On tonight’s episode of Once Upon a Time, “The Broken Kingdom”, we get our questions from last weeks episode answered.

We start off by visiting little Arthur the Stable boy telling sweet little Guinevere about his dreams of becoming the King of Camelot. Arthur shows her the tree where Merlin shares information with him about a sword in a stone that he will one day pull out and thus become King of Camelot and have her as his queen.

The episode then fast-forwards to our struggling Emma. We see her as Rumpel begins to further corrupt her mind. She attempts to resist him, as she sees the dagger that bore her name upon it, reaches for it, but then is stunned when it shocks her back, and she claims to not be able to break the spell that is upon it. Hook tries to encourage her to stay strong.

We revisit Arthur as he and his Knights of the Round Table finally find the sword in the stone. Arthur pulls Excalibur only to find half the sword, and to his dismay, he learns that he is to become a king to a broken kingdom, as Merlin has tricked him. Instead of shying away from this daunting task, he goes to his people and claims his stake as King of Camelot without sharing the missing half of Excalibur and thus his obsession starts with the dagger to complete Excalibur.

This episode really consisted a lot of backtracking which confused me here and there, but we once again revisit Emma as she suddenly just lays around not saying a word, as she is attempting to not focus on the dagger that is whispering to her. The heroes decide to send her away with Henry and Hook, in hopes she will find some solace away from the dagger.  David attempts to convince Snow, that they should give up the dagger to King Arthur so he will help their daughter. However, Snow pleads that they cant trust him and that Lancelot has returned.  

Rewind to 5 yrs earlier, Arthur’s obsession has grown, Queen Guinevere attempts to convince her husband to give up one night to join her in a celebration. As she sits around watching a group dance, Lancelot approaches her reassuring her that Arthur will show up. The Queen and Lancelot join each other in a dance, and at one point they are interrupted by Arthur, who claims to know where the dagger is and leaves during Guinevere’s birthday, leaving her feeling abandoned.

Back to 5 yrs later, Hook teaches Emma how to forget the darkness, by first getting her to get on a horse that fears her inner darkness. Eventually Emma manages to get on the horse and works hard as she pushes Rumpel in the back of her mind. Five years forward, Guinevere breaks into Merlin’s and steals a gauntlet that will lead her to the dagger, so she can finally free her husband’s mind and have him back. Lancelot attempts to stop her in her tracks, but joins her in her efforts. They eventually run into a vault where the dagger is supposed to be.

Once inside the dark one attempts to take Lancelot but Guinevere torches it and in her fear, she kisses Lancelot thinking she lost him. She struggles for what she had done and claims it will never happen again, because she must save Arthur. The struggle between the couple happens as David decides to come before Arthur against his wife’s wishes. Just as he is about to show the dagger to Arthur and Guinevere, they are merely greeted by a empty dagger box. We then meet Snow as she meets up with Lancelot to finish what they must with the dagger to save Emma. They work their way to get to the vault to deal with the dagger.

Back to Lancelot and Guinevere, as they run into Rumpel, who offers them a deal in return they receive a magic sand that repairs all things broken; Lancelot tells her not to trust the demon, but she takes the deal. When the queen attempts to deceive her obsessive king, he stops her. She pleads to him claiming she will leave if he doesn’t stop with the dagger, but Arthur would not allow her to leave, so he throws the sand on her, fixing her broken heart thus she loved him again, and he spreads the sand over his broken kingdom to repair it as well. As Lancelot and Snow reach the vault, they are stopped by King Arthur. As the King points his sword at his ex-knight, Snow gives up the dagger which happened to be a fake. David appears helping his wife after all.

Once they finally have Arthur, they are stopped by his knights and Guinevere who seemed like a different person. Arthur then spreads the sand upon Snow and David, which makes them approach Regina to tell her they need the dagger, because King Arthur was the one to be trusted and not Lancelot. As the episode comes close to the end, Lancelot meets Merida who has been locked away as well. Present day hits and Rumpel is bound in a dungeon-like setting by Emma, where she resides next to the sword in the stone and claims she needs a hero to pull it out. Rumpel claims he cant do this for her, so Emma rips Merida’s heart from her chest and commands her to make Rumpel brave like she is.

If you liked “The Broken Kingdom”, tune in next week guys for Once Upon A Time, on Sundays at 8/7C!