Once Upon a Time
The episode opens on a familiar scene: Regina in her carriage, riding toward Charming and Snow's castle as the Curse prepares to hit. She teleports out of it into the dungeon under the castle, where Rumpelstiltskin is locked up. Mostly to gloat.
He taunts her a bit about the fact that she ripped her own father's heart out in order to enact the Curse.
Rumpelstiltskin: Something's missing isn't it, dearie?
Regina: Not at all. I have everything I want. Nothing can stop me now.
Rumpelstiltskin: [laughs] Not quite.
Regina: What does that mean?
Rumpelstiltskin: The Savior. The child of Snow White and Prince Charming.
[Regina rolls her eyes.]
Rumpelstiltskin: She can stop you. She can break the Curse.
Regina: Well, it looks like getting rid of a baby just made my to-do list.
Rumpelstiltskin: Of course it did.
He tells her there's a hole in her heart, and she will come to him one day to fill it. Regina's more than a little skeptical, but he seems pretty convinced.
"But why would I desire [escaping the Curse], dearie? I'm exactly where I want to be."
... and wow, that's more than I expected him to have told Regina. She totally realizes in that instant that she's been played. You can see it on her face.
Back in Neverland, Henry's three parents are gathered around him. Pan taunts them a bit, telling them he didn't do anything since it was Henry's decision to give him his heart. He tells them that Rumpelstiltskin is inside Pandora's box.
Emma manages to slice him with her sword.
Emma: How did that feel?
Pan: Like a tickle.
Then Pan flies away.
"You're gonna be all right, Henry. We're going to get you home."
Cut to Storybrooke, eleven years ago. Regina is in her office, while Archie sits across from her looking extremely confused and uncomfortable about being there.
Archie: What are you feeling?
Regina: Nothing. I'm feeling... nothing.
Archie is the one who gave her the idea of adopting a child.
Cut to what appears to be several days later, with Regina storming into Mr. Gold's shop.
Regina: I need a child, Gold. And I need your help.
Gold: Well, I'm flattered but uninterested.
Regina: Not like that!
The wait lists for adoption is over two years long, and Regina isn't patient. She wants Gold to pull strings to make the process move faster.
"I'm sure you'll make a... well, a mother of some sort."
Gold: Ask yourself, is this something you're ready for?
Regina: It's something I need.
Gold: Well, that may not be the same thing. I'll get you a child, but whether or not that's helping you remains to be seen. When you become a parent, you must put your child first. No matter what.
Back in Neverland, Regina puts a preservation spell on Henry that will keep him alive for at least a little while.
Regina: My son is dying!
Emma: Our son. So, yes, I know how you feel.
Regina: You have no idea what I feel. You have your parents. You have this... [gestures at Neal] person. A pirate who pines for you. You have everything and yet you claim to know what I feel? All I have is Henry, and I'm not about to lose him because he's everything.
They're not certain if they can do anything to hurt Pan, even if they manage to find him. Then Regina notices that there's blood on Emma's sword from where she cut him.
"If he can bleed, we can hurt him. And if we can hurt him, then we can kill him."
They take Henry back to where the Lost Boys are and try to figure out their last steps.
Snow realizes that, if Gold is stuck in Pandora's box, there's no way for David to leave the island. David tells her it's not important. Saving Henry is.
The preservation spell will only last for an hour or so before it wears off.
Regina starts threatening the Lost Boys, trying to get them to tell her where Pan is. Then Emma breaks in and uses a different tactic.
Regina: What else do you have to offer?
Emma: What every kid wants. A mother.
Back in past Storybrooke, Gold tells Regina that his pulling strings has worked out in her favor. There's a baby that needs a home at an adoption agency in Boston.
... and a long-asked question has now been answered. Regina wasn't stuck in Storybrooke during the Curse. She could leave.
She actually does an impressive job of charming the man at the adoption agency.
"It's like a fairy tale."
He explains to Regina that it's a closed adoption, so she won't be able to get any information whatsoever about Henry's parents.
Regina: I'm concerned with my child's future, not his past.
Adoption Agent: Well then, congratulations. Are you ready to meet your son?
The man comments on the name Henry as being a bit old-fashioned. She tells him it was her father's name and mentions that he passed away some time ago. The man tells her that he hopes it was peaceful.
"Come on, Henry, let's go home."
Back in Neverland, Emma tells the Lost Boys that she was like them. A Lost Girl, an orphan. So she knows what it's like to not to have anyone. She offers them a home in Storybrooke, if they'll help them find Pan.
Felix is insistent that nobody will betray Pan. He's the only one. The others tell them that Pan is probably at his thinking tree.
"It's where he goes when he wants to be alone."
Emma promises them that they'll all be going home, just as soon as they stop Pan.
In Storybrooke, Granny is instantly smitten by baby!Henry. She tries to give Regina some advice about quieting him, since he keeps crying, but Regina... well, isn't that responsive to it.
"It worked with Ruby. Her issues started later."
Regina can't get Henry to stop crying, no matter what she tries, so she ends up taking him to the hospital.
Dr. Whale doesn't think there's anything wrong, but he tells her -- if there is something that he's missed -- it's probably something genetic. But unless they have information about Henry's birth parents, they have no idea what's in his background.
Regina immediately calls Sidney and hands Henry over to Mary Margaret while she makes the call.
Regina: I need the name of Henry's biological mother.
Sidney: Isn't that against the law?
Regina: Well, that's why I called you, Sidney.
She hangs up when she realizes that Henry has stopped crying. As soon as she takes him back from Mary Margaret, though, he starts sobbing.
"It's me."
Back in Neverland, they decide to split up. Emma, Regina, and Snow will head after Pan. Everyone else will get on board the Jolly Roger and prepare to leave just as soon as they get Henry's heart back.
It's... kind of adorable, seeing Regina with baby!Henry. She's trying so hard to be his mother, yet she just keeps failing no matter how hard she tries, until he finally stops crying and lets her hold him.
And then Sidney faxes over the information he found out about Henry's birth mother.
Regina storms into Gold's shop again and starts ranting at him. She realizes exactly who his mother is, because she was found in the woods outside Storybrooke eighteen years earlier.
Gold, still being under the Curse, doesn't have a clue what the hell she's talking about.
She decides to take Henry back to Boston, to give him back to the adoption agency. She doesn't want to risk losing her revenge, no matter what.
In Neverland, the women come across Pandora's box. And then vines appear out of nowhere and tie them to a familiar-looking tree.
"Don't you know? Peter Pan never fails."
At the adoption agency, the man we saw earlier tells Regina that another couple has already stepped in to adopt Henry.
"Sometimes putting the child first can mean having the strength to give him up."
He leaves her alone with him to save "goodbye." Except she can't do it.
The man goes out to tell the couple that was going to adopt Henry that, unfortunately, the situation has changed. And then the camera pans away to reveal that it was John and Michael, presumably pretending to be partners rather than brothers.
Back in Neverland, Pan confirms that the tree that's currently holding them is the same one where he gave up his son all those years ago.
Pan tells them that he's Rumpelstiltskin's father. They're skeptical at first, then their faces start looking more horrified than anything (probably because they're trying to figure out just how messed up and tangled the family tree is now).
The tree attacks the regret inside of people.
"I did cast a Curse that devastated an entire population. I have tortured and murdered. I've done some terrible things. I should be overflowing with regret, but I'm not. Because it got me my son."
... and then, after showing that Regina's redemption arc still has quite some way to go, she rips Henry's heart out of Pan's chest and picks up Pandora's box.
On the ship, they put Henry's heart back into his chest. Nothing seems to happen for a moment, and then he sits up with a gasp and immediately hugs his moms.
In the past, Regina tells Archie that she's worried Henry's birth mother will regret giving him up someday in the future and come to Storybrooke looking for him.
So she takes Henry to the mausoleum and does a spell to make herself forget what she learned. To make it so she doesn't remember that Henry's mother is, most likely, the Savior.
"The queen was worried for her prince's safety. While she knew she could vanquish any threat to the boy, she also knew she couldn't raise him worrying. No. She needed to put her own troubles aside and put her child first. And so the queen procured an ancient potion of forgetting."
Back on the ship, Regina does a spell so that nobody can ever again remove Henry's heart. She leaves him so that he can rest.
As soon as she's gone, Pan appears beside his bed and draws his blade.
Up on deck, Neal opens Pandora's box and lets Rumpelstiltskin out. The two of them immediately hug, before Gold pulls away and asks about Henry.
Neal: Why didn't you tell me that Pan was your father?
Gold: Because I didn't want you to know that I was as bad a father as he was. Because we're both the same, me and him. Because we both abandoned our sons.
Neal: No. You're not the same. You came back for me, Papa.
David, Snow, and Emma hug as they realize that, with Gold back, they can all go back to Storybrooke.
Then Gold pulls away, obviously realizing that something's going on elsewhere on the ship.
Back in the captain's quarters, Pan tries to steal Henry's heart. When Regina's spell won't let him do it, he tries to rip Henry's shadow away instead.
Gold storms in and opens Pandora's box.
"Blood magic works both ways."
As Pan is being sucked into the box, his eyes glow gold for a second as do Henry's. (And it's pretty obvious that there's a body swap going on.)
Everyone rushes in to check on Panry, who tells them he's fine.
They let Pan's shadow out of the coconut, and Regina uses her magic to catch it and force it to help them fly.
Elsewhere, Wendy gives Tink the last bit of pixie dust from Neverland. Then Tink goes to talk to Regina, and the two of them are actually semi-cordial all things considering.
Tink: I knew you still had some good in you.
Regina: And apparently you still have some magic in you.
For just a second, the pixie dust glows.
"For a moment there, you believed."
He ends up coming up on deck and casually telling Felix that, yes, it definitely is Pan inside of Henry's body. Everyone is completely shocked by that twist. Shocked, I tell you. Nobody could have possibly seen it coming.
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