One Little Tear

**One Little Tear** is the ninth episode of the seventh season and the 142nd episode overall of the American fantasy-drama series Once Upon a Time. Written by Christopher Hollier & Adam Karp and directed by Steve Pearlman, it premiered on ABC in the United States on December 8, 2017.

In the episode, the origins of Rapunzel and her connection to Anastasia is revealed, in a backstory that ties in Victoria’s scheme to bait Lucy into bringing Anastasia back to life.

## Plot

### **Opening sequence**

Flying lanterns are featured in the background.

### **In the Characters' Past**

In the New Realm, Rapunzel, who will become Lady Tremaine, tries to get radishes from Mother Gothel's garden to save her sick husband and feed their hungry children. Gothel agrees to give her the radishes in exchange for trapping Rapunzel in her tower. After 6 years of captivity, Rapunzel manages to cut off most of her hair and use it as a rope to climb out of the tower. She succeeds in doing so only to find her husband remarried to Cecilia gaining a stepdaughter, Ella.

Gothel reappears and tempts her into making Cecilia flee with a mushroom from New Wonderland. Rapunzel at first disagrees, only to become increasingly jealous of Cecilia and ends up making her flee to New Wonderland. Her husband chases her, but eventually gives up and comes back to Rapunzel to make a perfect family. One day, Anastasia falls through thin ice, along with Ella, when the former was trying to help the latter get off of the ice. Marcus, however, ended up only saving Ella and not Anastasia. Gothel manages to save Anastasia's last breath at the price of keeping her in the tower. Unknown to Gothel, Rapunzel takes the potion that sends people to the tower and uses it on Gothel, leaving Gothel trapped in the tower until someone in her bloodline takes her place, which in the future will be Alice.

### **In Seattle**

In the present day, Victoria is confronted by Ivy, who wants her mother to give up her plan to revive Anastasia, which falls on Victoria's deaf ears. Victoria later strikes a deal with Weaver to help him find the Guardian in an attempt to free herself from jail and wake Anastasia. During this confrontation, Victoria and Weaver acknowledge each other as Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin, respectively.

With Weaver releasing Victoria, a furious Rogers isn't happy about this, so he starts looking into a storage area that Weaver keeps hidden and discovers a treasure trove of information on everything about the residents, including Rogers. Later on with Sabine's help, Rogers discovers that Sabine had once been confronted by Weaver involving The Dagger previously. After he caught up with Weaver to demand answers, Weaver tells Rogers that he was doing all this in order to find Belle. Rogers believed him and agreed to help Weaver.

After she is released, Victoria strangely gives full custody of Lucy to Jacinda, claiming to be a changed person after jail but used surveillance set up in the apartment to spy on Jacinda and Nick, who later came by to verify the custody papers as authentic, then gave each other a brief and accidental kiss. Victoria then goes on a mission with Weaver to find Henry's original “Once Upon a Time” storybook for an unknown reason, while being knowingly tailgated by Ivy and Gothel, who are also after the book, but Ivy fails to stop Victoria from taking the storybook to Lucy.

At the hospital, Victoria shows Lucy her family's life story. Using a deceiving ploy to end her beliefs, she convinces Lucy that happy endings aren't real, since Victoria didn't get hers. She also shows Lucy video footage of Jacinda and Nick kissing and telling her that Henry and Roni left town, but lies about Henry giving up on Lucy. All of this completely shatters Lucy's belief in happy endings, causing her to cry, then run home to Jacinda. Victoria then drops Lucy's tear on Anastasia. Anastasia wakes and is revived, while, at the exact same time, Lucy collapses at home.

The awakening of Anastasia is also watched from afar by an upset and jealous Drizella/Ivy.

## Casting

* Both Lana Parrilla and Andrew J. West were credited in this episode, but do not appear.
* The guest stars' naming credits were listed in error. Sophia Reid-Gantzert is misspelled as "Reid-Gant", while Lula Mae Melenchuk is misspelled as "Melench".
* Matty Finochio, who plays Marcus Tremaine, also played Tweedledee in *Once Upon a Time in Wonderland*.
* Anna Cathcart, who plays Teen Drizella in this episode, played the role of Drizella's daughter, Dizzy Tremaine, in *Descendants 2*.

## Reception

### **Reviews**

The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics, with much praise going towards the performances of Anwar and Warner. However, the Rapunzel storyline was criticized for being too weak and rushed.

Paul Dailly of *TV Fanatic* gave it a 4.2 out of 5 stars.

*Entertainment Weekly*'s Justin Kirkland gave it a B-.

## Trivia

* This is the first episode in which Andrew J. West (since he became a series regular) and Lana Parrilla don't appear.
* Anna Cathcart plays Drizella. She has previously played Drizella's daughter Dizzy in *Descendants 2* (2017).
* In prison, when Drizilla/Ivy (Adelaide Kane) says to her mother Victoria (Gabrielle Anwar) "Orange looks better on the women on the Netflix show" she is talking about the famous show Orange is the New Black.
* Matty Finochio, who plays Marcus, also appeared as Tweedle in several episodes of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland