35. The Evil Queen visits Rumpelstiltskin to find out why his curse is a dud and, in exchange for a promise of being rich post-curse and the Evil Queen having to do anything he asks if he says please, he tells her that she needs to sacrifice the thing she loves most; she also discovers that the curse can be undone by Snow's baby
36. The Evil Queen offs her dad
37. The Evil Queen successfully enacts the curse as Snow White is in labour
38. Emma is born; James sends her to safety via the enchanted tree wardrobe
39. The Evil Queen arrives at James' palace, although not in time to grab the baby, and laughs maniacally as the curse takes effect
40. Everyone in the fairy tale world is sent to Storybrook and time stops for them
41. Around age 18, Emma gets knocked up with Henry. The father is likely a married man.
42. At some point during the pregnancy, Emma is sent to jail.
43. Henry is born in jail. Emma decides to give him up for adoption. At the same time, Regina decides she wants to adopt a baby. Rumplestiltskin is the gobetween and somehow acquires Emma's baby for Regina in exchange for an unknown favour from Regina.
44. Over the next ten years, Henry is presumably the only person in storybrook who ages, since he was a baby when he got there and a ten-year-old ten years later. Given that Cinderella's pregnancy never advances in the 28 years when Storybrook time is frozen, and given that Hansel and Gretel are the same age they were when Emma comes to town as they were when the curse took effect, none of the Storybrook people can have children during the time freeze, nor would the Storybrook children ever age. This would probably be very conclusive proof for Henry that things are majorly effed up in his home town; why he never points this out to Emma or anyone as proof that he's not delusional is beyond me.

Thoughts on "True North"

It would appear that Emma is actually stupid.

She knows she has a terrible enemy (Regina) who has proven multiple times that she is only too willing and able to dig up shit about Emma's past and spread it far and wide, regardless of the emotional cost to Henry. So how can Emma POSSIBLY think that her lie to Henry about Henry's biodad isn't going to come to light one day and destroy Henry's trust in her. Really? REALLY?!? Seriously, how hard is it to look the kid in the eye and tell him the truth: "Henry, I'm sorry, but although you are a wonderful kid, the truth about your father is very horrible and embarrassing and I'm not going to tell you about it. Maybe years from now I'll be ready to talk about it, but right now I'm not ready, and you are definitely not ready to hear it. Please respect that."

Argh.

Another thing is...she and Henry once again had a conversation about strangers coming in and out of Storybrook. Here, once again, was the perfect and screamingly obvious opportunity to point out to Henry that he was somehow brought to Storybrook as a baby to be Regina's child. (And not only would that make Henry another person who's come into Storybrook from the outside, but, since infants generally can't achieve intercity travel all by themselves, another person had to bring him.) And, once again, Emma did not bring up that salient point. Is this a matter over which the writers are trying to gloss because Henry's arrival in Storybrook is going to be very significant down the road and they don't want to talk about it yet, or do they really think their audience is so stupid that we're going to ignore that gaping chasm of inconsistency?

Verrry interesting that Mary Margaret now knows that Emma's supposed to be her "daughter". I just hope she doesn't let that fact ever slip to Regina. And I wonder what that expression was supposed to convey when she smelled the "Emma" blanket? Did she get a nanosecond glimpse of past life memory, perchance? And I couldn't help wondering whether some day she's going to come across the leftover yarn stored in an old box in her attic, or something.

I also didn't like how the storybook showed Hansel and Gretel looking waaaaay too much like the real Eva and Nicholas. It's supposed to be stylized drawings to allow Storybrook inhabitants to preserve the illusion that it's all fiction. Nearly-photographic illustrations kind of scream "It's real! It's real!" way too much.

I do like that Emma has brought another happy ending into the town. Little by little, the curse crumbles. Of course, the big happy ending (Snow White and Prince Charming) has yet to happen, but I suspect that story is such a huge deal that its happy resolution will be the end of the curse and, therefore, the conclusion of the entire show. Looks like we will progress on that storyline a bit next week, though.

In the beginning...

So I was intrigued by the trailers for "Once Upon a Time" that ran over the summer, started watching the show, and am really enjoying it. I've also discovered that I'm fairly decent at predicting some things, and am having fun trying to keep track of the details of all the different characters' backstories. So I thought, what the heck, why not blog about it all.

So two shows ago ("That Still Small Voice"), it was revealed for the first time that all this fairyland/curse stuff is real, and not just a figment of Henry's imagination. Prior to this, it was entirely possible that the fairyland stories we were being shown were just coming out of either the book, or Henry's head. However, right at the end of the episode, we were shown that the fairy world really is there underneath the real world: when Regina dropped the shard of glass down the mine shaft and it landed next to Snow White's glass coffin.

This past show ("The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"), it was revealed for the first time that Regina definitely knows about the curse and her past fairytale life as the Evil Queen. Her knowing was strongly hinted at numerous times in previous episodes (and I was of the opinion that she did know), but her pushing aside the tomb lid in the real world and going down into the vault so she could grind Graham's heart into dust made it pretty obvious that the curse doesn't affect her memory.

The preview for next week's show ("Desperate Souls") shows Mr. Gold (not Rumpelstiltskin) decked out in medievalish garb and trying to work magical summoning spells (and also spinning at a wheel), so it looks like my opinion that Mr. Gold has also retained his memories might be proven correct.

Next week's preview also begs the question of why Mr. Gold would dress up in medievalish garb and engage in spinning and witchery; it'll be interesting to see that question answered! Another pertinent question about Mr. Gold is what the hell he's doing "gardening" in the middle of the woods, with nothing but a spade, wearing a three piece suit, with only an apron to protect the nice threads. It's also bizarre that Graham, local law enforcement head honcho, didn't twig at all that such behaviour might be strange and worth investigating. As a real world cop, wouldn't your first assumption be that Mr. Gold was burying a body? I say hell yes. However, as someone in the know about the characters' fairyland pasts, I'd say another possibility was that he was planting magic beans.

I'm still on the fence as to what Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold's motivations are in this situation; whether he wants to get back to fairyland or whether he's quite content to stay rich and powerful in the real world. After all, with the exception of the imprisonment he was experiencing toward the end of the fairyland era, he seemed to be sitting quite pretty in the fairy world. He's an extremely mysterious character and I'm really not sure what his ultimate goals are. It's easy to theorize that he's only in it for his own gain, but I suspect as more information about his past is revealed, we'll find that there's more to him than that. For instance, he seemed genuinely sad when he was telling David the origins of the windmill in his shop. And I'm really curious to know what the deal is with his baby obsession.

The preview for next week also hints that we'll be seeing more of the Prince James/Snow White backstory, and Hansel and Gretel. In the real world, following what certainly appears to be Graham's death from this week, Emma tries to take over as the sheriff, and Regina (duh) tries to stop her. There also appears to be a clash between Regina and Mr. Gold, plus an explosion/fire in some kind of house that's undergoing construction or renovation, just as Emma and Regina are in it. Regina's panicked "I can't move, you have to help me!" suggests that she's been paralyzed by the blast? Either that or her legs are buried by rubble and she can't get out by herself.

This week's show also gave us a bit more information about the Evil Queen's overdeveloped sense of vengeance. In previous shows it was revealed that she used to have a shot at love, but it was somehow "lost". According to the conversation that the Evil Queen had with Maleficent in "The Thing You Love Most", that happened when the Evil Queen was about the same age as Snow White was when she married Prince James. Assuming very roughly that the Evil Queen is 35ish and Snow White is 20ish, that gives us a timeline of 15 years prior to The Curse that the Evil Queen lost this "love".

Now, based on how vague the dialogue has always been about this "love", I think we are meant to assume that it is of the "twu" (i.e. romantic) variety, but that is never actually said outright. So I'm not ruling out the possibility that this "love" was for someone else, such as a child. In multiple episodes, we are shown that the Evil Queen blames Snow White for whatever horrible thing happened in the Evil Queen's past, which is, I'm assuming (although that could of course be wrong) the loss of this "love". We don't have many details of how this came about, but it's slowly becoming clearer. In the "Snow falls" episode, Snow White freely admits to Prince James that she is indeed responsible (although from her expression, I'm sure there's a s**tload that she's not saying about that point). In this week's episode, Snow White's letter reads "I undertand that you will never have love in your life because of me." In this week's episode, the Evil Queen refers to Snow White's father's death as "One down, one to go," which implies that he was also responsible for whatever wrong was done to the Evil Queen. (This also puts paid to the theories I've seen from others that Snow White's father was the Evil Queen's "love".) And, most specifically, the Evil Queen revealed to The Huntsman this week that "I shared a secret with her, and she couldn't keep it. And that betrayal cost me dearly." (Of course it is always possible that the Evil Queen was just lying there, but I don't think it's a stretch to assume that she was being honest.)

The thing is, though, that, if my assumptions about the age difference between the Evil Queen and Snow White are correct, whatever Snow White "did" to the Evil Queen was done when she was about five, give or take. What could she possibly have done at that point?

Yep, I'm quite curious about that particular backstory.

Incidentally, here is the text of Snow White's letter of farewell to the Evil Queen:

Dearest Stepmother,
By the time you read this, I will be dead. I understand that you will never have love in your life because of me. So it's only fitting that I'll be denied that same joy as well. For the sake of the kingdom, I hope my death satisfies your need for revenge, allowing you to rule my father's subjects as they deserve: with compassion, and a gentle hand. I know what you think you're doing is vengeance; I prefer to think of it as sacrifice, for the good of all. With that in mind, I welcome the end. I want you to take my last message to heart. I'm sorry, and I forgive you.

Miscellaneous musings:

• It's interesting that Snow White is also a person who offers apples. (To the Huntsman, in the woods.)
• I'm sure we'll be seeing Snow White using that MacGyver-esque whistle in a future episode. Maybe it summons the dwarves?
• Once Graham remembered everything about his fairy world life, why the hell was his first reaction to make out with Emma? Shouldn't it have been, "Oh CRAP, the Evil Queen really does have my heart and is an evil beeyotch, let's hightail it back to that vault to stop her before she makes me go into cardiac arrest!"
• How did Prince James manage to get Abigail out of the picture so he could marry Snow White? Obviously with the big fancy shmancy wedding in the castle, he must have had his father's approval (although perhaps his father died, but that would make him "King Charming", which sounds weird); and since Abigail made it into the real world as Catherine, she can't have died. So...how was the engagement broken? Someone pointed out online that in the Midas story, he turns his daughter to gold with his touch. So perhaps that's what happened - Abigail accidentally gets turned to gold so Prince James is free to seek another wife.
• I kind of object to the whole Midas story being brought into the series, though, since it's not a "fairy tale" per se. Does this mean we can also expect to see Medusa? Icarus? Hercules?
• Will Gepetto's parents ever get un-doll-ified?
• Why was Cinderella's skin so orange?
• It's been pointed out that Regina's last name, Mills, may be a hint that her origins in fairyland are that she is the miller's daughter from the Rumpelstiltskin tale. That is a theory that has all kinds of interesting possibilities.
• Now that time is running forward, will there be mayoral elections? If so, will Emma run against Regina, or will she persuade someone else to?

And that's all I can think of to blather on about for now. Looking forward to the next episode!