'Once Upon a Time' welcomes Hercules, and threatens all the fairytale characters
The Underworld giveth, and the Underworld taketh away.
Our heroes' journey down under has truly been a "Labor of Love" on Once Upon a Time, but not all of them may complete their mission and make it back to real Storybrooke alive. Hades revealed that he plans to kill someone for every soul that they save in the Underworld, and it's going to be a real tough choice for Hook.
Killian will be the one choosing who lives and who dies, and at the rate the fairytale gang is at -- saving three souls in two episodes -- Storybrooke’s population is going down fast.
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Read on to see what else happened to the bloody pirate, plus how demigod Hercules brought some magic to both flashbacks and present day.
Oh, bloody hell
Hook isn't looking too good, and it’s not just his lack of guyliner. He's stuck in an underground dungeon and completely bloodied up, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel: He knows Emma is there looking for him.
A fellow prisoner -- who we later find out is Meg from Hercules -- tells him there’s no way out, but he manages to help her escape while he fights three-headed beast Cerberus. He ultimately fails and ends up in Hades' lair.
Hercules, Hercules!
Emma and Regina find Meg in the woods, where she tells them about Hook’s whereabouts -- and the monster guarding the cave. Mary Margaret immediately knows how to defeat the monster, thanks to one godly connection...
In flashbacks, we see the first time that Snow and Hercules meet, and we learn he’s responsible for creating Bandit Snow. He trained her to fight off bandits terrorizing the kingdom -- which were, unsurprisingly, secretly sent by Regina to turn the kingdom against Snow -- and also happened to be her first kiss. (Side note: would totally ‘ship Snow and Hercules. Sorry, Charming.)
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Their love story ended too soon because he went off to slay Cerberus (spoiler alert: that didn’t work) and she went to rule her kingdom. But the Underworld gives them a second chance.
Monster mash
Even though Snow and Hercules don’t run away together, but they do slay together. At first Hercules chickens out -- because Cerberus killed him the first time around and his uncle Hades threatens them all -- but they get it together.
A little push from Regina -- "Mary Margaret can't help. We don't need her anymore. We need Snow White!" -- gets the ball rolling, and Bandit Snow 2.0, Hercules, and Meg work together to slay Cerberus. This triggers Mary Margaret to decide she’s becoming Snow White again permanently, and Hercules and Meg walk off into Olympus together, their souls freed from the Underworld.
A cruel change of fate
While all of this was happening, Henry and Robin were searching for maps in Cora’s office. When Henry arrives, Cruella was waiting, telling him that he’s the only one who can fix her fate. Even though he destroyed the quill, it’s a “living, breathing entity” that is now in the Underworld.
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In one of his bigger acts of rebellion, Henry doesn’t tell Robin about this. Could he actually be helping Cruella? Tsk, tsk, Henry. Curiosity killed the cat -- and probably the dog, too.
Speaking of killing, Hades is ready to start knocking off one hero at a time. “From now on, for every soul they free, one of them has to stay,” he tells Hook. “And Captain, you get to decide who.”
Baby, now we’ve got bad blood.
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