‘Once Upon a Time’ “White Out” Recap and Review

The folks of Storybrooke are trapped by an ice barrier blocking all exits out of town in Once Upon a Time‘s episode two of season four titled “White Out.” This week’s storylines involve Frozen characters Anna and Elsa, with the connection to a key character in Storybrooke revealed as Elsa continues her search for her beloved sister. But while Frozen characters drive the story, our favorite Storybrooke residents – other than Regina who has put herself in seclusion as she deals with her break-up with Robin – aren’t left out in the cold without anything to do.

Here’s a detailed recap of what went down in “White Out,” broken up into the events inside Storybrooke and those that took place in the Enchanted Forest.

Catching Up with the Enchanted Forest [aka Mist Haven]

In a flashback, we see Anna showing up at David’s family farm in the Enchanted Forest because Kristoff told her she could trust David while on her secret mission. Still, Anna is taking the ‘secret’ portion of her mission seriously, gives her name as Joan and doesn’t admit to knowing Kristoff. She asks to sleep in David’s barn and he replies, “Sure Joan, anything for Kristoff’s fiancee,” pointing out Kristoff is the only person he knows in Arendelle and she’s wearing an engagement ring.

Before they can get further acquainted, along comes Bo Peep – someone they don’t want to mess with, according to David. Bo Peep demands payment for keeping David’s flock safe and threatens him with the loss of his family’s farm if he doesn’t have the money by the next day. She brands David, Anna, and David’s mother with her shepherd’s crook so that they can’t flee (she’ll always be able to track them after branding them).

In a surprising twist, it turns out that Bo Peep is the most powerful warlord in the region, and David’s smart to be afraid of her. But Anna wants him to stand up for himself and fight, even promising to teach him how to use a sword. “What do you have to lose?,” asks Anna. “You can always give up tomorrow.”

David’s pretty quick at picking up sword fighting, but with only a day to train he’s ready to give up. Anna won’t let him and tells him surviving isn’t living. Anna thinks it’s cowardice, but David says he knows about loss. He recounts a story about his parents and how his dad was an alcoholic who promised to straighten up but couldn’t commit to it and died after getting drunk and crashing their wagon when David was just six years old. David thinks this battle isn’t worth fighting, but Anna wants him to continue training.

The next day, he faces Bo Peep’s men and actually defeats them, and even gets the upper hand on Bo Peep, who’s wearing Anna’s necklace and has hidden her away to make David pay. David ties up Peep, grabs her shepherd’s crook, and saves Anna. Rescuing her, he returns her necklace and gives her his father’s horse for her journey. “It was an impossible battle which is why I had to fight it,” says David, admitting that he fought because Peep took Anna and he needed to be able to live with himself which he couldn’t if he was trapped in a life he didn’t want.

David’s mom is so thankful for Anna’s help that she writes down the name of the person who can help her discover the magic in her family. She won’t say the name out loud, but she slips Anna a piece of paper and wishes her luck on her journey. Anna tells David that he’s heroic, but he says he’s still just a shepherd. As Anna heads away from the farm, she reads the note. All it says is Rumpelstiltskin.

What’s Happening in Storybrooke:

Elsa kicks off the episode by promising her missing sister, “Until we’re together, no one leaves this town,” and true to her word, she creates an ice barrier around the edge of town. Meanwhile, the Charming family is having an evening at home when a crow disturbs the peace by tapping on the window. He (or she) has a message for Henry from Regina. It appears Regina would prefer not to have any company while she’s in her self-imposed exile, and Henry gets so bummed out by this turn of events that he doesn’t even want to ride along with David and Emma when they take off to explore the town-wide black-out.

Arriving at the edge of town, David and Emma discover the ice barrier and try to come up with a way to knock it down. Hook shows up and lets them know the ice encircles the entire town (he’s there to help out his damsel in distress – how cute!). Hook says it’s time for their second official date, but Emma’s all business at this point. They have no idea who caused the wall until Emma spies Elsa hiding behind a pillar of ice. She goes into a little chamber formed by the ice to ask her what’s up, but Elsa is upset and can’t control her powers and winds up trapping Emma in a tiny room that’s formed by the ice walls crashing in. She wants her sister back and threatens to hold Emma hostage and even freeze the whole town if Anna’s not found quickly.

Circumstances change once Elsa comes to understand Emma really wants to help her find her sister. Elsa’s truly sorry and confesses she can’t control her powers which leads to Emma also confessing she doesn’t have much control over hers, either.

On the other side of the ice barrier, Hook is desperately clawing at the wall to try and break through to get to his Emma. David knows that’s useless and suggests (via the walkie-talkie) that Emma use her powers to take down the wall. That doesn’t work at all, and Emma can’t feel her hands or feet and she’s quickly heading toward unconsciousness, followed by death from the freezing conditions. She asks Elsa if she’s cold, and, of course, Elsa replies, “It’s never bothered me.” An important note: the two women seem to be on the way to forming a friendship based on the fact neither has control of their powers.

Meanwhile, the dwarves demand Mary Margaret do something about the power outage. They tell her that now that Regina’s stepped down from being the mayor, it’s her job to run the town. Mary Margaret does her best, but she can’t figure out how to get the lights back on, and the dwarves are driving her crazy with their demands. She yells at them that now she knows what drove Regina evil and that she’s working off of just a few hours of sleep over the past few days. She sends them scurrying off with an order to go buy flashlights and stop bothering her.

Back to David and Hook… The two turn to Rumple and Belle for help because the necklace which led Elsa to believe Anna was in town was found in their shop. David finally sees a picture of the necklace that Elsa’s talking about and realizes he knows Anna from the past.

That realization leads to David visiting Bo Peep at the butcher shop and asking for her help. Hook stops Peep from stabbing David, and David demands to know where Anna is. Peep won’t help, but no worries as Hook grabs Peep’s shepherd’s crook which will lead to Anna. “So in this world, you’re a hero,” says Peep as Hook learns through the walkie-talkie that Emma has passed out and is freezing to death.

Hook and David head to the ice wall with Peep’s crook, but they tell Elsa it’s up to her to figure out a way out. David tells her she must fight the battle to get out of the ice. “Survival isn’t enough. You have to live,” says David, which is what Anna told him years ago. David reminds her that Anna wouldn’t want her to live alone in an ice cave, which is what she’ll be forced to do if she doesn’t melt that ice. Elsa concentrates and melts a hole in the ice to save Emma. She helps Emma through the hole and into Hook’s arms, and Emma clings to him. She can barely walk, so Hook carries her to the car while David says Anna helped him once a long time ago, and now he’ll help Elsa find Anna.

Back at the power plant, Mary Margaret’s frustrated after reading the manual and not being able to turn the power back on. The baby crying makes her think the electrical grid is hungry too, so she feeds it. Voila, the lights come on!

Everyone works on warming up Emma back at home, with Henry making hot cocoa, David grabbing a blanket, and Hook setting up a portable heater. Elsa’s there too, but she’s sad she lost her sister’s necklace in the ice wall. David pulls out the shepherd’s crook which should help them locate Anna. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, but it does provide them with a little hope as they can hear Anna’s heartbeat loud and strong.

Now that Elsa’s sure the Storybrooke townspeople will help her, she agrees to take down the wall. Emma’s impressed with Elsa’s power as they look at the ice wall. “It’s kind of cool, pun intended,” says Emma. Elsa tries to bring down the barrier, but it won’t come down. She’s the only one with the power, so she should undo it. And that leads to the episode’s major surprise: the ice cream shop proprietress has the same power as Elsa, but she knows how to command it!

The Bottom Line:

Although the episode is driven by what’s happening with Elsa’s search for her sister as well as a look into the past when Anna went searching for the truth about her family in the Enchanted Forest, there were just enough clues tossed in to set up a wider story in the upcoming episodes.

Regina barely appeared in “White Out,” however, once David reminds everyone that they don’t like to give up on people, Henry heads over to his mom’s house and bangs on the door. He tells her he’ll continue banging on that door every day until she lets him in because he belongs there and they belong with each other. Henry’s actions get to Regina and she opens the door and greets him with a huge hug. It was great to see Regina smile, although it was obvious she’s still heartbroken from the end of her relationship with Robin. She’s not overtly evil and has taken herself out of circulation rather than openly retaliate against the target of her anger – something she would have done in the past. Even without much of her actual presence on screen this episode, we see that she’s moved forward in the right direction.

The episode also served to set up Mary Margaret as the new leader of the town, a job she didn’t necessarily want but which is impossible for her to turn down. And Hook and Emma’s relationship continued to grow, and it wasn’t as one-sided as it has been with Emma falling into Hook’s arms after being saved from her temporary ice prison and allowing him to carry her to the car. Hook also improved his relationship with David by convincing him that even though he’s been a player in the past, his intentions with Emma are honorable, and she’s not just another conquest.

Overall, “White Out” was a solid second episode. It introduced a new character, gave old characters new tasks to complete, and advanced the relationship between the couple nearly everyone wants to see live happily ever after.

GRADE: B