Eloise Gardener

**Eloise Gardener** is the seventh episode of the seventh season and the 140th episode overall of the American fantasy-drama series Once Upon a Time. Written by David H. Goodman & Brigitte Hales and directed by Alex Kalymnios, it premiered on ABC in the United States on November 17, 2017.

In the episode, the first of a two hour outing, Hook’s encounter with Rapunzel and its ties to Alice is revealed in a flashback, while Rogers search for a missing woman comes into play in the present day, and Ivy’s scheme to take down Victoria accelerates into disarray.

## Plot

### **Opening sequence**

The Witch’s secret garden and a magic stone is featured in the background.

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

In the Wish Realm, shortly after Snow White and Prince Charming have stopped the Evil Queen from casting her curse, Hook agrees to procure magic for her from a tower in the Magical Forest, which is guarded by an evil witch. When he arrives at the witch's tower, he finds Rapunzel instead. She instructs him to retrieve a golden flower from the witch's garden. When he returns with it to help her, they spend a night together. The next morning, it is revealed that Rapunzel is actually the witch named Gothel and their night together produced a baby with the help of the magic flower to speed up the process, Gothel leaves her behind so she can escape the tower. Hook then gives the Jolly Roger to Smee and decides to stay with his daughter, who is unable to leave due to the tower's spell. He names her Alice after his mother.

### **In Seattle**

In between the events, Regina/Roni tries to put some distance between Henry and Jacinda, who are working together on the food truck. Heeding Drizella's warning to keep them apart, Regina offers Jacinda a job as away to keep an eye on her as well as keeping Child Protective Services from looking in on her in regards to having a boyfriend which could improve her chances. Later that evening, Henry visits Regina to thank her for giving Jacinda a job, but a planned date between him and Jacinda is put on hold as Jacinda has agreed to take a second shift.

In the present day, Rogers is on a mad and relentless hunt for the missing Eloise Gardener. Henry and Tilly decided to help Rogers find her. Around the same time, Victoria/Tremaine is looking a camera as she suspects that someone else is visiting the Witch, and learns that Ivy is the one, but Weaver interrupted Victoria to inform her about Eloise and Rogers’ search for her, and she warned Weaver to put a end to it or else she’ll do it and even threatened Weaver as well. Tilly is deceiving Rogers by giving him false information provided by Weaver that Eloise had died in a effort to throw him off the case. Weaver warns Rogers that Eloise isn't the person he thinks she is. When Rogers finds Gothel, he mistakenly believes that she is Eloise and frees her from Victoria, who gets locked up for kidnapping. After Victoria is arrested, she discovered that Drizella is awake and tells her she has no idea what she has released into this world.

## Casting

* Mekia Cox was credited in this episode, but does not appear.

## Reception

### **Reviews**

The episode received positive reviews from critics.

Paul Dailly of *TV Fanatic* gave it a 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

## Trivia

* When Tilly is talking to the man under the bridge selling stolen watches the face of her watch has a black and white Mickey Mouse on it.
* This is the first episode to have a TV-14 rating
* Roni always wore rock and roll tee shirts. In this episode since Drizella woke her she is dressed in an outfit more like Regina would wear.