- During her search for Mary Margaret, Emma finds herself trapped in the home of a strange man, as flashbacks show the Mad Hatter helping the Evil Queen in exchange for his daughter's safety.
- Emma leaves in search of Mary Margaret and instead finds herself trapped in the house of a seemingly dangerous man named Jefferson. In fairy-tale land, the Queen calls upon the Mad Hatter to help her find something she has lost in exchange for his daughter's safety.—Nadia Nassar
- Mary Margaret's jail cell is empty and we see her running through the woods.
Henry's book is open to the story of "Alice in Wonderland," and he looks a bit confused. Emma finds Henry (Jared Gilmore) sitting in the sheriff's office. He says he wants to congratulate Emma on the genius plan -- escape. Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) are surprised to see Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) is missing. Emma knows she needs to find Mary Margaret before her 8 a.m. arraignment. Mr. Gold warns Emma that Mary Margaret's future is in jeopardy and if Emma is caught helping her, her own future is jeopardized, as well. She doesn't care.
Emma is driving in a dense fog and nearly hits a pedestrian near the woods. She stops to make sure he's OK, and he's limping after taking a fall to avoid getting hit. She insists on driving him somewhere. He introduces himself as Jefferson (Sebastian Stan), and gets in the car.
In Fairy Tale Land, we see this same man running away in the woods. But his daughter Grace soon finds him. They're playing hide-and-seek before looking for mushrooms to sell at the market. They get home and find the Queen and her carriage waiting outside their house. The man tells his daughter to sit tight while he goes to find out what's happening. She runs into the woods while he goes toward the house.
Inside, the Queen (looking every bit "Queen"-like) is waiting and she calls him Jefferson. He calls her Regina (Lana Parrilla). This is weird. She says she has a job for him. He doesn't want his daughter to lose her father, having already lost her mother. Regina/The Queen insists if he does this one last favor for her, she can get him and his daughter the life they've always wanted. She says she needs his skills to get her somewhere. She hands him a slip of paper. He asks what she could possibly want there. She says something of hers was taken and found its way over there, and she wants it back. He tells her to find someone else to get it. She claims she understands, and adds, "there's nothing more important than family."
In Storybrooke, Emma drives Jefferson to a huge house. She thinks he must have a huge family, but he says it's just him. She goes inside with him. He gives her some tea and shows her a map of the town he's been working on. Soon after drinking the tea, she begins to feel dizzy. She notices as she's staggering onto the couch his limp is gone. He says, "Oh, I guess you caught me."
"Who are you?" she asks, just before losing consciousness.
In Fairy Tale Land, we see Grace and her father at the market. She finds a stuffed rabbit and asks her father to buy it. He's just short of enough money and the seller refuses to take what he has. Grace kindly tells her father she doesn't need it, and he walks away frustrated. We see the seller was really the Queen in an old woman's disguise.
In Storybrooke, Emma wakes up bound and gagged. She smashes the tea cup to use the broken pieces in order to cut herself free. She finds a telescope at the window pointed directly at the sheriff's office, and is puzzled to see the door to her office is open. She follows noises of a blade being sharpened and opens a door to see Jefferson sharpening a pair of scissors.
In Fairy Tale Land, we see Jefferson using scissors to finish making a makeshift rabbit for his daughter. She thanks him and continues her tea party with her stuffed animals. Jefferson tells his daughter he's going to be gone for the rest of the day and is sending her to the neighbor's house. She asks him not to do whatever the Queen wanted him to do. He says she wants her to have what she needs, but she says all she wants is him. She makes him promise he'll come back for their tea party. He says he wouldn't miss it for the world. She goes.
After Grace leaves, Jefferson opens a chest and pulls out a leather case and places it in the middle of the floor.
In Storybrooke, Emma sneaks down the hall and after a wooden plank in the floor squeaks, she sneaks into the next door she sees. In that room, she finds Mary Margaret bound to a chair and gagged, crying.
Emma frees her. Mary Margaret tells her a man grabbed her in the woods and brought her there. She also tells Emma she found a key under the pillow in her cell. She doesn't know who put it there, and neither does Emma. But they both want to know. Emma sneaks them out of the room. Jefferson finds them. He knows Emma doesn't want anyone to find out what she's up to, and he forces Emma to tie Mary Margaret back up. She does. Jefferson tells Emma he now needs her to do something.
In Fairy Tale Land, Jefferson pays a visit to the Queen. He's holding the box. He asks for a guarantee. If he does what she wants, his daughter will want for nothing. The Queen tells him he has her word. He pulls a hat out of the box, puts it on the floor and spins it. A purple cloud swirls around it and it forms a cyclone in the middle of the room. Jefferson and the Queen jump into the middle of it together.
Jefferson takes Emma into a room full of hats on shelves. He says he's trying to save Mary Margaret's life, and he mentions the curse keeping everyone in Storybrooke -- except Emma. She asks if he's been reading Henry's book, and he mocks her for ignoring the stories in it. He says that if she knew what he knows, she wouldn't ignore them. She asks him why he's been spying on her, and he says for the last 28 years he's been stuck in the house day after day until she came into town and the clock ticked and things started to change.
"I know what you refuse to acknowledge," he tells her. She's special, and brought "magic" to Storybrooke. She tells him he's insane. He tells her she's probably the one who's insane because she refuses to see what's in front of her. He tells her he wants her "to get it to work." He sits her down and faces her toward his hat.
In Fairy Tale Land, the Queen and Jefferson are at "the entrance." He tells her they have to stick together because the same amount of people that go in must come out. They step into Wonderland. Jefferson says he hates it.
In Storybrooke, Jefferson tells Emma to make a hat. She pieces together the hat, the tea and the insane behavior. She knows he thinks he's the Mad Hatter. He says his name is Jefferson. She tells him the stories aren't real. He tells her that her world is no more real than his. He tells her there are "infinite more" worlds out there. All of them have their own rules -- some have magic, some don't. And some need magic, "like this one -- and that's where you come in." He tells her she and Mary Margaret aren't going anywhere until Emma makes his hat and gets it to work.
"And then what?" she asks.
"Then I can go home," he says.
In Fairy Tale Land, Jefferson and the Queen get to a series of arches at the beginning of the land belonging to the Queen of Hearts. The Queen pressures him to move forward. She gets to a vault with a wall full of boxes. She takes one but some knights catch them as they try to make their escape. They get close to the looking glass, which is their escape route, but the Queen stops and breaks off a piece of a mushroom. She opens the box and puts the piece inside the box. A massive purple cloud emerges and her father emerges.
The Queen explains the Queen of Hearts has always considered her a threat, so she wanted leverage -- and so she took the Queen's father. The Queen is now taking him back. Jefferson realizes he'll be stuck there if the Queen leaves with her father -- because only the same number of people who came in are allowed to go out. The Queen reminds Jefferson one should never abandon family. Jefferson is distraught, realizing he won't return to his daughter. The Queen tells him if he really cared for his daughter he wouldn't have left her in the first place.
The Queen and her father leave, and knights come to take Jefferson back to the Queen of Hearts.
The Queen of Hearts, giving questions through a knight, wants to know how Jefferson got to Wonderland. He says with his hat.
"Off with his head," she orders, and a knight slices Jefferson's head clean off -- but he's surprised to still be alive and talking, while a knight is holding his head up the hair. The knight tells Jefferson since Regina took his hat, he should make another one that works.
In Storybrooke, Emma is trying to do just that. Jefferson tells her -- like everyone else there -- what he loves most has been ripped from him. He asks her to take a look through another telescope. It's pointed at another house where his daughter is living as Paige with another family. Emma asks why he doesn't say something to her, and he says he doesn't want to inflict his curse on his daughter -- the curse of knowledge of their real life.
Emma starts to cry and tells him she knows what it's like to be separated from his kid. She says it can make you feel like you're losing your mind. He says it's real, and Emma agrees maybe it is. He asks if she believes.
"If what you're saying is true, that woman in the other room is my mother," she says, adding she wants more than anything to believe that's true. She agrees maybe she needs to open her mind up to magic.
He lets his guard down after she says she'll try to get his hat to work. Jefferson turns back and she uses the telescope to take a swing and knock him out. She runs to free Mary Margaret. Jefferson catches up and a scuffle ensues. At one point, we and Emma catch a long look at the scar on Jefferson's neck from when the knight sliced it off. He finally grabs his gun and has a clean shot at Emma, but Mary Margaret hits him from behind with a croquet mallet, and kicks him through a window, from which he falls several floors to the ground.
Emma is stunned and they look out the window to find only the hat on the ground, with no trace of Jefferson.
Outside, Emma and Mary Margaret see no sign of Jefferson. Mary Margaret also has no idea where her sudden close-combat skills came from. Emma finds her car covered with a tarp, and the keys are on the driver's seat. Emma gives the keys to Mary Margaret, telling her she has the choice of whether to run or face the charges against her and trust Emma things will turn out well. Emma asks Mary Margaret if she'd rather face this together than alone. Mary Margaret gives back the keys.
The church bells ring and Emma remembers the 8 a.m. arraignment. We next see Regina pulling up to the Sheriff's office and Emma's yellow car isn't in the Sheriff's spot. Regina looks quite pleased as she walks in, but she's stunned inside when she sees Mary Margaret sitting in her cell reading a newspaper. Mr. Gold tells Regina his client is not having any visitors.
Regina walks out and Mr. Gold follows. In the hallway, Mr. Gold explains to Regina that Mary Margaret "came back."
"You said this would work," Regina says. "That she'd take the key, that she'd go."
Mr. Gold says she did, "but it seems that Ms. Swan is rather more resourceful than we thought."
He tells Regina not to worry, because Mary Margaret is still guilty of murder. "You may yet get what you want," he says.
Regina tells him the only reason she made a deal with him is because she wanted results. He assures her she'll have them, adding, "See you at the arraignment." She leaves.
Emma finds Henry at school and tells him she found Mary Margaret and she's OK, "other than being on trial for murder." Paige comes by and says hi. As she walks away, Emma asks Henry for his story book. She's curious about something.
She flips through the pages and sees the pictures of Jefferson with his daughter Grace, and his hat, and the slice on his neck.
We see a flash of Jefferson, surrounded by hats he has made, going insane trying to make a hat that works.
Henry goes back into school. Emma asks if she can keep the book for a while. Henry lets her hang onto it, and runs inside. Emma looks more closely at the book.
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