Snow + Hercules
Snow is forced to take care of a bandit that is terrorizing her kingdom during Regina’s rule. She was running and fell into a ditch and Hercules saved her. Snow tells Hercules she can’t go back to the castle until she figures out what to do with this bandit. He gives her a bow and arrow and teaches her about survival and shows her his medals of labors. He has one left to complete and it’s to kill the Cerberus. Snow tries to use her new skills on the bandits, but her plan backfires on her when she spills her arrows. Hercules scares them off, but Snow wants out. He gives her a pep talk about how he nearly failed his first test of labor. When Snow faces the bandits again she succeeds in scaring them off. Before Hercules leaves they share a kiss.
Cerberus
We get our first look at Captain Hook since he died in the finale. He is all scratched up like when Emma summoned him in the premiere. And he is being held in Hades’ underground prison. As he attempts to escape, a mysterious prisoner warns him that he can’t leave because there is something down here with them. He does get her out with a message to look for Emma and meets the Cerberus, a three-headed dog.
In the graveyard, Snow White is looking at the graves of people who died in her father’s kingdom. She feels regret as she was supposed to protect them, but Charming reminds her that this time she’s not doing her saving alone. She sees one grave with a familiar name: Hercules. Snow says maybe if they can save him, he can help save them.
Emma is with Henry, Robin, and Regina. Regina says that she may have a way to help them since she has maps of every part of the land in her office. Henry and Robin go there while Emma and Regina are distracted by the girl Hook freed. It’s pretty clear it’s Megara, but we don’t find that out for sure until later. Emma magics them to her parents’ apartment and Megara tells them where Hook is and what she was running from. Snow shows up and tells them she knows about the beast. The Blind Witch tells them Hercules comes in for lunch, which leads Snow to the docks where Hercules is working. He won’t tell her how he died, and says he can’t move on because he never completed his last labor. Snow tells him he can help them by going to the prison where Hook is being held while Hercules is surprised she has a daughter and grandson.
Snow gets everyone together, including Hercules, to try to find Hook, who Hades has caught. Hercules goes forward to kill the beast, but he ends up running away. Cerberus is called off by Hades and lets it slip that Hercules is here because he failed to kill Cerberus. He threatens the group by showing them Hook’s hook.
Snow goes back to the apartment and is given a pep speech by none other than Regina. She tells her that she turned her into a friend by never giving up and that she shouldn’t give up on this. She needs to be Snow White again. She returns Hercule’s sword and tells him he won’t be alone this time.
Cerberus finds the group. Snow has her arrows, Hercules has a spear and Megara has a dagger and together they take out Cerberus. Hercules and Megara meet, but it turns out they had already met when he had rescued her from Cerberus right before he died. Snow watches and decides she needs to be the girl from the Enchanted Forest. She will no longer be Mary Margaret.
The Author
Henry and Robin are searching in Regina’s office for the maps. Henry crawls through the vents and finds Cruella De Vil. She wants his help because Hades has made the Underworld a place with two choices: leave for a better or worse place. She wants to return to the living and since Henry’s the author he can make it happen. The quill is an actual living being which means when Henry broke it, it went to the Underworld. Cruella tells Henry he’s going to find it so his mother is no longer a murder.
Hook’s Choice
As Meg and Hercules move on, the clock ticks and Hades decides to tell Hook how he is going to make this up to him. For each soul that they free, one of them has to die and Hook gets to choose who.