Once Upon a Time: Season 1, Episode 17 – “Hat Trick” (2012)

I’ll be honest – about half of my motivation for initially checking out Once Upon a Time was the knowledge that Sebastian Stan had had a small but beloved role in it (the other half, by the way, was stuff I’d heard about Mulan,) so it’s not really surprising that I was more than ready for Jefferson’s first appearance on the show.  But even apart from that obvious check in the plus column, “Hat Trick” is one of my favorite episodes from season 1 and, really, I think it’s still one of the best the show has ever done (episode spoilers.)

At this point, Storybrooke is still under the curse, Emma is a disbeliever in Henry’s stories and her role as the Savior, and the show is dividing its screentime between the main characters/seasonal arc and more minor Enchanted Forest denizens, giving us side plots of Emma meeting and helping these characters in present-day Storybrooke.  We get some of both in this episode.  Snow/Mary Margaret has escaped jail, mistakenly thinking that Emma helped her get out, but in fact, Emma is desperate to find her before her arraignment, lest she get in even worse trouble.  Along the way, she meets and is captured by Jefferson, an unstable young man who corroborates Henry’s stories and insists that Emma, the Savior, is his only hope for being reunited with his daughter Grace.  In flashback, we see how Jefferson is separated from Grace when Regina talks him into making a return to his old ways:  opening portals between worlds with the aid of an enchanted hat.

There’s a lot to enjoy here.  I really like the story of Jefferson and Grace, which is emotional and well-acted by all involved.  I like seeing Emma pull out all the stops to help Mary Margaret, and I love Mary Margaret discovering her inner badass princess/bandit Snow White, if only for a moment.  I like the inventive direction the show takes with the introduction of the Mad Hatter, opening up the series to other worlds beyond ours and the Enchanted Forest (some might argue that it’s not been a development for the best, since the show hasn’t always used its expanded universe well.)  Similarly, I like how elements of the Mad Hatter story manifest in Storybrooke.

But all that (even Sebastian Stan playing one of my favorite characters of his) doesn’t live up to what this episode really delivers in terms of the show’s mythology.  Before seeing “Hat Trick,” I was moderately entertained by Once Upon a Time and found some of the characters/actors quite engaging, but after seeing “Hat Trick,” I was invested in this narrative.  Jefferson’s conversations with Emma are so vital, both for Emma’s journey as a character – she still doesn’t want to believe, but against her will, she’s starting to – and for the trajectory of the series. 

Jefferson isn’t the only character in Storybrooke who retains his Enchanted Forest memories under the curse, but he’s probably the most interesting to me.  I love his observation about this world, that “everyone wants some magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”  And his response to Emma’s insistence that “this is the real world” is exactly what she needs:  “A real world.  How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one?  There are infinite more.  […]  They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last.  […]  Some have magic, some don’t.  And some need magic… Like this one.”  Though Once Upon a Time has a number of thematic cores, I think this one might be the most profound and well-articulated.  Moving forward, it’s what allows the day-to-day and the fantastical to exist side by side.  Bringing magic to a world that needs it.  How cool is that?