Once Upon a Time S05E05: "Dreamcatcher"

Last night on Once Upon A Time's "Dreamcatcher" we saw a ghost. Yea, the ghost of OUAT Season 1 appeared in our living rooms in the form of an episode grounded in the Regina-Emma-Henry family dynamic that has always been the crux of this show. Man, remember when it was always like this? When instead of chasing gothic props alongside the flavor-of-the-week, the story centered on Emma and Regina's extremely opposite personalities clashing as they tried to navigate what was best for their son? When Henry and Emma were bonding over cute adventures? This episode was all that, PLUS velveteen capes PLUS literal Dreamcatchers. Guys. This episode was entertaining!

We started off with Emma watching Merlin get his ass handed to him by a masked Dark One in a dreamcatcher. It seemed pretty obvious this Dark One was the woman he lost via her becoming the Dark One (why else was she running around in a mask like the Lady Phantom of the Opera?) but what was not obvious was how Emma even got her hands on that dreamcatcher in the first place. Did I miss something last episode? Was it dangling in the tree? Also did she recognize Merlin from that time he stalked her through a theater as a child? Who can say?

Emma then hurried off to catch up with Regina, who was about to hand an obviously spellbound pair of Charmings Emma's incredibly powerful dagger.

Regina was like, "To be honest, I don't know if I'm comfortable trusting you bozos with Emma's dagger let alone King Arthur," and Emma popped up like, "Me neither!" and revealed Merlin had been trapped in the tree with a Tear of Lost First Love and King Arthur was a bad guy who wanted to kill him! And if he killed Merlin, Emma would stay dark! And then she'll have to move out of Storybrooke as it is literally the only city on Earth with magic but presumably everywhere else she'll be totally 100 percent okay and non-magical just like Rumple was! Meanwhile back at the Storybrooke police station we learned all the Camelotians were desperate to haul ass out of Storybrooke and back to the Dark Ages.

They've walked up and down the street, they've gone in and out the library, Internet and flushing toilets be damned, they knew a hell hole when they saw one. Henry was like, "Let's throw a dance to raise morale!" and immediately every man in the room was elbowing Henry about finally getting a piece of that 14-year-old girl he's crushing on. How about you bros lay off sexualizing tweens and work on getting King Arthur down to the Generic Leather Jacket Surplus Store you're all such fans of? That armor's lookin' heavy.

Meanwhile, Emma was telling Gold she was going to make him brave or something, and Gold was like, "I know I literally never gave one single shit about this myself, but if you keep being the Dark One you're going to lose the people you love most." In response, Emma summoned Princess Ronald MacDonald to take him off to the forest and begin boot camp. Then back in Camelot we saw Henry and Violet's young love begin to blossom.

Next: A double mom pep talk