The Other Shoe

**The Other Shoe** is the third episode of the sixth season of the American fantasy drama series Once Upon a Time, which aired on October 9, 2016.

In this episode, Cinderella's actions in the Enchanted Forest involving her stepfamily suddenly plays out in Storybrooke, as Emma, Henry, and Hook must stop Ashley from going after her stepsister after she blames herself for ruining her happy ending, while Regina discovers that Hyde has made a deal with the Evil Queen, Gold helps David find out the truth about his father's death by delivering a message to Belle, and Snow helps Jekyll with a plan to destroy the Evil Queen.

## Plot

### **Opening sequence**

Gus the field mouse running inside the glass "O" hamster wheel of Once Upon a Time.

### **Event chronology**

The Enchanted Forest events before the ball take place before Cinderella signs Rumplestiltskin's contract in "The Price of Gold", while the rest of the events take place between this scene and Cinderella and Thomas' wedding from that same episode. The Storybrooke events take place after "A Bitter Draught".

### **In the Character's Past**

In the Enchanted Forest, Ella is being forced to clean by her stepmother, Lady Tramaine, when they receive an invitation to go to a ball from the messenger Jacob, the Prince's Footman. When Ella shows them her Mother's gown, her stepsister Clorinda throws it into the cinder and leave laughing at her, earning Ella the name Cinderella. Ella then sees a key drop out of the pocket of the gown, which she discovers leads to a magical door through the Land of Untold Stories that belong to her Mother. During the night at the ball, Ella meets up with Snow for the first time, then encounter Prince Thomas, and the two dance together. After he excused himself, Ella noticed Thomas talking to her stepsister, Clorinda, and when Lady Tramaine tells Ella that he was making fun of her, she runs off, leaving her glass slipper.

Later that night, Gus tells Ella about the key in the box, which opened up portal to the Land Untold Stories to her closet, but Clorinda stops her because she is marrying Jacob and wants Ella to marry Prince Thomas. Clorinda wants to get away from her mother as soon as possible. When Lady Tramaine returned home, she confronted Ella and demanded answers to where Clorinda went. She then noticed the glass slipper and used it as bait to make Ella tell the truth, and Ella gives in, but Lady Tramaine drops the glass slipper and it shatters into pieces, and then locks Ella inside the place. When Thomas and Snow arrived, Gus alerted them and rescued Ella. Prince Thomas asked Ella to marry him after she apologized, but afterwards went to warn Clorinda, who was about to leave to the Land of Untold Stories with Jacob, when Lady Tramaine showed up to stab Jacob, injure Clorinda and then opens the portal to take her daughter with her.

### **In Storybrooke**

At the mental hospital, Regina, Snow and David pays a visit to see Hyde with Regina's favorite dish as a bribe, but discovered the Evil Queen had beaten her to the punch; Hyde now has luxurious furniture in his cell, and tells them the only way he'll talk is if they remove the cuffs. Regina is upset that Zelena is keeping her other half away from her after she noticed a baby rattle that Cora gave Regina.

Over at Granny's, Emma, Henry, and Hook are joined by Ashley and her daughter, Alexandra, who is happy to help out with assimilating the new children into Storybrooke. After Emma stopped by to see Archie involving her visions, she runs into Sean, who tells Emma that Ashley took off with a shotgun. Emma believes she's going after her stepfamily. With help from Henry and Hook, they start looking for Ashley by using her shoe to locate her. When they catch up with Ashley, Emma, Henry and Hook learn that Ashley wants to find Clorinda. Emma's hand starts shaking just as Ashley gets away, but soon the Evil Queen shows up and takes advantage of the situation by sending Emma, Hook, and Henry "off the chessboard."

Thanks to Henry's quick thinking, he looks at the book to find out how to bring them to Clorinda. When Ashley arrived to the stable, she finds an injured Clorinda who was faking it as bait, when Lady Tramaine points the shotgun at her. Clorinda then threatens to shoot Ashley but stops and she learns that Jacob is alive and that they are in his farm. As they are reunited, Lady Tramaine threatens to shoot them but Ashley protects them but is stabbed with Lady Tramaine's poisoned cane. Emma, Henry and Hook arrived and stopped Lady Tramaine from doing any more damage. With encouragement from Henry, Emma uses her magic to heal Ashley. Later on, Emma asked Hook to move in with her, and he agrees. As part of her punishment for stabbing Ashley, Tramaine is jailed and forced to do clean up detail under Leroy's supervision.

David is still concerned over how his father died, and as he gives Snow encouragement to teach again, he visits Gold and makes a deal with him. David visits Belle and tells her about the deal and then gives Belle the gift. At the same time, Snow comes up with a plan to help Jekyll, and later shows Regina a lab located in Whale's garage to prepare the plans to stop the Evil Queen. Later that night, Snow tells David not to seek revenge on what happened to his father as he reads a note over a candle. The note reveals that David's father was murdered in a cart accident. Belle listened to the tape from Gold. Back at the mental hospital, The Evil Queen visits Hyde again, and uses her magic to free him from the cuffs and they walk out of the cell together, linking arms.

## Cultural References

* Cinderella is a European fairytale.
	+ Cinderella's stepsisters Clorinda and Tisbe are from *La Cenerentola*, an opera adapting the story of Cinderella.
	+ The stepmother's name, Lady Tremaine, is taken from Disney's *Cinderella*.

## Production

* Ted Whittal portrayed the King (Cinderella's father-in-law) in the season 1 episode "The Price of Gold"; he was supposed to be in this episode, but his appearance was cut for an unknown reason.
* Spin-off series *Once Upon a Time in Wonderland* had previously implied that one of Cinderella's stepsisters was Anastasia, whose mother was portrayed in one scene by Sarah-Jane Redmond; after her stepsister achieved her happy ending, Anastasia escaped her bitter mother by fleeing with her lover to Wonderland. This would appear to have been ignored in creating this episode.

## Reception

### Ratings

* The episode saw a ratings increase from the previous episode, posting a 1.3/4 among 18-49s with 4.56 million viewers tuning in.

### Reviews

* Justin Kirkland of *Entertainment Weekly* gave the episode a B+.
* Christine Laskodi of TV Fantic gave the episode a positive review: 4.5 out of 5.0

## Trivia

* The poem that Mr. Gold reads to his unborn child via cassette tape is "Sleep Well" by Scottish poet Murdoch Maclean.
* There is an exchange between Cinderella and Snow when Cinderella asks if the Prince might be "Charming" and Snow says that is taken. This is a reference to the fact that "Prince Charming" was used to refer to the princes in the Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White stories.
* Jessy Schram and Jennifer Morrison previously appeared on House: Needle in a Haystack (2007) together.
* The names of Ashley's stepsisters, Clorinda and Tisbe, are taken from "La Cenerentola", an operatic adaptation of the Cinderella story composed by Gioachino Rossini.

## Goofs

* When at the pumpkin farm, Clorinda undoes the rope around Jacob's wrists, but in the next shot, they are back around his wrists.