S01E11 - Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

As this episode opens, Henry meets Emma at "the castle" which has been seriously damaged by the storm. Henry is distraught because he had buried his book underneath. He just finishes uncovering the box, making sure the book is still there, and partially covering it back up when Regina arrives. She doesn't seem to notice the book, but she gives Emma a good tongue lashing for letting Henry play on a now dangerous play structure.

Later, Emma is venting to Mary Margaret at Granny's (the town's diner,bed and breakfast, and bar) when Mary gets a text from David to meet her at "their spot". She makes a quick exit and Sidney Glass sits down, clearly drunk, claiming to be able to"grant her wish". He wants Emma to help him expose the mayor for who she really is. Supposedly, he and the mayor have had a falling out.

As we transition to fairy tale land, Sidney is actually a genie. He's sitting in his lamp when it's picked up by a king (what is that, like four different kings we've met now?). The king rubs the lamp and out pops the genie (in a cloud of black smoke no less). He gives the typical speech about the 3 wishes, but the king does something unexpected: he claims that he has everything he wants and so with the first wish, he wishes the genie to be free. This is reminding me a lot of the Disney movie Aladdin right now with the shackles falling off the genie's wrists. With his second wish the king wishes for his third wish to transfer to the genie. The king asks the genie what he will do with his new freedom and the genie tells him that he wishes to find true love. The king invites him to come to his palace to find it. When we arrive at the palace, we discover that this particular king is actually Snow White's father and the evil queen's husband. This seems to be the furthest back in the timeline we've seen thus far. When the genie sees the queen, he seems dazed - apparently smitten.

Back at Henry's castle, the remnants of the structure are being demolished while Henry watches. He's upset not only because of the destruction of the castle, but also because the book seems to be gone. Emma confronts Regina about tearing down the thing Henry loves and receives more verbal abuse for it. Finally fed up, Emma calls Sidney and tells him that she's in for his plan to publicly discredit Regina.

Over at the T(r)oll Bridge, David is waiting when Mary Margaret shows up. He leads her to a picnic he has setup down the river. They kiss and Mary asks him what they're really doing. He says that they need to figure it out, but now is not the time. Nice line.

Emma meets up with Sidney in some sort of shady storm drain. He reveals that $50,000 is missing from the city budget. Emma doesn't think this is much to go on, but Sidney is convinced that this is just the tip of the iceberg. He thinks that if they can track down what Regina did with the money, her whole facade will start to crumble. He seems to have a personal vendetta against the mayor.

In the king's palace, a celebration is underway and during a speech, he tells everyone how much he loves his daughter (Snow) and how much she reminds him of his first wife who, according to him, was the fairest in the land. His current wife, the evil queen, seems quite sad about this and leaves for the courtyard where her infamous apple tree is growing. The genie follows her out and gives her a gift of a golden mirror. He confesses his feelings for her and she seems interested in him as well.

Emma and Sidney are searching through piles of public documents trying to figure out where the missing money went. Sidney is trying to convince Emma to play dirty and do some illegal sniffing around (wire taps, etc). She wants to play things by the book, but is hesitant to get a warrant since she thinks Regina likely owns every judge around. Eventually, she seems to get an idea and the two head off to Regina's office. She asks Regina point blank what happened to the money but gets no clear answer. As they leave, Emma tells Sidney that she planted a bug while questioning Regina. I'm guessing she used her super power to determine that Regina was lying about something and that convinced her to plant the bug.

The king summons the genie to his chambers and tells him that he believes that the queen's heart belongs to another man. He has the queen's diary which does seem to indicate that she is falling in love with someone, but does not name who. The king asks the genie to investigate and find out who this person is.

Sidney and Emma are listening in on the conversations that are taking place in the mayor's office. They stumble across a phone conversation where Regina agrees to meet someone in the forest to complete the transaction. They head to the place mentioned to intercept Regina, but the brakes on the squad car have been cut and they crash into a tree. They believe that Regina found out about the bug and tampered with the car. As they head off to find Regina they run into Mr. Gold. He tells them that they already completed their transaction and that Regina purchased the particular piece of property that they're standing on. Mr. Gold offers a warning of caution to the two of them - this seems wise advice to me.

The genie is waiting in the queen's courtyard and picks an apple from the tree. He's about to take a bite when the queen's servant/father (who later sacrifices his heart to jump start the curse) arrives. He tells the genie that the queen is being held captive in her chambers and that he cannot reach her. He asks the genie to take a locked box to the queen and that it contains something that may help her escape. The idea of being held captive seems to resonate with the genie and he agrees to deliver the box.

Emma and Sidney head to town hall and break in. The alarm goes off but Emma figures they have a few minutes before anyone catches them. They make a copy of all of Regina's files related to the real estate transaction and then while searching around, stumble across an interesting key ring. I wonder what those go to? They seem to look just like the key that accompanies the box the genie should be delivering to the queen. How many of these boxes does she have?

Emma continues searching the office, looking for Henry's book. Regina shows up and Emma acts innocent by claiming that she heard the alarm and was investigating. Regina doesn't want them finding anything else, so she sends them packing.


In the queen's chambers, the genie shows up with the box. It turns out to contain a pair of poisonous snakes which happen to be from the genie's homeland. She is preparing to "escape" by putting her hand in the box and committing suicide, but the genie stops her and says that he will find a way to free her.


Over at Granny's, Henry is busy trying to write down what he remembers of the book before he forgets what was in it. The stranger shows up and seems pretty interested in what Henry's doing. I noticed that he's wearing a golden fang or something around his neck. I wonder if that will mean something down the road - only calling it out here so I can gloat later if it ends up being important. Henry and the stranger trade jabs at each other while not actually saying anything. Henry won't say much about his book and the stranger won't say much about what he's doing in Storybrooke. The pair are pretty funny actually.

Emma and Sidney are going over the documents they got from her office. It appears that she is building something out in the forest that they believe to be for personal use. It seems that they may finally have something solid on her after all, but Emma isn't happy about it because of the means they had to use to get it. She doesn't like stooping to Regina's level. Sidney is still obsessed with people finding out who Regina really is (well, not like "evil queen" really is, just that she's super mean). He shows Emma some pictures that he's taken of her and Henry at the castle, and lots of other places. He says that Regina made him follow them everywhere and that she knows everything they've been doing. Regina was just waiting until the perfect opportunity came along to destroy what made them happy (the castle - their special place).

I guess that settled it for Emma because the next thing we see is Sidney and her interrupt a city council meeting to try and finally out Regina publicly along with her plans for the personal development of the real estate. They claim that she is planning to build a second home for herself, and in the process they really try to expose her as cruel and manipulative. Not shockingly, Regina has the last laugh here - the plan for the property isn't to build a house, but a playground to replace the unsafe one that she recently had torn down. The design is a copy of her palace in fairy tale land too. Emma and Sidney now look pretty mean and vindictive in the public eye and Regina comes out smelling like roses.

Back at the palace, the genie sneaks into the king's bedroom and releases the two snakes into his bed while he's sleeping. The snakes bite him on the neck and just before the king dies, the genie tells him that he was the man the king was looking for.

As Emma and Sidney exit town hall, Mr. Gold approaches them. He tells them that their efforts were commendable, but that they'll need a strong ally (such as himself) to defeat Regina. Emma still isn't interested in his help. Next Regina herself approaches and asks for a word with Emma alone. She now seems to have the upper hand in their struggle and tells Emma than unless she wants a restraining order filed against her, she's no longer allowed to see Henry. There doesn't seem to be much that Emma can do about it. This plan seems to have seriously backfired.


Over at the new playground Emma is waiting in her car while Henry is playing. She talks with him via the walkie-talkies and tells him that she can't see him for a while. They're going to try and play by the rules for a while and see if things blow over. Emma commits to trying to find Henry's book as well.

In the next scene, we see that it's the stranger who has recovered Henry's book. We don't get much from this brief scene,but I suspect this is highly significant.


Emma and Sidney are drowning their sorrows at Granny's. They aren't giving up on finding dirt on Regina, but they're going to need to be more careful in the future. For his part, Sidney tells Emma that at the least, she now has him for an ally.


In the palace, the genie comes to the queen and tells her that the king is dead. She tells him that the guards found the snakes and know that they are from his home country. He will be blamed for the death of the king (which is correct, actually) and that the guards will be there to collect him soon. She tries to get him to leave the kingdom and says that they can never be together. The genie now finally see's what was happening - the queen set him up from the beginning. Even after this, and with the queen telling him point blank that she wishes him gone, he still says that he can't live without her. Using his one wish, he wishes to be with the queen forever and is transformed into the magic mirror.


Back in Regina's office, Sidney is there alone and we finally see what I was suspecting would happen - the entire thing has been a setup. Sidney is still taking orders from Regina and they plotted to plant Sidney as Emma's ally and confidant. The only interesting this is the look in Sidney's eyes during the final shot. He almost looks like he might not really be in her pocket after all - could this be a double cross?


My Questions:

• What's Sidney's end game? Is he still the queen's creature or has he finally had it and is planning a double cross? Also, he was trapped in a mirror before, but now he's flesh and blood again. How is he dealing with that and still not having the queen's love?
• I still want to know what's up with the stranger. Why is he so into the book? How did he get it or know where to look for it?

New Theories:

• I've been pretty certain for a while now that Sidney is well aware of the curse, they're previous lives and everything. This seems more or less certain at this point.
• The stranger is the key to something big - this is kind of obvious. I'm still feeling some possible link where as a writer he can steal stories from the book or straight from the characters in town maybe?

Other Thoughts:

• Other than the plot advancement with the stranger, I thought this episode wasn't as good as some of the others. Nothing too big happened, the story felt a little weak and rushed at times. Hoping for better from next week.