S01E03 - Snow Falls

This episode open with Prince Charming riding through the enchanted forest in a carriage with a rather unpleasant woman. When the carriage stops for a fallen tree in the path, they get robbed by a mysterious hooded thief. Ever the hero, Prince Charming gives chase on horseback and when he overtakes the thief, we find that it's none other than Snow White. She's no slouch however, and proceeds to pick up a rock and give the prince a nice left hook with it, then gets away.

In Storybrooke, Mary Margaret is on a date with Dr. Whale from the hospital. She catches him checking out Ruby across the restaurant and quickly exits, seeming more resigned to disappointment than offended. This is the kind of feeling that I'm guessing the queen is going for with her curse. It seems to be working in this case at least. On the way home, Mary Margaret finds Emma more or less living out of her car. She offers to have Emma stay with her, but she doesn't take her up on it.

Later, Mary is volunteering at the hospital and sees Henry visiting with "John Doe" who is actually Prince Charming and is in a coma. Henry recognizes the prince for who he is and later tells Emma about it. He wants to tell Mary, but Emma is skeptical as always. Eventually she gives in although she wants to do things her way. She tells Mary who Henry thinks John Doe really is and that he wants her to read the story book to him to help him remember. She agrees in an effort to show Henry that the curse and all the fairy tail business isn't real.

Lo and behold while reading to John Doe, he reaches up and grabs Mary's hand, although he doesn't actually wake up. She fetches Dr. Whale who oddly claims that nothing happened according to the monitors. and that Mary must have imagined the whole thing. As soon as she leaves, Dr. Whale calls Regina and fills her in. The mayor does not seems pleased by this news.

Back in the enchanted forest, Snow White is stashing the loot from her latest robbery when she falls for the oldest trick in the book - the giant net hanging in a tree trap.

Prince Charming appears as the trap setter and demands his things back. All he really cares about is a certain ring that belonged to his mother. He was going to give it to the unpleasant woman from the carriage who is actually his fiance. Snow seems pretty down on the marriage and in fact has a very jaded opinion of love entirely. She already sold his ring so he demands that she take him to the person she sold it to. He pulls out a wanted poster of Snow White from the evil queen and threatens to turn her in if she doesn't cooperate.

The next day in Storybrooke, Emma, Henry, and Mary meet to discuss what happened when she read the book to John Doe. She tells them that he woke up enough to grab her hand and that Dr. Whale thinks she imagined it. Henry takes this as a sure sign that John Doe is remembering his former fairy tale life. They head back to the hospital to try reading to him again only to find out that he's missing from the hospital. Of course Regina and the Sheriff are there already to investigate the scene. Apparently, Regina is the one who found John Doe by the side of the road years ago and is listed as his emergency contact. Likely story...

The search for John Doe is on, and they start with the security footage from the hospital. The night staff turn out to be none other than the dwarfs Sleepy and Grumpy. Naturally, Sleepy fell asleep on the job when John Doe disappeared. The tape shows John leaving the hospital by himself and heading out the door into the woods.

Back in the enchanted forest, Snow and Prince Charming are bickering (flirting) their way through the forest. She tells us that the queen sent someone after her before, but when he caught her, he let her go. She's been hiding in the forest ever since trying to scrape up enough to move somewhere far away. Prince Charming asks why the queen wants Snow so badly and she answers, "She blames me for ruining her life." The prince asks, "Did you?" Snow answers, "Yes." I'm really starting to wonder what happened in that bit of back story. I have no doubt we won't get any answers on that until much later in the season, maybe the finale. While taking a water break by a river, Snow kicks Prince Charming into the water and makes another escape. This time, when she finds the road, she runs into the queens soldiers.

In the forest outside Storybrooke, the Sheriff is tracking John Doe with Mary and Emma in tow. The sheriff seems to have some serious tracking skills and even calls it "my world". I wonder who his fairy tale character will end up being? Emma is pretty good at finding people too, although normally not in the woods ("More like Vegas", she says). "Looking for people is just what I've done for as long as I can remember." I'm sure there's more to this as well. Henry turns up to help look for John and claims to know where he's going.

In the enchanted forest, as Snow is about to get her heart cut out for the queen, Prince Charming shows up to save the day. A nice bit of sword work and a sweet arrow shot and he knocks off all the queens soldiers. Snow is truly smitten now.

We arrive at the "Troll Bridge" where, no kidding, the trolls live. This is who she sold the ring to and they're a pretty nasty bunch. They try to make a deal to get the ring back, but the trolls are too suspicious and things get ugly. Snow White gets away, but the prince is caught. Of course, Snow goes back for the rescue and using up some magic fairy dust she has, she turns all the trolls into bugs (easily squished). After the fight, we find out that Prince Charming's real name is James. Finally... I was getting tired of typing "Prince Charming" all the time.

In the parallel story in Storybrooke, the party arrives at the Toll Bridge. Someone has vandalized the sign to read "Troll Bridge". They find John Doe passed out down by the river and pull him out. Mary gives him mouth to mouth which much like a magic kiss, brings him around. The only problem is that John Doe has no idea who he is - serious amnesia. They get him back to the hospital and a strange woman shows up (same person as the unpleasant finance from the enchanted forest) who claims to be his wife. Regina is right behind her and says that John Doe's name is David Nolan and that the woman, Katheryn, is in fact his wife.

Katheryn tells us that a few years ago, David and her weren't getting along and he had moved out. She had assumed that he left town, but in fact he had fallen into a coma and she never knew it. Henry isn't buying this story and neither is Emma. Regina has an explanation for how she seemed to magically find his wife just when he woke up, but it still seems weak.

We later see Mary who is wearing the same ring that Snow and James were tracking down the enchanted forest (interesting). Finally, Emma comes by and takes Mary up on her offer to move in.

My Questions:

• I really need to know what exactly happened between the queen and Snow White. This is looking more and more like the central mystery for the season.

New Theories:

• It seems that Regina is still trying to fill the void left by her lost love. I think she's using Henry for this purpose. Is this why she adopted him in the first place?

Other Thoughts:

• No Lost references again! This isn't going to be much of a "Lost" in "Once Upon a Time" blog if they don't give me more to work with. I happen to know that there are some more in upcoming episodes, but still...