Crimson Crown
In Camelot the group is trying to figure out how to get Merlin out of the tree. They need witch bane so they can finish their potion when Arthur shows up. Regina looks through one of Merlin’s book and finds information about a toadstool called Crimson Crown. It can communicate across barriers, which means they can use it to talk to Merlin in the tree. But the Crimson Crown only exists in the Forest of Eternal Night. Charming decides he is going to be the hero who goes after it and Arthur invites himself along.
Snow and Charming take a moment to themselves as Charming is upset that he’s failing Emma as a father. Snow talks him down reminding him that there is still time to be a hero and that not all is lost for their daughter.
Robin calms Regina down while Zelena lurks in the background. Regina gives her sister her voice back long enough to tell her she can’t take the child away from Robin. Zelena says she deserves a second chance at love because Regina did. Regina isn’t having it and assures her Robin’s baby will be loved and cared for, but Zelena won’t be.
Knights Of The Round Table
Prior to setting off on their mission, Arthur shows the Round Table to Charming. Arthur shows Charming the Siege Perilous, the tallest chair at the table, and one that is so scared that no knight has been deemed honorable enough to sit in it–not even Arthur. It originally belonged to Lancelot and is reserved for the knight with the purest of hearts.
Charming and Arthur bonded over how they were both commoners before rising to royalty. Arthur was penniless before he drew the sword out. They talk about the importance of loyalty and their wives. They find the Crimson Crown, but it’s being kept on a protected hill in a bog and you have to cross a bunch of planks. Charming says the planks can’t support both of them so Charming says he will go.
Charming gets the mushroom with very little issue, but as he is walking back, ghost knights rise up from the water. Charming fights them until he goes over, but Arthur saves him. Charming survives, but he lost the Crimson Crown. Charming is down believing he failed the mission, but Arthur talks some sense into him. Arthur understands that Charming wants to be remembered for doing good and being a hero. He knights Charming and gives him the Siege Perilous chair at the Knights of the Round Table.
Snow wanders away from the ceremony and runs into Lancelot. Lancelot warns Snow that Arthur is a villain and he is not what he seems. We see Arthur stole the Crimson Crown off David and hid it because he wanted to protect his kingdom.
Storybrooke
The group finds the drawing of the Crimson Crown for the first time. But none of them remember it because of the curse, but Regina recognizes her handwriting marking the book. They are interrupted by the dwarves who are mad that Emma stole Happy’s ax.
Arthur shows up to tell that a box of magical relics collected by the Knights of the Round Table has been robbed. And inside there was a magic bean inside that could have taken them home to Camelot. Charming says he will find the beans.
Emma needed Happy’s ax to try to get Excalibur out of the stone. Rumple laughs are her because it won’t work. They need a hero to pull Excalibur out.
Robin is hanging out at Granny’s looking over a sonogram when Hook arrives. They talk until Granny brings over a bag of take-out that has a note from Emma telling him to meet her on his ship. Hook arrives to find Emma who apologizes for overreacting. She just wants to eat and talk. Emma turns herself back into Good Emma so that Hook might be willing to talk. Hook doesn’t bit and tells Emma he wants to know what she has locked up. She ignores the question and tells him she just wants him to trust her.
He makes it clear that he has no interest in being with her if she is dark and tells her that he loved her before she disappears.
Belle finds something that might help Rumple, but it involves finding something that touched him when he was still a man before he became the Dark One. While she looks, Charming takes an old cup that he calls the “Chalice of Vengeance” and tries to get the people to say which of them stole the beans. A Squire makes a break for it with the box. Charming and Arthur chase after him in the truck.
We see Arthur paid his squire. He tells him they need to build a new Camelot in Storybrooke as there is no way to go back to the real Camelot. The squire says he will do anything for his King. Arthur hands him a vial of poison. The Squire drinks it and poofs away. Meanwhile, Charming finds the Crimson Crown hiding in one of the tents. He brings it Regina and they realize they wanted it to communicate across barriers.
Emma’s Plan
Hook meets Robin and tells him he wants his help to find out what Emma is hiding. Belle notices her rose is falling apart and then putting itself back together. She rushes back to the shop and finds Rumple gone. Turns out Emma found the one thing that touched him when he was a man: Hook’s cutlass, which he’d used on Rumple back in his Pirate days, before Rumple turned. She crushes it and Rumple wakes up. She reveals he is a blank space and she is going to turn him into the purest hero that has ever lived.
