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Tonight it's Jiminy Cricket's turn for a back story. He starts off as a human kid who travels around in the fairytale world with his grifter parents. While they put on a puppet show, little Jiminy goes around picking the pockets of the blissfully unaware audience. One of the things he steals is a cricket in a box, and he's all, "Ooh, crickets are great! They're so free!" Yeah, except the ones in boxes, kid. Jiminy, being the naturally good sort that he is, wants his parents to stop their scheming ways, and whines at them for about thirty years to no effect.
Meanwhile, his counterpart in Storybrooke, Dr. Archie Hopper, is threatened by Regina when he continues to encourage Henry's imagination. Against his better instincts, Archie bows to Regina's will, tells Henry he's delusional and just about breaks the kid's heart. But Henry is not deterred for long. When Sheriff Graham makes Emma a deputy, the curse is weakened enough to open a sinkhole on the edge of town. Mayor Regina blames it on old tunnels in the area and wants to pave it all over, but Henry links it to Emma and decides to go down and prove it himself. Archie and Emma go into the tunnels to rescue him, but Archie ends up trapped with Henry after a cave-in.
As the flashbacks continue, we see a middle-aged Jiminy still doing his parents' bidding. Instead of just, say, ditching them or standing up to them, he goes to Rumpelstiltskin for a magic potion that will take care of his parental problem in some mysterious and unmentioned way. His sneaky dad switches the potion out for a placebo and a young couple end up taking Rumpy's potion instead. They are turned into seriously hideous little puppets and Jiminy is absolutely devastated. Lucky for him, the Blue Fairy is listening when he wishes upon a star and she makes him into the dapper cricket of his dreams. In his new arthropod form, he will watch over the puppet couple's young son, who turns out to be—you guessed it — Gepetto.
In Storybrooke, Archie and Henry are eventually rescued, but not before Archie finds his conscience once more and decides to stand up to Regina. He does it in kind of a questionable way, but maybe it'll seem better on rewatch. At the end, we see why Regina was so eager to pave the area over. It is a gateway to the fairytale realm, and inside is what looks like pieces of Snow White's glass coffin. Stay tuned for the full recap!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!In the land of fairy tales, a rapt gathering of children and grownups watch a puppet show. Personally, I think any puppet that isn't a Muppet is kind of creepy, but everyone in the audience seems pretty happy. A little wooden princess dances out onto the tiny stage. "I wish, I wish, but nothing changes," she says in a warbling falsetto. Not coincidentally, but that could totally be Storybrooke's town motto. "I wish I was better at wishing!" The audience laughs. Their little town looks like the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, but without a gigantic Mr. Rogers towering over the buildings. While everyone's busy paying attention to the stage, a red-haired little boy makes his way through the crowd, dipping into every pocket and purse he can find. A little wooden knight and dragon take the stage as the boy slips away from the crowd and into a covered wagon.
Later, when they're safely far away from town, the boy turns his ill-gotten goods over to his parents. Dad looks like a scruffy Willy Wonka and is played by Harry Groener. You might remember him as the evil Mayor Wilkins of Buffy fame. Mom looks like a redheaded Helena Bonham Carter, which is to say she has awesomely crazy hair and looks kind of like she got her clothes from a secondhand Gypsy shop. One of the things the boy has stolen is a tiny cage with a cricket inside. "I love crickets!" he says. His mom looks disgusted. "Crickets are trouble. Noisy bugs." "But they get to do whatever they want," the boy says. "Hopping from place to place. They're free!" Right up until someone catches them and puts them in a tiny cage, right? Mom and Dad tell the boy that he's free - as long as he does what they want. The boy says he doesn't want to steal anymore. He wants to be good. Dad thinks goodness is weakness. "Let us do the thinking for you," Mom says. "That's what parents are for," agrees Dad. "You are who you are, and there's no changing it, Jiminy." Dad takes the cricket out of its cage and makes it vanish with a bit of prestidigitation. "Problem solved!" Jiminy doesn't look too sure about that.
In the real world, Dr. Archie Hopper and Henry are in the middle of a therapy session when Henry suddenly says, "You weren't always a cricket." Archie, who was in the middle of writing notes, is momentarily baffled before catching on. "Oh, right, because you think I'm Jiminy Cricket. Why do you think that, Henry?" Henry says, in the very matter-of-fact way that children do, that it's just who Archie is. "You're a conscience. You help people see right from wrong." Archie wonders if he thinks that all the crickets in Storybrooke used to be people, too, but Henry points out there aren't any crickets in Storybrooke. He goes over to the window to look out at the night sky. There have never been any crickets there, he says, but nobody's ever noticed. Or maybe they live to a big pesticide factory. "So you think that's proof that there's a curse," Archie says, without sounding like he's patronizing the boy. Henry knows it's not enough to go on, but he's going to keep looking. Archie asks him in a careful sort of way why he thinks it's important for the curse to be real. Henry's little face goes through a series of troubled expressions as he dogs deep to find a way that will communicate what he means. Finally: "It just is!" Archie lets it go at that, for now, but asks him to keep thinking about it. "I think there's something buried there," he says.
That provides us the segue we need to bounce over to the Sheriff's office. Sheriff Graham has just presented her with her new uniform, which she's not exactly thrilled with. She holds the khaki shirt and tie up to her chest and snarks, "You know you don't have to dress a woman as a man to give her authority." Yeah, but... you do kind of have to dress a citizen as a deputy to give her authority. Alas, Graham caves in to her sartorial demands. On one condition: "At least wear the badge." She makes a stinky face. "If you really want to be a part of this community, you have to make it official," he says. She's not happy, but she takes the star and clips it to her belt. The instant she does so, the building is jolted by a tremor. Stuff crashes to the floor. Car alarms go off in the distance. Phones start ringing all over the office. Emma touches her badge, as if instinctively making the connection.
On the edge of town, a giant crater has opened up near some old mines. A big yellow construction machine of some kind lies on its side like a child's discarded toy. Workers stand around, gaping at the destruction. For some reason, half the town is there. Marco explains to Ruby that something must have collapsed because of the old tunnels. I called it a sinkhole in the recaplet, and I think that's what episode descriptions said, but the way the earth is piled up around the edge of the hole makes it look like something exploded outward. Plus there was that big kaboom. Mayor Regina arrives on the scene at about the same time as Graham and Emma. She tries to guide everyone away from the hole, but people seem to be ignoring her. "Sheriff, set up a police perimeter," she tells Graham. She tells Marco to help with the fire department, then notices Emma standing there. "Miss Swan, this is now official town business. You're free to go." Emma tells her that she works for the town now and Regina immediately gives Graham an accusing look. "She's my new deputy," he explains. "It's in my budget." Regina looks like she could spit nails, but lets it go for the time being. She tells the new deputy to do some crowd control.
Regina does some damage control. She addresses the gawkers, tells them about the old mining tunnels and then announces her big plan to make the area safe and useful. "We will bulldoze it, collapse it, and pave it." For some reason, Archie has brought Henry to the site. You'd think he'd hear a big explosion and steer the kid away from it, but no! Henry hears his mother's plans and is none too pleased. "Pave it! What if there's something down there?" he asks. She makes him and everyone else back away and finally they listen to her. Something on the ground catches her eye and she picks it up. It's a piece of glass with a bit of smooth metal attached. She looks a bit shaky as she puts the thing into her coat pocket. Henry, seeing this, turns to Emma and whispers, "What's that?" Before Emma can say anything, Regina takes the boy by the hand and leads him a few steps away, tells him it's a safety issue and gives him a little nudge toward her car.
Henry stays in the car for about a second before he gets out and waves Archie and Emma over for a hush-hush confab. "This requires all of Operation Cobra - both of you." This is the first Archie has heard about being a part of Operation Cobra. Henry's like, duh, of course you're in it! "You know everything," he says. Except for whether or not he's in Operation Cobra, but whatever. He doesn't want his mother to pave over the area for fear that something is down there. Emma tries to convince him they're just old tunnels, but Henry's adamant. He thinks they collapsed because of her. "You're changing things - you're weakening the curse," he says. "Did you do something different today? Because something made this happen." Emma looks stunned as she reaches for her badge again. Regina comes along and tells Henry again to get to the car. She's pissed at Emma and snits at her to go do her job. Emma's still looking stunned as she sort of staggers away.
Archie tries to leave, too, but Regina calls him back. "We need a new treatment plan for my son," she says. "Everything I do, he thinks is part of some horrible plot!" Well, it kind of is. But Regina seems genuinely distraught and doesn't see how Henry could think so badly of her trying to pave over the mines. Archie tries to stammer out something about Henry's great imagination, but Regina just gets more upset. "You work for me," she reminds him. "You're an employee, and I can fire you." That doesn't sound too bad. Then she threatens him with total ruin. He'll lose his house, his office... "I will cut you down to size until you're a a tiny, shrunken little creature, and this - " Here, she grabs Archie's umbrella. " - will be the only roof over your head." Archie looks like he's going to cry. He doesn't say anything for a minute, giving one the hope that he might stand up for himself and Henry, but it's too early in the episode for that. In the end, he gives in and asks her what she wants him to do. Her treatment plan: "I want you to take that delusion out of my son's head and crush it." She shoves the umbrella at him and stomps off, leaving Archie looking more than a bit rattled.
In the fairy tale world, the traveling puppeteers have arrived at the latest stop on the tour. By now, Jiminy is the same age as his real-world self. His parents take a look around and figures it must have been good year, judging by how fat everyone is. "Maybe we can run the elf tonic scam," Mom says. Dad giggles with delight at the idea, but Jiminy wishes they would just put on the show without the stealing. Despite the fact that he's in his forties, his tone is that of a ten-year-old asking Mommy and Daddy for a favor. His wishes are on the right side of the moral line, but the whining kind of makes it hard to sympathize with him. His parents humorously explain the workings of the economy, which basically boils down to this: Everybody steals from somebody. Jiminy shuffles his feet and fidgets and whimpers, "I wanna quit!" His parents, who have heard him voice this request many times by now, guilt him into staying by reminding him that they're getting old. They run down a litany of their ailments, which include things like achy hips and his mother's mysterious "burning sensations." Perhaps Rumpelstiltskin could whip up a batch of magical Vagisil. "You'd better stay with us - just until we die," they tell him. Jiminy pouts and tugs at his vest in frustration, but does as he's told when his parents tell him to get things set up.
Later, as he's putting up the puppet theater, a hard rain begins to fall. A little boy walks up to him and he looks so much like Henry that it can't have been a casting coincidence. "Wow, puppets!" the boy exclaims. "What a great job you have!" Jiminy just sulks in silence and continues about his work. "You don't like it?" the boy asks. "No, no, I don't," says Jiminy. "Same shows, same fairs every year." The boy asks, quite logically, why he doesn't do something else, then. Jiminy sighs and tells him, "This is just who I am." Before he can depress the child too much, Jiminy changes the subject and the two of them talk about the crickets they hear chirping in the background. Jiminy gets all wistful. The boy sweetly gives Jiminy his umbrella before running home. People keep giving him umbrellas. It's almost as if they'd read ahead in the script. Jiminy stands there for a while in the rain, listening to the chirping and looking sad.
In the real world, Archie is deep in the middle of some scowling in his office when Marco pops in for a visit. Archie's surprised to see him, having forgotten about their lunch date. Archie makes his apologies, but he has another patient coming. And there he is now! Moppet-about-town Henry comes in. After Marco leaves, Henry asks, "Are you recruiting Geppetto for Operation Cobra?" This is the first Archie's heard of Marco being Geppetto, so Henry explains that Jiminy and Geppetto are best friends, the same as Archie and Marco. Archie looks irritated and paces the office a bit. He's just about to broach the subject of Henry's new "treatment plan" when Henry starts showing him all the stuff in his backpack. He's going to find proof and to help him he's packed flashlights and candy bars. Archie gets a little panicky. "Henry, you do not want to go down there." Sure, he does! Kids love doing stupid, dangerous things. "Emma's here and stuff's happening," Henry says, all bright eyes and ruddy little cheeks of happiness. Archie takes him by the shoulders and has him sit down on the couch. "All of this is a delusion," he says. "It's something that's not real, and not healthy [...] and now it's turned into a psychosis." The whole time Archie's talking, Henry's face goes from curious to stony to furious. Archie desperately tells Henry he needs to stop before he gets himself locked away. For a few seconds, Henry gets this intense look like he's going to go firestarter on Archie, but he just storms out of the office. Archie watches him go, then breaks down crying. Destroying a child's dreams isn't all fun and games.
Let's check in on Mary Margaret, shall we? She's playing hangman at the hospital with her favorite amnesiac. It's her turn and she's not doing well. It's only when she guesses "m" that what she's been stumped on finally becomes clear. She laughs and hides her face in her hands. "I almost hanged on my own name!" Except it's not her name, really. If the puzzle had been "Snow White," she might have recognized it more quickly. David, being the charming sort that he is, tells her, "Don't worry, I would never have let you hang. I would have added toes... a hat... maybe a horse." He doodles on the page, but we don't get to see it. Aw. "Is this a game you played a lot? Before?" she asks him. He doesn't remember. He gets frowny for a second, so she encouragingly tells him the doctors must think he's making progress if they're sending him home in a week. He doesn't seem convinced. "You're making new memories just fine," she says. "Maybe I'll like these better," he tells her. They give each other dewy-eyed smiles until Mary Margaret drops her lashes to break the stare. Just when she suggests another game, Kathryn walks into the room. "Can I guess, too?" she asks. Lady, if you haven't already seen what's going on right in front of you, then you're probably not very good at filling in the blanks. Mary Margaret can't get out of there fast enough, all, "Oops, totally didn't notice the time! Or how cute your husband is!" She lingers at the door for a bit, watching as Kathryn presents David with a box of photos. She shows him a picture of a yellow lab. "It's our old dog Ajax, remember?" He makes like he remembers, but he's obviously faking. Well, it's not obvious to Mary Margaret, who looks pretty sad.
She goes home to make s'mores. They're like a little campfire in your tummy, without the third-degree burns. "I'm the worst person in the world," she tells her new roomie. "If Kathryn was horrible, it'd be easier, but she's so... nice." Emma gives her a little smirk and asks, "What, exactly, would be 'easier'?" Mary Margaret realizes she's just been talking about having the hots for a married man so she's like, "Nothing!" Emma tells her that's "nothing" is a good idea and she talks like knows from personal experience about getting involved with a married guy. This Lifetime moment is interrupted by a knock at the door; it's Henry and he's a snuffling ball of tears and snot. Emma is alarmed and immediately ushers him inside.
Meanwhile, Archie is drowning his sorrows in whiskey. His adorable dalmatian sits on the couch beside him, looking up at him with pleading eyes. Either he's begging his master to stop drinking or he's angling for a few laps of sweet, sweet booze. Emma pounds on his office door and calls his name. When he doesn't answer, she goes on and barges right in. She's got a big rage-on going. "What did you do? You told me not to take the fantasy away. You told me it would devastate him." Archie blah-blahs about changing therapy because it wasn't working, but Emma asks him if Regina made him do it. "What could be stronger than your own conscience?" she asks. Archie says he's not going to defend his professional decisions to her. Just then, Emma's cell phone rings. She answers: "Hello, Madam Mayor, nice work." Regina needs to reach right through the phone and smack that girl. She doesn't have time for that. But maybe someday soon. She asks, "Are you with him?" Emma mistakenly thinks that Regina is asking about Dr. Hopper, but she's asking about Henry, who's gone missing. Emma pales and says she dropped Henry off at Regina's office an hour ago. "I don't know where he is," she says. Archie sighs because he knows.
Henry is currently facing down the old mine entrance, screwing up his courage to go inside. Ominous music plays. Finally, Henry ignores the yellow tape and forges ahead into darkness.
In the fairytale world, Rumpelstiltskin is in a dank, dark room somewhere, spinning some wool into gold. (He must have been all out of straw.) The walls are all shelves, crammed floor to ceiling with books. Jiminy walks in and places a burlap bag of goodies on a small table. "And the names?" Rumpy asks. "To whom did these treasures belong?" He asks this with a hilarious little flourish. Jiminy takes out a sheet of paper and lays it on top of the bag. Rumpy pays Jiminy for his "thievery" with a length of gold thread. With that, Rumpy dismisses him. Jiminy takes a few steps, but dawdles a bit and Rumpy surmises he wants something magical. He coils more thread into a small dish and adds a few drops of liquid, causing it to flash and melt. "Every year stuck in that damn wagon," Jiminy says. "I wanna be free, I wanna be someone else, but something keeps holding me back." At Rumpy's urging, Jiminy admits it's his parents. Rumpy waves his hands over the dish of molten gold and produces a small vial. "Then I have exactly what you need!" Rumpy tells him it will set him free if he uses it on his parents. But how will Jiminy pay for this magic potion? Rumpy is ever so generous: "After the potion has 'done its work,' leave them where they are, and I'll come collect them." That's his payment. Jiminy asks what will happen to his parents, but Rumpy tells him not to worry, that his parents will be in safe hands and Jiminy will be free. Who wouldn't take a slithery little imp at his word? With a look of awe, Jiminy accepts the vial.
In the real world, Archie and Emma are at the mine, calling out for Henry. The Dalmatian has come along, too, and sniffs out something at the mine entrance. "What do you got there, Pongo?" Archie asks. He goes over to look and picks up one of Henry's candy bars. Pongo's like, "Finders keepers, fool! Give it back!"
In the mine, Henry follows the old tracks, aiming his flashlight at the walls. So far, everything looks like just a regular old mine, but he's undaunted. A little more wandering around and he finds a tunnel entrance shut of by rocks, either by design or by cave-in. In a crevice between two rocks, he finds a piece of glass and metal like Regina found earlier. As he studies it, the earth around him begins to rumble. Support beams shake and sway. Dirt starts raining down. Henry bolts.
Outside, the tremor is strong enough to knock Emma off her feet. She goes sliding down the side of the crater. Jiminy calls for Henry, then runs inside. Debris falls behind him, sealing off the entrance. Emma, outside, shouts for him and Henry. In the tunnel, Jiminy lights a match and is immediately engulfed by a fireball. Well, not really, but come on. I know it's a reference to Jiminy Cricket's matchbox, but this part's supposed to be in the real world. You don't go lighting matches in old mines, especially right after a bunch of heretofore pent-up gases may have been released. You could blow yourself up! On the other hand... Keep lighting those matches, Archie! He takes a few steps further into the tunnel with his deadly, deadly matchstick and calls for Henry. The boy comes bounding over, thrilled to see him. "You're here to help me!" Archie says they need to get out of there, but Henry is more determined than ever to prove his case and goes running deeper into the mine. Archie shouts after him to no avail and eventually follows him.
In the land of spells and fairies, the traveling puppeteers approach a cozy little cottage. Jiminy steps between his parents and the door. "Look, can't we skip this tonight?" His parents roll their eyes, fed up with his whining. It's only been twenty minutes and I'm fed up with it, and they've been listening to it for decades. Grifters or not, I kind of feel sorry for them. "We don't need the money," he goes on. His parents say it's not about the money. "It's about the principle - a commitment to excellence! Excellence at stealing money!" Heh. Dad whips out a little vial of "elf tonic" and gives it to Jiminy, who sighs wearily and knocks on the door. An attractive young couple answer and happily agree to give the three strangers a place to rest and food to eat. Jiminy looks like a kid who's been forced to go shopping for underpants with his parents.
At the dinner table, Mom stage-whispers to Dad about the horrible, horrible plague in the town over. Naturally, the young couple overhear the conversation and begin to worry their guests might be infected. "Oh, no, we're immune," Dad says. "We have elf tonic," Mom says. "Made by elves from elves!" Cannibalistic lot, those elves. The young couple have never heard of elf tonic. In the background, this is Jiminy's cue to say, "Oh, no, you're going to die, you need elf tonic." Thus begins the haggling over a price for the elf tonic while Jiminy sits there looking embarrassed. In the end, the puppeteers leave with a sack full of the couple's meager belongings and a few coins. Jiminy gives the vial to the cluelessly grateful couple.
Once outside, Jiminy chastises his parents, but they remain unmoved as ever by his whining. Jiminy takes out his Rumpy vial, casts a glance heavenward, then apologizes. "You've given me no other choice," he says. You know, it's funny. Both his parents look like human beings, and yet Jiminy was somehow born a spineless jellyfish. He splashes them with the contents of the vial. Nothing happens. His dad switched the two vials earlier, leaving Jiminy with the harmless "elf tonic," aka rainwater. Jiminy realizes what this means and runs back toward the cottage. Inside, the vial lies on the floor, a few drops of gold liquid puddling beneath it. The young couple have been transformed into two of the most hideously creepy puppets I've ever seen. Their glassy eyes stare in horror, their mouths hang open in a permanent scream. Jiminy falls into a chair, crying. His parents walk in, laughing. "Oh look! New puppets for the act!" A little boy runs into the cottage, calling out, "Mama, Papa!" It's the Henry doppelganger Jiminy met earlier. He looks at the puppets and somehow instantly knows they're his parents. He wheels around to face Jiminy. "What did you do to them? What did you do to them!" Jiminy stands there crying and shaking his head.
In the mine, Archie catches up to Henry. He's peering through a crack in the rocks where he found the glass. "There's something shiny down there," he says. Archie pleads with him, says he's afraid for him. "Because you think I'm crazy?" Henry snits. "No! Because we're in an abandoned mine... and there is no way out!" Henry has the sense to look a little bit scared.
Outside, Pongo barks and hangs out with Ruby. Construction workers try to clear some rocks away from the entrance. Another tremor shakes the earth. Regina yells, "Stop! Stop! You're making it worse!" Heh. I thought she was shouting at the ground at first, but she's shouting at Emma. They get into a pissing match about whose fault it is that Henry's down there. Regina, near tears, finally snaps, "Oh, please, lecture me until his oxygen runs out!" That gets Emma to focus and agree to stop arguing.
In the tunnel, Archie and Henry can hear Pongo barking outside. They move toward the sound and find an old elevator.
Outside, Regina and Emma begin hatching what may be the worst rescue plan ever. "We need to find some way to punch through the ground," Regina says, "we need something big." From nearby, Marco pipes up, "Explosives!" Instead of immediately and unequivocally rejecting this idea, Emma and Regina look thoughtful.
Archie and Henry are just starting to turn a crack to get the elevator moving when Regina gives the command to set off the explosives. Everyone has moved, like, a hundred yards away and have taken cover behind trucks, because they obviously realize how dangerous this is to them, and yet somehow don't realize how dangerous this is to Henry and Archie. What if they're right on the other side of the entrance? What if they get crushed by rocks? What if they get swallowed up by one of those fireballs I keep waiting for? I can accept tiny blue fairies and magic potions, but have a tiny bit of logic on the "real world" side, please. Anyway, the blast sends rocks and dust billowing out from the entrance and drops the elevator to the ground. Sheriff Graham stands around looking pretty. Emma runs through the smoke to the entrance and reports back that it didn't open. "Then what did it do?" asks Graham. The question is so profound that they have to take a commercial break to think about it.
Mary Margaret is back at the hospital, finishing up for the day. After a long preamble about needing physical therapy and the hospital being short-staffed, David asks her to go for a walk with him. She looks flattered, but also like she knows it's a bad idea. So, naturally, she accepts and they take a romantic stroll by the lake. David says he still doesn't remember the place. "It's like I just woke up in some strange land." He doesn't remember anything. "What about when you're with her? You remembered your dog," she says. He confesses he lied about that because he didn't want to disappoint Kathryn. As they walk, he tells her that nothing feels real to him, nothing makes sense. She says it sounds lonely. He stops walking. "Actually, one thing does feel real - you." She peers up at him, surprised. He tells her that she's the only thing in this place that feels right to him. She lights up. Tinkly fairytale romance music plays. They move close together. Before they can kiss, David sees Kathryn walking toward them. He and Mary Margaret part. Kathryn, sensing nothing amiss, offers him a basket of cranberry muffins. Mary Margaret heads away from them, but David practically chases her down. "See you tomorrow?" he asks. She just gives him a noncommittal smile.
Back at the mine, Regina's pissed because their brilliant plan didn't work. She rails at the workers. "You could have killed my son!" Emma calms her down. Marco comes over and says, "If we knew exactly where they were, we could drill down to them." Oh, so now you have a sensible plan. Emma realizes Pongo is barking up a storm and sets him loose. He immediately runs over to a patch of ground and starts snuffling in the leaves. They wipe off a very thin layer of debris and - lo and behold! - there's an air shaft. All that's standing between them and the would-be explorers is a metal grate.
In the elevator, Henry apologizes to Archie. "I just wanted to find proof," he says. "I'm sorry, too," Archie says. He confesses that he doesn't think Henry is crazy. "I just think you have a very strong mother who has a very clear idea of the path that she wants you to be on." Archie says Henry's mom gets scared when he steps off that path. Maybe she's afraid he'll end up living in a house with a bunch of strange little men like her last kid. When Henry asks him why he said all those things earlier, Archie says, "I guess I'm not a very good person. I'm not the man I want to be." A jolt shakes the elevator. I thought on first viewing that something going wonky because Archie's becoming self-aware, but it turns out the rescue party is just hoisting the grate off the air shaft above them.
Regina peers down into the air shaft. "What's ?" Graham stands to her, looking pretty and confused.
In the elevator, Henry tells Archie he thinks Archie can be a good person. After all, he's Jiminy Cricket. Archie points out that Jiminy Cricket was, you know, a cricket. Also, he was a conscience. "I hardly think that's me," he says. Henry: "But before that, he was just a guy who took a long time to figure out what to do." Archie thinks about that for a while and admits that does sound like him. Henry says it's harder for Archie because of the curse. It was harder for him to "hear the voice" inside of him and realized who he wanted to be. The elevator shaft jolts again. Archie gets a determined look.
Up above, Marco is rigging up a winch to lower someone down into the mine. But who's going down? "I've got a harness," Graham says. I'll just bet you do. Ahem. Regina volunteers, but Emma nixes that idea. "He's my son," Regina says. "He's my son, too," Emma says. "You've been sitting behind a desk for ten years; I can do this." Regina doesn't look offended or angry, but scared. She looks like she's going to cry and her eyes are all shiny. She takes a step closer to Emma. "Just bring him to me."
In the elevator, Archie asks again why it's so important to Henry that the fairy tales be real. Henry doesn't have an answer at first, then thinks a bit and says, "Because this can't be all there is." Archie understands. Henry sadly admits he didn't find anything, but Archie disagrees. "I was lost and you found me, right?" They share a candy bar. Henry's all excited because he thinks Archie remembers being Jiminy, but Archie means that he remembers the kind of person he wants to be. Bits of rock fall through the shaft into the elevator. They look up to see Emma descending toward them. Archie lifts Henry up into her arms. The elevator begins to shake. It plummets hundreds of feet to the ground below, but Archie's still there, because by some chance he's managed to use his umbrella handle to latch onto a carabiner hooked to Emma's harness. Everyone smiles and laughs.
As they're raised up to the surface, the rescue party and assorted onlookers break into applause. Regina beams and gathers Henry up for a hug. Marco hugs Archie. Emma rushes over to check on Henry, but Regina waves her off. "Deputy, you can clear the crowd away." Their momentary truce is over. Emma looks devastated.
Regina leaves Henry long enough to go thank Archie, but he cuts her off. "I'm gonna continue to treat Henry, and I'm gonna do it my own way." Regina reminds him of her earlier threat, but he's got one of his own. If she doesn't leave him alone to do his work, he'll testify against her in any future custody battle over Henry. Even if his intentions are good, it feels icky and hypocritical for "good" guys to use the same methods as the "bad" guys. Besides which, on this side of the fantasy barrier, Regina hasn't done anything to warrant losing her child. With a creepy smile, he says, "So I suggest you leave me alone, and allow me to do my work, and let me do it the way my conscience tells me to." Can I testify against you, Archie? Because you're kind of an ass. I mean, Regina's not an angel or anything, but she's supposed to be bad. You're supposed to be Jiminy Freakin' Cricket! Regina looks pissed, but says nothing as Archie walks away.
His fairytale counterpart has his freedom, along with a side order of guilt. Jiminy looks up at the night sky and fixes his sights on a bright blue star. "I wish..." He squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again, the Blue Fairy flits down beside him. "Hear your wish; you don't need to wish it so loudly," she says. Jiminy looks happy, but then she tells him it's not possible for her to bring back the boy's parents. Jim is distraught. "I have to make it right. I would trade my life to make it happen." It comes across like he's not upset that he's responsible for those people's deaths, but that he's responsible for the wrong people's deaths. (I'm counting them as deaths, whether they've technically ceased to live or they've just become trapped in those horrific puppet bodies.) Blue can't grant Jiminy that wish, but she can grant him another. The little boy will face many challenges, she says, and Jiminy can help him. "I can't get away from these people," Jiminy says, casting a glance back at his parents' wagon. "They're my parents... they're who I am." Blue asks, "But if you didn't want to be them, what would you like to be?" He listens to all the crickets chirping and smiles. Blue hears his silent wish. Wish a wave of her wand, she transforms him into the best-dressed cricket you'll ever see. "How do you feel?" she asks. In chirpy cricket language, he answers, "Free." Then a crow swoops down and devours him! But no, because, as Blue says, he'll live as many years as it takes to help the boy. "How will I? I don't even know his name," he chirps. "His name is Geppetto," she says. Jiminy's first task will be to help to boy acquire an Italian accent like Marco.
For some reason, everyone's still hanging around the old mine. Henry and Emma sit at the edge of the sinkhole, watching Marco and Archie chat in the distance. "Is that Archie's father?" she asks. "No, they're just old friends," Henry says. Emma takes his hand and tells him he scared her. Henry's sorry. As Emma gets up to bring him back to Regina, Henry stops and says, "Hey, listen!" Everyone kind of looks around, not quite sure of what they should be hearing. Then, after a few moments, Archie smiles. "Crickets!" The little leg-rubbers are back. "This are changing," Henry says to Emma. She looks like she's starting to believe it.
To wrap the episode up, we get a peek inside Mr. Gold's pawnshop, where the two hideous puppets sit on a glass counter. Mary Margaret returns to the hospital for the third time that day, this time to place her letter of resignation in the administrator's mailbox. At the mine, everyone's hanging out and having drinks and generally having a good time. Everyone except Regina, that is. She walks over to the grate and, after looking around to make sure no one sees her, she takes out that piece of metal and glass and gives it a long, considering look. Then she drops it down the air shaft. It tumbles down and down through long stretches of rock before landing atop other shards just like it. Is it Snow's coffin? The Queen's mirror? More importantly, can we have more Pongo? Please?
Tippi Blevins now returns to the real world. Your regular recapper will be back week with tales of her fairytale adventures. Email Tippi at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter.